The Secret of Letting Go

by Guy Finley

Book Overview

With more than two million copies of all of his books in print, Guy Finley's message of self-liberation has touched people around the world. Discover how to extinguish self-defeating thoughts and habits that undermine true happiness. Exploring relationships, depression, and stress, his inspiring words can help you let go of debilitating anxiety, unnecessary anger, paralyzing guilt, and painful heartache. True stories, revealing dialogues, and thought-provoking...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738711985
• ISBN13: 9780738711980
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Help for life

We all have things in our lives that we wish we could get rid of. Guilt, stress, anger, loneliness, defeat and many other things huddle around us daily. But how to replace these emotions with the good stuff, the good feelings --- that's the hard part. And that's where this book will help. It's written in an easy-to-grasp style and with understanding and compassion. Unless your life is perfect, you can benefit from reading this book. It's unique in the way it's presented. Even if you only discover how to replace one bad, painful emotion with one good one, it's worth the price. Recommended.

A new relationship with yourself

There are a number of books and courses around that deal with `letting go' in the sense of emotional releasing. This book isn't one of them. It is a unique and full-blooded assault on your habitual thought patterns and preconceptions of yourself and the world. I would say it is unique because, although Guy Finley acknowledges the wise words of others, there is never a sense that the presentation piggybacks on the work of others in any way. Instead, the book argues its own case in a series of truth tales, analogies, dialogues, bulleted insights, explanations and devilishly teasing questions like: if I am thinking what I want to think, why is it hurting me to think it?I confess it took me quite a long time to work through this book. It is so thought provoking that I could only take it in short pieces in order to absorb it. But it was well worth the effort. When I open it at random now, there isn't a single page that doesn't offer a profound truth that is worth reading and absorbing all over again. In fact that's exactly what the author suggests: to pick out ideas and work with them. I do, and perhaps the biggest recommendation is that, every time I do, I am tempted to start reading the book all over again.To summarise, this book is not just a `how to' manual for letting go, it is about deeply understanding the need for such a process. Read it and be provoked into a new relationship with yourself!

The Secret of Letting Go

Guy Finley filled his book, The Secret of Letting Go, with examples and stories that illustrate his concepts of how to let go of all the emotional baggage that drags down our spirits and often makes life a painful journey. Finley says that we "don't need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding; and that's how this book will help you accomplish your lifelong dreams of being truly strong and independent." He explains that our inner selves are like hot air balloons, always trying to soar, and we hold them down by not letting go of the "angry attitudes, wasteful wishes, [and] harmful habits" that offer false promises of strength. The book includes nine chapters, with titles like "How to Defeat What's Defeating You" and "Dare to Let Go and Live As You Please." Finley starts most chapters with a story, then uses the story to help explain his general philosophy. Further explanations are offered in the form of specific questions and answers, some of which are drawn from workshops he has conducted. Each chapter contains a list "special insights" to help readers apply what they have learned to their own lives. Readers are also given questions that will help them understand the messages their inner selves have for them. In his forward to the book, Desi Arnaz, Jr. writes that "Guy Finley takes the Wisdom of the Ages and uses it to gently coach his readers to heal the places in their own minds where psychological problems originate." He adds that "It equips a human being with an entirely different set of qualities that transforms stress to serenity, anxiety to assurance, and doubt to decisiveness." Finley emphasizes throughout the book that we are not what we think we are, that we are in reality someone far greater than we have so far imagined. The answers to what keeps us holding on to self-defeating attitudes lie within us. The Secret of Letting Go is for everyone interested in understanding how they can free themselves from all that keeps their lives tethered in unhappiness and defeat.

Surprise! Surprise!

I originally bought this book when it came out in 1990 thinking it would help me let go of a relationship. My heart was broken. To my surprise, it not only helped me with letting go of the relationship, it helped me to let go of lots of other "stuff" that was keeping me S-T-U-C-K!! I refer to it often. Bless you, Guy Finley. Your insight is invaluable. This book is a perfect "10." HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

A life saver

This book was fantastic. I divorced about a year ago and found myself still very bitter and angry at times. I read this book and it all made perfect sense to me. It made me understand why I think the way I do and how to let the negative feelings and thoughts go. The most important thing I learned in this book is that no one makes us unhappy or angry. It is a feeling that we produce ourselves. Why do we punish ourselves? This book explains how to stop hurting ourselves and let the negative pass by. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about themselves. It's a great self improvement book.