When You Drop Emotional Baggage, You Get Lighter
It takes an enormous effort to carry all that weight around with you
We don’t call a painful past emotional baggage without good reason. Negative memories are heavy. Like actual luggage, they are a burden. If you want to travel light, you must get rid of distressing memories before they impair your life.
Any experience you regard as negative can influence you
The weight you bear is unhealthy, whether you are angry with your mother for not showing enough love or furious with an ex-partner who let you down.
Consequences of emotional baggage
Much like a wave, emotional baggage gains momentum as painful experiences grow in your mind. Holding them disempowers you and lowers your mood.
It requires effort to embrace emotional angst, and when you mull over events, you don’t live in the present. You might also transfer negative feelings about people from the past onto those involved in your life now.
It’s tough to form new relationships and embrace fresh opportunities when you carry a hefty load.
If an ex was unfaithful, you could imagine your new partner also cheating and accuse them of playing the field or harbor other suspicions that spoil happiness.
Choose to move on
Recognize painful emotions that damage your life and decide you’ve had enough sadness.
You can accept the past is over, stop putting energy into keeping it going, and move into a positive future.
Learn from painful events
Add constructive meaning to experiences that haunt you by recognizing the lessons they offer. Realize even though you would like things to be different, you have gained wisdom and can carry it into the present.
It’s possible to stop feeding negative emotions and put them to rest for greater peace of mind.
The only concrete moment of importance is now. You can’t alter the past or control the future, so drop emotional baggage if it slows you down and hinders your happiness.
