Modern Creator
Brenda Turner · YouTube

How To Let Go Of Your Past & Fly Free

A 19-minute monologue that opens with the claim you are already free — and builds a three-step path to actually feeling it.

Posted
1 years ago
Duration
Format
Talking Head
sincere
Views
11.1K
889 likes
Big Idea

The argument in one line.

The past only persists because the ego actively holds it here — choose peace once, and the present moment becomes the only place you are required to be.

Who This Is For

Read if. Skip if.

READ IF YOU ARE…
  • You are carrying old relationship pain or childhood trauma and cannot shake the inner narrative even though you intellectually know you should move on.
  • You are drawn to presence-based frameworks — Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, Buddhist mindfulness — and want a short, grounded application.
  • You have done plenty of thinking about your past and want explicit permission, plus a real-time exercise, to stop rehearsing it.
  • You are in a transition moment (end of year, post-breakup, post-job loss) and want a mental reset rather than a process.
SKIP IF…
  • You need clinical or trauma-therapeutic tools — this is a mindset and spiritual approach, not a psychological intervention.
  • You want research-backed mechanisms rather than a perspective-shift framework.
  • You find spiritually-inflected language (ego, wholeness, divine being) alienating rather than useful.
TL;DR

The full version, fast.

The past does not exist in the present moment — it is a story the ego volunteers to keep alive, and that voluntary act is the only thing holding it in place. The video offers three steps: choose peace as your unconditional priority, stop giving your past as an excuse to delay joy, and ask yourself what you would do today if you had no past at all. A guided release exercise in the final third asks viewers to let whatever pain or story simply sit without touching it, then ask whether they are willing to let it go. The answer matters less than the space that opens when the question is asked sincerely.

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Chapters

Where the time goes.

00:0001:02

01 · The premise — you are already free

Opens with the counterintuitive core claim: the past does not exist in the present moment, so you are technically already free of it. The only barrier is the ego voluntary grip.

01:0204:30

02 · The ego proclivity

Explains how the ego sustains the illusion of the past by pulling old stories into the present moment. Distinguishes between genuine grief (losing a sister) and the ego opportunistic grievance-holding.

04:3006:32

03 · Step 1 — Choose peace

First named step: make peace your unconditional priority. When peace is truly the number one value, the irrationality of holding grievances becomes obvious. Illustrated with personal story of spiritual awakening through extreme suffering.

06:3210:33

04 · Step 2 — Stop giving excuses

Second step: elect to stop using past stories as reasons to delay joy. Covers divorce, bullying, toxic parents, body-image stories — everything the ego recycles as present-moment currency.

10:3311:46

05 · Step 3 — If I was born today

Third step: ask what you would pursue, try, or be if you had zero accumulated past. Explains why people who awaken sometimes change their names — it externalizes the internal rebirth.

11:4616:05

06 · Guided release exercise

Real-time practice: let the story or pain simply sit without touching it, then ask could you let this go. The exercise is designed so even a no answer creates a felt sense of agency and possibility.

16:0516:57

07 · Dignity in the present moment

Frames the act of letting go as a function of self-respect — arriving here with dignity as a complete human being, untouched by what happened before.

16:5719:04

08 · Nervous system plus CTA

Closes with a note on yoga as physical complement to the mental practice — for those whose nervous systems still resist. Pitches Master Your Mind 30-day course at brendaturner.com/masteryourmind.

Atomic Insights

Lines worth screenshotting.

  • You cannot hand someone your past or prove it exists in this moment — its only presence is the story you are currently telling about it.
  • The ego thrives on patterns, and your grievances are patterns it has no incentive to dissolve on its own.
  • Choosing peace as your number one priority is not passive — it immediately reveals how irrational the alternative is.
  • Ninety-nine percent of deferred happiness traces to either a past story being carried forward or a future horizon being waited for.
  • The question if I was born today what would I pursue is more disruptive than any affirmation — it strips away every identity built on accumulated history.
  • You do not have to forgive someone to let go of the story you are telling about what they did.
  • Asking could I let this go opens a space of agency even when the honest answer is no.
  • People who change their name after a spiritual awakening are literalizing the act of releasing the accumulated self.
  • Holding onto a grievance adds nothing: no resolution, no progress, no growth, no money, no change — only the past in a present moment where it has no business being.
  • Nervous system regulation through yoga is the physical counterpart to the mental choice — the body needs to learn safety the same way the mind learns presence.
Takeaway

Freedom from the past is a choice, not a process.

