The Untethered Soul: A Book Report

 

The Untethered Soul - Michael A Singer

My initial reaction to the book: 

Who am I? Who is noticing my thoughts? It is me. I exist. Why can’t I control my thoughts? Turn them off instantly? How do I write a book review about this? What is life?! 

“What would it be like if my awareness didn’t exist?” Well I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t /be/. Therefore, I am the ~thing~ behind my eyes, noticing my thoughts, emotions and everything in front of me externally. 

It’s fair to say that the early stages of this book blew my mind (as I observed it being blown)! It was equal parts reassuring and unnerving to think that our thoughts are almost irrelevant. 

The most important messages:

The heart is an energy centre. If you close this off, you can’t receive good energy. It might be closed off when you experience something which makes you feel differently about a person. This energy might be called ‘spiritual energy’ and is influenced by feeling enthused, happy, in love. Conversely, it is also influenced by disinterest, sadness, heartbreak. With this energy, you have the ability to control the ebb and flow. You can stay open by never closing. Closing is a habit which can be broken with training. But do you WANT to? An example for me is seeing 7:56 on the clock and feeling open as this signals Martin’s presence (my late ex partner). I suppose this could have gone either way in terms of opening/closing. Remaining open means choosing to continue receiving the good energy juice. 

Stored/unfinished energy patterns can block your heart. If nothing were stored here, things wouldn’t make as big an impression on you - the intention of this system is to have an experience, feel it and then move onto the next one. This is how it is to be present, living in the now. 

You are separate to your mind. You are an observer of your thoughts - it is not your mind’s job to keep you safe and it will create melodrama with which you DO NOT NEED TO ENGAGE! You can allow the thoughts to occur, simply observe and then disengage. You do not need to action anything created by your mind. Fall behind the noise; stop giving energy to your negative thoughts, and just be aware of them, allowing them to flow through and then disappear. As a chronic over thinker, this has given me a lot to think about (the irony)!

My main takeaways: 

• If needing to re-centre myself, I can say ‘hello’ in my mind over and over and become aware of the fact I can hear this. 
• When your energy store (in your heart centre) is full, it begins to overspill into other chakras and then externally, and this is the energy received by everyone around you. You can become a ‘source of light’ for people in this way. 
• A samskara is an impression which is kept in the heart. It could take the form of a blockage which restricts the energy flow. A samskara could also be a positive experience! 
• Happiness is a choice but it is a vow, a promise, an oath. It requires commitment, despite events that might occur, even after you take a vow of happiness. If you can allow happiness to happen, regardless, you have become spiritually free. Keeping your heart open is key to this, regardless of what happens. You can use affirmations, meditation, visualisations to re-open your heart if you feel it starting to close. 
• Resistance - don’t resist your response to events. The events need to be processed at a psyche level. Resisting the process will lead to you becoming closed off and will affect your enjoyment of other situations. 

Standout Quotes: 

“You’re not even a human being; you just happen to be watching one.” 

“The ultimate trick is to not close [your heart centre]. Don’t let anything in life be important enough that you have to close.”

“If you protect yourself (close off) you will never be free.” 

“Everything will be OK as soon as you are OK with everything.” 

“If you have to be here, at least be happy and enjoy the experience….What good does it do to not have fun?” 

How it could be improved:

Chapter 17 - Death - On a personal level, I didn’t like this chapter. It felt a little insulting since I’ve had 3 major bereavements and death is a very real concept for me. The book generally is quite blunt, which I actually love, but this just hit a bit of nerve for me. I can’t quite put a finger on why - maybe because I felt like I was being taught to suck eggs! However, I understand the sentiment of living life as though you’ll die soon and appreciate that most people probably don’t live this way (myself included at times)! 

How it will inform my practice as a Breathwork Facilitator:

I will take the visual aspects of this book and reframe them with my clients - for example, ensuring your heart is filled with energy (your cup is full etc), before giving out energy to others. This way, they can show up as they wish to. Breathwork sessions could incorporate this way of thinking through meditations/visualisations, in order to open up the heart to be receptive of such goodness. I have done lots of work myself around self prioritisation and boundary settings and feel this could resonate with many people and may help with intention setting during sessions.