Since the Chaplain has an Audible account, I can listen to lots of audio books I would never choose on my own. It has really broadened my horizons. The Surrender Experiment and The Untethered Soul, both by Michael A. Singer, were no exception.

I knew the Chaplain had found Singer’s books meaningful, and then I heard the Chaplain’s mom had found them meaningful, and I was like, “FINE. I’ll read them.”

The Chaplain and I were talking about this recently, and he told me he thought I wasn’t interested in the type of books he read. (No hard feelings here. He isn’t into historical fiction, either). I told him, I’m still not interested! But my need for the content is greater than my distaste for the genre.

So I put on my headphones and pressed play.

I listened to The Surrender Experiment first. Starting with a moment in Micky Singer’s early 20’s, the book chronicles his conscious decision to allow the Universe to guide his life. Through a time-consuming and committed practice of meditation, he found himself time and again prepared for exactly what life had placed in front of him simply by following the path laid out for him.

He described transcendent meditative experiences. What many people would describe as countless coincidences, Singer viewed as the Universe directing his steps. He alternately refers to the Universe as a greater consciousness called Love, God, or Christ.

The biggest takeaway from this book was that God is willing to work in our lives, but in order for Him to use us, we have to be willing. Secondly, when God chooses to use us, there are sometimes ways to get out of it. What more often happens, though, is the ultimatum so many of us give our kids: “You can do this the Hard Way, or the Easy Way.” Singer chooses the Easy Way, and then goes with the flow wherever life takes him.

Some of this was tough for me to swallow. Many of his early life experiences seemed to be in large part possible due to A. The time period in which they occurred, and B. Privilege. As I listened, I was thinking, yeah, that’s really cool, but he’s totally a product of his times, and nothing bad ever happens! That’s just not realistic.

When a crisis turned his life upside down, and he continued to apply his life principles through that situation, it felt more relatable to me.

This book’s value was less in the details and more in the over-arching theme – God is directing our lives and providing opportunities at just the right time. If we are ready to accept these nudges, Goodness will result, even if we have to pass through some Pain first.

It was reassuring to apply this thinking to my own life. I started making connections with things that had happened or were happening that catalyzed necessary change. Sometimes the connections are startlingly simple, but very meaningful.

An example: Recently, our priest gave the Chaplain, who acts as our church’s music minister, an unasked-for Sunday off. We couldn’t remember a time since we’ve been married that the Chaplain had a Sunday off and we weren’t using the opportunity to travel. We were home, and we had nowhere we had to be.

We spent the morning doing yardwork and physical recovery from our camping trip (read: laundry and unpacking, but mostly laundry). Then, our family went to Mass at the church closest to our house, the one where we would probably go to services if the Chaplain wasn’t the music minister at another church.

I had never been there before. Truthfully, with Baptist stamped deeply into my psyche, I don’t always feel welcome in a new Catholic church, especially since I’m not a confirmed Catholic. I’m not technically allowed to receive communion. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hear the readings (dependent on the acoustics, activity in my pew, and the strength of the lector’s voice). I can’t be sure my kids will behave long enough for me to catch the homily, or if I’ll just spend the service being stared at by my neighbors while Six does gymnastics all over the pew and in the aisle, and Four and Five fight ardently over crayons.

As the priest stepped up to the podium for the homily, I was startled to realize I recognized him – he was the priest at the church where the Chaplain served as music minister for 10 years before moving to our current parish. He baptized two of our kids. He was the leader of the church that first made me feel comfortable with Catholic faith in practice. I always enjoyed his preaching, and this Sunday, he didn’t disappoint.

I went up to receive communion, and no one said I couldn’t.

After the service, we greeted the priest by the door and he hugged us warmly. He is the new priest at this church, just around the corner from our house. This was his first Sunday presiding over Mass. I think he was as glad to see us as we were to see him.

I felt we were supposed to be there, to greet him and make him feel welcome in our community. And in turn, he made me welcome in a church that doesn’t always completely feel like home.

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So The Surrender Experiment was The Story, and The Untethered Soul is The Practice.

Throughout The Surrender Experiment, Singer is talking about all these amazing things that happen as a result of meditation. He spent HOURS doing it.

But what exactly WAS he doing?

The Untethered Soul is a great description of meditative practice, why you should do it, and what happens when you don’t.

Singer is a guy, and he writes like one. There is no coddling going on here, just straight up, “This is how it is.” The book feels like a pep talk. The Chaplain and I both disliked the narrator’s voice, and the tenor of the prose sometimes exacerbated its annoying tone, but we agreed the content mostly allowed us to get past the obnoxious reading style. (Imagine a slightly nasal guy’s guy saying in an enthusiastic, infomercial voice, “Get over yourself! Those thoughts aren’t you! You’re the one who’s AWARE of the thoughts!” At times, one would find oneself wanting to cover one’s ears and scream “shut up!”, partly because the content was hitting deep, and partly because – That Voice.)

The most powerful aspect of the book was that I listened to the audio book with headphones or earbuds. This means that the tactics Singer recommends for changing the way you think were being piped right into my brain. This really worked for me. It shut down my psyche so I could really listen. I would listen in bursts, and pause when I started to get overloaded on content and felt myself tuning out.

I surprised myself (and maybe the Chaplain?) with the amount of “hmmphing,” laughing, and other audible responses I made while listening. While some books haven’t been the best for me in audio form, this one was perfectly suited to the medium.

As I listened, a question was nagging at me. So, I adopt this philosophy, and am able to make a practice of getting some distance from my inner monologue, which Singer refers to as my psyche. Singer says again and again, if we can get away from our psyche telling us how to feel all the time, if we can stop feeling so threatened by everything, NOTHING WILL EVER BOTHER US.

Not being bothered sounds great. But how does that work in relationship? Will I let my kids run around screaming all the time and be unfazed? Will I not be bothered by anything the Chaplain does, and therefore avoid fraught conversations about feelings from now on? Do boundaries and vulnerability have any place here?

Most important to me right now is not just the work I’m doing on myself, it is bringing my best self into my relationships, especially my marriage. The Untethered Soul began teaching me how to bring that better self into relationship, but not what to do with it once I’m there.

The book has a brief section addressing relationship. It asserts that you can only bring your authentic self to relationship if you can get that distance from your psyche. And the book does a great job of explaining how to get the distance. But it wasn’t so great about explaining the practice of existing in a world with other people in that state.

I don’t fault Singer for this weakness. I know from The Surrender Experiment that Singer lived in a separate dwelling from his wife and only had one child (who, I presume, probably lived at his wife’s house). He didn’t have the pressing need to manage multiple close familial relationships in the same way I do. (P.S. Can you imagine a marriage with His and Hers homes on the same property?)

I read Daring Greatly, by Brené Brown, at the same time as I listened to these books. While it’s not about meditation, I feel like it is the missing piece to The Untethered Soul. You read The Untethered Soul to get untethered, then you read Daring Greatly to figure out the real-world application. Keep an eye for a dedicated Daring Greatly post soon.

These two books definitely took me out of my reading comfort zone, but they came at the right time in my life and had something of value to offer.

Even if Seven hadn’t been “helping” me shoot the feature image, balancing the my lighting needs with screen cast, screen brightness, and my time constraints meant that I didn’t get the shot I wanted. So I photoshopped the images of the books from other shots into this one. The messy, cobbled-together result seems in keeping with the journey of embracing imperfection.