Untethered and Ungrounded?

The titles selected for my monthly reading come from friends’ recommendations, ‘have to read’ lists on the internet, and a personal list I have kept over the years with books I want to read. This month, “The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself” by Michael A. Singer, rose to the top of my list of books to read for “Sophie’s Corner”. I was excited, given how highly this book is rated across the board. 

In last month’s article, I quoted “ We end the tug-of-war by dropping the rope” (Susan David), which is a concept that stayed with me. We so often hold on to our thoughts, internal discussions and arguments, or replay events from the past, trying out how else we could have reacted/what we should have said instead. 9 out of 10 times (yes, this is a completely anecdotal number), these imaginary discussions bring nothing but stress and anxiety. They keep a worry alive, without any resolution. So, being aware you are playing the game of tug-of-war and consciously deciding: no, not today, by dropping the rope really does appeal to me.  

Just let go

One other way of saying ‘drop the rope’, would be “to let it go”. But what I like about the analogy of the tug-of-war game – it acknowledges that while it is a game, there is work, exhaustion, frustration, learning, and back-and-forth effort involved. To me, ‘just let it go’ is the opposite of that. Ever tried to tell someone to calm down when they are really angry? That is how ‘just let it go’ sounds to me. It does not acknowledge feelings and emotions, and often it even feels it invalidates them. 

And that is the crux of why I could not connect with this book. It started out strong, by creating awareness of our inner voice. I have talked about the inner voice (our inner critic (also known as the “Judge” (...or I like to call my personal one “Billy the Bully”) before in my writings, and how it often comes up in my coaching conversations. It is something we all deal with, but not all of us are aware of it yet. Creating that awareness, and then creating that distinction between the voice in our head (naming them is a good start! Hence…Billy), and who we are is often a massive step towards growth and breaking through (mental) barriers. The way Singer describes it as your incessantly, annoyingly, ever-present roommate who narrates your life, resonated. 

When your mind verbalizes “It’s cold!” you can say “we’re almost home, just a few more minutes”. Now you feel better. In the thought world, there is always something you can do to control the experience. (Michael Singer)

But after that initial chapter, explaining why the inner voice in our head narrates our lives, and how it can help us, yet more often, hinder us from personal growth, very little of Singer’s words resonated with me. It seemed to me over the chapters, he just found different ways of saying “just let it go”. The examples sometimes infuriated me, oftentimes frustrated me, occasionally somewhat hit the mark, and only a couple of times, felt right. 

This book made me question my spirituality, and if this is a path I want to be on. I felt inadequate, and not ‘evolved’ enough. Thousands of people love this book, and I found it more frustrating than anything. Just let it go…. Except, I could not. 

Singer gives many examples of truly upsetting news (for example - finding out that you are adopted (“your world crumbles, simply because something is not the way you thought it was”). I understand that holding on to that will hinder you in living life to the fullest, but to say to just ‘let it go’ after receiving life-shattering news seems just plain rude, invalidating all the feelings and emotions someone has the right to go through. Or “to have fun like Gandhi'' when you are starving, invalidates real-life struggle. Again, I understand the concept of being a spiritually ‘evolved’ human being that is not bothered by such earthly life struggles, because, in the end it does not matter whether you worry about them or not, as they happen regardless. I just do not think this is truly something I aspire to be like. I like to live a human life. 

Ungrounded

My issue with being untethered is that we are no longer grounded. Not grounded in our society, the communities we participate in, and the relationships we rely on. To rise above it sounds aspirational, but it also comes at a price: you are not approachable, high up on that cloud. It is harder to connect with true, raw emotions people go through. And I am not convinced that is a good thing. Not for me, in this stage of my life at least. 

What I missed was reflection and introspection. Or a willingness to learn from ‘mistakes’ and do better. If you let go of negative feelings as soon as they come up, there is no opportunity to investigate whether that negative situation had to happen in the first place, or what you can learn to avoid it from happening to you, or others, in the future. Being untethered must feel really nice, with no accountability to anything or anyone. 

Maybe I am just not ready yet to journey beyond myself. 

My takeaways 

Even though the book did not resonate with me entirely, and made me doubt myself, and my path to spiritual awareness, there are still things that I take away from it: 

• It opened a door to chat with my friends about spirituality, this book if they had read it, or both. Through those conversations, I got to learn about them and myself in new ways, and had interesting chats over coffee, wine and tea. That’s a win in any case;
• The awareness that we all go through things in our lives that leave an imprint on our hearts, positive ánd negative. There is pain stored in our hearts, and seemingly innocuous events can touch upon that pain, making us relive it all again. Getting to know your own personal imprints, why and how they got stored is important so you can deal with them to keep your heart open;
• “Pain is not bad; it’s how the body talks to you”. Continuing to grow the connection between mind and body, to truly learn my body’s signals and understand my feelings and what information they hold, so that eventually I become conscious enough to feel the energy shift as soon as something is not aligned;
• Setting up ‘trigger’ points in your daily life to remind yourself to live in the present: ultimately, we are just human beings on a planet spinning around in one of many universes … keeping perspective matters. 

My Invitation to you

While reading this book, the concept of “aparigraha” from the yoga Yamas took center stage in my mind. Aparigraha: non-greed, and non-attachment. In my personal practice, I have often interpreted it as ‘non-grasping’. While practicing the physical part of yoga, I consciously check my fingers and toes, and notice how hard I am trying to grasp onto the pose, before I relax and settle into it. 

This concept is one I play with a lot, as there is a lot of room for me to improve: I tend to dig my toes into the mat, or hold on to things (how things “should” be, or look like, or be done (read my ‘12 hours of walking’’ article as an example of this!). 

So this book helped me recenter my focus on understanding what I am holding on to that is not serving me in any way, not anymore at least. What are those things I grasp onto because I think they should be done a certain way or those conversations in my head that I will never have with someone, playing over and over in a loop? I am choosing to drop the rope, not play anymore, and let go. 

Are you aware of things you are holding on to? If not - my invitation is to take some time to explore:

• What are holding on to, really? 
• Why? How is it serving you?
• Is it still serving you? Or might it be time to let go? 

This book brought up doubts, insecurities, conversations, connections and ultimately, a sense of letting go of the concept of perfect spirituality (and this TikTok by Elica Le Bon describes perfectly what I think I’m struggling with (TikTok of all places!)). I would love to hear what you thought, and what you think I missed!

Next month, I will read “Maybe you should talk to someone” by Lori Gottlieb. Read along?