Tami Simon: In this special episode of Insights at the Edge, we are celebrating the release of Michael Singer’s new book, Wisdom Untethered: The Time for Questions. I’m joined by the beloved author himself, Michael Singer, along with two special guests who live in deep appreciation of Michael Singer’s teachings on The Untethered Soul—Tony and Sage Robbins. Welcome, friends. Stay with us.
Welcome to this special book launch event. We’re celebrating the release of Michael Singer’s new book, Wisdom Untethered: The Time for Questions. My name is Tami Simon. I’m the founder of Sounds True, and it is such a joy to have you with us.
It was back in 2007 that The Untethered Soul was first published—a book that became a spiritual classic. In this Untethered series, four years ago Living Untethered was published, and now Wisdom Untethered: The Time for Questions.
In this new book, Michael Singer answers 200 of the most common, prevalent, significant, and relevant questions he’s received about his teachings on The Untethered Soul. We are so fortunate that Tony and Sage Robbins are joining us to support this book launch event. These are two of the most generous humans I know. They are partners in life and in service, known for their work in leadership, relationships, and more. They remind us how we love is how we live. Tony and Sage, Michael—welcome.
Tony Robbins: Thank you. So great to be back with you. It’s been way too long. This book is extraordinary.
Michael Singer: Wonderful. Thank you.
Tami Simon: It’s obvious you all have a relationship and know each other. Tell us a little bit about your connection.
Sage Robbins: We are certainly smitten and in love with one another’s being. We had the privilege—The Untethered Soul really became a living gift for us. We shared it through every holiday and gifted it for birthdays. Chapter 17 of Living Untethered came alive within me and was so extraordinarily profound. It’s a sacred text that we return to ourselves and continue to bless others’ lives with. We connected deeply—we’ve met personally a number of times and visited Michael up at the Temple of the Universe.
Tony Robbins: Yes, and he was kind enough to leave the beauty of his place—which he rarely does—and come down to visit us when we did a podcast together, because we wanted to help more people be exposed to his incredible wisdom, but also his love. Look at his face—this man’s smile just melts you. His essence is what it’s all about. The truth of something is how it really works in your life, how you really live. Mickey is an embodiment of that spiritual development truth, which is just love. He is pure love, and we love him personally.
We really want everyone to pick up Wisdom Untethered, because I think the format of asking and answering questions feels like you’re in his direct presence—where you’re with him personally and the wisdom just comes pouring through. I can’t say enough about the book itself. Of all three books, this might be my favorite, because it’s so direct and people can get the answers they want right away from a source that has no ego. He’s just speaking truth. You’ll feel the love pouring through.
Tami Simon: Michael, tell us a little bit about Wisdom Untethered—how you created it, the creation process.
Michael Singer: Like most things in my life, I had no intention of doing it. All of a sudden this other book is happening. Karen is here with me—she’s my coworker and does a lot of the work. We have thousands of questions that filtered through over the years, and the book just fell out. The thing I like most about it—because a book of questions isn’t always that interesting—is that it reads like a book. You don’t feel like you’re reading questions; it just flows through. I take no credit for any of this. It’s amazing how life manifests things. This is no different than The Surrender Experiment or any other. It just happened, and it’s wonderful, and it can help people. That’s all I have to do with it.
Tami Simon: I want to give everyone a taste of the teachings in the book. We actually surveyed thousands of people in the Sounds True community and shared with them the 23 different chapter themes in the book—from emotions, witness consciousness, and resistance and acceptance, to career and work life and decision making—and asked which topics they most wanted to hear Michael Singer teach on during this event. Three topics were surfaced, and that’s what we’ll focus on.
Before we do, I want to pull something from the preface. Michael, you write: There are 200 questions in this book, but ultimately, life is asking you a single question: Are you willing to let go? Tell us why you believe that’s the singular question all of us are being asked.
Michael Singer: From my experience—and I learned my spirituality through life; life is my teacher—letting go is the essence of everything I’ve learned. People misunderstand letting go. Some think it means letting go of life, of what you want, of your inspiration and passion. It’s not that. Letting go is really about something you do inside yourself.
To understand letting go, you have to understand why it’s meaningful and why it works. All of us have issues in life—different things that happen at different times, some big, some small, that we have some trouble with. It can be anywhere from a driver in front of you going slower than you want, to divorces and deaths and losing jobs—things not being the way you want them to be.
