Baggage. We’ve all got it. Any significant experience in life will have a long-lasting effect on us, and that’s beautiful!
I would never want to forget the elation and euphoria of a first love, and even the painful memory of a devastating heartbreak is valuable in helping us build who we are in this life.
Our interactions with the world around us leave their marks.
Sometimes these marks are more like a wound, and sometimes these wounds are deep enough to leave a scar; I have plenty of those.
When our experiences scar us, we can find ourselves acting ‘as if,’ in ways we know (or maybe don’t even realize yet) are unhealthy. At one point in my life, it was necessary to be extra concerned and hyper-vigilant with the health of a family member.
Now, it’s just my brain running an old script, and it’s unnecessary and often anxiety-inducing and irritating for everyone involved.
If we don’t look closer at the “why” of our behavior, we can continue to act ‘as if’ long after that mindset and those reactions serve any purpose for us.
This is baggage, and the weight can become pretty heavy as we find ourselves stuffing old traumas, insecurities, and disappointments down deep… the emotional equivalent of sweeping the dust under the rug, right?
We didn’t get rid of the problem – it’s still there waiting for us to deal with another day.
Regardless of what our emotional baggage is or how it was programmed into us and reinforced throughout our lives, we can choose to work on it and work through it.
It’s not easy, but working for a better tomorrow never really is, right?
Check out the links below for more info about emotional baggage, and don’t forget to follow Has Baggage, Still Travels on IG and FB for content to cultivate our best selves.