Hey, what's up everybody? Listen, If you have not heard about anchor, it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me explain. Number one is free. Yeah, I got your attention now, right. Number two, there's creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Number three anchor will distribute your podcast for you. So it can be heard on Spotify, Apple podcast and many more. Number four, you can make money from your podcast. That's right. You can make money from your podcast with no minimum viewership. Number five is everything you need to make a podcast in one place. So right now download the free anchor app or go to anchor dot FM to get started. What's up everybody you are listening to the What now podcast where we discuss ways of effectively addressing life's most difficult moments.

Yeah, Okay. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the What now podcast. That's right. The What now podcast where we discuss discussed your discuss strategies and methods of facing life's most difficult moments. We understand that those moments are no longer difficult. They are defining moments because we took back the power we took back the authority we took back our right that was given to us by our creator, our creative expression that he designed for us are designed us for. We've taken that back and now we define those moments and understand that they are but for the shaping and molding of us and for the fulfillment of the purpose and design that God has for our lives. Thank you all for joining me again, My name is clinton petty john for the sake of the podcast. You can call me cliff.

I never really do this on here, but I know some people may not know who I am. I'm a purpose strategist, author, transformation coach and spiritual leader. All of that simply means I provide tools and strategies that transition you from a life of merely existing to living an abundant life full of purpose. Yeah, I want you living, I don't want you existing. I don't want you to be in a zombie just going through the motions. I want you to understand that there is life inside of you. You just have to be willing to free that life inside of you, which brings us to our subject for today. Okay, so I want to talk to you today about no longer allowing your past to hold you hostage and I know some of you might pause right there and said hold up cliffs. Hold up. Uh I'm over my past. I'm over my past relationship. I'm over my past situation ship. I'm over my past completely. I'm over my past job, my, my past career experience.

I'm over my past. Okay, I've given it up. I don't need to talk about it. I'm done with it, chill. You know what I'm saying? Just chill because sometimes it's not that we're finished with it. It's just that we have locked it in a box and we don't touch that box and every now and then there's some triggers that are set off in our lives that cause us to look at the box and cause those things inside of the box to scream out at us and we're not understanding why that's going on and the reality is it's going on because we compartmentalize that we put it in a box, we attempted to hold it hostage, not realizing that it was actually holding us hostage. It was actually holding us hostage. Now, Cliff, forget all that nothing is holding me back. I'm pursuing my purpose. I'm oh man, I'm gonna I'm I set my goals. I have my vision board. I do my affirmations, I'm helping people people's lives are being changed, that being impacted and from a ministry standpoint, I'm praying and seeing people healed, I'm praying and seeing people delivered.

I'm prophesying and watching those things come to pass, you know, all the things that we equate progression with instead of understanding that sometimes because perfect purpose is so powerful, that purpose will still progress. An attempt to pull us along and our past will still attempt to pull us backwards. How influential is your past on your present? How influential is your past on your ability to make move for your future now. I'm not talking about set of future because sometimes uh we have mistaken moving on from our past because now we can actually begin to see a bigger future. However. However, however, if we are not making moves now to produce a future that we can see then we are still held hostage to our past. If you will not allow yourself to be free in the relationship that you're in or you won't even allow yourself to pursue a relationship, then you are still being held hostage to your former either relationship or the former experiences that you've had with relationships.

Uh Cliff. I'm just being cautious because I'm not going to experience what I experience before or some of you may say I'm just being cautious because what if what if the person that I was with 10 years ago, 15 years ago, two years ago, two months ago. Makes up their mind and they realized they want to be with me. That I should need to be preserving myself and waiting for them. What what you need to be living your life. Mhm. Yeah. Are you thinking of selling or buying your dream home then? Contact Harrison. Dominic in the people's agent as a licensed realtor and both. Delaware and Merlin, Harrison desires to help you sell or buy your home. And he promises you that your experience with him will be great call Or text him today at 3022600659.

