Six years ago I was stuck. Low mood, going through the motions, further from myself than I realised.
Three books pulled me out of it. Not therapy, not a course, not a coach. Just three books, read at the right moment, that changed how I see everything and, more importantly, gave me something to actually do about it.
Here is what they taught me, and how I still use all three, every single day.
TL;DR
Before kids, I quit my job and went travelling for six months. Meditation and looking inward changed how I saw life. Then I had two kids, let the inner work go, and six years later I was stuck and low. I went back to it and found three books: Letting Go taught me how to stop holding onto negative feelings that were never mine to keep. Truth vs Falsehood taught me that my perspective is not reality, and that seeing people and situations honestly is what actually sets you free. The 5am Club taught me how to turn both of those into a daily practice instead of an idea I only remembered when things got bad.
In this article
The Six Years I Lost Myself
Before I had kids, I quit my job and went travelling for six months.
Somewhere in those six months, meditation and looking inward instead of outward changed how I saw everything. I came home wanting to experience life, not just live it.
Then I had two kids. I threw myself into being a parent. The inner work, the meditation, the yoga, all of it fell away while I focused on them.
About six years later, I was stuck. Low mood. Going through the motions. Further from that person I had become while travelling than I even realised.
Why I Went Back to the Work
I decided to go back to it. Back to meditation and looking inward, trying to reach a higher level of happiness, get back to enjoying life, and let go of the ego that had built back up.
I did not have a plan. I just knew the version of me who had looked inward once before had been happier, calmer, and more himself than the version stuck on autopilot.
That is when I found these three books. Not all at once. One led to the next, and each one solved a problem the last one left behind.
Book 1: Letting Go, The Pathway of Surrender
Letting Go by David R. Hawkins is the book that changed my whole perspective on life.
The big thing it gave me was a way to put my thoughts and feelings into actual context, and then let them go, without it being a huge ordeal every time. It made working on myself something I could do daily, not something I had to psych myself up for.
The idea underneath it is simple, but it took me a while to really feel the truth of it. Your negative thoughts and feelings are not you. They are not something you have to defend, obey, or carry around all day. They are there to help you survive, to warn you, to protect you, but they were never designed to make you happy. Once I understood that, I could stop treating every difficult feeling as a verdict on who I am, and start treating it as something to notice, feel, and release.
Most of us deal with a difficult feeling in one of three ways, and none of them actually work. We suppress it and push it down, where it leaks out later as tension or a short temper. We vent it and act it out, which feels like relief but actually feeds the feeling and brings it back stronger. Or we escape it, distracting ourselves with anything that is not the feeling, while it just sits there waiting.
Letting go is the fourth option. You notice the feeling. You let it come up instead of pushing it down. You go to where you feel it in your body, not the story in your head about who did what. You let it be there, without trying to fix it or talk yourself out of it. And you stay with it until the energy behind it runs out, because it always does.
The part that changed things most for me is what comes after the letting go: reframing. Once a negative thought has been felt and released instead of fought, there is space to consciously choose a more positive one in its place. That is the whole practice, on repeat, every day. Feel it, release it, welcome something better in. Do that enough times and you stop feeling weighed down by things that were never yours to hold onto in the first place, and you start to feel free enough to take the risks you actually need to take in order to grow.
I go into the full technique, step by step, in a dedicated post: How I Let Go of Negative Thoughts and Feelings Every Day.
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The second book put life into real context for me.
Truth vs Falsehood, also by David R. Hawkins, helped me see that I was viewing the entire world through my current perspective, and that my current perspective is not my soul, and it is not reality. It is just where I happen to be standing right now, shaped by my mood, my history, my fears.
Here is the part that changed how I treat people. Once you actually do the work of letting go and releasing the negative, your perspective naturally moves closer to the truth of reality. And a big part of that truth is this: people cannot help the way they are. They are, in a real sense, programmed, by their upbringing, their experiences, their unexamined fears. It is not their fault. Our job, if we want to help them, is to help them see that through honesty, not through judgement.
That is why I try to have honest, deep conversations with people every day now. I know that helping someone see the truth, that whatever they are struggling with is not some unchangeable fact about who they are, is one of the most useful things I can offer anyone. Once people let go of the negative, their perspective shifts, and they start to see through the false realities they have been carrying: the fear, the worry, the sense of not being good enough. All of it is a false reality, built on an old perspective, not on what is actually true.
