Untethering My Soul With Mickey Singer

By Philip Hellmich, Director of Peace, The Shift Network

I met Michael, or “Mickey” as he prefers to be called, in rural Florida where he was quietly teaching at his center, The Temple of the Universe, and running a small medical software company that would later help revolutionize the medical industry in the United States.

It was 1989 and I had just returned from the Peace Corps. I had been living for four years in small villages in the bush of Sierra Leone, West Africa. While in Africa, I had lived with subsistence farmers, people who were living on less than a dollar a day. My African friends opened me to a way of living that was profoundly simple and challenging, yet filled with a peace from being connected with community, nature, and a deep sense of spirituality.

Michael (Mickey) Singer

When I met Mickey, I was in reverse culture shock. I was utterly confused about American lifestyles and the “Western pursuit of happiness” through massive consumerism, something that I saw was fueling environmental destruction and global conflict — and ultimately making people stressed out, less connected, and unhappy.

It was the perfect time for me to take a deeper look at what was driving human behavior, starting with myself.

Yet when Mickey started talking about “the voice in the head,” “the witness,” “yoga,” and “higher states of consciousness,” I was completely lost. Yet there was a presence with Mickey, one of deep peace, compassion, and wisdom. His words slowly started to seep through the inner walls: the constant noise in my own head, my judgments, frustrations, and raw emotions. Something started to stir inside.

Mickey was speaking from a place of deep wisdom, from his higher Self, to that same place in me that I didn’t know existed, that was buried below layers of fears, insecurities, and lifetimes of self-limiting patterns.

He spoke from a place of knowing about a joy that existed behind all of the inner noise. I was intrigued, as what he described seemed accessible to anyone without needing to purchase or consume anything.

Yet it still struck me as strange that I didn’t need to listen to the constant chatter in my head, and that there was something deeper inside, in the silence, that would satisfy my heart’s desires.

The seed was planted and it started to grow. I read Mickey’s early books, Three Essays on Universal Law: The Laws of Karma, Will, and Love; and The Search for Truth. I attended numerous talks by Mickey while living in Florida, and later ordered his CDs when living elsewhere.

Over the next several years, I started my own meditation practice and sought to promote peace in the world. When I would stumble along the path, which happened frequently (still does), I would pick up Mickey’s books or listen to one of his CDs. His insights helped me form a new perspective that helped me move through all the difficulties and suffering.

Mickey’s teachings were especially helpful as I started to work on very challenging peace projects, including making trips back to Sierra Leone after it had been devastated by war. It was heartbreaking to see the impact of deadly violence on loved ones and to ask how God could allow such things to happen. Mickey's teachings invited me to go deeper inside.

One of the biggest lessons I have been learning and am still learning from Mickey is how to “follow the energy,” let go of my fears, prejudices, and unconscious patterns, and allow a universal intelligence to guide my life.

Once when I was complaining about the way the world is, Mickey said, “Who asked you how the world should be? If Pluto was orbiting in a way you did not like, what would you do about it?”

He went on to say that there are billions of stars and planets in the Milky Way Galaxy and hundreds of billions of galaxies in the Universe… all of them are guided by an intelligence. If you follow that intelligence, he told me, it will guide your life in ways that you could never imagine.

Mickey said that by tuning in with this intelligence, I would tap into a source of joy, bliss, wisdom, and love from deep inside my own being, an experience that I would not trade for anything in the world. That conversation has been a guiding light for me.

Mickey’s insights go to the very foundation of inner peace — how to move beyond the voice in our head and to be with the stillness and joy that exists in each of us. As we tap into that stillness, we can align with universal intelligence to guide our lives so that we can play our role in this world in ways we never dreamed possible.

This combination of being guided by a higher intelligence and tapping into infinite joy and wisdom is what fuels my life. It provides inspiration and resilience to serve what is in front of me with love and brilliance.

Fast forward to the present and I am still continually turning to Mickey for insights. I listen to his CD series on a regular basis. And I was thrilled when he wrote his New York Times bestselling books, The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment, which further deepened my understanding of these important teachings.

I think so highly of Mickey that we’ve featured him in the Yoga Day Summit and Peace Ambassador Training here at The Shift Network.

I am so grateful for Mickey Singer and thrilled that he’s offering a video course to share his teachings with broader audiences. I’ll be watching these videos over and over again.

I hope you will find as much comfort and insights from Mickey’s teachings as I do.

With great love and respect,

Philip Hellmich
Director of Peace
The Shift Network

P.S. One of my favorite Mickey quotes is, “There is a river of joy, go to it and drown!” I can assure you that Mickey will lead you to that river of joy within!