Just LET it GO!

Below is my second Toastmaster speech. Speech Number 2 – Organize your speech.

The main objectives for this speech are:

• Select an appropriate outline which allows listeners to easily follow and understand your speech.
• Make your message clear, with supporting material directly contributing to the message.
• Use appropriate transitions when moving from one idea to another.
• Create a strong opening and conclusion

Time: Five to seven minutes:

I am going to start the way as a psychologist once did while teaching stress management to an audience.

How heavy is this glass of water?

(Wait for answers)

The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.

According to Eckart Tolle, “We create and maintain problems because they give us a sense of identity. Perhaps this explains why we often hold onto our pain far beyond its ability to serve us.”

15 years later also I remember that one time when my grandparents made my mom cry. It’s like a reel in my mind playing again and again and again reiterating that one day. And its been 15 years that I haven’t talked to them. I have talked to them physically, but not emotionally. That emotional connect is missing.

Am I trying. Yes I am. Am I trying hard enough. May be not.

I am not trying hard enough to JUST LET IT GO!

So how do you let things go?

I am certainly not expert at this but here are few tips that have made it easier for me to let go.

1. Ask yourself helpful questions. Questions like: is this helping me or is it just some nonsense or something I’m reliving from the past? Or am I clinging to it because it’s what I have known for such a long time and it seems comfortable and safe even though it is holding me back?
2. Give up “being right”. Realize that you may cling to things because they might make you feel right as you replay an argument or conflict over and over in your mind. It gives you a certain sense of satisfaction as the other person is wrong. But you have to give up that kind of satisfaction to move on.
3. Let it go if it shows up again. In my experience it’s pretty common that what you let go shows up in your thoughts again. And that’s ok. Just let it go each time it shows up. After a while hopefully it will stop showing up.

We carry with us a lot of stuff. Not in our hands perhaps. But in our minds. It can become like we are carrying half the world on our back. Not very helpful. So we need to let go of things. Not only to move lighter and more freely. But also to be able to fully move forward in life.

To conclude I would like to quote Lao Tzu –

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”