Letting Go, Finding Freedom & Living in the Now

What if everything you're holding onto is the very thing blocking your peace? What if real freedom starts with loosening your grip?

In this episode, we explore four powerful quotes from The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer—diving deep into the art of letting go, breaking free from limiting thought patterns, and finding strength in the present moment. This is Part 5 of our 7-part series unpacking the book’s most transformative insights.

We cover:
 • How your thought patterns may be the only thing holding you back
 • Why letting go of what you think you need opens you up to unexpected joy
• What it actually means to “release the gripping mind”
• How presence becomes a powerful anchor in moments of chaos or pain

This conversation gets honest, emotional, and practical. Whether you’re letting go of a person, a story, or an expectation, this episode will guide you back to yourself.

So buckle up, buttercups—because the shift begins with a single breath.

Tune in to "YASKing with Anthony and Arturo" on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe and follow Anthony on TikTok at @coachcatalino and Arturo on IG at @arturodiaz and TikTok @arturodiaznyc

Transcript

Arturo Diaz 

Welcome to YASKING with Anthony and Arturo. I am Arturo Diaz.

Anthony Catalino 

And I'm Antonio Banderas. Nah, it's Anthony Catalino,

Arturo Diaz 

On today we're doing more quotes from the Untethered Soul, and these words hit deep. They speak to letting go, breaking free from your mind's grip, and learning how to find power in the present moment. Because honestly, the thoughts you're clinging to, the plans you think you need, the fears that keep showing up, that's what's holding you back today. We're diving in. We're getting honest, we're getting free, and we're asking the big questions, what if everything you're holding onto is the very thing that's blocking your piece. What if freedom starts with loosening your grip? So buckle up  buttercups, this might be one of the most liberating episodes yet. 

Anthony Catalino 

Boom. You want to hit it off. Art, 

Arturo Diaz 

Yeah. Number one: the only thing that can hold you back is your own thought patterns. 

Anthony Catalino 

What do you think he means by thought patterns? 

Arturo Diaz 

We get into these circular loops with our thoughts, and we kind of obsessively, kind of not even kind of we obsessively think about ...

Anthony Catalino 

We definitely...

Arturo Diaz  

...and we let our mind go on autopilot, on a loop that is not useful for us. We get stuck in loops thinking about fears of failure. We overthink things. We obsessively think about how we're imposters, and that ends up creating your reality. If you think you're a failure, you're gonna show up as a failure. And I know that I did that in my my own way, my past, that I would be my biggest critic, and that would impact the way that I showed up and performed. Can you relate to that?

Anthony Catalino  02:32

Ham and hands down, like you said, once you start to believe you're a failure, and that could have stemmed from when you were a child, you know, depending on what your parents taught you or what society taught you. I know for myself, I didn't think I was worthy or deserving, because it's kind of what society led me to believe because I was gay. Now it's my superpower, which we've talked about, and we'll talk about some more at some other point. But it's almost like, yeah, you rehearse something so much that you believe it. It becomes like your your story, something happens within us. We we believe something so much that we attract people into our lives that remind us of that we see it almost as if it's proof that we're a failure or we're not worthy. And it comes up in a variety of places, and it's almost like it haunts you, and it's like following you because you've learned to believe it so wholeheartedly, and then you get stuck, then you get lost. It's almost like when I used to be a severe drug addict, I could not see the way out. I was so reliant and lost in that noise and that those addictions eventually, like, I like, I wore it out like, eventually I had to, I realized that I had a choice and I could make some changes to create a better quality of life. And that took a hell of a lot of grace and patience.

Arturo Diaz  03:55

There is a thing called confirmation bias. When researchers are doing studies that they have to be cognizant that they're not looking for their assumption in the research. And similarly, people in their day to day lives tend to use confirmation bias to favor information that confirms their existing beliefs. And the way this usually works, it impacts your self perception and self esteem by reinforcing your negative self views and hindering your own self growth. As people tend to seek out and focus on the information that supports their existing beliefs, especially if those beliefs are negative. So if you believe you're a failure, you're gonna look for confirmation, yeah, that you're a failure,but you can flip that if you believe your success, you can find things that confirm that you are success, that you are capable of so much creation.

