The Untethered Soul Book Summary - My Top 3 Lessons

In this episode of Mind Your Own Beeswax, I'm breaking down the book: The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. If you've ever struggled with overthinking, anxiety, negative self talk or feeling trapped by your emotions, this episode is for you.

I'm sharing my biggest takeaways from the book in my own words, so you can get the "lazy girl" version without having to read the whole thing (although I highly recommend you do!).

We dive into the powerful concept of your "inner roommate" that constant voice in your head that's always analysing, worrying and replaying conversations. I explain how learning to observe your thoughts instead of becoming them can completely change the way you experience stress, anxiety and everyday life.

I also explore the book's teachings around keeping your energy open, allowing emotions to move through your body instead of getting stuck, and why resisting difficult feelings often gives them more power. 

Whether you're on a personal growth journey, love self development books, enjoy spirituality, or simply want practical ways to quiet your mind and live with more peace, this episode is packed with insights that could genuinely change the way you think.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why you're not the voice inside your head.
• How to stop overthinking and observe your thoughts.
• A simple mindset shift for managing anxiety and difficult emotions.
• The importance of keeping your energy open.
• Why trying to control every outcome may be holding you back.
• My biggest lessons from The Untethered Soul and how I'm applying them to my own life.

If you're searching for a summary of The Untethered Soul, practical mindset tips, spiritual growth, emotional healing, or ways to overcome overthinking, this episode is the perfect place to start.

Follow me for more on Instagram @mindyourownbeeswaxpodcast & TikTok: @mindyourownbeeswaxpod

