How to Let Go of Fear and Finally Feel Free | Michael Singer

I think the whole idea of surrender and letting go for someone who's an achiever-oriented person seems very foreign to them, but it isn't foreign at all. It is actually what you do when you achieve the most, when you give the most, when you contribute the most. One of the beautiful things that I think that Michael has offered myself, at least— I have a lot of yang, he has a lot of yin. And so my world has been about intention, set the outcome, make it happen, break through. And I believe that life calls for holism, that we need to have all these parts of ourselves alive. And, you know, I remember when I first read his first book, and even before I met him, I was like, letting go? Like, no, no, I need to make this happen, you know? And, but what I began to realize is that at my very best, letting go is what occurs. Greatest peak performers I've worked with as leaders or sports figures, they would— they all prepare and then They let go. They may not necessarily call that, but we will— you relax into it. If you're tense, you're trying to perform as opposed to God just flowing through you.

Letting go means a very specific thing. It means you remain centered and conscious enough to watch yourself do that. It's not that you don't do it. Can you watch yourself resist what you don't like coming in? Then what do you do? What you notice You say, is this worth resisting? Is it worth complaining? Is the driver in front of me— believe me, when you talk to the driver in front of you, they don't hear you. You know that, all right? But you still do it. And then you complain when you get to work, oh my God, they drove so slow, it was terrible. All right? And you start getting conscious enough to say, I'm doing this to myself. I'm resisting an energy with no cost-benefit analysis at all. I'm not gaining anything from doing that. Is there a way to not do that? And the answer is yes, there is. And the key word is relaxation. That when it comes in, you will see yourself start to tense. Relax. Let go of your shoulders. Let go of your tummy. Let go of your buttocks. Just let go, both outside and inside. But it's not comfortable. It's not natural because you're trying to protect yourself from somebody you don't need protection from. So it boils down to, you wake up and realize, I'm causing myself trouble by getting all tense and upset.

It's really letting go. It's relaxing and releasing. And another word for relaxing for me really just means trust. It's the total trust that I'll be guided.

Mickey, I remember being here in our home and we were going through a legal circumstance that was much less pleasant. And you said, Sage, just keep Letting go. And one day you'll keep letting go and this will just all dissolve and go away. I remember going through it and having waves of discomfort and waves of fear, waves of terror, waves of overwhelm. And I remember just having that North Star. And it was so demonstrative because it was a living, breathing example of something so acute. It's just become a way of being.

It's funny. Tony mentioned that some people think that we're different, right? That he's a pusher and a fighter and this and that. But ultimately, he's very intuitive. You know, I've seen him, I've watched him work, and that's where all his power comes from. It doesn't come from manipulation and trying and striving. No, it comes from being in tune. You have the ability to relax in the face of discomfort, and when you do this, the discomfort passes through, and you finally realize that the only reason it was just uncomfortable is because you were resisting. And that's a real freeing thing to understand, that you can free yourself. It just happens naturally if you're out of the way. If you're not out of the way, all you hear is your mind. All you do is get tense, anxious. Did I make the right decision? So on.

But I love something that you said in the book, uh, Mickey, that I just thought was awesome. The question is not whether God exists. The question is whether or not you're willing to stop talking long enough to listen.

That's right.

Because most people have so much mental chatter inside their head that they're not able to let that flow come through.

Why is prayer effective? For no other reason— when you're into science, we have energy, we emanate energy. Everybody knows that, right? Tony's got tons of it, right? And that's why people love to be around him and so on, right? This energy is not limited to a physical space. So prayer can heal, prayer can do all kinds of things, and it's very beautiful. The question you ask after that is, what is the highest form of prayer? I want to pray, not my will, but thy will. Not, I pray that I get what I want. So neat that Christ taught that.

I love that.

I use it all the time. Not my will, but thy will. It's phenomenal to live off of. It basically means God knows what he's doing and I don't. There's a higher way to live than getting what you want and avoiding what you don't want.

It's such a, a kind clarity to know that if something feels on the surface like failure, It's, you know, there's these iterations of life constantly evolving and shifting. And yet, if you truly put your faith in, you know, creation and intelligence greater than our own, there's such freedom in that because you trust in that flow once again. And for myself, I experience prayer as like a living conversation. And Mickey, really the two that— I love that you spoke about prayer, by the way, in this book so extensively. Because I really look at it as a living conversation of noticing and appreciating and, you know, waking up in the morning and noticing that we're alive, you know, that there's life within us. And it's like, thank you for the miracle of life happening within me now. And I really feel that this book, Wisdom Untethered, Michael, Mickey, is really a way for people to tap into that and And you provide such clarity through the inquiry of prayer. I enjoyed every word of it. And it's definitely— I just find it to be so powerful and so freeing to be able to liberate people and show them a way.

