{"id":40,"date":"2010-08-13T06:53:04","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T06:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lettinggo\/2010\/08\/the-first-lesson-in-owning-your-own-life.html"},"modified":"2010-08-13T06:53:04","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T06:53:04","slug":"the-first-lesson-in-owning-your-own-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/08\/the-first-lesson-in-owning-your-own-life.html","title":{"rendered":"The First Lesson in Owning Your Own Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>QUESTION<\/b><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What&#8217;s wrong with knowing that someone or something outside of me is responsible for making me feel unhappy? <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div><b>ANSWER<\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Everything. There is no profit in blaming your painful position in life on other people or an uncaring world. This is the solution the false self wants you to swallow, because it knows that if it can get you to see life its way, then you will have no choice but to spend the rest of your life struggling with life. This is its conquest. First it blows you off course and then it gets you to blame ill winds. Its very existence depends on keeping you off balance and looking in the wrong direction.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Start seeing through the blame game by learning to let go of all the familiar but self-abandoning answers the false self wants you to believe in. Own your own life.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>QUESTION What&#8217;s wrong with knowing that someone or something outside of me is responsible for making me feel unhappy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,130],"tags":[2536,116,93,52,131],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letting-go","category-new-beginnings-fresh-start","category-pain-2","tag-balance","tag-blame","tag-choice","tag-pain","tag-self-reliance"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The First Lesson in Owning Your Own Life - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/08\/the-first-lesson-in-owning-your-own-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The First Lesson in Owning Your Own Life - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"QUESTION What&#8217;s wrong with knowing that someone or something outside of me is responsible for making me feel unhappy?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/08\/the-first-lesson-in-owning-your-own-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-13T06:53:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@guy_finley\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The First Lesson in Owning Your Own Life - Letting Go with Guy Finley","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/08\/the-first-lesson-in-owning-your-own-life.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The First Lesson in Owning Your Own Life - 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His ideas cut 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 Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. The Foundation's popular Key Lesson e-mails featuring inspirational quotes by Guy are read each week by a hundred thousand subscribers in 142 countries. Guy speaks four times each week on inner-life principles at Life of Learning Foundation's home in Merlin, Oregon. These meetings are ongoing and open to the public. 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