On a rare Saturday night when I had the house to myself, I decided to treat myself to a THC & Lion’s Mane-infused beverage and listen to David R. Hawkins’ Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. Just a few minutes into the foreword, I was utterly stunned. By the time I hit 1 hour and 16 minutes—still before the second chapter—I was in hysterics, sitting on my couch in pajamas at 7 PM, laughing without stopping. I had found the funniest book on the planet.

A few hours later, a friend said to me me, “It’s not a funny book. It’s David Hawkins’ very deep shit.” Sure, the THC & Lion’s Mane probably contributed to my laughter, but in the days and weeks since, I’ve realized that his book really is hilarious—in its simplicity, its bold directness, and the sheer ease of the discovery it offers.

Let me share why I still find Letting Go utterly hilarious—and the experiment I invite you to run in your own life.

The foreword, written by Fran Grace, PhD, states:

“What convinced me of the truth of his work, ultimately, were the transformations in my own physical and nonphysical consciousness. There were empirical facts I could not deny: healing from an addiction that had been impossible to overcome despite many sincere attempts; freedom from allergies; letting go of long-standing resentments; alleviation of lifelong fear and anxiety; resolution of inner conflicts related to self-acceptance and life purpose.”

I remember thinking, How could all this change fit in this one book? I was hooked.

The very next paragraph contains this bold statement:

“Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender provides the roadmap to a freer life for anyone willing to make the trip. Your life will be changed for the better if you apply the principles described in this book. They are not difficult to understand or implement. They cost nothing. They require no special attire or exotic travel. The major requirement is willingness to let go of attachment to your current experience of life.”

I sat up straight, sipping my beverage with wide eyes, waiting for what was to come next.

I imagined something gut-wrenching, complicated, nearly impossible to accomplish—something requiring a medical degree or enlightenment beyond my reach. Surely it would take all 347 pages or over 12 hours of listening to describe this life-changing method, which would probably take a lifetime to master.

That night, having the whole evening to myself, I was ready to listen, take notes, and study with the hope of experiencing just a fraction of what the book promised.

Hilariously, Hawkins spends two full pages in the introduction listing all the ways we try to alleviate pain and stress—methods so familiar I giggled. I’d tried so many, yet I was still stressed and anxious. How bizarre and frustrating that at 50 years old this was still true.

He writes about the great sages who achieved enlightenment through years of effort, then asks, “What about the average person who isn’t a spiritual genius?”

“Yes! What about her?” I thought.

He says:

“What’s in the book? It tells of a simple method to reach great clarity and transcend your problems along the way. Not by finding answers, but by undoing the basis of the problem. The state of the great sages is available; the solutions are within us and easy to find. The mechanism of surrender is simple and the truth self-evident. It works during daily life. There is no dogma or belief system. You verify everything for yourself, so you cannot be misled.”

Wow! I thought, how does he fit this powerful tool into a small book? Twelve hours should be barely enough to explain it all.

Then he says something even bolder:

“It works for the cynic, the pragmatist, the religionist, and the atheist. It works for any age or culture. It works for the spiritual and the non-spiritual alike.

“Because the mechanism is your own, nobody can take it away. You are safe from disillusionment. You will discover for yourself what is real and what are mind programs and belief systems. While this happens, you become healthier, more successful with less effort, happier, and more capable of real love.”

Who makes such wild claims? I laughed. This book was utterly bonkers and I was still in the introduction.

I double-checked—David R. Hawkins really has a PhD and an MD. How was this book not a bestseller? Maybe it was brand new?

Funny.

This all felt utterly impossible, bizarre—and of course, hilarious.

Sure the THC & Lion’s Mane had kicked in. But I’d like to think I would have been just as stunned and eager to hear more without it.

And then, in what I believe is the funniest paragraph in history, he says:

“This book is written with you constantly in mind. It is easy, effortless, and enjoyable. There is nothing to learn or memorize. You will become lighter and happier as you read. The material will automatically start bringing you the experience of freedom as you read through the pages. You are going to feel weights being removed. Everything you do will become more enjoyable. You are in for happy surprises about your life! Things will get better and better!”

