put down your baggage and unpack it
We all have baggage. It would be unreasonable to expect any person beyond the age of 40 to be completely baggage free - after all it has been half a lifetime of experiences, encouragements, criticisms, good times, bad times, love, loss, helpful and unhelpful people. All of this shapes us. All of this stays with us and sits on our shoulder when it comes time to make decisions serving as the ‘good angle’ or ‘bad angel’, informing and influencing our choices.
But when does our baggage become more of a weight, a tie that binds us to our past and our past traumas and when does it serve as merely something that has shaped us?
For me, when the situation brings up the person - it is my baggage but when it brings up the lesson - it is my learning.
We owe it to ourselves to stop carrying around negative experiences, trauma, upset, grief and the shame. So put that baggage down. Pop it open and have a look at it. You can shuffle through at a superficial level first, or dive straight in and start pulling all of it out, like cleaning out the garage or pantry. Be warned however, that if you opt for the dive in technique, it will feel exactly like that big garage clean up, where you find yourself staring at an empty garage but with multiple piles of ‘stuff’ - some will be absolute crap, other things will be things you want to hang onto - this is exactly the same on your baggage unpacking journey. For me, normally this bit hits like a freight train, where I epically regret my decision to pull EVERYTHING out but resolve to get it sorted out and packed away before I call it a day. The same will be true of your emotional and psychological baggage. You can just shove it all back in the garage at any point and close the door and walk away from it until the next time you really need to use or get inside the garage and the baggage is suddenly in the way again. Only I am not talking just about the garage. Many of us feel like we have dealt with our baggage because it is neatly shoved down so deep into our beings that we never or rarely even think about it. We are able to live our lives in such a way that we are not trigged or confronted by this baggage on a daily basis so we figure we have successfully dealt with it.
But consider that the stuffing down comes at a cost. It may be that we are frequently upset in the tummy, we may have a lingering infection or pain. The teachings of Louise Hay examine ‘dis-ease’ and the negative physical impacts on us of trying to stuff things down instead of dealing with them.
So what does the unpacking process look like? It is going to look extremely different for everyone. Some may start with meditation, or journalling. Some may start with a therapist who can kickstart the guided journey of unpacking baggage. Some may mind-map or draw, paint, explore their shadow selves. The possibilities are endless! So please don’t seek to compare your journey to the journeys of others, but all means listen to their stories but bowerbird the learnings and take from each story what sounds right for you. And like with any journey of self discovery, this will take time. <Insert Rachel Hunter clique> It will be messy and really F*&^ing hard. But know it will be absolutely worth it.
Have you embarked on your journey of unpacking your baggage? What have your learnings been? Let us know at @um___life on instagram and @um__life on TikTok. There is also the um…life podcast feel free to like, share, listen, etc.
Krissi x