Anthony Catalino  04:58

But these thought patterns, we get it. They're They're loud, obtrusive, annoying. You just gotta interrupt that noise. You gotta learn to not believe it, and we're gonna preach it again. But meditation is a great place to start. But I know you're gonna sit in some silence and you'd be like, it's loud. It's telling me that I can but as we've touched upon in the past, you are not your thoughts. So the more you can play with this idea, this truth, that's going to be the first step into setting you free.

Arturo Diaz  05:28

Absolutely, meditation has been so big for me. 

Anthony Catalino  05:31

Oh, my God, I love it, 

Arturo Diaz  05:33

yeah, I think, and I think too, too. I think that I was the way I was raised. I was taught to be a little bit of a negative Nancy.  Okay,  then I had to retrain my brain to be more positive and to also believe that the universe is inherently abundant and that it wants me to thrive. Huge mindset shift for me to think that the world wants me to be successful, that the world is full of limitless opportunities. 

Anthony Catalino  06:05

But what if the path was designed perfectly, not to keep you trapped for as many years as you might have felt trapped, but you had to see it that way in order to appreciate all that i.  I truly believe we have to go through hell and back to then be like, Okay, I got some choices that I can make that would change the trajectory of our lives. My life and Art and I are here, not as doctors or medical professionals -  remind you, but here to remind you that it's incredibly possible for you. How about Quote number two?

Arturo Diaz  06:39

When you let go of what you think you need, life opens up in unexpected ways.

Anthony Catalino  06:47

What you think you need, expectations, those two, for me, go in hand in hand what you think you need and what you're expecting of others, but remember, it begins with you first. You expect you expect respect from other people, but you got to respect yourself first, what if you don't need and what if you don't need all that you think you need?

Arturo Diaz  07:07

Yeah, I think the thing that really hits me here is htat I've come I noticed my own personal experience, and I was reminded about by a new friend recently, sometimes we pursue things because society told us we should want something. And you end up with the wife or the spouse in the house with the dream that people told you, this is what you this what this is the way to happiness. This is the how the happiness formula looks like, and then you do it, you're like, I'm still not happy. And so you end up realizing I didn't need any of this. I was so attached to what people told me happiness looked like that I didn't stop to think about what I truly needed or wanted. So if you can let go of what you've been told you need. You can open up to who you really are.

Anthony Catalino  08:08

First thing that pops in my mind is the kid, the child 100 years ago, that had one stuffed animal, one and that was their best friend. That was their everything there. Maybe it was a blanket, maybe it was a bunny. And now we've been conditioned in a society that you have to have all these presents under the tree at Christmas time. Mind you, I grew up with a family in a family, and love them to pieces, but they reminded us how often we were broke, but then when Christmas like, how, like, we weren't going to get a lot of gifts, and then I would get, like, 20 gifts, and that's me, was just like, almost like, brainwash me. We have no money, but I'm getting all these gifts. What? What value do they actually represent? I think it stemmed from my mother, a place of need, like, I need to give you all these things so that you can be loved. So remember, we've been trained from an early age that we need all these things in order to be happy. And what if that was the opposite? The truth was the opposite, because some of the poorest people in the world are the happiest people in the world because they don't have a poor mindset. They have clean drinking water, they have a roof over their head, they have community. What if that's all you really needed? 

Arturo Diaz  09:20

Yeah, when you let go, things make space for magic.

Anthony Catalino  09:24

You ever go through? Have you gone through that phase in life like I went to this recently where I was kind of ready to let everything go. I don't know why, but I was like, none of this. I mean, I see value in my bed, in my sheets and my linen, but if it all went away, would I be okay?

Arturo Diaz  09:45

Yeah, I definitely gone through those phases you look at all your stuff, Do I need any of this? This is, this isn't me. We cling on to these things like they're precious. But none of it is and you have to let go things to make space for something new. 