WHAT TO LEARN

The only thing keeping a past story alive is a present-moment decision to keep holding it — and that decision can be reversed in the same instant it was made.

  • The past has no physical existence in this moment; its only presence is the story you are actively telling about it right now.
  • The ego sustains old grievances not because they serve you, but because pattern-maintenance is what the ego does — disrupting that requires a conscious choice, not time.
  • Declaring peace as your top priority is a clarifying act: it immediately reveals how irrational every competing grievance is by comparison.
  • The question if I was born today what would I pursue is more disruptive than affirmations because it bypasses identity rather than trying to overwrite it.
  • Letting a painful story simply exist without engaging it — without analyzing, defending, or dismissing it — is itself a form of release, not avoidance.
  • Asking could I let this go creates agency even when the answer is no; the space that opens around the question is where choice lives.
  • Holding onto a past grievance adds nothing measurable to your life: no resolution, no growth, no progress, and no change to the original event.
  • The body needs its own version of this work — nervous system regulation through movement teaches the physical self the same safety the mind is practicing mentally.
Glossary

Terms worth knowing.

Ego
Used here in the spiritual sense — the small, pattern-based self that identifies with stories, grievances, and accumulated history rather than the present moment. Distinct from the clinical psychology definition.
Paradigm
A fixed mental lens formed by repeated past experiences that shapes how you interpret new situations — often unconsciously.
Spiritual awakening
A rupture in the ego control, often triggered by extreme suffering, that creates a sudden felt recognition that the pattern-self is not the whole self.
Nervous system regulation
The process of training the autonomic nervous system — through practices like yoga — to default to a calm, safe baseline rather than a chronic stress or hypervigilance state.
Resources

Things they pointed at.

06:53channelEckhart Tolle
06:53channelThich Nhat Hanh
06:53channelRam Dass
Quotables

Lines you could clip.

00:43
You are already completely and wholly free of the past.
The core premise stated cleanly — works as a standalone hook with zero context needed.IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
13:55
I am willing to let this go and move the hell on with my life.
Emotionally complete escalation that lands on a decisive line — high share energy.TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
14:32
It is not giving you any resolution. It is not getting you progress. It is not changing anything. It is not growing you. It is not expanding you. It is not adding money to your bank account.
Stacked negatives with a punchy practical kicker — the money line earns the laugh.TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
05:05
Life is kinda laced with some booby traps sometimes.
Warm, disarming line that earns a smile and lowers defenses — good midroll re-hook.newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
The Script

Word for word.

Read-along

Don't just watch it. Burn it in.

See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.

