#the surrender experiment

“…my personal preferences of like and dislike were not going to guide my life. By surrendering the hold those powerful forces had on me, I was allowing my life to be guided by a much more powerful force, life itself.”Michael A. Singer (The Surrender Experiment) Image: Readwise

This is a question I’ve asked myself more often than I can remember. It’s one that sits with me on a regular basis and one that I pose to those I work with as well. So simple yet how the hell do you do it?

Relax. Yep, it’s just that simple. According to MIchael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment, it’s just a question of making a different choice. So we all have voices in our heads that chatter non-stop. Ultimately what they are about is that if x,y or z doesn’t happen or is happening I’m not ok. The trick is to know that I am ok no matter what does or doesn’t happen, who does or doesn’t like me, or what someone does or doesn’t say/do, etc.

It’s just a choice to decide not to listen to that chatter and eventually, this practice, will help it fade into the background.

What baffled me the most in listening to this wonderful interview James and Claudia Altucher did with Michael was when he said that our normal state of being is JOY. And at any moment we are free to experience it and be open to the flow of what’s happening.

So really making the choice whether or not I want to react is completely up to me. So I invite you to just give yourself one opportunity to make a different choice. Maybe you’ve got someone you find difficult to work with because they just don’t do “it” the “right way”, maybe you’re incensed by that person who tried to push you out of the way to get on that bus so they don’t have to wait another 30 minutes for the next one...whatever it is, try to relax into it and let it go, just for this moment, just for today, and see where it might take you.

If you want to learn more or see what it’s all about please check out this wonderful podcast:

http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2015/07/ep-119-michael-singer-the-surrender-experiment/

Yeah, admittedly I never finished The Untethered Soul either. I live in the same area as Mickey so I go out to see one of his talks every few weeks, but they’re very different from his books.

His talks are…well, they’re just fucking genius. I can’t describe them any other way. He starts with stuff that absolutely anyone would understand and agree with about life, then runs through how the ego works in relation to the topic. He starts at the bottom and just…brings you to the top every time. It’s great stuff. He’s very rational, has a great sense of humor, and is extremely clear and concise. Every time I go out there I spend the entire hour and a half grinning like an idiot and I was expecting his books to be similar, but they really weren’t. 

I remember Untethered Soul being pretty bland, really. I don’t read a lot of spiritual stuff because it’s usually tedious as all get out, so I totally feel you. I found this one more entertaining because it’s not his teachings per se, it’s his autobiography, but it reads a little like The Celestine Prophecy in the way that you’re just like, “No fucking way,” every step of the way because it so dynamic and lines up so impossibly. Basically, it held my interest more like fiction books do.

It might be more engaging for me, though, since I have a clear mental picture of everywhere he talks about, as well as a lot of the events and people, since I’ve lived in the same area, gone to the same school, and been loosely involved in the local spiritual community for years.

One could go either way on his new book probably, I’m certainly not trying to sell it. It’s just on my mind because it’s maybe the fourth or fifth technically spiritual book I’ve ever actually finished, haha. o.O;