A wild statement from a book published by a major publisher—not some self-published hack job —promising that just reading the book would vastly improve your life.

The beverage and I buckled our seatbelts, eager to see what came next. This was a bold and wild claim. We were ready, giggles and all.

On page 19, Hawkins begins to describe how to do this method. A mere three paragraphs later, he stops describing. You heard me right, in only three paragraphs, he describes this life-changing method, the method he claims will automatically start working and will make you move successful and happy. Too good to be true? Not at all. I have found this simple method so wildly helpful, so brilliant in its simplicity and so utterly remarkable that I can’t stop talking about it.

Here is the method, described in three paragraphs in his words.

“Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it. The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, venting it, fearing it, condemning it, or moralizing about it. It means to drop judgment and to see that it is just a feeling. The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. It is resistance that keeps the feeling going. When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling, it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates.

“As you begin the process, you will notice that you have fear and guilt over having feelings; there will be resistance to feelings in general. To let feelings come up, it is easier to let go of the reaction of having the feelings in the first place. A fear of fear itself is a prime example of this. Let go of the fear or guilt that you have about the feeling first, and then get into the feeling itself.

“When letting go, ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts. Thoughts are endless and self-reinforcing, and they only breed more thoughts. Thoughts are merely rationalizations of the mind to try and explain the presence of the feeling. The real reason for the feeling is the accumulated pressure behind the feeling that is forcing it to come up in the moment. The thoughts or external events are only an excuse made up by the mind.”

That quiet Saturday night, as the beverage kicked in, I paused the book.

Having expected 12 hours of instructions, I was stunned to find the invitation to try it myself had arrived well before my bedtime.

So I did.

I accepted the invitation.

I closed my eyes and looked my feelings straight in the face.

I wish I could remember the first one. But I know I looked at it briefly—and it let go of me. Just like that.

And I laughed.

What had been bothering me was simply gone.

In its place came another thought, connected to another feeling.

I looked at that one—and it quickly let go too.

And I laughed again. What had been a real blocker was now simply nothing.

It had let go of me.

This was what David R. Hawkins described but in my experience I was not letting these feelings go, they were letting go of me. I wasn’t doing anything other than feeling the feelings. When they were done being felt, they were gone along with all of the stuff that comes with them. And now I see they weren’t gone, they were simply back in alignment. Like a dislocated shoulder, they stopped getting my attention and taking my energy because they came back home.

Many feelings arrived in the form of a thought, I simply felt the feeling connected to that thought and when I spent time with them and felt them, they became a part of me I didn’t feel was uncomfortable or noticeable anymore.

Thoughts and the feelings that danced around them lined up in front of me like people waiting in line to use the bathroom at a concert—patiently (or perhaps not so patiently) waiting their turn. One by one, I felt them, and they relieved themselves.

Sometimes I let one relieve itself and then, others ran away with it. Like a group of tweens, traveling in a pack. One was done with me and the rest left with it.

I laughed and laughed.

Some of my laughter was inspired by how big those problems had seemed, and how small they really were. Like the warning on car mirrors: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. I realized that feelings when felt are smaller than they appear.

This went on for quite a while before the feelings I sat with brought tears—tears of joy, pain, grief, relief.

I won’t write more about that night because I now see the beauty in the experience itself. As Hawkins says, “you don’t need dogma or belief systems. You get to learn for yourself.” That’s all I want for you. Learn for yourself, not from me.

This is my invitation to you: simply experiment with feeling about your feelings. Allow your thoughts, allow your feelings. Feel the feelings you have, fully, until they pass.

My ideal scenario? You read these simple instructions, close your eyes, and start feeling about your feelings. You follow this experiment and find all of the answers available to you.

If you would like more, or to do this with other join me to run your own experiments. We meet weekly, we gather on MarcoPolo, we run experiments, we talk about our evidence. This powerful tool works well when you’re alone, when you’re in a crowd and, for some mysterious reason seems easier to access with a group. I hope to see you on a call soon.

Check out the info below on the difference between The Experiment and David Hawkins’ Letting Go Technique.