I also just think that the most powerful prayer to me is a 2-word prayer that goes beyond the 2 words, because it goes to the soul, spirit. Thank you. It's the appreciation is to me a form of prayer. It's maybe the most important prayer of all. The appreciation for all that we have in this life, the breath that we breathe, the heart that beats, the love that we share, So the more, the more you acknowledge grace, the more grace that you experience in your life, I think.

Yes.

And it's like we all do our part, but then there's grace, right? There's the part that's way beyond us that is really most of our lives that we take for granted that we've manufactured, when in fact it's all a gift. You know, one of the things I love, you wrote in the book, again, I might not be quoting it exactly, but you said you're not afraid of what's about to happen. You're afraid of how you're going to feel when it happens.

Of course.

And I don't know if I'm quoting exactly, but that's the essence in this book that I wrote. I just thought that was so beautiful and brilliant. And I believe that there are certain pieces that, you know, if you just submit to them, you train yourself to be fearful. But that's not what you teach. You're teaching instead a willingness to feel and move through it, right? And so my only piece is I have a focus on taking some action. But if you dive into the fear, not pull from it, not retract from it, not pull back, but if you dive into it, the fear is usually because you've anticipated something that isn't real.

You start off with not fearing fear. If you fear fear, you're going to suppress it. And if you suppress it, it grows, period. Anything you push away stays in there. And of course, fear— we're afraid of, right? So the first step is to sit there and say, I can handle this. All right? And don't— start with small things, not big things.

Right.

Instead of saying, I can't handle what you said, I can't handle what you did, I can't handle the thought that you might leave me, right? It has to start off with, of course I can. I just haven't worked at it. All right? I can handle fear. So you're willing to feel it when it comes up. You don't push it away. You don't hate it. You don't fear it. Right? And you realize that there's a lower part of your being that whether it be physiological evolution, you know, the animals run away, right? People run away. All right? Just like animals do. And you start realizing, I don't have to run away. I can sit with this. I can feel this fear. It's not a matter of not feeling fear. It's a matter of being able to handle the feeling of fear. It's a very natural feeling, especially at the physiological level, right? And then we built that into a psychological mess, believe me. And so you sit there and say, I can handle this. That's the first way you handle fear.

Mm-hmm.

Is you say, I can handle this. I'm gonna learn to handle this. If I can't do it right now, that's fine. If I fall back down, I'll get back up. But you just keep working with the understanding that fear is a natural thing, but you have the ability to work with it and raise it up. There are emotions that are difficult for us to handle. I will literally say at this stage in a person, a particular person's stage of evolution, they are not able to handle that, right? They can do the best they can. They can practice what Tony does, break through it. They can practice Mickey says let it go, right? And it ain't gonna happen, right? And you just get to that point where it's overwhelming. That's the right word. It's overwhelming. But you're willing to try, but it's overwhelming, all right? And what I found very early, because I had those— we all do— very early in my path is I can't rise above it. I'd be pushing it away. That's really— I'm rising above it but pushing it down. And I learned a long time ago suppression is the lowest thing you could ever do. It'll Ruined your life, they'll stay with you forever. You don't wanna suppress. So what's my choice? Okay. And I would lay down on the ground with my arms out at the side and melt into the floor and raise my chest up. And I would sit there and say to Divine Mother, all right, is take it. I can't raise above it. Will you take it? Here, here.

Yeah.

I don't want it. I don't want it stuck inside of me. I don't wanna have to deal with the rest of my life. Come and take it, right? And just have this feeling that it flows over you instead of you getting above it. And that lets it go. It's a very holy, holy thing to do, all right?

I've also recognized, Mickey, through your work in this practice, is that what mind projects in the future is gonna happen, the majority of the time it doesn't. It's a future-paced and we miss this moment. And once again, the power of all the practices are offered in this book, Wisdom Untethered, are so profound because it puts the empowerment to be able to free ourselves, to understand, to accept, and to embrace the totality of life is really holism. And I really feel that this book is a way, a living reference, a living text, a manuscript that people will return to again and again and again. All of your books have been that for us as a family and for me personally, Mickey. So thank you.

You've got to be able to feel the deeper truth and let go of your fear. And I think there are few lessons that are more important in our lives than letting go of fear. You cannot control the external world, but we have absolute direction of this internal world if we relax, if we let go, if we trust in something larger than ourselves, and if we have an intention to serve something more. And Mickey, you don't talk about it, you don't write about it, you embody it.

Yeah.