Let It Go

When roasting ham, a woman repeatedly trims and shortens the joint of meat in the same way every time. When asked why, she reveals that it was simply how she’d been taught to do it by her mother. On questioning her mother, the answer as to why comes back the same: a taught habit from her own mother. Finally questioning the grandmother, it is revealed that the excess trimming was merely a way for the ham to fit into the only cooking dish she owned at one time – an old roasting tin that was too small for a standard ham. This unquestioning inheritance of habits and falling back on repeated past behaviours is just one of the many case studies – some real, some fictional – that populate David Rahman’s Let it Go: How to stop your past ruining your future.



For the best part of twenty years, Rahman has been working to help people with the issues that hold them back: poor self-esteem, anger, lack of confidence and other problems that affect us all. This, his first book, is a practical and direct toolkit of case studies, scenarios and exercises to help readers face their future prepared and without the burden of the past holding them back. It is easy to follow, immensely readable, and written with the intention of being referred to, re-read and repeated.



Rahman’s ideas and advice are not rocket science, but that’s what makes them easy to understand and practical in their application. He explains through the language of ‘blueprints’ and his own FIT Mind Model how we as humans naturally define ourselves and relate to our world in direct response to past experience. While this is often a positive thing (learning from mistakes and moving on, for example), it’s all too easy to cling to negative experiences and let them negatively impact on our relationship to the present. This in turn ruins our future chances.



While Rahman recognises the importance of other therapies and interventions in dealing with past trauma, his focus is on awareness and moving on. To use another of his plentiful examples, Rahman describes a scenario whereby a driver gets a flat tyre due to a nail in the road. Our options, it’s rightly pointed out, are to question where the nail came from, imagine why it’s ended up in our tyre, and reflect on the implications of this, or simply and sensibly to change the tyre and keep on driving. This may seem simplistic when used as an analogy for complex and deep trauma – when moving on is often harder than at other times – but even being aware of what is holding us back (our own nails in the tyre!) can help.



‘Power Statements’ are one of the key tools in Rahman’s box. These are not simply affirmations or frivolous phrases, but practical and real strategies for combatting confirmation bias. They are powerful, as you’d expect, but also simple. Like the rest of the book, these general statements can be applied to any scenario. Using the exercises outlined, the reader is guided towards the issues, patterns and behaviours that the FIT Mind Model and Power Statements can improve.



We all have a past, but we’re all different in how our past lingers and impacts on our future. Under Rahman’s guidance and through his processes and exercises, any reader will come away with a greater awareness of their habits and an understanding of their thinking and blueprint. ~Liam Nolan @ www.gwales.com