Anthony Catalino  10:01

Boom! What if that was the magic, allowing yourself to let go to to to attract not more stuff, but more joy. What if that was limiting you from experiencing joy or happiness, and if you stay open, like our last episode that we talked about open versus closed heart, the more open you can you can allow yourself to be. That's freedom. 

Arturo Diaz  10:29

Yeah, and so often we're so attached to a specific outcome, we think we need things to turn out a specific way, bu when youthat you you block the flow of life. Life is going to unfold the way it's going to unfold, and your resistance and your attachment to a different outcome is only going to cause you suffering.

Anthony Catalino  10:55

Do you have a good example you could you could share with our listeners? I know some things because we got personal over the last few years, but yeah, something that you expected to happen, and it happened differently, and it was actually a blessing.

Arturo Diaz  11:10

So many things, so many things... there were relationships, they were they were close, I almost worked for different company. And I was like, Oh, this is it. This is this is gonna be it. And then when it didn't work out, it was hard in the moment, but I can honestly say that it all worked out the way it was supposed to, and it always does, but it's not always easy to feel that in the moment when you're going through the pain.

Anthony Catalino  11:40

So what would you suggest our listeners do when you're are going through the pain, when you might be in the thick of it, or the weights on your shoulders? 

Arturo Diaz  11:47

I mean, just faith in yourself, cultivate self, trust that you are on the right path and that you're going to figure it out, but you are figuring out, and that you are unfolding into the highest expression of who you are, and that's what life is. I think I would the biggest empowering moves I made was to step away from this idea that my career needed to be the way I found fulfillment in life. I'm not on this planet to have a career. I'm on this planet to unfold into the greatest expression of who I am, and my career is just a part of that. And that freed me in so many ways, because I stopped putting pressure on my career to be everything which I had been doing personally.   I know a lot of people that do that. Their career has become everything, and they drown in it. That's their identity, but they drown in it, And it's just part of the rich, rich tapestry of who I am. 

Anthony Catalino  12:53

Oh, that was a good one. The rich tapestry of who I am....YASKING ,,,woven oh, so beautifully. Alright, let's move forward, next quote.

Arturo Diaz  13:06

Every time you let go, you release the gripping mind and free your spirit. 

Anthony Catalino  13:12

I almost must be like an audience. I know we have an audience. There's listeners right now, but it's like show of hands. How hard is it for you to let go? How overwhelming is that for any of you listening to just let go? It's hard because guess what? The most freeing things in life are challenging, but that's when you got to lean in. That's when you have to trust the process release that grip so your spirit can be free in those times of stress or discomfort. Can you breathe through it like I taught last episode, open First, close heart. When you get stuck in traffic, when you're late for an appointment, when the plane doesn't take off on time, those are the best places to practice being present and patient. How can you be a little more loving to yourself in those moments? Because the more loving you can be that that cultivate that practice, that practice of self care, self love, you just naturally release the grip because you're giving yourself that loving, undivided attention that you're not used to, giving it all the time and remind you you weren't supposed to. How does this resonate with you? Art? 

Arturo Diaz  14:19

When I read this quote, I think about the ways that I tended to hold on to specific outcomes and my attachment to them, because I thought that I would be able to Will my influence to shape outcomes, and I didn't understand that there was an energetic cost to holding on to things, that it was depleting me. It was draining me in my creativity, and it was closing me off to the magic of the world. And again, it's one of those things. If I tell you, you have a gripping mind, and I ask you, what does that feel like? I can intuitively, kind of understand what that means inside of me, and the way I was able to work through that was through breath work, journaling. Those helped me surrender the need to grip onto things and reframe it as a reframe letting go as liberation and not a loss. There was a really great guided meditation on Insight Timer that had a line about that everything you let go is not necessarily a loss. It taught you something, it gave you something, but let go and receive what's next. And that really resonated with me.

