Your Past Does Not Define You

You can be healed. Your past does not define who you are today – so don’t let it.

Toni Cooper and her husband had plummeted to what seemed like the lowest point in their lives. They had lost almost everything due to financial difficulties – including their own home. They were depressed. So, Cooper decided to re-define her situation and her life. She decided to seek out help, to seek out answers – to seek out change.

It was at the encouragement of her family members that Cooper signed up to become Ziglar certified so that she could define her own life and the lives of those around her with Ziglar information. So she could get back on her feet, re-define and restart her life.

“I had no idea what I was about to experience.”

The event was unlike anything she had ever been around. It was buzzing with “energy [Cooper] had never experienced before”. People were hugging her, they were excited to be there with her – they were full of life, energy and happiness. They were there to define themselves and their own lives with joy, and to help Cooper do the same. Cooper was “not a hugger”. Yet, she accepted the hugs. She accepted the love. She accepted the change. She accepted what she was presented so that she could learn how to re-define her life – to define it with happiness, with acceptance so she could seek success, personally and professionally. Generally a private person, Cooper suddenly found herself talking to people and sharing things she had never shared before.

Cooper felt like a different woman – but that was until she spoke with Julie Ziglar Norman. Something, no – everything, inside of Cooper told her she needed to speak with Norman. So she did. She shared her experiences with Norman, she talked about a decision she had made fifteen years prior that had changed her life without even realizing it. Had defined her life. Norman encouraged Cooper to halt her life, to halt her business, to halt everything and get right with God. To heal. To find her real self. So, that is what Cooper did.

From January to April, Cooper attended a Bible study that “was the most intense Bible study” she had ever been a part of. Between the ups and downs, the highs and the lows, Cooper experienced so many emotions she had never felt before. She was re-defining her life – defining it with happiness, defining it with joy, defining it with acceptance.

“I had no idea what peace felt like. No idea what joy felt like.”

At the Bible study, she had a conversation with another member of the Ziglar (Norman) family – Cindy. They spoke about forgiveness, and while Cooper says she didn’t quite understand it at the time – she sure did when she got back home. The Sunday following her conversation about forgiveness – Cooper attended church and the pastor, through all of his words during his sermon, sent one message to Cooper. He told her she had to ask for forgiveness. Cooper was meant to define her life by forgiving herself – because it was with that self-forgiveness that she could move forward.

So – Cooper did something she had never done before. “Tears streaming down [her] face”, Cooper went forward to pray. Her head was a mess, she was arguing with herself as she stepped up to the front of the church, she was “arguing with God” – she was just arguing. Yet, Cooper stepped forward and fell to her knees to pray.

“And right there, [she] prayed. It was the very first time [Cooper] had asked for forgiveness.”

It was right then that Cooper re-defined her life. It was the first time she asked for forgiveness – and she was granted forgiveness. Cooper now walks around without weight on her shoulders. She has found her own peace and come to love herself. She knows she loves who she is and she knows who she can be.

“We stop ourselves from achievement. There is no reason to do that. Your past does not define you. You can be healed. My name is Toni Cooper and I hope that you love yourself.”