I have just started reading The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. Someone left if at the airport for me to find. It is about self awareness and so far quite interesting so whether the person who lost their book realizes it or not it is going to good use. Just wondering if anyone else has read it.
Love,
Michelle
The Untethered Soul
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MichelleP
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The Untethered Soul
OK, so I have finally finished reading the book and I adored it. The book basically tries to do its best to describe who we really are which is that part of us that witnesses our lives. Most people would probably consider that part to be our higher selves. On this forum one might say that is the thought adjustor. In any event we spend a fair amount of time going back and forth between the seat of the witness and getting totally drawn into the emotions we are feeling. How self aware (how much time you are in the seat of the witness) depends on each person and how often they get overwhelmed by their emotions. For me this was a really good description of who I was that I had never heard explained to me before. Essentially I have always felt like two people. This person who is running around reacting to life and this person who is watching me react who is trying to help me to react more positively. A good way to become conscious of yourself and pull yourself out of your emotions is to try and become cognizant of your inner dialogue. The dialogue that is constantly narrating your life. If you are conscious of the fact that you are narrating then you are more than likely in the seat of the witness. All of us to a certain degree though do fall into the emotions and this book tried to help give some pointers to try and overcome the habit. Essentially one of the tricks is to simply not allow yourself to fall behind the emotion. He gave the analogy of a person trying to quite smoking. No matter what one does or how they do it the bottom line is to quit smoking one simply stops smoking plain and simple. So to stop falling behind the emotions one really just needs to stop themselves before the fall. Simply remind yourself that you just want to witness what is happening and not let it pull you in. Of course we are not going to be 100% successful 100% of the time so just keep at it and with time it will get easier and easier to stay in the seat of the witness until one day you realize you are no longer falling full force into the emotion. You are experiencing the emotion and then moving on.
The reason this is important is that when we fall into the emotion we have a tendency to close ourselves as a means of protection. But it is the closing ourselves that leads to illness. So why do we do it? We do it because we don’t want to face what frightens us or makes us uncomfortable. But the fact is no matter what we think we are protecting ourselves from doesn’t change the fact that the event happened so all we are really doing is resisting the event. Trying to pretend it didn’t happen. An example he gave for this is when someone we love leaves we hold onto the pain by not letting them go. It doesn’t change the fact that they are gone but if we continue to wallow in them being gone we have closed ourselves from allowing the world to move forward. Essentially what that really is is living with conditions. I would be happy if that person hadn’t left. I would be happy if this happened in my life. I would be happy if that person was like that. All of these things don’t change what is. They only keep us wrapped up in negative emotions. The idea is to let that thing that hurts us, someone leaving, being alone, someone treating us badly. Let ourselves experience that and then let go of needing things to be a different way. Easier said than done but a good trick he gave to help ourselves let go of conditions is to try and imagine that we might die soon. When that is an eventuality we have a tendency to put things into perspective. Those pet peeves that drive us nuts about our mate aren’t such a big deal anymore because all we want is to spend what little time we have left enjoying their company. If that is the case when we are on death’s door why not choose to live like that now. If you can do that then you are living unconditionally and will truly know what it means to have peace.
So that is my review of the book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested. Because even though I have spent a lot of time in the seat of the witness I didn’t realize I had more control over not falling into the emotion. Or in the least the book gave me some pointers to try and avoid falling into the emotion. Tools that I didn’t have before reading the book.
Love,
Michelle
The reason this is important is that when we fall into the emotion we have a tendency to close ourselves as a means of protection. But it is the closing ourselves that leads to illness. So why do we do it? We do it because we don’t want to face what frightens us or makes us uncomfortable. But the fact is no matter what we think we are protecting ourselves from doesn’t change the fact that the event happened so all we are really doing is resisting the event. Trying to pretend it didn’t happen. An example he gave for this is when someone we love leaves we hold onto the pain by not letting them go. It doesn’t change the fact that they are gone but if we continue to wallow in them being gone we have closed ourselves from allowing the world to move forward. Essentially what that really is is living with conditions. I would be happy if that person hadn’t left. I would be happy if this happened in my life. I would be happy if that person was like that. All of these things don’t change what is. They only keep us wrapped up in negative emotions. The idea is to let that thing that hurts us, someone leaving, being alone, someone treating us badly. Let ourselves experience that and then let go of needing things to be a different way. Easier said than done but a good trick he gave to help ourselves let go of conditions is to try and imagine that we might die soon. When that is an eventuality we have a tendency to put things into perspective. Those pet peeves that drive us nuts about our mate aren’t such a big deal anymore because all we want is to spend what little time we have left enjoying their company. If that is the case when we are on death’s door why not choose to live like that now. If you can do that then you are living unconditionally and will truly know what it means to have peace.
So that is my review of the book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested. Because even though I have spent a lot of time in the seat of the witness I didn’t realize I had more control over not falling into the emotion. Or in the least the book gave me some pointers to try and avoid falling into the emotion. Tools that I didn’t have before reading the book.
Love,
Michelle