A suitcase?
"Our suitcases may hold our belongings, but it's the weight of our emotional baggage that determines how far we can travel." - Emily Giffin
We often hear someone say “He has SO much emotional baggage, I can’t live like this! He refuses point blank to deal with it. I Am so fed-up!” An individual, you, or me, might say “I have emotional baggage and I carry it around as a tattered, and heavy suitcase in my mind. I huff and puff up a steep mountain. I simply must learn to deal with this appropriately as it clutters my life. It makes me dissatisfied and unhappy!” We ALL carry such a suitcase around. Our suitcases can of course vary in size and weight.
Our suitcases represent emotional baggage.” What’s this?” you might ask. Emotional baggage is an idiom that generally refers to unresolved psychological trauma and difficulties, from childhood onwards. It could result in constant criticism of ourselves and in relationships, continuous self-doubt and a sense of worthlessness, negative expectations of ourselves, ungrounded fears, overwhelming guilt, regret, and more… The list is endless.
Emotional baggage results in a type of emotional bondage which contaminates our adult lives in all areas; our relationships with ourselves, others, work, physical health, our spirituality, and overall well-beings as human beings. It is simply not worth our while to keep these as it prevents us from experiencing true contentment, fulfilment with as by-product the ever-evading happiness. Fortunately, we can CHANGE this “state of the nation” if we are prepared to relieve ourselves from this burden.
Anyone can get angry-that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree and for the right purpose, and in the right way- that is not within everyone’s power and is not easy.
Real life example: Emily and Fred have been married for 10 years. When the husband comes home one evening, the couple has a full-blown shouting match in the presence of their young children. In her rage, Emily gets into her car and drives off into the dark without telling anyone where she is going. The children sob and cry and hold him frantically by the legs. Fred chooses to ignore them and pours himself a double whisky. Before an hour has passed the bottle is three quarters empty and he flops onto his bed. Late that night Emily returns and gets into an end space of the bed beside a snoring husband. The conflict continues the next day into the next… Immensely painful and destructive!
There are MANY feelings humans experience. However, most of us have an inadequate feeling vocabulary. A client I saw years ago would use the word “frustration” to describe his anger, depression, and dissatisfaction with life. It was a challenging task to help him understand that without identifying emotions correctly, he could not discover the thoughts, feelings and his inner conversation with himself, spot on.
A start to the suitcase journey for us all is to take a wise tip from Aristotele. He said that “Anyone can get angry-that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree and for the right purpose, and in the right way- that is not within everyone’s power and is not easy.” I believe we all can! In conclusion, the Nobel prize winner for medicine, Rosalyn Yalow, holds an enticing encouragement for all of us. She said, “You can have it all!” You and I certainly can as well.
She said, “You can have it all!” You and I certainly can as well.
Let us go on the journey to unpack, measure, and repack your suitcase!
Dr.Sonia