Do We Ever Outgrow Our Past?
By Cheryl Harbour

How Hearst, Simpson, Polanski, and Stewart found ways to move on

The recent CNN documentary about Patty Hearst (a baby boomer born in 1954), titled The Radical Story of Patty Hearst, brings back into the spotlight the dramatic events of her past. In 1974, she was kidnapped and held captive by the Symbionese Liberation Army (S.L.A.).  The most sensational development was that after being held for 58 days in a closet, she joined the S.L.A.  in their domestic terrorism activities.

Hearst, who was a 19-year-old student at University of California/Berkeley at the time and an heiress to her family’s publishing empire, is not happy about reliving it all in the documentary.  She has said, "As hard as it was to do, I have grown well past the 19-year old me and gone on to become a proud wife, mother, and grandmother. I have no interest in revisiting such a violent and hurtful time in my life.”

She is not alone in wanting to move on from her past. O.J. Simpson, who was paroled last year after serving seven years in prison for armed robbery, is now living “quietly” in Florida and spending time in Las Vegas. No one can forget the trial where he was acquitted of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. Simpson’s lawyer said since being released, Simpson just “wants to hug his children outside of prison… and eat seafood and steak.” He still has not paid the $58 million he owes from the civil suit brought by the Brown and Goldman families, where he was not found innocent.

Roman Polanski, an Academy Award-winning director who was convicted of statutory rape nearly 40 years ago in California, fled to France before his sentencing. He was never extradited and has been able to live a normal life in France. He was even honored recently by Cinémathèque Française, the French equivalent of the Academy Awards for his long and successful career as a director.

Martha Stewart, served 5 months in a minimum security facility for lying to investigators about a stock sale. Now she is back running her huge multimedia company and giving advice about cooking and decorating. In an interview with Katie Couric, Stewart didn’t want to talk about her time in prison and said, “One thing I do not ever want is to be identified — or I don’t want that to be the major thing of my life. It’s just not fair. It’s not a good experience and it doesn’t make you stronger. I was a strong person to start with and thank heavens I was. And I can still hold my head up high and know that I’m fine.”

Most of us don’t have crimes in our background, but we may have regrets, and we all make mistakes. We collected some advice about moving on from things we’d rather we hadn’t done.

For something like a business gaffe, MInda Zetlin, co-author of The Geek Gap and contributor to Inc.com, offers these five things to tell yourself when you want to leave emotional distress of a mistake behind:

It wasn’t on purpose.

If someone else had done this, I would forgive them.

I’ve done everything I reasonably can to fix things.

If this is the worst mistake I ever make, I’ll be in pretty good shape.

I’ll be smarter next time.

For people whose emotional baggage causes fear and anxiety, Dr. Friedmann Schaub, a cardiologist and Creator of The Personal Breakthrough and Empowerment Program, says, “When we understand how and why the subconscious mind keeps track and holds on to our memories, it becomes obvious, that we can’t just ignore our past, because it does determine our future.”  On his website, he explains why the subconscious is so persistent in holding on to memories we’d rather forget.

Note: You can read more about the Patty Hearst story and the CNN documentary in this article in Vanity Fair.

 




Comments

Be the first to commment on this article.

Post a Comment

RELATED ARTICLES