The Secret of Letting Go (Paperback)

by Guy Finley (Author)
Key Phrases: secret self, true spiritual warrior, real rescue, True Self, Vernon Howard, Bill of Lights (more...)

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"

Product Description
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



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Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 2 Rev Exp edition (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738711985
• ISBN-13: 978-0738711980
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #34,485 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Cassandra Barnes "Cassandra" (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Secret of Letting Go (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.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	J. A. Storey "John S" (England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Secret of Letting Go (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!

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	T.G. (Newcastle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Secret of Letting Go (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.