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Mind your own beeswax.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Mind Your Own Beeswax, the podcast where I, Grace, give you all my hot tips, my hot takes, and I teach you how to change your mindset and to live a rich life. How the bloody hell are you today? I hope you are going well. I hope this episode finds you at a time that you need it the most and it's gonna add the most value to your life. Today's episode, we are discussing the book The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. And let me tell you, this book is absolutely incredible. If you are working on yourself, if you are on a spirituality journey, if you just want to free yourself from your emotions and overthinking, this is the book for you, my friends. It is absolutely incredible. Now I always want to start these episodes with a little disclaimer that this is simply my interpretation of the book. When I read something, the way I interpret it will be different to how you do, different to the next person. And that's what I'm here to do. I'm just here to share my opinion, my thoughts, and how I've applied the learnings from this book in my life. So I hope that it adds value to your life and I hope that you enjoy this episode. If you love to read, I highly recommend reading The Untethered Soul. But if you just want the lazy girl version, this episode is for you. For 20 minutes, I'm gonna fill you in, give you the tea on this book so you don't have to read it. But if you want to read it, absolutely go for it, my friend. It is a cracker. So let's dive in. The Untethered Soul is not a book I had ever seen anybody talk about, and nobody had ever recommended it to me. I came across The Untethered Soul, honestly, just from Googling and searching on Amazon, best self-help books, best spirituality books, it would always appear in that top 10 list, but I'd never seen it in a bookstore. I just hadn't really like come across it. So I had it in the back of my mind. And then last month, last month, yeah, in May, I was in Byron Bay in the beautiful Byron Bay bookshop, and there it was, the untethered soul. And I thought, YOLO, I'm just gonna grab it and I'm gonna read it. And I picked it up, I read the first few pages, and I was like, yes, this is really good. And it's not a very thick book, which I love a small book, short and sweet, that is what I'm all about. So I purchased it in Byron, and I think I read the book within like six or seven days. Like I gobbled it up, and as I was reading it, I was just like blown away by some of the concepts within the book, and I actually made so many TikToks about it, and they did so well. I had so many people commenting, saving, sharing it. I really realized that there is a great message behind this book, and it was so exciting to see people interacting with my TikToks. So if you're not following me on TikTok, mind your own beeswax the pod, have a little looky, watch my TikToks. They are a great summary for the untethered soul. In a nutshell, let me give you the copy from the back of the book and it really explains this book really well. The untethered soul begins by walking you through the relationship with your thoughts and emotions, helping you uncover the source and fluctuations of your inner energy. It then delves into what you can do to free yourself from habitual thoughts, emotions, and energy patterns that limit your consciousness. Finally, with perfect clarity, this book opens the door to a life lived in freedom from your innermost being. And I would summarize this book by saying it's a spiritual guide that really explores how to break free from your ego, silence your mental chatter, and achieve lasting inner peace or enlightenment if you are a Buddhist or one of those religions that believes in enlightenment. It does kind of touch on that. The first thing that really grabbed me in the Untethered Soul was the concept of having an inner roommate. I had not heard of this before, and there's an entire chapter on it. So Singer, the author, calls that voice in your head your inner roommate. It's that voice that's constantly commenting on everything, it's almost narrating your day, it's replaying the past, it's thinking about the future, it's overthinking, it's negative self-talk. You know that voice I'm talking about, right? Can you can you hear that voice in your head right now? The moment that you notice this voice, something really interesting happens. There becomes a separation. So when you can observe that voice in your head, who is it that's observing it? Well, this book talks about how we have an inner consciousness. And if you go really deep, it basically is like your soul is who you really are, and all your soul is is just consciousness. Consciousness experiencing this lifetime. But how this connects with your inner roommate is the fact that when you can observe those thoughts in your head, that is you sitting in your consciousness. So you're just observing those thoughts. So you let them come, you hear them, and you let them pass. So, as an example, maybe you're at work and you had a conversation and you walk away from that conversation and your voice in your head is going, Did I say the wrong thing? Am I an idiot? Oh my god, I'm so embarrassed. Why did I say that? Should I send her an email? Or should I go back and apologize? Oh, do I look like an idiot? Why did I wear that blue shirt today? Oh my god. Those thoughts, that is your inner roommate. And we all have it. There's nothing bad about it. It's just the way we are as humans. But when you can observe it, that's where the magic happens. So you want to learn to observe your inner roommate because this allows sort of a few degrees of separation from emotions. So when you are just living as that inner roommate, you really feel those emotions. So, like I said, that example of walking away from a meeting and feeling embarrassed and overthinking. In your body, then you'll feel embarrassed, you might feel shame, you might feel stressed, you might feel anxiety. But when you can just observe those thoughts, you can go, okay, yeah, I can see this, I can see that, all good. I allow them to move through and I just observe them. And this really blew my mind. I was like, oh my God, like when you can observe the feelings, it just lets them move through your body. And that's what this book talks about is allowing that energy of emotion to just pass through your body. And when you're observing it from your consciousness, you're