Most everyone has at least some baggage. It’s our unresolved stories, wounds, limiting beliefs, judgments, and negative emotions.
So, what’s so bad about having baggage?
- It’s heavy. If you’ve carried it for a long, time, you don’t notice how heavy your baggage can be.
- It ties up valuable energy. It requires energy to carry baggage.
- It keeps us from being fully present and grounded. Baggage can keep the past ‘alive,’ or cause us to focus on the future. Either way, we often spend too much time in our heads, analyzing, thinking, and judging.
- We don’t develop our other innate intelligences. Our hearts and bodies also process information, however we need to be present to access this wisdom.
- It prevents us from responding authentically – in the moment. We analyse, make assumptions, and act according to our beliefs and experiences rather than trusting our other intelligences (heart and body).
- It limits our experiences – such as relationships with others. With baggage, we experience others through the thick lens of our beliefs and judgments.
- It limits our ability to create and express our true selves. Baggage in the form of self-limiting beliefs prevents us from fully expressing our unique selves.
- It doesn’t ‘fit’ with who we are becoming. Every person is on a journey to become the highest they can be, and we can’t do that if we continue to hold on our heavy baggage.
Our challenge is to unload all the baggage that does not serve us – the unresolved stories (lacking forgiveness and acceptance), the negative emotions (such as anger, resentment, anxiety, fear, jealousy…), and the beliefs arising from judgments.
The hard part is that it is all bundled up together and we cannot always tell if we are carrying baggage, and what that baggage might be.
Ways to unload baggage
Unloading baggage may seem slow at first, but after awhile you begin to notice a difference – you are lighter, happier, and life is less difficult. Meditation, non-judgment, mindfulness and being present and grounded are the constant practices for ‘travelling light.’
Practices to unload baggage
Below are two other practices to help dislodge some old baggage.
Practicing acceptance
- Make of list of 5 people that you don’t like or have done something you don’t like (this can be anyone – such as people with high profiles, or from the past, etc…)
- Write down what it is you don’t like about them. (Eg, “Josh is arrogant.”)
- Replace each sentence with “I am capable of…I have been…” (Eg. “I am capable of being arrogant. I have been arrogant.”) (If someone has done something so terrible that you can’t honestly make this statement, then think of your thoughts towards that person. For example, say a person has done something evil, and you despise them. You might say “I am capable of being hateful. I have been hateful.”)
This practice creates the space for acceptance and non-judgment. Once you experience acceptance and begin to practice non-judgment, your baggage instantly becomes lighter.
Practicing forgiveness (an ancient Hawaiian practice called Hooponopono*)
- Accept full responsibility without apportioning blame to anyone for the actions of the person, persons or collective that is expressing negativity towards you. (Based on the awareness that we are all One, and all connected).
- Say “I accept total responsibility for it now.” This gives you power over it.
- Then, to your infinite Self and the Universe, say, “I love you”. That is to yourself, the universe, and the positive energy behind the creation of that which is negative.
- Once you have expressed love, forgiveness is inevitable. Then you say, from the bottom of your heart, “please forgive me.”This sets an inevitable train of forgiveness in motion. You know that you and even the perpetrator are forgiven. This gives you closure, and disempowers the ability of the perpetrator to express and further negativity towards you.
- So, to yourself and the universe, say “THANK YOU” and let it go.
* The book called Zero Limits by Joe Vitale explains this ancient and effective Hawaiian practice.