What you notice, if you’re conscious enough, is that when things happen that are uncomfortable to you, there’s a tendency to close. Your mind becomes negative, and the energy inside becomes tense, anxious. Most people feel the meaning of their life is to prevent that from happening—to somehow structure people, places, and things so they cause a nice feeling and not a negative one. That’s very difficult, and it creates stress within itself.
Letting go asks: Why does anything in life bother you? When things come in that are uncomfortable, we try not to feel them—through suppression, repression, denial, or conscious resistance. We push away the experience. When somebody says something we don’t like, we argue back, get defensive, push against the energy coming in. And what happens is it stays. The bigger the thing, the longer it’s lasted—the more it affects your life. There are things that happened in your childhood that are still in there bothering you.
Letting go means something very specific: 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 you ask: Is this worth resisting? The driver in front of you—when you talk to them, they don’t hear you. You still do it, and you complain when you get to work. When you start getting conscious enough to say, I’m doing this to myself. I’m resisting an energy with no cost-benefit analysis. I’m not gaining anything from doing this—you start to change.
The key word is relaxation. When it comes in, you’ll see yourself start to tense. Relax. Let go of your shoulders, your stomach, your whole body—both outside and inside. It’s not comfortable, because you’re trying to protect yourself from something you don’t need protection from.
When you do this with small things, it becomes almost fun. You realize: Oh my God, I just let it go. The driver turns off the road three blocks later, and you’ve already moved on. You start realizing you have the ability to relax in the face of discomfort. When you do this, the discomfort passes through, and you finally realize the only reason it was uncomfortable is because you were resisting. It’s like judo—if you don’t resist, the energy passes through.
And just like learning to play an instrument or becoming skilled at an athletic pursuit, letting go is practice. The natural thing is to defend yourself, to protect yourself, to push away. But you start practicing letting go, practicing relaxing, and next thing you know, you’re able to relax through silly little things that shouldn’t bother you.
Then the next thing happens. You call a friend, she doesn’t respond, and your mind starts going: Oh my God, what did I do? Should I find out why she didn’t say hello? Or you could say: there are 8.3 billion people on the planet. You start expanding your willingness to remain open. And you do that by relaxing. It’s a process of relax and release.
Eventually you catch on: Wait a minute—I’m blocking a beautiful energy inside of me. It didn’t have to stop flowing because my friend didn’t call back, or because the driver wasn’t driving the way I wanted. You start catching on, and it gets higher and higher, until the energy becomes so strong it doesn’t stop flowing. It flows all the time, every moment, no matter what happens.
And if something happens that starts to close you, you ask: Am I willing to trade love, beauty, inspiration, passion because somebody did something I didn’t like? Next thing you know, you’re letting go of even the things you didn’t want. You realize life is a lot more fun than you were making it.
That’s what letting go is—it’s a tremendous process. It’s the meaning of your entire life. It’s your entire spiritual path.
Tami Simon: Tony and Sage, what would you add from your own life experience, and how does this land for you?
Tony Robbins: One of the beautiful things Michael has offered me—I have a lot of yang, he has a lot of yin. My world has been about intention, setting the outcome, making it happen, breaking through. I believe life calls for holism; we need all parts of ourselves alive. When I first read his first book, I was like, letting go? No, no, I need to make this happen. But I began to realize that at my very best, letting go is what occurs when I’m on stage and someone stands up—someone who’s suicidal, or a person who made a billion dollars and is bored. You never know what someone’s going to say. I’ve done this for 49 years, and magic always happens. But the magic happens because I relax.
Sometimes language gets in the way. For me, when the moment comes, I relax—I drop into a place where I’m not there. And another word for relaxing, for me, really just means trust. A total trust that I’ll be guided, that if this person stood up in this moment, there’s a higher purpose for it. It’s meant to be. I don’t have to think it through; I just relax, let go, and flow.
The greatest peak performers I’ve worked with—leaders, sports figures—they all prepare and then they let go. If you’re tense and trying to perform, you’re performing. But when you relax into it, God just flows through you. So the whole idea of surrender and letting go seems foreign to achievers, but it isn’t foreign at all. It’s actually what you do when you achieve the most, when you give the most, when you contribute the most.