not living in those feelings, you're not living in those emotions, and it just lets them move right on through. A great quote within the book, it says, There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing you are not the voice in your mind. You are just the one who hears it. Wow. Mic drop. Honestly, like I just was blown away and I thought, like, wow, like how powerful to be able to just acknowledge those emotions and feelings, but not let them stay. You just say, yep, I hear your anxiety, I hear you sadness, I hear your embarrassment. All good, jog on, my friend. It just blew my mind. I thought it was incredible, and the book really talks about just not allowing those energies to stay in your body. Acknowledge them, but acknowledge them from your consciousness, not from your inner roommate. In the next chapter, the book then talks about how when there's a frustrating or a negative situation in your life, it feels like the only way to resolve it is external, right? So you've got to do something to change it. You've got to talk to someone, or you've got to speak up, or the solution is outside of you. But this book talks about how any situation that's causing you to feel a certain way, the only way you can change it is inside yourself. You think that if you can change things outside, you'll be okay. But nobody has ever truly become okay by changing things outside. There will always be the next problem. The only real solution is to take that seat of the consciousness and observe your inner roommate to completely change your frame of reference. So rather than being in that emotion and rather than trying to fix it externally, just observe it, allow it to pass and just say, okay, thank you, energy, thank you, emotions, I observe you, and on you go. And when you don't allow that energy to move through you and move on, the energy builds up inside you. So it can build up in emotions. If you have anxiety, that anxiety will build and build and build. And when that emotion or energy builds up in your body, that inner roommate or mental chatter, it gets louder and louder and louder and it talks more and more and more. So that voice in your head talks a lot when you're not okay. And it's like it's trying to talk and talk and talk because that's helping burn up the energy, it's helping burn up the anxiety, it's helping burn up those unwanted emotions. So it really comes to the fact that if you can allow those emotions and thoughts to come and pass on, then they will not settle. And that'll help quieten that inner roommate. If you're not hanging on to those inner emotions, that voice in your head is gonna have so much less to say because it's gonna be calm, it's gonna be quiet, and it's gonna know that it's just being observed. You're not your inner roommate. The middle of this book talks about the power of keeping your energy open. Now it does get a bit woo woo here, and it talks about the seven chakras. So if you don't know what a chakra is, basically from the top of your head to sort of like your crotch, there's seven energy centers. So there's the top of your head, your forehead, your throat, your heart, sort of your lower chest, your upper stomach, and then down into your like lower and pelvic area. And there's lots of sort of religions or beliefs or spiritual practices. I love Reiki, that applies to your chakras. So it's like these energy centers of your body. And the untethered soul talks about how you need to visualize and feel those energy centers and keep them open. And this kind of connects to my first point about that inner roommate and letting that energy pass through. This kind of takes it to the next level. So when you visually imagine the energy in your body and you think about keeping it open, it helps energy and emotion flow through. Now, I sort of heard this and I was like, oh, okay, like I don't mind it. But I want to give you a really good example that the book talks about. So the book gives an example of a guy and a girl, and the girl dumps the guy. And the guy is really, really devastated. He spends the whole weekend laying in bed. He's absolutely devastated. He doesn't eat, he doesn't get out of bed, he doesn't go anywhere, he's just laying there, and his friends come around and say, Come on, mate, you know, you've got to get up, you've got to do something. He's like, No, I can't. I don't have any energy. And I feel like we've all been there, right? You've been in that place where you have absolutely no energy and just you are overcome by emotion and you're just at your lowest low. And in the book it says, How come when you're in a situation like that, food doesn't help you? Because we know that when we put foods in our body, food creates energy. And I sort of thought, I was like, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. That's true. Why, when you are in that moment of depression and sadness, why does food not energize you? It's because of your chakras and your energy centers. So back to that example of the guy that's been broken up, he's absolutely devastated. Come Sunday night, his ex-girlfriend rings him and says, I'm really sorry, I want to get back together, I've made a mistake, I love you, let's get back together. And just like that, the guy's up, he's dressed, he's ready to go, he's out the door, he's so happy, he's all good, his energy is back. Now, this is what blew my mind. That is energy turning on and turning off, or as this book would say, being closed and being open. How can he go from feeling so low to just turning it off and going back to normal, just like that? And you know, on a scientific level, like I said, food should give you energy. How come he can have that massive energy spike without having had food? I don't know if I'm sounding crazy right, but when I read this, I was just like, what the helly? Like it just makes so much sense to me, is that energy in our bodies is something that we can connect with and turn on and turn off. And basically, the untethered soul says if you close off your energy, that's when you're depressed and you allow those really, really bad emotions to take over. So when you say to yourself, I allow my energy to be open, I allow myself to be accepting of new energy and keep the energy flowing within me, that's when it happens. And when you have those moments where you're upset and frustrated and feeling sad, or perhaps you're feeling depressed, just think to yourself, I keep my energy open, I keep my energy open, I keep welcoming in energy, I'm