The Secret of Letting Go [Paperback]

Guy Finley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2007

Llewellyn is proud to present the revised and expanded edition of our best-selling self-help book, The Secret of Letting Go by Guy Finley. Featuring an attractive new cover and fresh material, this Finley classic has been updated inside and out.

With more than 200,000 copies sold, 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 questions will guide you toward the endless source of inner strength and emotional freedom that resides within us all.

"There is something profoundly healing in the way Guy Finley talks to us, as if he understands what we have gone through and what we are now capable of."
—Hugh Prather, author of Notes to Myself

"Guy Finley is one of the most respected people in self-development because he guides the seeker's soul with common sense, humor, and ultimate spirituality."
—Linda Mackenzie, general manager, Healthylife.net

"Guy Finley's insights are an absolute goldmine of true wisdom . . . he is simply one of the best at describing the inner game and awakening to a higher level of self."—Karen King, co-founder, InnerHealingCompass.com

 

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Guy Finley is one of the most respected people in self-development because he guides the seeker's soul with common sense, humor, and ultimate spirituality." - Linda Mackenzie, general manager, Healthylife.net -- Linda Mackenzie "book blurb"

From the Publisher

"The Secret of Letting Go is a vital guide for anyone who wishes to break free from self-limiting beliefs and behaviors." - Peggy McColl, New York Times best-selling Author of Your Destiny Switch

"Guy Finley possesses a natural capacity to apply profound wisdom in everyday life situations." -- Michael Toms, New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 2 Rev Exp edition (October 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738711985
• ISBN-13: 978-0738711980
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Best-selling "Letting Go" author Guy Finley's encouraging and accessible message is one of the true bright lights in our world today. His ideas go straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life.

Finley is the acclaimed author of The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, The Secret of Letting Go, and more than 40 other books and audio programs that have sold over a million copies in 20 languages worldwide. In addition, he has presented over 4,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 30 years and has been a guest on over 600 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR, and many others. His syndicated weekly radio program is aired on several international networks including Healthy Life Radio, Achieve Radio, Sedona Talk Radio, and Healthlife.net. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. He is also a regular contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post, as well as an expert on HuffPost Live.

Finley is Director of Life of Learning Foundation, the renowned non-profit Center for Self-study in Merlin, Oregon, and his popular Key Lesson e-mails are read each week by over 200,000 subscribers in 142 countries. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations.

Guy's career reached this point through a circuitous path. Born into a successful show business family, he is the son of Late-Night TV and radio pioneer Larry Finley. His childhood friends were the sons and daughters of the most famous celebrities in the world. As a young man Guy enjoyed success in a number of areas including composing award-winning music for many popular recording artists including Diana Ross, Debbie Boone, The Jackson 5, Billy Preston, The Four Seasons, as well as writing the scores for several motion pictures and TV shows. From 1970-1979 he wrote and recorded his own albums under the Motown and RCA recording labels.

Throughout his youth, Guy suspected there was more to life than the type of worldly success that led to the emptiness and frustration he saw among his own "successful" friends and colleagues. In 1979, after travels throughout North America, India and the Far East in search of truth and Higher Wisdom, Guy voluntarily retired from his flourishing music career in order to simplify his life and to concentrate on deeper self-studies.

In addition to his writing and appearance schedule, Guy presents four inner-life classes each week at Life of Learning Foundation headquarters in Merlin, Oregon. These classes are ongoing and open to the public. For more information about Guy Finley, and his life-changing work, visit www.guyfinley.org

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

101 of 104 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Secret of Letting Go March 9, 2001

By Cassandra Barnes

Format:Paperback

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. Read more ›

73 of 78 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A new relationship with yourself July 13, 2003

By J. A. Storey

Format:Paperback

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!

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Gentle Introduction to Timeless Principles... November 10, 2000

By T.G.

Format:Paperback

"The Secret of Letting Go" is a gentle introduction to mysticism, nonduality or "The Perennial Philosophy." Finley is an expert at avoiding confusing terminology and new-age pap and gently introducing timeless and true spiritual principles to the beginner. Yet it is not without value to those who have had some experience with the nondual perspective. Of all Finley's books, this is probably the best.

86 of 100 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat useful July 16, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

.... The subject content is simple and straightforward enough: Let go of self-defeat and release your inner strength. What really annoys me to no end about this book, and why the book wasn't very helpful at all, is primarily his obnoxious writing style. He writes like this throughout the book: to NOT be aware of what you DON'T want is in truth what you CAN'T change. And you're shaking your head, what did he just say there? So, you spend more time than you should translating these ridiculous double-negative inverted statements into something simple, as they should be, that makes sense. I am currently re-reading the book to try and understand what he's really saying. I found Anthony Robbins book, 'Unlimited Power' to be clearly written without all the verbal game-playing, and much more helpful in content.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprise! Surprise! September 30, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Secret of Happiness November 28, 2007

By John Chancellor TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I feel like the book is mis-titled. It should be titled "The Secret to Happiness - Letting Go".

This book is filled with wonderful instruction about how to let go of all the things that are holding us back from achieving happiness in our lives. The book is well written, easy to understand and filled with stories to illustrate or illuminate the point the author is making.

While it is easy to read, for some people it will take more than one reading to fully grasp the concepts Guy Finley is advocating. The book requires us to adopt a totally different mindset. That does not happen overnight. It requires some indepth study and contemplation. We need to develop an awareness of how we are blocking our quest for happiness - -how we get in our own way and become our own worst enemy.

We all have been programmed with lots of mis-information. We need to re-program our minds. To let go of all these negative thoughts. We must let go of fear, anger, resentment. This book tells us how to let go of all the things that keeps us stuck in our present circumstances.

But it will take accepting these truths and then acting on them to realize the true value of letting go. It is simple, but because of our prior programs which have become ingrained habits, it will not be easy.

Here are a few selected gems from the book:

"The more you depend on others to confirm you to yourself, the less real life you have of your own."

"Right isn't something you feel, it is something you are."

"Self-doubt is born out of being identified with the idea that how you feel about yourself depends upon how others feel about you."

There is a world of wisdom in this book.... If you are tired of living in doubt and fear, tired of carrying around a lot of excess baggage then read this book and learn the secret of letting go.

This book has the information to change your life. Of course the information is only valuable if you accept it and start to live your life in accordance with the ideas given. Read more ›