Sage Robbins: Absolutely. Mickey, I remember being here in our home going through a legal circumstance that was much less than pleasant. You said, Sage, just keep letting go, and one day this will all dissolve and go away. I went through waves of discomfort, fear, terror, overwhelm. But I had that North Star—I was just going to keep letting go in the name of my peace. And it was so demonstrative, because it was a living, breathing example of something so acute.
And I love, Mickey, how at the beginning you talked about how this book just happened. That’s what happens as we tune in and surrender to what is—we connect to the intrinsic flow of life, this divine wisdom and divine intelligence that’s guided us all to this moment in time. The deeper I let go, the more life is beautiful and surprising. I love that we all recognized this moment and felt called to be with one another. Thank you for that, Mickey.
Michael Singer: That’s beautiful.
Tami Simon: We surveyed thousands of people in the Sounds True community and found three topics they most wanted to hear about. We’re going to start with the third most voted topic—intuition and prayer—and work our way to the first, to keep the suspense building.
From the chapter on intuition and prayer, the first question is: What is intuition, and how can you distinguish it from mental projections? I’m very interested to hear what all three of you have to say about this. Michael, go first.
Michael Singer: It’s a beautiful question. Tony may seem different from me on the surface—he’s a pusher, a fighter—but ultimately he’s very intuitive. I’ve seen him work, and that’s where all his power comes from. It doesn’t come from manipulation, trying, and striving. It comes from being in tune.
Intuition—how about I say what it is not. It is not mind. Mind is always talking, always generating ideas, concepts, views, opinions, preferences, likes and dislikes. It’s very, very busy. When that’s going on, that’s not intuition. That’s mental thinking; that’s trying to figure things out based on past experiences.
When the mind quiets down, there is a higher energy, a much clearer energy. It comes from consciousness itself, from the witness. The fact that you’re in there noticing—if you’re watching a neurotic mind, you’re not neurotic; you’re watching a neurotic mind. If you’re watching a depressed mind, you’re not depressed; you are noticing a depressed mind. That’s a real freeing thing to understand.
Intuition is something coming in from a higher plane. It’s not mystical—it’s just that there’s more knowledge, more wisdom available when you’re out of the way. If you’re not out of the way, all you hear is your mind.
I’ll share a story: when I had a computer company and wrote the software, I would sit in design meetings with five or six brilliant programmers. I wouldn’t sit at the front of the table—I’d sit on the couch behind them. They would discuss a topic, and somehow I would instantly see the answer. But I would say not one word. It took an hour or two hours, and they always arrived at exactly what I saw at the very beginning. That doesn’t mean I’m smart. That’s intuition. It’s because I had meditated many years—for whatever reason, there’s a knowing that is deeper than the mind. Beyond the mind. You don’t have to go find it. Just quiet the mind down. The answer is to quiet the mind down; intuition will naturally be there.
Tami Simon: Tony and Sage—and how do you distinguish intuition from mental projections?
Tony Robbins: Mental projections are things you’re trying to manufacture in response to your fear or your desire. Intuition just flows without any thought. It’s hard to describe. It’s exactly what I was describing on stage—when somebody stands up, I step physically off the stage to go toward that person, and as I’m moving toward them, it’s already done. It’s not that I’m so smart or have all the answers. I just know it.
I really believe that when you’re trying to serve something greater than yourself, that is when grace flows. My intention is nothing but to serve them, and I know it will be done, and I know it’s not me. That combination makes it flow. I love something you wrote in the book, Mickey—I may not be quoting exactly, but you said the question is not whether God exists; the question is whether or not you’re willing to stop talking long enough to listen. Because most people have so much mental chatter inside their head that they can’t let that flow come through. To me, it happens so fast—it’s not even like listening, it’s like feeling. It just happens.
And in creating things—we’re privileged to be doing significant food relief work, and I woke up on January 1 with this intuition, this total belief and trust. Ideas started flashing through that I hadn’t done anything to create, and people started calling, and things started happening. It just flows.
So I think the difference is: if it’s effortful, if it requires thinking, it’s usually thinking. If it’s flow, it’s usually intuition. I do think intuition has an intention—not attached to the outcome, but there is an intention. I ask that what is right be done, and I trust that. As thy will be done, not my will be done. There is an intention, but then total trust. And after a while, it happens so consistently that you don’t question it anymore.
Michael Singer: Beautiful. That’s the essence.
Sage Robbins: Yes, it really is. Mickey, I’ve also noticed—we’re sensorial beings, and there’s so much information happening within us. As a younger version of myself, I tuned it out because there was too much activity in my mind.
Sometimes it’s a sense of things—we all know what it’s like to walk somewhere and feel uneasy. That’s information. Or you feel like an electrical impulse of yes, this feels aligned. I always tell people I feel God in a very physical, bodily way because that’s where I experience a yes—it sounds ridiculous, but I do. I think we’re sensing and perceiving energetically at all times. It’s a matter of noticing. My no feels like uneasiness in my gut; a yes feels like alignment, not necessarily something verbal or visual but sensation. And I look at that as information. That leads to flow.
I’m always so humbled by how, as we tune into life—not only externally but internally—there’s so much beautiful information that makes life kinder and saner. When I think of times I had a sense of something and ignored it, that usually ended up being a painful circumstance. I had a sense ahead of time and wasn’t true to that inner knowing. And Mickey, one of the most powerful gifts you’ve given so many of us is that the path of letting go opens us to this communion of information within us and around us. I’ve really noticed a difference at this stage of my life. Thank you.
Michael Singer: That’s beautiful. Thank you.
Tami Simon: Here’s a second question from this section of the book: Is prayer effective, and what is the highest form of prayer?
Just to share—the new book Wisdom Untethered will be shipping on March 16th. This is the time to place your pre-orders from wherever you enjoy purchasing books. Michael, you begin.
Michael Singer: Of course prayer is effective. But it goes deeper than that. When you’re into science—we have energy, we emanate energy. Everybody knows that. You emanate energy that’s not limited to your body or your aura; it can travel around the world. Thoughts can travel around the world. So prayer can heal, prayer can do all kinds of things. It’s very beautiful.
The question that interests me is the second one: what is the highest form of prayer?
You’ll find that you have issues, and a lot of times where you feel compassion for somebody else, you’re actually feeling sorry for yourself. Compassion and sympathy are very different—we can talk about that another time. When you start working on yourself—letting go of the blockages stored inside that make you close, that limit your world to yourself—the more you let go of those blockages, the more universal and open you become.
You start realizing that spiritual growth is phenomenal. You can get so high, so beautiful, that your energy can be shared with everybody. And you start realizing: this is what I should be praying for. Not my will but thy will be done. Not praying to get what I want. Christ taught that—I love it, and I use it all the time: Not my will but thy will be done. It’s phenomenal to live by. It basically means God knows what he’s doing and I don’t. Whatever I’ve learned from the past is just my past. Someone else’s past is different—which is why we have the disharmonies that go on in the world. If I’m going to base what I want purely on my experience and my ego, that’s very small. You can attract what you want that way, but the question becomes: is there a higher way to live than getting what you want and avoiding what you don’t want?
You start understanding that you have the right—and the obligation—to pray for wisdom, for openness, for the strength to let go of yourself. And the more you let go of yourself, the more everybody is blessed. A saint can sit in the Himalayas and the energy affects the entire world, because of the level they’ve reached inside themselves. You are that also. Everyone is a great being. But we hold ourselves back with personal desires and fears and hopes and dreams, as opposed to recognizing: I did not create the universe. There is one tiny planet; 1.3 million Earths fit inside the sun—and you are a tiny dot on that planet. Yet you are also so much bigger than that.
You start praying for help to raise yourself, to free yourself, to liberate yourself, so that you can serve all of humanity. That’s the highest prayer—self-realization, enlightenment, awakening. That becomes the polestar of your life. When the polestar of your life is liberation, is freedom, is oneness with the universe, everything else falls into place. You don’t have to do anything. That’s the highest prayer: the prayer for self-realization, the prayer for enlightenment.
Tony Robbins: That’s beautiful. You know, I had conflicts with prayer growing up. I was raised in a Christian home. I went through a stage of asking, Is there a God? Probably because I had so much chatter in my head at the time. So I started searching—I went to a different church every Sunday, even a West Virginia church with snakes. I pulled things from all of them.
But what always bothered me about prayer as I saw it practiced was the idea of praying for your football team to win over someone else’s. I can’t believe God would pick sides. So for a period I threw prayer out—what are you doing asking for yourself?
Then my prayer became more clear and simple. I wear these baseball caps, and one of them says Be a blessing; underneath it says You’ll be blessed. My prayer is to be a blessing to the people I meet, to touch their lives, to be guided to do it. And that has no conflicts for me. My prayer before I go on stage is always: Use me. I just pray that I’ll be used for a greater good. Then I make a physical move that awakens my nervous system, and I walk out on that stage—and it doesn’t matter if it’s five hours or fifty hours, four days in a row. I’m used, because I think what you said, Mickey, is the same thing as thy will be done, not my will be done. I’m here to serve a greater purpose than myself, and I have no conflict with that prayer.
My wife is even more prayerful. She prayed for things specifically and didn’t see that as selfish—she saw the good in her life as part of the greater good for everything. She’s opened me to that as well. But I really think the higher prayer you’re describing—our unfolding, the greater good, thy will be done—that is so beautiful. When you communicate with whatever you consider God in that way, it’s not intellectual. You feel the spirit of it. It’s very powerful.
Sage Robbins: And Mickey, I love that you mentioned thy will be done, because there’s such a kind clarity in knowing that if something feels like failure on the surface, there’s iteration and constant evolution in life. If you put your faith in an intelligence greater than your own, there’s such freedom in trusting that flow.
For myself, I experience prayer as a living conversation—noticing and appreciating. Waking up in the morning and noticing that I’m alive—that there’s life within me. Thank you for the miracle of life happening within me now. That blows my mind. We did nothing to beat our hearts. We’re gifted with this intelligence within us.
There’s been such a mass exodus from religion, and so many people are hungry to find their way back home, to have a really meaningful human and spiritual life in which they experience the sacred and the holy. I really feel Wisdom Untethered is a way for people to tap into that. You provide such clarity through the inquiry of prayer, Mickey. It’s powerful, freeing, and liberating.
I look at prayer and meditation as the emptying out, which creates the openness and spaciousness for us to perceive the miracle of life happening in this moment now. And I think one of the highest complementary prayers to thy will being done is really falling in love with what is and giving thanks for what is. There was so much I missed and wasn’t thankful for as a younger version of myself. It just makes life so beautiful when we notice how truly supported each and every one of us are.
Tony Robbins: I also think the most powerful prayer is a two-word prayer that goes beyond the two words into the soul and spirit: Thank you. Appreciation is a form of prayer—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. The more you acknowledge grace, the more grace you experience. We do our part, but then there’s grace—the part that’s way beyond us that’s really most of our lives. We take it for granted and think we’ve manufactured it, when in fact it’s all a gift.
Tami Simon: We have two more sections I hope we can touch on, and lots of thank-yous coming in from people in the chat—so in that sense, we are in a collective prayer moment together, experiencing so much appreciation and gratitude.
The second topic that had the most votes—dealing with fear. The question: I have had a problem with fear since I was a child. How do I work with it in a compassionate way? Michael.
Michael Singer: You start with not fearing fear. If you fear fear, you’re going to suppress it. If it’s suppressed, it grows. Period. Anything you push away stays inside. Fear is something we’re afraid of, so the first step is to sit and say: I can handle this. Don’t start with the biggest things—start with small ones. Not I can’t handle what you said, I can’t handle the thought that you might leave me. It has to start with: Of course I can. I just haven’t worked at it. 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.
You’ll realize there’s a lower part of your being—whether it’s physiological evolution or something else—that wants to run away, just like animals do. 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 natural feeling, especially at the physiological level. We’ve just built it into a psychological mess.
So you sit there and say, I can handle this. I’m going to learn to handle this. If I fall back down, I’ll get back up. You keep working with the understanding that fear is a natural thing, but you have the ability to work with it and raise it up. And if you do that, it’s amazing—it diminishes when you let go of what you’re afraid of. It passes through and makes its way through you. Then there’s less fear, and less, and less.
You reach your hand down to your lower self. Don’t push that lowest part of your being away. People spend so much time judging themselves. Don’t judge yourself. Do the best you can and don’t be afraid of going wrong. Then reach down to that lower part of your being. I used to fight to get above it, to transcend it. But I learned: reach down there. Look at that part of yourself and say, Come here—I want to help you up. And eventually you get to the point where you apologize to your lower self: I pushed you down there. I didn’t know what I was doing. I wasn’t wise enough to deal with the situation in my life. All I did was push you away—like locking a child in a closet. They’re not going to get better.
So you give that part of yourself the space to come out. You are the conscious witness, using that consciousness and awareness to accept, honor, and respect that the lowest part of your being can be brought up. Fear becomes your friend—every time it comes up, it reminds you to let go. It’s like a mantra.
And you’ll find—I’ve seen Tony work with this, and it’s very much about breaking through—you can let go of fears that have been inside forever, that you never thought you could release. But it takes practice and willingness. Rather than breaking through, what I’ve found is that you raise it up—little by little, by accepting it, honoring it, appreciating it, and being grateful for it. Be grateful for the stimulation that fear creates—not so you can express it, but so you can transmute it and raise it up.
Tony Robbins: Mickey, you wrote something in the book—I may 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. I thought that was so beautiful and brilliant.
I believe there are certain things that, if you submit to them, you train yourself to be fearful. But that’s not what you teach. You’re teaching a willingness to feel and move through it. My piece is to take action—because if you dive into the fear rather than pulling back, the fear is usually because you’ve anticipated something that isn’t real.
The essence for me is getting people to a place where they recognize that who they are—or who God is—is more than anything that could ever happen to them. That life is happening for me, not to me. It may look like it’s happening to me, but it’s a gift; it’s part of the hero’s journey; it’s evolving me.
I love how in your book, you describe things you can do—like lying on the ground, placing your hands on your heart, and letting it completely wash over you. That’s something I would never normally suggest, but I believe in it for things outside your control, like the death of a friend. If you fight it the old way, you keep fighting it—you’re pushing down the feeling rather than breaking through. That’s the difference. Would you share that approach, Mickey, so I’m representing it accurately?
Michael Singer: It’s beautiful that you brought that up. There are emotions that are genuinely difficult for a person at a particular stage of their evolution to handle. They can practice what Tony does—break through it—or practice letting go, and it just ain’t gonna happen for them yet. You get to the point where it’s overwhelming. And you’re willing to try, but it’s overwhelming.
What I found early in my path—I had those moments too, we all do—is that if I try to rise above it, I’m really just pushing it down. Suppression is the lowest thing you can do. It will ruin your life, it will stay with you forever. You don’t want to suppress. So what’s your choice?
I would lay down on the ground with my arms out at my sides, melt into the floor, and raise my chest up. And I would say, Okay, I can’t rise above it. Will you take it? I don’t want it stuck inside of me. I don’t want to have to deal with it the rest of my life. Come and take it. You have this feeling that it flows over you instead of you getting above it, and that lets it go. It’s a very holy thing to do.
Every single thing in life is happening for you. Paramahansa Yogananda—my teacher—used to have people read this poem called “The Hound of Heaven.” It’s about a person running away from God, who was chasing him like a hound wherever he went—nothing worked, this didn’t work, that couldn’t happen. He kept running away to protect himself. And at the very end of the poem, he says: I’m cornered now. The hound has cornered me. I have no way out. Oh my God. Wait—is it possible that the darkness I was running away from was the shadow of your hand reaching down to pick me up?
That’s that kind of surrender. Just realizing: It’s not up to me. Take me home.
Tony Robbins: From a physiological perspective—when you go there, you talked about raising your chest up as you ask for that release. That completely changes your biochemistry. It’s the exact thing I teach people. The body can be a very powerful gateway to spirit—getting beyond the mind by using the body. Your releasing process does that.
Death was the one thing I felt I couldn’t help people with until I’d worked through it myself—that was the one I had to learn to surrender to. It’s like the Serenity Prayer.
Sage Robbins: Yes—he calls me Dr. Death. Chapter on contemplating death—yes, absolutely. Mickey, my father has over fifty years of sobriety, and there was addiction in our family. The prayer God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference—I said that prayer at AA meetings my whole childhood. It’s such a privilege to actually experience that prayer at this stage of my life.
Something else I’ve found useful, Mickey—especially in relationships—is that fear can sometimes wear a mask of intensity because its intention is to protect. Often Tony will be on stage with 10,000 people, and that’s a cakewalk compared to some moments in a close relationship.
I find that just admitting, I’m feeling scared right now, and putting words to that awareness—and then reminding myself in the moment that all is well—is powerful. A number of years ago, I was going through a really acute time. I was outside on my knees, crying and praying, feeling a wave of terror, honestly feeling decimated by life. But I just sat there and let go of the notion I’m scared and tuned into the sensations—because that’s really all fear is. I found that practice so deeply helpful.