Or email him at Harrison dom market at g bell dot com. Yeah. Don't allow yourself to subject yourself to the thoughts, opinions and the move of others. Don't you stand still another day for somebody that will not stand still for you? Let it go. Let them go and progress progress, progress, progress, open yourself up to the possibilities that are connected with your purpose. Some of us there are possibilities that are connected to our purpose that we haven't opened ourselves up to. So we haven't experienced those things yet. And sometimes we get frustrated. We get angry. We're trying to figure out what it is that we need to do. The reality is that all we need to do is be open to the possibilities that are being presented to us. But we can't be open to those possibilities. If we keep allowing our past to hold us hostage?

Now let's talk about our past holding us hostage because of decisions we made. Even in the decision making uh processes. You have to free yourself from your past. You can't be afraid of making the quote unquote wrong decision. I know for me a lot of times I used to get stuck in not wanting to make the wrong decision. But I'm be honest with you a lot of times what has been defined as the wrong decision and man, because I didn't made some doozies. There's some decisions that I made that have been I mean, cliff. Are you serious? Like you really decided that like, you know, they say hindsight is 2020 or whatever. But the reality was you have to free yourself enough to understand I made the decisions. I lack the emotional intelligence at the time to make the right decision or a decision that I would have viewed as more beneficial for me.

However, I don't have to hold myself hostage to that and be afraid of am I gonna make the right decision this time? Because every decision you made position you to where you are now and some of you might say exactly cliff and that's why I don't want to make the decisions uh now because look at where I'm at now and I say look at what you, where you are now. Look exactly at where you are now, where you are now has presented possibilities that where you once were would have never presented those possibilities to you. It's just a matter of you opening your eyes to the opportunity instead of seeing where you are as a punishment. Instead of seeing where you are as a punishment, I have a webinar or a keynote address that I delivered to the black speakers network called what now, what now? What are we gonna do with our right now to produce the future that we desire. And one of the things I talk about is the reality of us if you're doing right now as punishment or us viewing right now as the definition of the yeah the definition of who we are and because we lock ourselves in that mentality and lock ourselves in that mindset we don't allow ourselves to be open to the opportunities that are present now to produce a future that's full of purpose.

You got to understand every decision you made position to you, position you to where you are now. You make one decision that's different or you alter one decision that you've made and it alters our shift the trajectory of your life, which means you may not be sitting here listening to me. So you needed that decision to be made. So you will be sitting here to listen to me to understand that you are greater than that decision that decision taught you. So what has it taught you really? Sit back and think about what it has taught you and don't give the right answer. Begin to dissect that that decision for the last time and begin to think about the principles, tools, techniques and strategies you pulled from that from that situation that has helped you along your journey in. What you might find out is that that's the decision that matured you. That's the decision that established you.

That's the decision that fortified you. That's the decision that showed you that you could stand alone because some of us have made decisions that left us alone and left us alone and it hurt. It broke us. It frustrated us. But guess what else it did. It made us begin to face ourselves and begin to address the issues that were within us. And then it showed us that we have the ability to stand alone because some of you did not believe that you can live without some of the people that you had in your life. So these decisions taught you that not only could you live without them, you can thrive without them and your life does not stop without them. However, we get through stages and seasons of our lives where we start to miss the experiences we had with them and instead of us connecting it with us, missing experiences, we connected with us missing them. And if you're not careful, you'll be focused on them.

And then before you know it, you've worked yourself in a fit. You went from being happy thinking about experiences with them, then you were sad. Now you're crying. Now you're angry. Now you're frustrated. You don't you're wondering why did I even be? Why was I even in a relationship with them? Why was I even in a friendship with them? Why did I even trust them? You start to revisiting all of those things and now you're hurt again. And honestly, once we do that, we can't blame anybody for our hurt because it is us that keep revisiting that hurt us, that keep making us experience that hurt all over again. So what are you saying cliff? I'm saying free yourself from your past. Don't let your past hold you hostage any more. Don't let it hold you hostage anymore as a part of your story, it is a part of your journey. It was a part of your process. You needed it. But now you need to let it go and I'm not talking about where you got just erased my man. Mhm. Yeah, Anthony baker Jr is the ceo of a nonprofit community organization called helping the homeless as an organization.

They are committed to changing lives and making other smile. In addition to providing hands on services for the homeless community all over philadelphia, they also have a big brothers mentoring program. Were participating. Youth are taught the value of giving back to their community to learn more about the organization call 2154878589 or email them at H T H Philly at gmail dot com. Yeah. Memory from it. Let the power and the influence and the authority that it has go, well Cliff. That's that's easy for you to say no, it's not just easy for me to say it's something that I had to come to grips with. And every now and then I have to find I find myself making decisions are afraid to make decisions because of situations that happen in my past.

Because of relationships with with in my past. I find myself attempting to allow myself to be held hostage to that who I used to be. Mhm. Because I own that thing now I own it. I used to not own it. I used to not take responsibility for it. I used to say, yeah, I made that decision because X Y Z. But x Y Z was not connected to me. But now I realize that I made that decision because there was a principal inside of me. That was something inside of my D. N. A Something inside of my makeup, something inside of my family line, something inside of me that connected me to making that decision. And seeing that decision as a decision that would benefit me or whoever was involved in that situation. I made the decision. I learned from the decision I paid for the decision that I made. And now it's time for me to progress and move on.

Don't be held hostage. Some of you out here looking for closure. And I've talked about this before. You're looking for closure. But to be honest with you, you're not looking for closure. You're looking for a conversation that's gonna just feed the hope that you have created in your mind, that it's not what you thought it was. And it could have been different. And since it could have been different, there's still a possibility that's not seeking closure. When you begin to seek closure, you begin to come to an understanding that I can have closure without them. I can have closure without an apology. I can have closure without a conversation. I can simply have closure by me being willing to let the situation go, let the relationship go, let them go, let whatever it is go. And I told I tell this story all the time. I did not know how um how much of a challenge it was for me to let things go and let people go and let situations go and let my experiences go and let myself go and grow.

I didn't understand how challenging that was for me until I found myself in a situation ship with with an individual and then there was another experience I had to with with a client that just could not seem to let it go to let them go and let themselves be free. It's not about them anymore, it's not about the situation anymore, it is about you becoming aggressive about everything that the creator has created you to do. It's called purpose. Love you enough, love your purpose enough, that the people connected you to you enough. I love the people that are connected to your purpose enough to free yourself and let you be you. As I always say, if you need help, you know, reach out text help to 30 to 6485544 and we can have a conversation or you can go to my website and purchase from stagnation of transformation that's going to give you a 21 day uh kickstart, you know towards living that transformed life to where you experience purpose, definition and abundance in areas of your life where you have experienced stagnation.

So from stagnation is transformation, you'll also get a complimentary portion of the book that I believe will get you hooked enough to purchase and make an investment into your now to produce the future that's connected to your purpose. As I always say, create a great day walk with purpose and by all means execute your vision and y'all let yourself go, let your past go, let them go and then you grow peace. Yeah, many people define stagnation as not producing or being at a standstill. I get it. However, I would like to add a little weight to the definition and say that I may be producing. I may be moving. However, my production and my movements are disrespectful to the purpose that's inside of me to the greatness that's inside of me.

If that's going on that stagnation as well. And that's okay. Guess why? Because I have developed a tool, I wrote a book called from stagnation and transformation. And that book was written specifically for individuals that feel stuck that feel lost, that feel like they're just wandering in the wilderness that feel like they just need something. It's just missing. It's okay. I want you to hit over to www dot clinton Pettijohn dot com forward slash transformation there. You're gonna find a complimentary portion of the book. That's right a complimentary portion of the book. I want you to read that portion after that, It's gonna ignite such a fire inside of you that you're gonna want to purchase the, your personal copy of from stagnation of transformation. So I want you to do that as well. Why? Because I believe that it will give you a 21 day jump start to fulfilling or re identifying purpose and whatever core area you find yourself stagnant in.

So again visit www. Dot clinton Pettijohn dot com forward slash transformation. Yeah. Yeah.