The truth is simpler than the fear makes it sound. You are enough as you are. You do not need anyone else to make you happy but yourself. And the more you do this work, letting go, seeing clearly, the more that stops being a nice idea and starts being something you actually feel to be true.
I go deeper into this, and how I use it in real conversations, in a dedicated post: Why "Not Good Enough" Is a False Reality.
See the Letting Go Technique in Practice
This walkthrough breaks the surrender technique from the first book down into practical steps. Worth watching alongside reading it.
Book 3: The 5am Club
The first two books changed how I saw things. The third one, The 5am Club by Robin Sharma, is what actually turned that into a daily practice instead of a good intention.
The big takeaway is deceptively simple: set aside an hour a day to work on yourself, ideally first thing in the morning, because that is when you are most focused and least pulled at by everyone else's demands on your time.
For me that means getting up at 6 or 6:30am and doing twenty minutes of meditation focused on letting go, twenty minutes of yoga, and twenty minutes reading books that help me personally grow. That one hour sets the whole day up. It means I go into the day able to live more authentically, instead of being quietly held back by negative thoughts that were never even true in the first place.
What this book actually gives you is an environment and a routine to practise the other two books in. Letting Go gives you the technique. Truth vs Falsehood gives you the perspective. The 5am Club gives you the structure that makes sure you actually do it, on the days you do not feel like it as much as the days you do.
It is much like going to the gym. The value is not really in any single session. It is in the routine itself, done consistently, that slowly builds patterns that are positive instead of patterns that are negative. Some mornings I cannot manage it, and on those days I do it before bed instead. Even twenty minutes of meditation focused on letting go, at the end of a hard day, is enough to keep the practice alive.
I break my actual morning routine down properly, hour by hour, in a dedicated post: The Morning Routine That Actually Changed My Life.
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Contact MeWhere I Am Now
I am not finished. Nobody using this stuff ever really is.
But I am not stuck the way I was. Letting go stops me holding onto what was never mine to keep. Truth vs Falsehood keeps me seeing people, including myself, honestly instead of through fear. And the 5am Club makes sure both of those are things I actually practise, not just things I believe in theory. The more I do this work, the more I want to give instead of take.
That is why this site exists. Free weekly tips on the things these books taught me, a blog with longer pieces when I learn something worth sharing, and a direct line if you want to talk something through. No pitch, ever. If you want the full version of how I got here, it is on my about page.
Common Questions About These Books
What order should I read Letting Go, Truth vs Falsehood, and The 5am Club in?
I read them in that order and it worked well for me. Letting Go gives you a practical technique you can use immediately. Truth vs Falsehood deepens your perspective once you have that foundation. The 5am Club then gives you the daily structure to actually practise both, instead of them staying good ideas you read once and forgot.
Is the Letting Go technique actually simple to use?
The idea is simple. Doing it consistently is the hard part. It took me weeks of practice before it started to feel natural, and I still do not always manage it.
Do I have to actually wake up at 5am for the 5am Club to work?
No. I get up at 6 or 6:30am, not 5am, and it still works. The exact hour matters far less than doing it before the day pulls your attention in ten directions, and doing it consistently. If mornings genuinely do not work for you, doing the same hour before bed is a real fallback, not a failure.
Do these books involve muscle testing or measuring consciousness?
Hawkins' wider work (Letting Go and Truth vs Falsehood) includes muscle testing and assigning numbers to states of consciousness. I do not use or teach that part. I use his ideas about letting go and seeing clearly as tools, not as a measurement of anyone. The 5am Club does not involve any of this, it is a purely practical routine book.
Are these books religious or tied to a specific faith?
No. They draw on spiritual ideas but do not require any particular belief system. I am not religious, and I found them useful anyway.
Do I need a coach or therapist to use what is in these books?
No, though if you are dealing with something serious, trained professional support is worth having alongside this, not instead of it. I am not a trained coach or counsellor myself, just someone sharing what helped. You can read more about that on my about page, or get in touch if you want to talk it through.
Written by Harry
Not a trained life coach or counsellor, just sharing what has helped me on my own journey. For more free guides on confidence, self-belief and letting go, visit the blog. To read the full story, see the about page.