And I’ve also recognized, through your work, that what the mind projects into the future usually doesn’t happen. We miss this moment. The practices offered in Wisdom Untethered are so profound because they give us the tools to free ourselves—to understand, accept, and embrace the totality of life. This book is a living reference that people will return to again and again. All of your books have been that for us as a family, Mickey. Thank you.
Tami Simon: We’re here celebrating the release of Wisdom Untethered, shipping March 16th. You can purchase the book wherever you buy your books.
Tony, I want to make sure we touch on all three topics and share with our listeners what the most voted chapter was. I was surprised—it was the chapter on freeing your inner energy. One of the questions you answer there, Michael, is: How do I respect each moment as unique and special? Let’s end on that note.
Michael Singer: That’s my favorite question to answer.
I have a scientific side—I’m fascinated by the quantum field, by astronomy. And if you stop for a moment—which we don’t do enough—and realize: the moment you are experiencing right now, no one has ever experienced before. Period. And they never will, and they never have. It is literally unique. You are standing in a spot in the universe, in Einstein’s space-time continuum, that no one has ever experienced. How can that not be special?
You start to understand that every moment is special. And you are only experiencing this one—you’re missing every other moment. We like to think we’re smart, but the moment you’re experiencing, how many are you missing that are going on simultaneously everywhere else? What you have experienced is statistically insignificant in relation to what is. But at least have the respect to honor that this moment is yours. And you start to stop complaining about it, stop wishing it were something else.
There used to be a bumper sticker: I’d rather be sailing. I’d write one that says: I’d rather be doing what I’m doing. That’s the moment you arrive. You’re honoring the fact that the universe is unfolding in this particular way in front of you and nobody else, and you get to move through it.
I can’t help myself—the quantum physicists went past molecules, past atoms, past electrons and protons, and found that there are these wavelets, omnipresent throughout the universe, from which everything arises. What you’re experiencing right now is coming out of that field. God did not create the heavens and earth once in the past—God is creating the heavens and earth this very moment. And you’re seeing it, and it’s manifesting through the wavelet structure, and you’re here to witness it. How can you not honor and respect that?
You get to the point where you realize every single moment is precious, it’s special, it was given to you and nobody else. Learn to honor it, respect it, and most importantly—use it to raise everybody else. That’s what you do with the moments in front of you.
Tony Robbins: That’s beautiful.
Sage Robbins: Well, Mickey, I’m grateful for this moment. I’m grateful for this exchange, grateful for this book. Wisdom Untethered is so ripe and relevant on the world stage right now, and there is such a need. It’s a spiritual text. It’s a way to live, a way to be. You meet the reader where they are—you meet everyone in this human experience where we are, navigating this labyrinth of mind. It’s kind, it’s beautiful, it’s powerful, and it’s transformational. It has been such a gift to be with you, Mickey. And Tami, thank you for arranging this. Blessings to everyone tuning in. Wisdom Untethered isn’t just for you—it’s for the world. Please gift it to others as well.
Tony Robbins: Especially in times like these—with so much fear and uncertainty between technology, wars, inner conflicts in families, and so many things in the world that can make you feel overwhelmed. 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 just talk about it, you don’t just write about it. You embody it. That’s why we love and respect you so much. I hope everyone will pick up the book and use it as a manual to return to again and again. As humans, you learn your lessons, and the new ones show up. It’s the hero’s journey of life—that’s how we all unfold. We have an incredible guide here, alive today, sharing from his heart, soul, and spirit some pathways that can be so helpful. I thank you, our dear friend. And thank you, Tami, for letting us join you in talking about what I think is the most important subject in humanity.
Tami Simon: That’s beautiful. Sage, Tony, Michael Singer—celebrating Wisdom Untethered. Thank you all so much.
Sage Robbins: We love you. Get the book, everyone. Many blessings. Thank you, Mickey.
Michael Singer: Take care. Thank you.
Tami Simon: Thank you for listening. I’d also like to invite you to join us on Sounds True One, where you can enjoy early, ad-free access to episodes of Insights at the Edge. Sounds True One is our premium membership platform built around live classes, online events, award-winning specials, intimate learning experiences, and Q&A sessions with the world’s leading wisdom teachers. You can get your first month free at join.soundstrue.com.
