The Untethered Soul - a reflection and review

There is no perfect book.

People ask me all the time what one book they should read, my opinion is that productive reading is an ongoing (forever) process. Occasionally if you're really lucky you'll come across the right book at the right time, and for me this was the very right book for the very right time.

Despite being a spiritual self-help book, the complete opposite of what I usually read, I actually found my experience reading this book to be sublime. There is a high chance that if you know my usual content you’ve heard me dumping on self-help books in the past. Does this make me a hypocrite??? ….probably, yeah!!!

For this reason I really didn’t have high hopes going in, it's been on my wish list for nearly 2 years because when someone recommends me a book I put it on my list and eventually get to it, but recently I met a new lady who suggested it at which point I felt compelled to me to finally read it. Although in defense of my romanticism I would have done anything this girl told me to do....

“This above all: to thine own self be true" This is a quote from Hamlet, the book opens with this quote and while I have not yet read Hamlet I find myself increasingly obsessed with it. The universe has been telling me to read Hamlet for a long time, ad I've been listening. In fact, 5 days earlier this week I was at an Airbnb and the host had a copy of Hamlet on a bookshelf that caught my attention and now the book I'm reading opens with a Hamlet quote. Coincidences are just coincidences and I don't believe in fate, but something about them feels meaningful and I just prefer to accept that they are meaningful. Sometimes I call it the universe talking to me.

"When you are comfortable with pain passing through you, you will be free" I think after this week meditation is going to become an important tool in my life going forward. This is something I've used previously and have found value in it but couldn’t really get it to stick. 4 days before I picked this book up I started doing it daily in the mornings and have been feeling significantly better, then I read this book which explains how to use meditation as a tool to deal with negative self thoughts?! Another incredible coincidence! Ever meet a new potential intimate partner, get too excited about it and over think it until you become frazzled or even self defeating? As embarrassing as it is to admit, I have this problem, or rather I used to have this problem when I was younger but I haven’t dated in the last ~9 years until very recently. Since my new adventures I’ve noticed a slight resurgence of this poor behavior and it would be an understatement to say that I don’t like it and generally neither do they. I'm easily excitable especially with new people and I get in my head too much about these things, I don't think it's appropriate to apologize for being a Shakespearean hopeless romantic, but I also realize that Romeo killed himself for no reason over a girl he had only met the day before...patience is a virtue. I believe with meditation and some of the lessons in this book I can quite likely gain some control over these emotions and do myself a great service. This little video of a hilarious old movie I love called “Swingers” takes this poor behavior to the extreme. I've carried this movie with me my whole life and yet still have trouble learning it's lessons. I include it here for laughs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU3Pk6oDNRU

“Respond, don't react” ~10 years ago a mentor of mind gave me this advice. I’ve never yet been able to implement it like I would want but it’s been sitting in my brain since I heard it and I try to use it as much as possible. I know it’s good advice but the heat of the moment doesn’t always allow me the self control to follow through. The Untethered Soul is in great part a nuanced and expansive expression of this advice: we must observe the chaos in our life, we should accept but not dwell on it, and don’t react to it. I don’t think this is breakthrough information but the timing of all these events has had a meaningful and remarkable impact on my confidence to enact them in the future. To wrap: This book is one that I would have never thought I could recommend but I’m glad I read it and I’m happy I can say with confidence that it’s helped me sort through some of my chaos. I could have written this review without my personal story and just told you what the book was about, but for me in this moment of my life I felt compelled to expand on how I feel and what I've been going through in hopes that someone who reads this will have a similar chaos they now feel confident they can solve. Thank you to those who read through In the immortal words of Maynard James Keenan, "This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality Embrace this moment, remember We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion" ...also I started Hamlet immediately after I finished this. The universe is working through me strong right now. Join my book club on Facebook if you want to hear me rant about books more often: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BrokeisachoiceBookclub