I used the book like a roadmap for my personal growth, guiding me on a journey of self-understanding that I was only dimly aware I had embarked on. I was astonished to read Singer describe in precise detail what I was experiencing inside in a way no one ever had before. I read it once, and then I kept reading it year after year. I needed some wisdom on the intense worries and fears beginning to rage within me: Would I succeed? Would I fail? Was I making a terrible mistake that would end my career before it had even started? Someone recommended the book, and I ordered it. Late one night, I was browsing Quora, searching for practical answers to my existential questions. I felt like I was at the center of a slowly constricting circle, the emotional borders of my life closing in on me inexorably. The truth is that life demanded it of me in order to survive. I wish I could say I was a naturally spiritual person courageously seeking out answers to the big questions of human existence. I wish I could say I sought out personal growth on purpose.

I constantly found myself in uncomfortable situations – with disappointed clients, or marketing my services, or expressing my ideas with confidence – that I felt completely unprepared to handle. I thought that if somehow I could just not feel those feelings, I would be happy.īut my desire to start my own business had plunged me into a world of tremendous uncertainty and turmoil. Fear, anxiety, disappointment, helplessness, and rage were my enemies, and I arranged my life to avoid them as much as possible.

I wasn’t able to simply be with many of my emotions.

When I think back to the young man I was at this time, in my 20s, I see someone who felt threatened by life. The first rush of excitement at my newfound freedom had waned, and I was beginning to feel the turbulence of the uncertain freelance world. I first read it in 2014 about a year after becoming self-employed. One book has impacted me more than any other over the past 10 years: The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.

Books like the untethered soul