Critical Acclaim for The Inside Story

“We might wish to scorn our aging, but Susan Sands invites us to understand and—yes!—even relish our embodiments’ many surprises and gifts. This is a work of love to women.”

— Susie Orbach, author of Fat is a Feminist Issue and Bodies

“Rejoice! Susan Sands has crafted an exquisitely written, indispensable antidote to the typical self-help promise of triumph over aging. She deftly provides an integrated guide to navigating and enriching the aging process, utilizing a groundbreaking weaving of neuroscience and psychology that upends our fraught expectations about living in an aging body. With depth and grace, she turns our thinking about women aging on its head, challenging us to think about aging not as a problem or disorder but as a fresh and novel way to live in a stable older body. Sands invigorates our minds with the hope of finding solace and fertile ground through remaking and re-experiencing our relationship to our bodies so that we can live in and from them, in their ‘glory’ or not, as is.”

— Jean Petrucelli, PhD, CEDS, editor of Body-States and director of EDCAS at The William Alanson White Institute

“A delicious brew of new knowledge and fresh ideas, seasoned with a feminism that spans a long, rich life. What a treat!”

—Valory Mitchell, PhD, coauthor of the 50-year study Women on the River of Life

Now more than ever, we want to inhabit our bodies comfortably, honor our cycles, and consciously evolve. As we grow older, Susan’s book makes the neurological and psychological case for tending to the most vital relationship of all—with ourselves.”

—Elena Brower, author of Being You

“Every woman over 50 must read this book; it will transform their lives. Dr. Sands’s core message is that women do not just have a body, they are a body, and being able to know and feel their bodies from the inside is the gateway to contentment and full acceptance of their aging. Supported by the latest neuroscience research and full of gripping first-person accounts of women struggling to come to terms with growing older, The Inside Story offers many practical methods—from mindfulness to touch, movement and yoga—for women to know themselves not for what others say they are, but for who they truly are, inside and out.”

—Lewis Richmond, author of Aging as a Spiritual Practice

“With gracious vulnerability and deep wisdom, Susan Sands beautifully guides us to understand the complex nature of how the inner selves are the score keepers of our physical bodies. Aging and loving our bodies is an inside job, and as we learn to have graceful compassion and acceptance for all parts of ourselves, we learn to celebrate our bodies as divine temples. As we hold hands sharing our insecurities, we accept the parts of ourselves that we have hidden from the world, and we remind one another that we are imperfectly perfect as children of the divine. Certainly a book for women of all ages to use as a guide on the journey towards deeply loving ourselves- body, mind and spirit.”

— Karena Virginia, author of Essential Kundalini Yoga

Reviews

As long as we’re living, we’re aging. For some, this is cause for concern, and as we get older, we may look for strategies to fight against it. Dr. Susan Sands, in her book  The Inside Story, encourages a more positive response.  Sands, a clinical psychologist, doesn’t deny or minimize the challenges of aging. She recognizes that the aging process comes with losses, but her basic message is that we can age with comfort, vibrancy, and joy.  

Sands draws from Buddhist teachings in some of her discussions about positive aging. She notes, for example,  how the concept of impermanence—one of the most fundamental teachings of Buddhism—can help us understand that everything is always changing. Trying to overcome—or “triumph over”—this truth brings frustration and defeat. Another Buddhist belief relates to our ability to cultivate healthy emotional states of wellbeing. While impermanence is something we can’t change, we can have some control over our emotional states. Fortunately, Sands offers a blueprint and specific strategies on how we can be mentally healthy during our senior years and how we can even find pleasure in an aging body. Sands speaks especially to women, as many aspects of our culture work against positive images of the older woman. It’s not surprising that the majority of women over the age of 50 are uncomfortable with their aging bodies.  These negative feelings are the result of ageism, not age. 

The Inside Story was written to help women create an accepting yet vibrant sense of their older bodies. Sands urges women to tune in to the benefits—or “surprising pleasures”—of living in an aging body. She notes how with aging comes greater freedom and happiness, a more meaningful perspective on life, and a transformative capacity for body awareness. By outlining the many benefits of aging and offering practical strategies for wholesome living during the senior years, Sands ignites a genuine excitement about the aging process.