energized. Insane. Really, really insane. Further ways to do this is by meditating, relaxing. You can visualize your chakras. When you feel an emotion, say to yourself, I allow myself to be open, I allow this to pass through to me. And again, you can sit back in your consciousness and you can observe that inner roommate having those thoughts, and you just think, I keep my energy open, I allow this to pass through me. So now that we have observed our inner thoughts, we're allowing them to pass through, and we're keeping our energy open, those are kind of key parts of the book. So it really allows you to move yourself away from the ego, remove yourself from negative emotions, really just heal yourself and create that positive energy. I feel like that's a big turning point in the book, and those are sort of like key things to get yourself into a really good place. Now, this next part is my biggest takeaway, and I think I've made three TikToks about this very specific takeaway because that is how much it blew my mind. I'm calling this section Do not control the dream. So the Untethered Soul talked about how when you are living your life with a dream or a manifestation or a goal, whatever you want to call it, when you are living your life with that thing, that goal, that place, that dream, whatever you want to call it in mind, anytime anything happens that is in not a perfect alignment with that reality that you're hoping for, you will feel angry and frustrated. Now you know when you're just going through something and the right thing pops up at the right time. Well, this is what happened to me. So I had been feeling angry and I didn't know why. And on the Friday before I read this chapter, I went and had an acupuncture appointment and I said to my acupuncturist, because they ask a lot about how you're feeling and your energy, I said to her, I'm so angry, but I don't know why. And I feel like throughout my adult life, I've always had anger, but I don't know what it is, and I don't really have anything to be angry about. And I just, it's like this emotion that sits in my body, and I'm so frustrated. I'm angry that I'm angry because I don't know why, and I don't have anything to be angry about. And when I was at this appointment, I said to my acupuncturist, you know, I've had a great week, everything's really good, I'm feeling good, like there's nothing going on in my life that should cause me anger. I don't know why I feel this way. And she sort of said she's like, okay, well, don't dwell on it, but have faith that the answer will come to you, which is a very wise statement. And spoiler, the answer did come to me in the untethered soul. So back to the point I realized I'm trying to control the dream. I have a very specific dream, and that's who I am, and that's you know, that's why I have this podcast. I have a dream, I have a manifestation, I have a goal. I have this like reality in my head that I'm dreaming of. And it's like this dream life where I'm a podcaster and I live in this amazing house, and I'm so financially free, and I've done all these visualizations where I can imagine that whole day in my life. I love it, and I think about it, and that's my my North Star almost. You know, I wanna I wanna make steps towards that dream life. But the untethered soul says that when you live that way, you're gonna feel angry every time something happens that doesn't connect to that dream. And it's not necessarily in a bad way, you know, if my dream is to have this podcast and be a full-time podcaster, maybe I get offered, you know, a promotion or a new role. But if that role is not a podcaster, that role is kind of not moving me towards the dream. So that can feel like anger in my body. And I was like, oh my god, is that what this is? Like every time things are happening, my subconscious has been so trained to think, no, we've got to go towards the dream, we've got to go towards the goal. Things that are happening that are good things that are not getting me closer to that goal, I'm subconsciously feeling anger, and then it's manifesting into actual anger. And for so long I couldn't connect it, but I think that's what it is. And I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a doctor, maybe that's the proper person that should be commenting on this. But my observation is that the untethered soul says, don't control the dream, or it's gonna feel angry. And I think for many, many years I've been trying to control the dream, and that is where that anger in my body that I cannot understand is coming from. I just love it. I love when you read a book like this, and it doesn't have to be a book, maybe you see a TikTok or someone tells you advice or you read a quote, and it just hits. Like it just is so relevant, and you just have one of those aha moments and you're like, oh my god, I get it now. I get it. And that is the magic of reading a book, of doing self-help, of doing mindset work, is that when you have that moment and you're like, oh my god, this is my takeaway. And if you read a book and you just get one takeaway that changes your whole life sometimes, bloody incredible, honestly. And that, my friends, is my summary of the untethered soul. So can you sit in your inner consciousness and observe your inner roommate? Can you say to your body, keep my energy open, I accept good energy, and can you stop controlling the dream? I hope that you have enjoyed this episode, and I really hope that you can observe that inner roommate, keep your energy open, and don't control the dream. This episode has been a really woo-woo one. I love it. I feel like we've gone deep. We've talked about chakras, we've talked about a few woo-woo things. I would love to hear. What do you think? What do you reckon? Should I talk more about this stuff? I feel like I have a few crazy woo-woo things that I would love to talk about. One of my friends said to me, he's like, Grace, I would love you to do a really crazy woo-woo episode. So maybe I will. But leave me a comment, send me a DM, comment on my Instagram, my TikTok, comment on this episode if you're listening on Spotify. Let me know what you think. Did you enjoy this episode? Do you want to know more? Are you gonna go and read The Untethered Soul? Maybe, but let me know. Thank you so much for being here today. May this episode find you at a time that you need it the most. As always, love you. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Find your own beeswax. Hey, counting out. Lean back. Yeah, touch me with you.