Nearly everyone is holding on to some kind of emotional baggage. Some have it worse than others. But only very few people can truly say they’ve been able to fully let go of the insecurities and traumas that have haunted them.
When confronted with this possibility, many people immediately get defensive, and deny that they have any emotional holes or baggage. Many others generally know that they have some issues they still need to work through, but they may not be fully aware of the full extent of their problems.
What happens is we go through a traumatic experience that causes us to disown parts of ourselves. There are parts of ourselves that we hate, that we’re ashamed of, that we wish we could change, that we never want to see or think about. These underlying feelings of inadequacy push us to look for happiness and fulfillment “outside of ourselves” and they prevent us from fully enjoying daily life.
These “disowned” parts of ourselves create an inability to feel okay with oneself, instead you’ll constantly look for ways to escape yourself, ways to distract and numb yourself. This can be through drugs, food, sex, mindless screen time, overthinking, fantasizing, etc.
It’s incredibly sad when people are unable to be still and at ease with themselves and instead have to numb their experience of life. People should never have to numb or distract themselves from the feelings of being themselves. Our being is a precious gift that should be celebrated, cherished, and made the most of, not escaped, avoided, and numbed.
And here’s the truth: you don’t have to escape yourself anymore, you don’t have to suppress your true feelings anymore. You can allow the real you, the vulnerable, honest, and authentic you to be fully present.
The solution to finally letting go of all your emotional baggage is to face it all. Doing this is much easier than it feels. We spend all this time and mental energy afraid of facing our truth, yet when we finally do it is incredibly relieving. Allow yourself to be completely and brutally honest with yourself. Dive into your deepest insecurities, your deepest fears, your deepest pains, and your deepest wants. Allow yourself to relieve those traumatic experiences. Allow yourself to feel everything.
Cutting yourself off from emotion, suppressing your emotions, only creates more baggage. The more you avoid your true feelings, the heavier the weight and burden of your emotional baggage. By stuffing down your emotions you’re forced to hold onto them and deal with them at a later date. Why not drop the facade and start feeling good now? Why not fully love yourself and allow yourself to feel fully right now?
When you allow yourself to fully feel and to fully accept who you are, all of that weight falls away. You immediately feel lighter, more at ease, and more grounded, which is a place of being where you can be incredibly resourceful, productive, and aligned with who you want to be.
But because so many of us are addicted to escapism, negativity, and victim complexes, what is required to fully heal ourselves won’t happen in a day. It’s something that will take months, even years to fully heal. You can do things that will make you feel good and whole now, but those feelings won’t last and the cravings for escapism will come back. So you must consistently do “inner work” such as meditation and emotional releases, as well as “outer work” which is stressful submersion in things that challenge you and push your comfort zone. Doing these two things will reinforce a mental frame of wholeness, self-love, gratitude, and self-actualization.
Some things you can start doing now include doing a personal audit on your emotional baggage, deep breathing, weekly writing exercises that remind you who you want to be each day, and mindfulness meditation. Coaches and therapists can also be very helpful.
This article was originally posted on Red Tea News.
