In Verbal Communication Skills, we have to give four different speeches this semester: persuasive, informative, demonstrative, and inspirational. For my persuasive speech, I laid out the argument that Tiger Woods will never catch Jack Nicklaus, much less win another major. So far, I look like a genius. For my informative speech, I talked about the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, the non-profit organization of which my wife is a part. Pulmonary Fibrosis (PF) killed the father-in-law I never got to meet, and the disease kills just as many people each year as breast cancer. Yet no one has ever heard of PF.
My demonstrative speech was a fun one. I showed my classmates how to tie a tie for important life events like a wedding or a job interview. But when it came time to deliver an inspirational speech, I really struggled to find the right topic. I wanted to talk about something that I could relate to without coming off as preachy or even corny. I hope, in some small way, that I was able to do that. Here is my speech:
Today, I’m here to inspire you to let go of your past. Many of you know that I got married in the fall. But it wasn’t my first marriage. I got married a few years ago; it didn’t work out, and I got divorced. I’m not proud of that. I wish that marriage had never happened. But I can’t change the fact that it did, and now, I consider it a blessing. How many of you have done something or have a past you’re not really that proud of? I know I have! Every one of us here today has a past. It’s part of what makes us who we are. It’s there to instruct us. It’s there to inform us. But it doesn’t have to define us. You can break the cycle!
Psychotherapist and hypnotherapist Peter Field says making the decision to face and then separate yourself from your past can be the most difficult part of the process. The first step is to recognize it’s time to let go. Only you have the power to let go of your past. My new wife and I don’t ignore what happened to us in the past or our previous relationships, but we agreed a long time ago to take each other at face value. Famed Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once wrote, “I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” What a profound statement about taking ownership! Field says, “Your past is something you’ve paid for. It’s something you own. And so you can do whatever you want with it, including letting it go. The longer you keep suppressing it, the longer it will keep haunting you.”
The next step is to acknowledge the emotions associated with your past and to let go of any anger and resentment. Look, pain is there to inform us. Field says it’s a message from our profound, inner selves urging us to do something about it and to heed its message, learn its lesson, and move on. But anger and resentment are toxic. Anger is the name of the emotion we feel when we perceive unfairness. We all process anger differently, some of us louder than others, but leaving your anger and resentment behind can be freeing. Field says anger has a tremendous energy and has a powerful kinesthetic element to it. The last step is letting go of the guilt. If anger is the name of the emotion we feel when we perceive unfairness, then guilt is the feeling we get when perceive our own unfairness. Field says it’s the emotion we experience when we sense we’ve violated our own inner ethical code or have gone against our conscience – our sense of right and wrong.
But the greatest step of all and the key to a more peaceful, balanced, and meaningful life moving forward is forgiveness. It’s in our own best interest – and it’s healthy – to forgive ourselves and to forgive others. Forgiveness wipes the slate clean. It’s biblical to forgive. The word forgiveness is mentioned in the New International Version of the Bible exactly 14 times. It may be that forgiveness is actually most beneficial for ourselves. Danish statesman Dag Hammarskjold may have put it best when he said, “Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, and what is soiled is made clean again.” Field says forgiveness is an eraser to anger and guilt. You can leave the past behind, live your own life, and choose your own destiny.
So, to conclude… I hope I’ve inspired you to let go of your past or at least consider it. Only you have the power to let go of your past, but first you have to face it, and then you have to forgive. I’d like to leave you with the following quote. It’s by writer and runner Jean-Paul Bedard. It reads, “Our story is our past, and our past is our story. Much of the hurt we carry around with us is a stowaway from our past – our inability to let go of what was in order to grasp hold of what now is.” I challenge you to live your life through the windshield and not the rearview mirror. It’s time to let go.
Well done.