A companion piece to letting go
I read The Surrender Experiment just days after walking away from my corporate job, twelve months into the unknown. No guarantees, no structured plan. Just a quiet knowing that something had shifted.
Many months earlier, I had been gifted The Untethered Soul by the new owner of Kozen, the yoga studio where I had been offering free karma classes as I learned how to teach. She not only gave me that book but also handed me my first paid teaching role. That gift, that book and the belief opened something in me. The Surrender Experiment, the follow-up to The Untethered Soul, arrived in my life when I was finally ready to hear it.
Singer’s story of simply letting life lead, of surrendering even when the path made no sense, mirrored my own decision to step away from certainty in some ways. What follows are 20 reflections I noted while reading, as I slowly began to unpick the grip of control and redefine what it means to trust life.
Each one is paired with a gentle invitation, a question to sit with, journal on, or carry with you on your own journey inward.
1. Life is unfolding for you, not against you.
Singer didn’t plan his wild success. He didn’t seek it. He simply said yes. Again and again. Even when he didn’t want to.
Ask yourself: Where might life be leading you that you're resisting?
2. Surrender doesn't mean passivity.
It’s not about doing nothing. It’s about noticing your resistance, softening your grip, and showing up anyway.
“My personal preferences had nothing to do with how life’s dance unfolded.”
Ask yourself: Are you mistaking control for clarity?
3. The mind is loud, but it's not in charge.
Singer learned to watch the mental commentary without obeying it. Over time, this changed everything. People, opportunities and experiences found him exactly when he needed them.
Ask yourself: What decisions have you made out of fear or mental noise?
4. Let life surprise you.
He didn’t plan to run a software company, build a temple, or face the FBI. Life gave it all to him. He said yes. Unknowing in each moment that it would lead to the next.
Ask yourself: What opportunities have you dismissed because they didn’t match your vision?
5. Stillness creates clarity.
Much of the book is grounded in meditation. In choosing to sit, again and again, no matter what. To observe, to contemplate and then to let go of things as they happen.
Ask yourself: When was the last time you truly sat in silence?
6. Your preferences are not the path.
Singer noticed how often he resisted life simply because it didn’t align with his preferences. But who is it that is telling us over and over what are preferences are? Have you ever noticed that when you have low expectations of an evening that you didn't want to attend you always have a better time than you thought you would?
“I was no longer willing to allow my personal likes and dislikes to make decisions for me.”
Ask yourself: How often do you say no based on comfort alone?
7. Life will test your surrender.
The real experiment began when things got difficult, when he was forced to surrender not just to success, but to challenge and failure. We are often so close to the lessons that life is trying to show us, but we don’t sit with them long enough to see them.
Ask yourself: Do you only trust life when it feels good?
8. Trust is built in the unknown.
You don’t get to know the outcome before you leap. You only get to decide whether to leap.
Ask yourself: What would you do if you no longer needed guarantees?
9. Resistance shrinks your life.
Every time he said yes to life’s call, his world expanded. Every time he said no, it contracted.
Ask yourself: Where are you choosing safety over expansion?
10. Say yes, then show up.
He didn’t know how to do half the things he agreed to. He learned by showing up.
Ask yourself: What might be possible if you trusted yourself to figure it out?
11. Surrender isn’t a one-time decision.
It’s a practice. A daily invitation. A quiet willingness.
Ask yourself: What does surrender look like today, not in theory, but in action?
12. Letting go is a strength, not a weakness.
This book softened me. It reminded me that grace often looks like stepping back, not pushing forward.
Ask yourself: What are you clinging to that’s weighing you down?
13. Your growth isn’t always comfortable.
Singer’s greatest expansions came from the things he resisted most.
Ask yourself: Are you confusing discomfort with misalignment?
14. Success can come without striving.
He didn’t chase. He didn’t plan for a company. It found him.
Ask yourself: What if success could feel spacious?
15. Life is your partner, not your project.
You’re not meant to mastermind everything.
Ask yourself: What might shift if you began to trust life more than your own plans?
16. Silence reveals your inner world.
Stillness showed him the patterns of the mind. That awareness changed how he lived.
Ask yourself: What patterns are asking to be witnessed within you?
17. You don’t have to know.
Singer surrendered even when it made no sense. That not-knowing became his compass.
“It was not my responsibility to find the answer; it was simply to quiet the noise inside and let life unfold.”
Ask yourself: Can you soften your grip on needing answers?
18. Everything is temporary, including your story.
He walked through challenge and praise, wealth and loss. None of it stuck.
Ask yourself: What are you identifying with that isn’t permanent?
19. Surrender is an act of love.
To yourself, to life, to the mystery. It’s a radical kind of trust.
Ask yourself: What would it feel like to love life as it is?
20. The journey is the gift.
This book reminded me that we don’t have to get anywhere. We’re already in it.
Ask yourself: Can you let this moment be enough?
Reading this book felt like permission. It came into my life just as I chose to trust something beyond my own mind, something quieter and truer. The Surrender Experiment isn’t just a story. It’s a path. A gentle call to step back, let go, and allow life to move through you.
Let it.