metaphor
00:00Hey, everybody. Today, we're gonna talk about releasing your past, letting go of your past, and I'm gonna give you some exercises, maybe one or two, to help you completely let go of the past.
00:11As we live our lives, we are born, and then things happen in our childhood. We all have our goody bags of trauma that we hold on to, and those things get stuck into our psyche.
00:24Our brain kind of holds on to these things, and sometimes they even get stuck in our nervous system and the way that we interface with the world. And most of us have these paradigms that are then formed.
00:36We've got lenses that we're seeing the world through. We're seeing other people through these lenses, and we're seeing the world through these lenses. The good thing is it can take just an instant, just a moment, just a snap of the finger to let all of it go.
00:51You are already free of the past. You are in fact already completely and wholly free of the past.
01:01And so that is the premise of today's session, of today's episode. You are already completely and wholly free of the past.
01:11I know that there are things that have happened to all of us that are atrocious and unfortunate and terrible and painful, and there's a long thing long list of things that human beings, you know, we we, uh, we have this thing called life, and life is kinda laced with some booby traps sometimes.
01:32However, we also, all of us universally have something called complete and total freedom, period, and that is baked into the fact that we are always and forever given this present eternal now.
01:50There is nothing that exists outside of now. There is nothing that exists outside of now. There is nothing that exists outside of now.
01:59So you are already and always free of the past. If you really sit with it and you really let that in, it changes everything for you.
02:10There's nothing that in your life that won't change if you really let that in. You are untouched by the past. You're untouched by the future.
02:18You're letting go of the past. It's just a hair's breath away. This is anything that you believe is a reason for you to not be happy right now is nothing but a story that your ego is telling you.
02:33Now, I'm not saying that there aren't things that you might feel extreme pain and grief and sadness over. I lost my sister last year and I will forever be anguishing about the loss of my sister. So I'm not saying to not have emotions.
02:47There are certain things that are gonna elicit emotions, but I am talking about the ego's proclivity to holding on to things it doesn't need to hold on to purely for the sake that it separates you from your wholeness.
03:01Your ego, your little self, your small self, it loves to separate you from your wholeness because that keeps all those little patterns alive, and the ego really thrives off of patterns.
03:13The ego is just a set of patterns. So anything that you are believing that gives you a gives you a reason to feel less than joyful and peaceful in this moment.
03:28For instance, I was bullied when I was a kid. My parents were terrible. The divorce that I went through five years ago.
03:34I I I mean, could sit here and do this for an hour probably. I'm not gonna do this for an hour, but there's a long list of grievances that the ego will always have. There's an endless list of things from your past that your ego could bring into the present moment that just the only thing that it does is it keeps the past here, the illusion of the past.
03:54So very important, like I started the video with, there's only the illusion of the past. The past does not exist.
04:04You cannot show me the past. You cannot hand it to me. You cannot prove that it that it that it's real.
04:11As far as this present moment is concerned, it doesn't exist. Period. If you want to be happy, if you want to be joyful, if you want to be peaceful, if you want to be abundant, if you want to have healthy relationships, if you want to be the best version of you that you could possibly be, if you want to be more effective, if you want to be more productive, if you want to be more more anything, all of the virtues, all of the goodness, all of the sweetness, all of the joy, all of the all of the exuberance of life, it can only really happen if you let go of the past.
04:45And by let go of the past, I mean let go of your illusion of the past. Let go of holding on to this illusory thing that you're that you're just basically it's it's a voluntary kind of holding spot in your mind's eye that's just completely blocking your ability to just be you.
05:04And that's ultimately what I mean by letting go of the past. To let go of the past means to be totally and fully you in this moment. A quick example of this is my own story, my own story of I was living a lot of my adult life from my past, from pain, from trauma, from, um, societal expectations, from relationship chaos, from a lot of these things.
05:30It was like the past was building up one stack after the other after the other after the other after the other until eventually it broke me wide open to the spiritual awakening until I got to so much suffering that I couldn't stand it anymore, and I realized, oh my god. This is all this is not me. None of it.
05:48Not a single brick of of this nonsense has anything to do with me now in this moment. So I experienced what it would feel like.
05:56Just what would it feel like if I completely let go of all the stories?
06:02If I let go of the childhood trauma, if I let go of the the stories of my childhood, the stories of relationship drama, the stories of he did this, and the stories of why didn't I do that, and the stories and the stories and the stories and the stories that were just going on and on in my mind.
06:22And they're in the background, by the way. It's not, like, so overt. It's not, like, um, the most obvious.
06:29Sometimes it's hiding in the background there. So to let go of the past is a simple act of, number one, you have to choose peace. You have to choose peace over everything else.
06:39Another way to put this is you have to choose love over everything else. Love and peace are kinda synonymous for me. So you have to choose peace, you have to choose love over everything else.
06:50Do you or do you not want to be peaceful? Do you or do you not want to feel love in your heart? Do you or do you not want to experience what it's like, what all the great masters and teachers have talked about, what Jesus Christ and the Buddha and Achar Toll and Thich Nhat Hanh and Ram Dass and Maharishi and all the great teachers, all of them.
07:09Do you or do you not want to experience? Are you or are you not curious about what could it possibly be like to be joyful? What could it possibly be like to be free from the past?
07:18What could it possibly be like to just walk around and see, um, the love in another human being in just a split second?
07:27So do you or do you not want to experience that? That's step one is choosing peace. When I got to the worst part of my human suffering, um, when I was experiencing myself mostly as a as a sad, poor little me more than the soul of who and what I am.
07:47I came to the realization that I no longer want to suffer this way. I'm done with this.
07:54I can't. That was a spiritual awakening where I literally couldn't suffer anymore. I couldn't go any lower.
07:59I couldn't go any any more miserable, and I had to choose peace.
08:05So that's step one of of letting go of the past. You have to choose peace. That snaps you out of it.
08:11It snaps you right out of it because you realize when you say, okay, I choose peace. Peace is my number one priority.
08:19It makes it really clear how insane the other option is. Could you keep complaining about the divorce you had five years ago?
08:28Could you keep talking about what a narcissist that person is? Could you keep finding fault and blame and all the terrible things that they did? Of course.
08:38Yes. But don't you want to let it go? Wouldn't it be nice to just let it go and live your life and be joyful?
08:45Wouldn't it be nice to just let go of the of the unhealthy toxic parents that might have raised you and just lovingly let it go and just set it give it to the river and let the river take it?
08:59Wouldn't it be nice to let go of this of the schoolmates that bullied you and use and you forgive them with your whole heart completely and totally? And even if you don't forgive them, if you wanna if you wanna hold the the big fat grudge, that's fine too, but can you let go of the story?