Anthony Catalino  15:41

Can you give any suggestions to our listeners on a step or two for any of any of them that are curious about letting go of a story or a relationship or something that's maybe currently hurting them? Do you have any suggestions on that you know you can pass on that because you know, letting go might be easy for us to talk about now, but the idea is, I think, a really overwhelming for a lot of people, because it seems so impossible. How can I let that person go? Maybe it was they;re morning, someone that passed away. Any thoughts? 

Arturo Diaz  16:15

 I put my dog to sleep a couple years ago, a year and a half ago. And the thing that kept coming upon meditation was that when you love something, you make an agreement to grieve it, because nothing is permanent. So I could have avoided the grief of losing my dog if I'd never got her, but the contract I signed when I got her and I accepted her love was that I eventually would have to grieve her. There's a balance to life, there's a duality to life that's unavoidable, and I found a lot of peace in that. And I could be so thankful for all the love Parker my dog gave me, because she was like, I don't know like.... a creature of light to I had days I came in full vinegar, and she would just pounce on me and and it will all go away. And if I look back in my life, all of that love was absolutely worth the grief. So I'm only grateful for having that creature in my life, but I only came upon that again in meditation. 

Anthony Catalino  17:25

And did it just magically appear, or was that something you asked for, like you set an intention. 

Arturo Diaz  17:31

I set an intention because I I was known I was under no losing that my dog was a vampire. I knew that I was like, if I got a decade, that'd be good for a French Bulldog, and she got to the age of 11, so before she passed, I was already meditating and asking the universe for peace. I was like, I want to say goodbye to this creature that means a lot to me. Help me find peace in letting go, because I know that I have to face this, and I can't ask you to make her immortal, right? 

Anthony Catalino  18:14

Yeah, yeah, dogs, man

Arturo Diaz  18:17

Dogs are such  gifts.

Anthony Catalino  18:18

Yeah, I truly believe they came here to give us that unconditional love, to teach us that that was readily available anytime, ever. I mean literally like you could, like, leave and come back and leave and come back every 30 seconds, and they will still give you that loving undivided attention. Now, not only not all of you listening are dog dog folks, but that's just an example. They, they, they are in our lives to teach us, to brighten us, to help take life less serious. I mean, my dog right now is 15, and he's in the best shape of his life, and that's also because I'm in the best mindset of my life. I know enough that I want to cook his dog food, because I don't necessarily trust what's in a lot of dog foods, the effect from it is kind of wild. But he too, at some point is gonna, is gonna pass.

Arturo Diaz  19:11

So the fourth quote, the present moment is a place of events, power and clarity. 

Anthony Catalino  19:17

I love this. I talk a lot about presence is where your power lies. And you know, we're not taught in school to concentrate. If anything, we've been convinced that we, a lot of us, have ADHD attention deficit. But what if? And this is, again, we're not doctors or medical professionals, but this is through a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of having these conversations. What if it was simply because we didn't we weren't taught how to concentrate, we weren't taught how to be present and breathe. I mean, think about how rewarding your life would be under stressful situations, under times of panic, under moments where the plane is still on the tarmac. It's been two hours. I get it, I've been there, but now what I do and that if I experience that kind of delay, traffic, lateness, tardiness, I just bring my right back to the present moment, and I feel the power. Now, this is a practice like anything else, but I feel so powerful. I have so much clarity. I don't take life as serious. I know that I'm going in the ground at some point. You ever see those? I think was an Italian designer like you, like you literally go on a sack, and the tree grows above you become like the fertilizer for trees, and then you're in a forest, rather than a cemetery. I know that the bugs are gonna love me. I a woman that she's passed since, but she, I think she was like a librarian or something, and she she had a TED talk, and it was so inspiring. And one of her last lines that she says, and it's like, I just know that the bugs are gonna love me. And she just has a great attitude in life, and the more present you can become. You just watch your health, your wealth, your attitude, your life, implode in the most beautiful, profound way. How about for you? What does this? What does this speak to you? How does this speak to you?

