What you need to know

Author: Michael A. Singer; also wrote “The Surrender Experiment”

About: This book explores the nature of the Self and how we as individuals come to identify with it. Singer lays out a framework that will help the reader detach from their thoughts, emotions, and physical form to relax into life and gain a greater sense of ease and resilience.

Themes: Consciousness, awareness, being, energy, spirituality, transcendence, pain, happiness, the tao te ching, god, identity, the self, freedom, openness, enthusiasm 

Tone: Matter-of-fact, conversational, masculine 

Pages: 180; relatively quick read if you enjoy philosophy

What I took away

As the title suggests, there’s something vastly freeing about this book. “Untethered” is defined in the dictionary as being released or freed from something, and I can’t express how much I need to be reminded to untether and release on a regular basis. 

My day-to-day tethers are that of many normal people’s; work pressures, maintaining friendships, seeking romance, pursuing hobbies, exploring a relationship with myself. 

But what this book releases you from is the idea that any of these day-to-day things that we put so much mental and physical energy into really matter. The Untethered Soul puts forth a potentially radical idea about the nature of consciousness and what it means to identify as “you.” 

The whole idea anchors on the process of uncoupling your identify from your thoughts, emotions, and physical form. This quote does a good job summing up the concept: 

“You are not your thoughts, you are aware of your thoughts. You are not your emotions, you feel your emotions. You are not your body, you look at it in the mirror and experience this world through its eyes and ears. You are the conscious being who is aware that you are aware of all these inner and outer things.” 

The concept is so abstract that it makes any reader of this book come to empathize with the author’s seemingly terse tone and repetitive language in this book; with an idea this heady, simple, circular language is often the best way to ensure the thought process is fully conveyed. 

I was put off by the writing style in the beginning, but the concept is philosophical in nature and lacking hard evidence, so author Michael Singer ends up needing to write in conversational circles in order to get his point across. This was annoying to me until I realized that it was working. 

The following passage (eventually) does a good job illustrating both Singer’s style and his larger point. Bear with the length: 

“You will eventually sit far enough back inside to see all your thoughts and emotions, as well as outer form. All of these objects are in front of you. The thoughts are closer in, the emotions are a little farther out, and form is way out there. Behind it all, there you are. You go so deep that you realize that's where you've always been. At each stage of your life, you've seen different thoughts, emotions and objects pass before you. But you have always been a conscious receiver of all that was. 

Now you are in your center of Consciousness. You are behind everything, just watching. That is your true home. Take everything else away and you're still there. Then take the center of awareness away, and there is nothing. That center is the seat of Self.”

What does this mean? To me, it’s a deep exercise in perspective. Our consciousness is so much more expansive than the repetitive thoughts and routines of our everyday lives. There’s an opportunity for everyone to sink deeper into basic consciousness, to take a more expansive view of the self and surrounding world, and appreciate the spaciousness of that position in the mind. It’s there that most are able to find a true sense of presence and appreciation for the moment. 

In writing, the idea seems too simple to grant the reader true transcendence. But in practice, I can attest to the power of stepping back layers within yourself to sit in the seat of the Self, the seat of the observer of the emotions and thoughts and feelings and form, in order to be released from my own incessant mental looping and chaotic chatter. 

When you choose not to identify yourself with your emotions, they become so much less consuming. When you’ve dissociated the most core part of your being from what Singer calls the “melodrama” of the mind, you find that you exist in a plane within yourself that is spacious and calm. You are no longer frenzied or agitated. 

It’s the voice inside that we’ve all come to identify with as “us” or “me,” that gets us into trouble. It thinks so much about the past and the future and how to avoid pain that it has an incredibly difficult time understanding how fundamentally okay you are at any given moment. 

What does it mean to be okay? For me, it’s the absence of a sense of dread. It’s neutral at worst, happy and hopeful at best. Singer argues that our lives as individual human beings are ultimately quite short and (freeingly, perhaps?) inconsequential, that the worst thing we could do is neglect to enjoy the sweet, brief gift of consciousness before our human life expires. 

In that same vein, this quote moved me: 

True personal growth is about transcending the part of you that is not okay and needs protection. This is done by constantly remembering that you are the one inside that notices the voice talking.

Over the last few months, I found myself in a perpetual pit of not-okayness and deeply desiring protection. From my parents, from my friends, from romantic partners, from coworkers. I was desperate for someone to come in and declare themselves my savior from the challenges of life. 

Along with time and space from the triggering incidents around that time, I started building mental resilience with this framework. In moments of intense anxiety, reminding myself, “You are not your anxiety. You are the one who observes your anxiety. Isn’t your anxiety interesting?” I’ve been given a new way to relate to myself and my emotions. 

The other big, powerful tool I pulled from this book was the concept of openness, illustrated by this passage:  

What you'll find is that the only thing you really want from life is to feel enthusiasm, joy, and love . . . the ultimate trick is to not close. If you don't close, you will have learned to stay open. When your heart starts to close just say, “No. I'm not going to close. I'm going to relax. I'm going to let the situation take place and be there with it.” Honor and respect the situation, and deal with it. Do the best you can. But deal with it with openness. Deal with it with excitement and enthusiasm. No matter what it is, just let it be the sport of the day. 

I love how this language conveys the jest that Singer sees life to be. Your problems are mere entertainment for the consciousness. And they truly can be, if you position them that way in your mind.

I’ve been trying this when it comes to accepting feedback at work, or even within my friendships. We humans - myself included - have such a tendency to perceive rejection at the slightest hint of criticism, and close ourselves before said criticism can strike again, or worse, deeper. But this only serves to prolong the painful experience of realizing our weaknesses, because we simply push them off. We refuse to face the reality and thus, the associated emotions and thoughts are unable to pass through us. 

I’m really trying to employ the below advice when faced with a form of criticism or rejection:

If you fall along the way, just get up and forget it. Use the lesson to strengthen your resolve. Let go right then. Do not rationalize, blame, or try to figure it out. Don't do anything. Just let go immediately, and allow the energy to go back to the highest Center of Consciousness it can achieve. If you feel shame, let it go. If you feel fear, let it go. All of these are the remnants of the blocked energy that is finally being purified. Always let go as soon as you're aware that you didn't. Don't waste your time; use the energy to go up.

Oh, how my mind loves to blame (myself) and my heart loves to shame (myself). Breathing in words like these that remind me to let go of the energy that doesn’t serve me is detoxifying, like inhaling a cooling vapor rub; uplifting, like letting go of a heavy chain. These words are a balm to my often frazzled sense of self - “Am I ok? Am I a good person? What could I do to be better?” 

Those thought patterns waste my time and yoke my identity to what are ultimately flippant chatterings of the mind. Instead, I can sit on my quiet seat of consciousness and continuously open to the light and love the world has to offer in abundance. And I can live my life a little lighter, a little more untethered. 

If the meanderings of this post appealed to your senses, consider reading the entire book The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. If you’ve read the book already, I’d love to hear your takeaway(s) in the comments below. 

Up Next: (Review) Why Buddhism Is True