09:15Can you let go of what it means to you? Can you just let it go? Can you give it to the river?
09:20Can you give it to the river that story that you're telling yourself that when you were 20 you were in perfect shape? Oh, I was in such great shape and now I'm not. Can you just let that go?
09:29Can you let go of can you just let it let go of the past? What I'm saying is, step two step two is elect to stop giving excuses and holding off your joy, period.
09:5399 of the time when we're holding off on joy, it's either something that we're holding off because we wanna wait for some future horizon or something from the past that's coming into the present moment.
10:07And many times, it's a confluence of both. But today, I'm gonna address just carrying stuff from your past into the present moment. Carrying your past into the present moment creeps into creeps into all that negative self talk.
10:21All of that I should and I shouldn't. All of that, all of the excuses of why you're not doing something. I'm not good enough.
10:29I'm not this enough. I'm not bad enough. Step three is asking if I if I was just born today.
10:36If I just was born today and I had no reference of the past and I had no stories and I had no baggage and I had no gripes and I had no judgments, what kind of life would I be living today?
10:51If I was completely free of the past, what kind of life would I be living today? What would I be pursuing? What would I try?
10:57What would be really cool to try today? What would be cool to wear today? What would be cool to talk about today?
11:04What would be cool to pursue today? If I was completely free of the past, what would I do? This is why a lot of people, um, have why a lot of people who have a spiritual awakening, they have a whole different name.
11:17They choose a whole different name because they're just letting go of all of it. They're just letting go of so much of the past, of all of it. So you don't have to change your name to do that.
11:28You just come to being reborn every moment that you're alive is a chance to be completely reborn, a fresh new moment.
11:38It's one of the most exciting things hidden hidden in plain sight that people just it's so easy to miss.
11:47In a simple practice, which is what we're gonna finish up with, a simple practice, I'd like to offer you a real time practice of can you come to the present moment now? In this present moment, right here and now.
12:04And can you just be as you are? And anything that's coming up, anything that's been blocking your joy, can you let that be here wholly and completely?
12:16Let the story be here. Don't touch it. Don't hold on to it.
12:21Let's not get our hands in there. Just leave your hands off of it. Let the story or whatever the excuse is or the pain or whatever it is.
12:29Just let it sit here for a minute. It's fine to let it sit here. Just let it be here for a minute.
12:35You don't even have to close your eyes. Sometimes I do close my eyes, but just let it be here for a minute. Whatever the story is, whatever the energy is, whatever the pain is.
12:44And now, could you just let it go?
12:50Could you let it go?
12:53Would you be willing to let this go just for now, just to see how it feels? Just ask yourself honestly, could I let this go? And even if the answer is no, you notice there's a space there that opens up, where there's a possibility, and it makes your heart beat a little fast.
13:12Wait a minute. I do have a choice here. I have a I have complete and total agency over the fact that I could let some of this go.
13:21Even if it's just a little bit right now, you could let some of it go. And then by the by, keep keep doing that. Am I let am I willing to let this be here?
13:33Whatever the this is. Whatever it is. That divorce, that family drama, that chaos, the state of the world, can I let my resistance to it be here?
13:46Can I just let this happen right now? Can I just let this be here? The painful memories, the sadness, the grief, can I let it be here?
13:53And then can I let it go? Am I willing to open my arms to the whole thing and just say, you're allowed to leave. I don't have to hold on to this anymore.
14:04I don't have to spend another minute of my life holding on to this, reliving it, judging it, making it wrong, making it right, regretting it, being being angry over it, whatever.
14:21I'm willing to let this go and move the hell on with my life. I'm willing to let this go because it's not doing literally anything to hold onto it.
14:34Nothing. It's not giving you any resolution. It's not getting you progress.
14:39It's not changing anything. It's not growing you. It's not expanding you.
14:44It's not adding money to your bank account. It's not doing anything besides bringing the past into the present moment where it has no business being. So let go of all of it, every ounce of it.
14:59Anything that doesn't serve you in this present moment that's from your past has no business being here, and you can let it go.
15:09If he cheated, let it go. Get him out of your life and let it go.
15:13If they fired you, let it go.
15:18It's got no business in the present moment. You have a new and better job on the way.
15:26If you had a health crisis or you're going through going through a health crisis, which is always not pleasant, I've I've gone through my own share of health crises.
15:38We can let go of the past and what it meant to have a health crisis. In the past, the health crisis equated to something, a bunch of stuff, hospital visits and all this, all the stories that came with it. But we can let go of the story.
15:51We can let go of the past. Let go of the past. Let go of the past.
15:56Let go of the past. We can just, we can bring ourselves to this present moment with a sense of dignity that is un that is untouchable by anything that's happened in the past.
16:09Having so much dignity in the present moment saying, as a divine, perfect, and whole human being, emphasis on the being, I am not touched by anything in the past because the past is not here now.
16:23And anything that maybe is a is happening now as a repercussion of something I did in the past, It is being healed now in the present moment as I am totally here now and completely free of the past. I do not need to relive my past pain to heal it.
16:39I can just arrive here now and notice that I am completely free of the past. I'd like to end today's session with a little bit on nervous system regulation and why I love yoga.
16:51There is, in fact, a nervous system aspect to all of this stuff. And if, as children, we were in environments that may be a little bit unsafe or a lot unsafe or a little bit chaotic or a lot chaotic, or maybe our adulthood has a lot of stress and chaos in it. Um, yoga can train the nervous system to be calm and to be centered and to be peaceful.
17:14So if after that little exercise of releasing did not even it it's enough.
17:22Like, I am I am 99% positive that that is enough to get anybody to liberation from the past is to consciously choose to let go of the past and come into the present moment.
17:35I know that it's enough because that's all there is. Because we are all literally that is inherent in our abilities.
17:42However, if you are still resisting that letting go and you're still having a little bit of a hard time fully releasing, I I highly recommend you get to yoga.
17:55Going to an actual class in person, being surrounded by that beautiful energy can be very healing to the body. I'm gonna close today's session by letting you know I have a whole suite of courses, and one that would be really helpful for this kind of thing is the Master Your Mind course.
18:12That's a thirty day intensive that guides you through a mindfulness state of being and brings you to the present moment here and now constantly. And it's a way to help you to release and let go of unhealthy mental patterns.
18:28So if you'd like to check check that out, it's at brendaturner.com/shop. There's also some other courses and programs available at brendaturner.com/shop. Also, I've got a whole bunch of tools and resources on brendaturner.com, so you can check out my website for more information.
18:45Let's all let go of the past as we're at the end of the year now, so it's apropos to let go. So let's all collectively let go of the past and step into something so much better. It's unimaginable how good your life can get when you let go of the past.
19:01So I'll see you guys in the next episode. Bye, everybody.
The Hook

