Anything but a carry on will have a fee...Step 12

We are on day 12 of our happiness series....  Things we need to let go of to be happy....

12. Your Baggage

We have all been hurt one time or another by someone we loved, or we thought we loved. Carrying negative feelings into future relationships will only prove to be disastrous. No two people are the same, so it’s unfair to hold a future partner to a standard set by an ex. Try to begin each new relationship with a clean slate.

Definitions  

noun

1. (pejorative) the feelings you have about your past and the things that have happened to you, which often have a negative effect on your behaviour and attitudes

The important part of this definition is the last part...'often have a negative effect on your behaviour and attitudes'

We all have baggage. We cannot help that. We all have a past. It is how this baggage affects us that makes it a good or bad thing. We have this exercise in kettlebell that we do call a suitcase squat. The foundation of the move is a squat of course and you have two kettelebells, one in each hand.  You squat down until the kettlebells touch the floor and then you stand back up, but you keep the kettelebells in your hands. The move simulates picking up a suitcase, except in this case, you never put it down.  This is your baggage. We walk around carrying all the burdens from our past, and instead of squatting and putting them down, we carry them around with us. It starts to get heavy, and we start to take it out on people around us, making them uncomfortable, judging them and making them 'pay' for something that had nothing to do with them to begin with. 

The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. What is grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion. - Lao Tzu

How many times have we sat and acted a certain way toward someone not because that person did anything to warrant the behavior but because we were hurt previously and are wanting to prevent it from happening again.  #guilty

Emotional baggage is all about fear – Fear of repeating mistakes; fear of hurt being inflicted upon you and fear of being blindsided again by whatever travesty you lived through previously. While fear is a very real and very human emotion, it can be totally debilitating, taking a healthy relationship full of possibilities and halting it under the weight of your memories.

TODAY'S CHALLENGE

This exercise is borrowed from Allison Cohen, M.A., MFT , (www.lifeissuespschotherapy.com). I thought this would be a beneficial exercise in working out the demons of our past. 

Start writing and leave that baggage on the carousel

Not only do you deserve to live “ghost” free, your partner deserves a clean slate and the opportunity to show you who they really are, away from the negative comparisons of relationships past. But how to do just that?

Take out a piece of paper and write down all of the fact-based evidence that proves that this relationship and this partner are different from other dynamics and situations you have experienced. Write down every detail as to how this person and partnership differ (and I mean every detail). When you feel anxious, review this list, take a deep breath and choose to believe in these facts and this logic. Through this process, you essentially re-write the negative code in your head and begin a healthier, more realistic internal dialogue that will keep that “baggage” on the carousel and away from your relationship.

Bare in mind, if you don’t actively (and frequently) work this routine, you will be trapped by the emotion (perpetuated by the fear) and spiral into irrational and damaging protective mechanisms that will quash any future you have with your current love.

“What we think, we become,” - Buddha