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We all have it. Although it’s packed differently, we all have similar items inside the heavy suitcases we’re required to carry throughout our lives. The emotional baggage is extremely personal, and it doesn’t matter how heavy it gets, the reality is that no one else can help you carry it.
Ouch! I know! That’s a painful truth, but I can’t sugarcoat it. I learned it the hard way, as the majority of human beings do. In my humble opinion, what happens is that we have an illusion while we’re growing up that our parents will help us keep our emotional baggage light. They do everything they can to make us happy. Of course, this is a general statement because we all know unfortunate exceptions to this rule, and some people have a hard time being a parent. In general, though, parents go the extra mile to see their children happy and make sure nothing hurts them.
I know this is going to sound ugly, but even when our parents do their best to take some of life’s punches themselves to protect us, they can’t possibly carry our emotional baggage. That luggage is glued to each one of us, and we start packing it when we’re still very little. This packing process runs on autopilot. The subconscious mind is in charge, and most of the time we don’t even notice when something gets in there.
Our parents teach us a lot, and many of us also have the great opportunity to go to school and learn even more. But our social structure is lacking an important lesson: how to carry the emotional baggage we’re required to hold our entire lives. We don’t teach our children how to deal with it. I don’t think many people even know they have this baggage, so they go through life dragging this heavy thing without even noticing it.
People’s lack of understanding and misperceptions are why I decided to bring this subject up today. I would love to share with as many people as possible what emotional baggage is and why it’s important to be aware you have it. “Emotional baggage” is an effective term to describe how human beings walk around life with all their past traumas and negative experiences, ready to be triggered by anything or anyone. I love how accurate this expression is, at least for me. Whenever I’m in a situation where a negative past experience makes an appearance, I always imagine my mind opening this huge suitcase and saying, “Aha! This is the perfect dress for this occasion, Irene! Here, you must wear it!” And I follow that instruction without even questioning it.
You must be asking yourself, “What’s wrong with having my past experiences and traumas packed and ready to protect me from something I already went through?” Well, the issue is that if you packed that past experience or trauma while it was still dirty and wrinkled, it probably won’t serve you the best possible way. The reality is none of us can avoid bad experiences; they’re going to happen. Some situations are difficult enough to become traumas, and that also can’t be avoided. But if you want to live a happier life, your job is to make sure you pack those experiences as clean and light as you can.
The bad experiences in life have a purpose—I can’t stress that enough. We’re responsible to learn from them, and I’m really sorry to disappoint you, but you can’t learn by suppressing. You have to feel the pain and go through it. That’s the only way to make sure you pack each piece in a way that will serve you later on, instead of bringing you down again. If you decide to pack everything the “easy” way (meaning you keep bypassing the pain), you’ll have an enormous amount of dirty laundry to wash from your emotional baggage later on. The time will come when you’ll have to face that same pain you keep suppressing, without any other option. Life lessons are only checked when we learn them, so love yourself enough to pass those tests as soon as you can.
Can you see now why you can’t carry other people’s emotional baggage? You simply can’t help anyone with it, even when you love them with all you have. You don’t have access to those bags. Your loved ones might tell you what’s inside, but you can’t fix it for them. Please understand that I’m not saying you can’t have empathy or the best intentions to help, but emotional baggage is as individual as DNA. The best thing you can do if you want to help this world be a better place is take the best care you can of your own baggage.
We’re all in charge of our own emotional baggage, my friends. Stop asking others to carry it for you—it’s simply not possible. So, make sure you keep yours clean and light. It’s true that God doesn’t give us anything we can’t carry, but His intention is for us to figure out how to make it lighter. He wants us to learn, not to suffer!
Love,
Irene