—Ruth Wilson, Spirituality and Health, March/April 2022

Book Review by Jon M. Sweeney

Susan Sands is a clinical psychologist who uses Buddhist meditative practices and yoga with her patients and in her writing. Her focus in The Inside Story is body image and how distorted our focus can become on what others see, rather than what we sense and feel as authentically ourselves.

This message is important for every human being from about the age of five on. Sands aims specifically at adult bodies that are experiencing signs of aging: people 55 to 75 mostly. She fuels her pages with conversations she has had with interview subjects, and she recounts others' stories with frequency.

For instance: “My interviewee Clarissa, age fifty-five, is part of the next generation, Gen X. Her protest against aging is less conscious and acerbic than those of [some others], but it’s still there in what she said to me:

“ 'I often still feel much younger than my age. In my sense of myself, I’m somewhere between twenty and forty, and I always will be. Sometimes I’m shocked when I look in the mirror, depending on the lighting…. It’s like I’m looking at someone else.' ”

Chapter 2, “Triumphing Over the Body,” looks honestly and critically at all the ways, therapies, denials, cosmetics, and illusory elixirs we try in order to stave off the inevitable and the real. Sands offers: “How, then, do we begin to upend these narratives of defying, defeating, or 'triumphing over' aging/death/nature — which are, of course, doomed to failure? It is imperative that we confront these pervasive societal fantasies of overturning the natural order, because they ravage our bodies, our peace of mind, other living beings, and our planet. These narratives make our older years a time of struggle and unhappiness when, in fact, they can be a time of unprecedented freedom and joy.”

The promise of the subtitle comes in the final chapter which begins with this quote from one of Sands’ interview subjects: “I love my body; I feel like my body is my old friend who’s stayed with me all these years.”

Chapter 6, “Building Body Awareness,” is full of spiritual practice suggestions “for strengthening embodiment” from breathing techniques and yawning exercises to chanting practice and Tai Chi. There is much to use and implement in your life here.

Book Review of The Inside Story by Jon M. Sweeney

“Embodiment Tools For Loving Your Maturing Self"

Susan Sands is a clinical psychologist who uses Buddhist meditative practices and yoga with her patients and in her writing. Her focus in The Inside Story is body image and how distorted our focus can become on what others see, rather than what we sense and feel as authentically ourselves.

This message is important for every human being from about the age of five on. Sands aims specifically at adult bodies that are experiencing signs of aging: people 55 to 75 mostly. She fuels her pages with conversations she has had with interview subjects, and she recounts others' stories with frequency.

For instance: “My interviewee Clarissa, age fifty-five, is part of the next generation, Gen X. Her protest against aging is less conscious and acerbic than those of [some others], but it’s still there in what she said to me:

“ 'I often still feel much younger than my age. In my sense of myself, I’m somewhere between twenty and forty, and I always will be. Sometimes I’m shocked when I look in the mirror, depending on the lighting…. It’s like I’m looking at someone else.' ”

Chapter 2, “Triumphing Over the Body,” looks honestly and critically at all the ways, therapies, denials, cosmetics, and illusory elixirs we try in order to stave off the inevitable and the real. Sands offers: “How, then, do we begin to upend these narratives of defying, defeating, or 'triumphing over' aging/death/nature — which are, of course, doomed to failure? It is imperative that we confront these pervasive societal fantasies of overturning the natural order, because they ravage our bodies, our peace of mind, other living beings, and our planet. These narratives make our older years a time of struggle and unhappiness when, in fact, they can be a time of unprecedented freedom and joy.”

The promise of the subtitle comes in the final chapter which begins with this quote from one of Sands’ interview subjects: “I love my body; I feel like my body is my old friend who’s stayed with me all these years.”

Chapter 6, “Building Body Awareness,” is full of spiritual practice suggestions “for strengthening embodiment” from breathing techniques and yawning exercises to chanting practice and Tai Chi. There is much to use and implement in your life here.