The bait, then the rug-pull.

The premise lands before the first minute is up: you are already completely and wholly free of the past. Not through work, not through healing, not through time — right now. What Brenda Turner does for the next eighteen minutes is dismantle the only thing keeping that from feeling true.

Frameworks

Named ideas worth stealing.

06:32list

Three Steps to Releasing the Past

  1. Choose peace as your unconditional priority
  2. Stop giving excuses that hold off your joy
  3. Ask: if I was born today, what would I do?

Sequential decision-making framework for dismantling ego-sustained past stories. Steps 1 and 2 are motivational reframes; step 3 is an imaginative disidentification exercise.

Steal forAny mindset or self-development content that needs a simple repeatable sequence
11:46model

Let It Be Here Then Let It Go

Two-phase guided release: (1) allow the pain or story to be present without engaging it, (2) ask whether you are willing to release it. The willingness question is the mechanism — even no creates felt agency.

Steal forLive coaching sessions, guided meditations, workshop openers
CTA Breakdown

How they asked for the click.

VERBAL ASK
18:06product
I have a whole suite of courses, and one that would be really helpful for this kind of thing is the Master Your Mind course — that is a thirty day intensive.

Soft, congruent close after the nervous system note. Feels like a natural extension of the session content rather than a gear-shift sales pitch.

MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
Storyboard

Visual structure at a glance.

open + title card
hookopen + title card00:00
ego explanation
valueego explanation01:02
step 1 — choose peace
valuestep 1 — choose peace04:30
step 3 — born today
valuestep 3 — born today10:33
guided exercise
valueguided exercise11:46
CTA — course
ctaCTA — course18:06
Frame Gallery

Visual moments.

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