Arturo Diaz  21:13

It reminds me that we rob ourselves of the present moment by obsessing about the past or worrying about the future, but you can only do those things now, so why not just be here now? But easier said than done. 

Anthony Catalino  21:32

Totally 

Arturo Diaz  21:33

A lot of us are distracting. A lot of us are numbing. A lot of us are gaming out the worst case scenarios, what of what could come but we all know that staying present can calm our anxiety, and that's where we find our inner strength, and that's why I've come to really love all the tools you taught Me, meditation and breath work and going into nature, connecting to my senses and just being aware, because it brings me to here, and I'm able to ask myself, What do I need right now in this moment? Or I'm able to reflect, I'm okay, I'm here, and that was like a big, powerful, very powerful shift for me too, because I think I was spending a lot of my life thinking about the past or the future and not actually being here,

Anthony Catalino  22:29

It's so easy to get caught up in all that noise. But what if it was because we weren't taught to concentrate? What if the big shots that like designed our school system? And again, this is just my thoughts about it. If anything, I encourage you to question everything in life, like, why weren't we taught to be present? Why weren't we taught to you know, all the Buddhist teachings? I don't necessarily think I'm spiritual. I am definitely not religious. But I seek freedom. I don't follow a certain religion, I guess what I'm trying to say, I don't, I don't follow certain practices other than I want to. I want to be free, so I practice being present. And it's interesting how, like when you first learn about a lot of these topics that we talk about, it seems so foreign because we were introduced at a young age. But again, art and I are doctors or medical professionals, but we're living proof that these things that we're talking about, while as far fetch, some of them may seem we're living proof that they're a miracle, that it's it's literally changed the quality of our lives. I'm not a big I'm not a big fan of success, but one of our favorite authors is YungPueblo, and he says that the true measure of success is a calm nervous system. The more you can practice being present, the more you feel, more your inner power, you take life as serious that you learn how to calm your nervous system. There are some simple tools that you can do to practice that don't cost you anything except for your time and your willingness. I'll share one of them with you right now. I learned this a while back, and it doesn't always necessarily feel like it works, and it might sound a little silly, but what you're going to do is you're going to make a you're going to make like a butterfly with your hands. You're going to lock your two thumbs together, and you're just going to put your fingers on your chest, and for one to three minutes, you're just going to bounce back and forth your chest, if you feel anxiety, if you feel stressed again, if you have an expectation that it's not going to it's not going to work, you're, you're, you're you're like asking for it's not work. There has to be a belief that there's power within what you're choosing in that moment. And even if you see it as self loving, that's a beautiful thing. Remember, there is such thing as a placebo effect. If you believe that sugar pill is going to cure your cancer, it's going to it's going to heal your body, there's been proof from doctors and medical professionals and scientists that that works. So a lot of it has to be rooted in your belief that you can make the changes that you seek, that the present moment truly is where your power lies. Anything else you want to bring to the forefront of our listeners imaginations,

Arturo Diaz  25:10

Yeah, let's bring this home. We started with four simple quotes, but if you're really stick with them, they hold enough truth to shift your whole life. The quotes were, the only thing that could hold you back is your own thought patterns. When you let go of what you think you need, life opens up. Every time you let go, you free your spirit. And the present moment is where your power lives. This isn't about becoming someone new. It's about letting go of everything you're not. It's about loosening the grip, softening the edges and choosing presence over pressure. So here's our challenge for you this week. Catch yourself when you're closing to a story, a fear, a need for control. Pause, breathe and ask, Is this helping me be free? Then just soften even a little. Let go of one thing, just one, and that's where the shift begins. 

Anthony Catalino  26:13

God, I love you. YASKING. It's been an absolute pleasure. Anything else for our listeners today, Art? 

Arturo Diaz  26:19

Thank you for being on this journey with us. We're honored to walk it with you. And if this episode resonated, share it with a friend. Journal on what quote hit you hardest, and keep YASKING the big questions, because your soul already knows the answers.

Anthony Catalino  26:37

Until we meet again! 

Arturo Diaz

Until next time.