Tonight's Speech

This is the speech I mentioned in my last post and promised to post for you. I delivered this speech this evening at my Toastmasters meeting. I now have given 6 of the 10 speeches towards my Advanced Communicator Silver award, so need to give 4 more and do 2 Educational presentations from a certain program. I am scheduled to do one of them in 3 weeks from tonight.

Always 2 Choices

8-10 minute speech…. Advanced Manual: Specialty Speeches…. Project 2: Uplift the Spirit

When you’re feeling down, what do you do to lift your spirits up again? When you are unhappy with your life, what do you do about it?

Madam Toastmaster, Fellow Toastmasters, Welcome Guests

Being happy always came naturally to me, for the most part, so it was a big surprise when depression started to take its hold on my life. A surprise I didn’t have any idea how to deal with. It comes, or so I’ve been told, as part of the package when you have Fibromyalgia, and for me it sure did. Suddenly the bubbly, quick to laugh, happy-go-lucky girl was gone… replaced by a dark, depressed woman who just wanted to stop the world and get the heck off. I don’t really know why I never ended my life… I sure thought about it a lot. I think it must have been my animals that kept me alive because, if I was gone who would look after them? They needed me. Whatever the reason, I am very glad I didn’t do anything ‘stupid’.

Anti-depressant medication from my doctor helped me to cancel those trips to that deep, dark, scary place where very nearly all of my thoughts were of leaving the earth. A really good step in the right direction, though they didn’t return me to a healthy, happy place. That was something I had to do myself. It involved making some choices.

I had some ‘basics’ to work with now that I was in a place where I was able to do the work. I had previously attended the Okanagan Centre for Spiritual Living and had learned a lot there that came to good use in my ‘recovery’, and eventually I made the choice to return to the Centre. It was like a coal that has been out of the fire too long and is almost burned out, returning to the fire and being relit, rekindled. The spark became a flame, then a fire in my life. I felt myself “waking up” actually returning to the living and leaving the dead behind. As the spark grew to fire, so I became more involved with giving of my time, talent and treasure at the Centre. I took on volunteer jobs, then became a member of the Board and as the Centre helped me to grow and prosper, I now am able to help it to grow and prosper. Whenever there is a class offered there, I choose to take it. These classes are all a very important part of my growth process and my return to a happy, healthy life… as are many great books I am blessed to have read.

Here is the tip of the iceberg of things I have learned:

1- We are all responsible for our own ‘stuff’, and at some level we create all that happens to us. This one is very big to swallow, and very big to really understand, and yet I know it is the truth. I now take responsibility for my happiness and joy in life. No one can make me happy, no matter what he/or she does or doesn’t do, if I do not choose happiness. And by the same token, no one can make me sad, angry or unhappy, unless I choose those feelings. In the thick of things, I sometimes forget that I have these choices, and I feel sad, or even start slipping back into depression, though now as soon as I realize what is happening, it is easier to make the needed changes in my thoughts… and it is the thoughts we think that create our feelings. When I think negative thoughts, I soon experience negative feelings. Yet when I think positive, uplifting thoughts, I experience the joy, happiness, love & self love that come with them. So, does this mean I constantly have to be watching every thought I think? Each of the thousands of thoughts I have each day? No, not at all. I simply have to be aware of my feelings as they will tell me what kind of thoughts I am having, and I can adjust the thoughts accordingly. I have 2 choices. I can think positive thoughts, or I can think negative thoughts. I choose positive!

2- What other people think of me is none of my business. Well, okay I admit that I do still like to hear the positive, uplifting comments, though I do not want to hear any more of the negative putdown type comments. I’ve heard more than enough in my lifetime. I took them on and believed them, letting them affect my life, now I choose not to do that any more. I didn’t know I had the choice!! Now I do!! I am open to hearing some ‘constructive input’, some ‘positive feedback’, because with these I can make improvements. (For example, with a well done evaluation I can present a better speech next time). Constructive criticism, however, is still criticism; it’s just that the criticizer is dressing it up to appear as though they are ‘helping’. If I listen to others tell me what is wrong with me, or what I ‘should’ have done because what I did do wasn’t good enough, then I will end up thinking about what they said… those thoughts will create corresponding feelings… and I don’t want those feelings to be a part of my life any more. I have 2 choices. I can listen to negative input, or I can choose something better. I choose something better!

3- Thoughts are things. Thoughts create your emotion, and thought + emotion = experience. They create our belief systems which are the basis of what we attract into our lives. We draw to us experiences that confirm our beliefs. I thought that I had no worth; that I was unlovable, and I attracted many experiences into my life that confirmed this for me. I chose to ‘do the work’; I chose to ‘change my thoughts and change my life’. Now when I think about how I am valued and loved, I draw to me experiences that confirm my new thoughts, my new beliefs. Again… I have 2 choices!

4- Gratitude is vitally important! What we focus our attention on grows. So, when we focus on what we want, what we don’t have, then we get more of wanting things we don’t have. When we focus our attention on Gratitude for what we DO have, then what we have grows! If you complain you get more to complain about, if you are thankful, you get more to be thankful for. It is very simple really, and it is called the Law of Attraction. Again, 2 choices, & I choose gratitude.

I can see now that the ‘depression period’ of my life was part of my growth process. It was something I had to go through to get to where I am today. It is what a friend used to call an ABGO… (Another Blessed Growing Opportunity). It was a terrible time in my life, and yet I am grateful for it as well as for all the other experiences I’ve had in my life. They have all helped to make me the woman I can now be proud to be.

I always have 2 choices. So do you!!

Madame Toastmaster.

This is how it is written. When it is delivered to the audience, we never just read it, so it never is given word for word, though close is good. No one knows if we say the 'wrong thing' except us, as no one sees the written speech except us. I do, however, attach my speech into my manual after presenting it and getting the evaluation. This way I can look back at it all together in future if I want to.

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