In Oprah’s Lifeclass tonight, she is moving into deeper water as she asks us to see the world differently. These POWERFUL lessons and case studies are here to help move us though our OWN lives and to see our world with a lightness and something greater than ourselves. Oprah asks us to consider our lives as something bigger than we could ever imagine…and to leave the weight of what holds us down in the past…and move forward with a lightness and an understanding that we fly…we can soar…. Don’t let the past hold you in the past. Let it go and be all that you are meant to be! Here are my notes… 

• Living your life now but still holding on to something from the past.
• Get over it. Let’s move on.
• Holding on to the past is one of the biggest detriments to actually living your best life.
• Case Study – 5 Sisters and their feud. Sisters at war with each other that appeared on Oprah back in 1993. The anger and hurt between the sisters is visible in the clip and the holding on to the past hurt and ‘wars’ between them are clearly stopping them from moving forward and from having any relationship with each other. The price paid of holding on to past hurt is too expensive. Find a way to let it go and move on. After 18 years, the sisters did come back together. It took one of their son’s dying to wake them up…to move them forward and past the past.
• Lesson: Anytime you get to a point where you call somebody out of their name – when you have to say or label them with “bitches” or “jerks” – it means that YOUR life now is out of control.
• Lesson: The only person you have control over is yourself. You can change how you see a situation, or remove yourself from it, but you cannot change the other person.
• Resentment – Feeling it over an over and over again vs. Forgiving = For Give. It doesn’t mean it’s OK, it means that we are moving forward. Understand that you can’t go back and re-do it. It’s already been done. Move forward. Don’t let the past define you and your relationships today.
• Move out of the past. Step out of the past and step out of the history and whatever happened to you and start living right now.
• Case Study – Surviving Adultery. During an Oprah Show interview with Gary Newman on Why Men Cheat. Gary notes that the majority said that men leave because of the way the other woman makes them feel. Unless the other person completely understands and shows remorse for what they’ve done, it’s really hard to get over adultery. Adultery is one of those things that women hold on to and it shows up in every area of your life. If you are in this situation, ask yourself “do you have emotional closure on it or not? Do you feel like you have communicated what this emotionally did to you?…Give yourself permission to deal with the issues…with what you feel inside.” (from Dr. Phil)
• Anytime you hold on to your past for anything or any area of your life, it will show up in your habits, your behavior, in how you treat others, how you feel about yourself, in your health – it has to come out in some form because it’s energy. It’s just energy and it has to come out.
• It’s not just about letting go of the past, it’s about the ultimate lesson as human beings – I am not my body, I am not my circumstances. I am not what everything looks like. What I really am is a higher level of being and consciousness that is a soul. My personality is not my soul. My personality is used to serve my soul.
• Understand – Our lives are bigger than what it looks like.
• Case Study – Ryan’s Story: The Soul Gift. Jody and Ira had twins…Ryan and Spencer – that looked perfect but they were tiny. Ryan didn’t survive. The mother asked, “How do I not let the loss and tragedy in my life take it over?” From Gary Zukov – “This is a matter of perspective – the perspective of the personality or the perspective of the soul. If you look at Ryan as a personality who lived for a few days and then encountered tragic circumstances and died, then you are looking from the point of view of a personality. If you look at Ryan as a soul – like yourself, like Ira, like Oprah, like me, like everyone on this earth – that left this earth when it chose, then you will have a different perspective. You will be able to see the gift that this soul offered to you during it’s short stay on the earth. You will reach a place in your life where you will be grateful that this soul chose to be with you for however short a time. If you do not, you will live your life in anguish thinking that a tragedy has occurred. Whenever you see your other son growing up, you will say, “Ryan should be here.” When he graduates from high school, you will say, “Ryan should have graduated.” When he finds his wife, you will say, “Ryan should be getting married too.” And through all of this time, you will be imposing on your other son a burden to carry because no matter what he does or how successful he is, he will be causing mommy pain. If you look at Ryan as a great soul …who voluntarily entered the earth school and voluntarily left it in order to be with you and to offer gifts then you will begin the process of fathoming and appreciating and becoming grateful for the power of the interaction that you had with that soul and you will be able to receive the gifts that that soul came to this earth to give you, to give Ira, to give to his siblings and if you do not, then you will be continually tunring away from those gifts. You will be denying the very wealth of wisdom and compassion that was offered to you by this soul.” – Gary Zukov
• Lesson: Glimpse the notion that you are bigger than your body and your personality. You are not your circumstances. You are a higher level of being and consciousness that is a soul.
• Think of life not in terms of just a body but in terms bigger than your body – soul…energy.
• Lesson: Life is much bigger than just a body. When you are grieving over the loss of a loved one…sense the presence of their soul, which is always with you, instead of the personality that is gone.
• “You can accept or reject the way you are treated by other people but until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them.” – Iyanla Vanzant
• The sooner you can let go of the past, the sooner you can get on living the rest of your life. If you don’t let it go, it becomes a barrier and prevents you from moving forward and being all you can be.