Emmy Rousseau

Transcript

in late 2019 17 years after seeing a woman on stage and thinking i want to be her next year i decided to follow my dream of becoming a speaker i was going to use my voice 2020 was going to be my year i know i'm not the only one who felt that way my dream was to be as big as mel robbins basically sliding in and taking over her demographic as soon as she was ready to retire every day i'd visualize walking across grand stages it felt amazing and i knew it was gonna happen and then just as i was getting ready to shine bam

the pandemic hit and shut everything down including all stages but having a growth mindset i didn't let that deter me i took every virtual stage i could get my hands on today though is the very first time since my elementary school speech competition that i am standing on a stage i'm sure you can imagine how exciting that is for me especially since it almost didn't happen you see i'm a person who stands for what i believe in and i stand for unity and against discrimination so when i heard about the mandate that teachers and health care workers would have to be vaccinated or face job

loss i knew i had to take action now i could get into all the political whys but this isn't about the vax or the virus and whether you agree with my stance or not or you get confused somewhere along the way here i invite you to keep listening because this message has a lesson for us all it started with a facebook post saying i was against mandatory vaccines and encouraging people to stand in their truth no matter which side of this issue they were on a slew of comments came in both for and against and it started to divide in my family that is still

yet to be fully healed but i didn't back down because when i really believe in something i'm in it to the end and boy was that resolved to be tested next on the list of mandated workers fitness professionals that's me i'm a zumba instructor i refuse to disclose my status although my kids were telling me to just stop and take care of myself and save my job but i wouldn't i lost that income and have since lost another job opportunity over it it was hard but it felt right when the vax pass came in i saw that as just another way to divide so i

chose never to use it and that way i could not be at in-person events such as these or even my son's hockey games it really sucked not to be able to go out much but i managed until i got this news the day i found out i could compete at speaker slam was a dream come true i've been competing all year to get here and yet at the same time i felt like my dream was crashing down around me because i couldn't see a way to be here with you and still uphold my morals i thought that in order to do the right thing i'd

have to be joining you via that big screen because since some people couldn't gain access to this theater tonight neither would i streamed down my face my vision of walking across the big stage wasn't gonna happen i had earned my right to be here and yet i couldn't take it there was a little piece of me though that just held on to hope i kept asking the question what else is possible hoping that i could get here and then one evening a very special friend went for a walk with me and said i'm just gonna play devil's advocate here for a second is there any

way that you could show your solidarity and still be there i don't know i said is there i couldn't think of one i had lost so much over this already and all i could think was do i need to lose this stream too when it hit me but i absolutely didn't i was just stuck in fixed thinking tonight is not a night of division speaker slam has ensured that everyone can be here whether virtually or in person that we could all participate it's a night of unity which meant that i could stand here living my dream and still stand with all of you who are

going through this it wasn't an either or choice in order to be reborn we have to let something die it makes space for the new to be birthed often it's our mindsets that are holding us back we get stuck in an idea or we think that that'll never happen but when we let those fixed ideas die we open our minds to limitless possibilities and that's when our dreams can not only emerge but take flight you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.

Transcript

they say that forgiveness is a gift to yourself but is that really true why isn't the driveway done can't you do anything right yield my dad and as many 18 year olds who think they're all grown up i yelled right back you can't treat me like this anymore i'm an adult i'm out of here threw open the door and he slammed it shut on me grabbed my wrist and pushed me back against the stairs with his hand around my neck a lightning bolt of fear rushed through my body i didn't know what he was gonna do because he'd never been physical like that before his

abuse had been verbal and emotional but never physical the next thing i remember i was sitting in my room crying i cried what for seeing like hours felt so trapped and alone he never spoke of it again never apologized and i held a grudge for years any time anybody asked me about my dad i'd say he's an abusive or some other negative thing because i just couldn't see him as anything else years later i got the call for the umpteenth time that my dad was an emerge he had a multitude of health conditions that had brought him close to death but miraculously every time he'd

hurt back up in a day or two bossing the nurses around again to let us know that he was back on the road to recovery we used to say my dad had nine lives this time i was cleaning up my classroom on the last day so thinking it was no different i sighed at the inconvenience of having to leave my class in such a clutter but this time was different when i reached my dad's bedside he grabbed my hand and said i want to talk to you about something okay i said taken aback get the serious look on his face nothing could have prepared me

for the words that would come out of his mouth next i'm sorry for that day when you're 18 i started to bawl because i knew without a doubt that my dad's nine lives must be coming to an end he shushed me gently as i tried to stop him you don't have to talk about this i said blubbering through my tears as if stopping the apology would somehow arrest his death he just smiled at me lovingly and carried bravely on i don't remember any other things he said that day just the feelings of remorse and love he had emanating from his soul through his eyes and

the feelings of love and gratitude i felt for this genuine apology our eyes locked and in that moment we both knew deep forgiveness was happening my dad got moved up to icu and of course perked up and was chatting away it gave me hope hey maybe it was wrong this wasn't the day that he was gonna leave us he said go and take your husband out for his birthday i'll be here come back on monday and so i did exactly that the next day at 11 30 p.m the phone rang my heart sank i knew and i wonder now if my dad knew too and

he just didn't want us to have to be there when he passed on june 27 2004 simply hearing the words i'm sorry completely changed the trajectory of my life the constellation of events with my dad had left me hurt broken and depleted but that day the forgiveness process started for that i'm eternally grateful over the years i've been able to forgive him further realizing that he was doing the best he could with what he knew how to do and in forgiving him i've learned that through forgiving we open our hearts to more love and i think my dad would agree i feel like he's smiling

down on me as i tell this story and that gives me such a sense of peace so yes as the saying goes forgiveness really is the gift to yourself the true gain is the love and healing you gain when you open your heart and excavate that boulder of hurt you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.