Unpacking Emotional Baggage
Your father was a drunk. Your mother shamed you. Your last boss was a jerk. You have an illness. You had a traumatic breakup. [Insert all your major life events here.] You've got some baggage. Yeah, me too.
Of course we wish we could just erase those distressing experiences. Or, at least honor and value the ways in which your life experiences have shaped you.
Emotional baggage has this way of rearing its ugly head when you aren’t looking. You lose your temper when you interact with your boss. You totally give up when you have a health setback. You sabotage relationships. You eat when you’re stressed. You accuse people of the very things you hate about yourself. You are ridden with self-doubt. You worry about whether your relationships will last. You get clingy. You drink, eat, sleep, gamble, [insert your excessive behavior here] too much. You avoid making plans. You obsessively make plans. You are eternally broken-hearted. You get paranoid that someone is going to hurt you. You throw up walls. Baggage can show up in the form of self-doubt, negative self-talk and a defended (self-protective) way of being.
Does any of this sound familiar?:
“I don’t deserve to be healthy so I might as well have another beer.”
"Nobody values me so there's no point in valuing myself."
"When someone treats me unfairly, I need to teach them by getting angry and fighting back."
“I don’t have enough time to take care of myself.”
“I've been let down so much, what’s the point in putting effort into this?”
“I can't stand the thought of being abandoned so I'll play it safe in relationships instead.”
"I can't tell anyone how I feel because if I make them uncomfortable they might reject me”
“I've been hurt before so I'll stay away from intimacy even though I really want it.”
"If I can be successful in my career, then I will feel better about my other insecurities."
"A rejection of anything I say, think, or do is a rejection of myself."
"Something bad happened to me and I deserve to spend the whole day shopping away this stress."
"I don't trust someone until they give me a reason to trust."
Yep, this stuff can get sticky. Most of us have been trying to unload our baggage for a long time. We tried a million diets. We indiscriminately dove into a relationship. We declared that we won’t make x mistake – ever again. We plan to tell ourselves a positive affirmation every day so that we can stop the self-judgments. We promise that this year is the year we will quit drinking/smoking/emotionally eating. Maybe you joined a support group or tried therapy.
You’ve worked really hard at unpacking that baggage. But this stuff is heavy. Really heavy. No matter how hard you try to let go of this stuff, it just keeps coming back. It feels like the baggage is getting heavier and heavier.
So what if the solution wasn't about “unpacking” anything? What if allowing your baggage to be there might actually help you to overcome the power that this baggage has over you? Sounds counter-intuitive, I know.
Let me ask you a question: Have your past attempts at unloading your baggage worked? Are you free from all your baggage?
If you're like most humans, the answer is probably "no." I invite you to consider a different way of dealing with your baggage. You might be thinking that the whole reason your life sucks is that you have emotional baggage; because you can’t get rid of it or avoid it. But we all have baggage. It’s part of being a thinking, breathing, emoting, living human.
Our baggage is there for a reason. A good reason.
Your mind is constantly trying to solve problems. It chatters away at you constantly; comparing, judging, evaluating, categorizing, and explaining. Your mind is like a thought-generating, problem-finding, problem-solving machine! It’s constantly sending you messages and hoping that you’ll listen.
At times your mind has something worthwhile to say and it can guide you towards healthy decision-making and more effective behavior. But your mind is not so astute all the time. It takes all your past hurts and troubles and creates potent "Don’t-Get-Hurt Stories".
And like a truck traveling down the same dirt road over and over again, the perpetual playing out of these Don't-Get-Hurt Stories generates deep grooves in the road (your mind), making it harder and harder to get out of them. Eventually, this way of being is so automatic that you don't even think about it anymore. You automatically reach for another beer. You automatically distance yourself from others. You automatically shy away from expressing your feelings. You literally become "mindless."
And in order to avoid discomfort and stay safe in this world, you generate rules to guide your behavior. But the longer you stick by your Don't-Get-Hurt Stories, the stickier they get. Eventually, they take you away from what you really want your life to be about. You've lost your zest for life and you're spending more time avoiding pain than you are doing things that bring you joy.
Your mind is not broken; it’s just doing what it’s always done.
Now ask yourself: What has my mind been telling me that keeps me from living a full and vital life? Go ahead, write them down. Make a list.
Don’t get caught up in whether these stories and self-judgments are true. That’s not important. What matters is whether these thoughts and Don’t-Get-Hurt stories are getting you closer to the life you want. If you didn't act on these self-doubts, judgments or worries, what would your life look like?
We know that trying to unload your baggage isn't working. We know that avoiding your baggage is virtually impossible. You’ve noticed that the more you try to avoid your thoughts the stickier they get. You see how attaching to your Don’t-Get-Hurt Stories is keeping you from living the life you want. So now what?
Remember the game “Simon Says?” The leader would say “Simon says jump up and down” and you would jump up and down. But if the leader only says “jump up and down” you’re not supposed to jump up and down. This game proves a very simple but powerful point: It is possible to have a thought and behave on the contrary. In other words, you can think one thing and do another. You can have baggage, but it doesn't have to run your life.
Your baggage is not what's keeping you from living the life you want. Your baggage has no power over you if you don’t do what it says. Your baggage is just thoughts. Just thoughts. Nothing more. If you don't buy into your thoughts they have no power.
Try this: Rather than getting all caught up in your baggage-thoughts, why not just notice them? Instead of trying to unload the baggage, why not just let it be there? There's no harm in that as long you treat thoughts as just thoughts. Get back on your path towards really living, and take your baggage along for the ride. Don't let the baggage tell you which direction you will go. That's up to you.
