Losing Your Baggage

"My baggage!" "No! My baggage!"

“My baggage!”
“No! My baggage!”

Once you have had that first big de-clutter session, and experienced the excitement and freedom of being responsible for less stuff, you can get a little tingly just thinking about the next round. When you have been on the path for awhile, you notice that beyond the cycle of too much/release/freedom that entire new vistas open for you. Your freedom allows you to think of things in a new way. I had a conversation with a friend this past week and he was lamenting the experience of having the same fights with his wife, over and over. “We are carrying too much emotional baggage. And we know each other’s triggers.” “You don’t have to carry your emotional baggage. You can set it down and just walk away from it.,” I replied. My friend was intrigued and we discussed ways to disconnect from our emotional hurts and beliefs that do not serve us. If you think a home free of clutter feels good, imagine a heart cleared of fear.

10 thoughts on “Losing Your Baggage”

  1. chmeld says:
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    Without that process of decluttering, it would not have been possible for me to do my part to save my marriage and for us to be where we are now. There were simply too many distractions. Getting rid of made space for me to change some aspects about myself that were undesirable and that in turn altered attitudes and behaviours in others, like dominoes – the decluttering remains an ongoing process. It’s such a cycle.

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  2. Rose says:
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    It is well timed for me to read this post! I have been struggling through releasing some toxic emotions relating to past experiences and trying to explore how I can heal my body through clearing out the emotional clutter I’ve been holding in my being. It has been hard! I’ve been relying on Louise Hay very much this past month, and was very happy to have read “Coyote Healing” which was very much a catalyst for this process. I’m finding that it is much like decluttering my home. With each sweep through and removal of “that which no longer serves” I feel relief, and then increased insight into more that must be taken away in the next sweep. My physical decluttering has gone from huge removal to less and less removed each time, and I imagine this process will be very similar. Thank you for the beautiful insight that you share with us.

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  4. Fawn says:
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    Linda- I don’t think that there is one-size-fits-all answer to that question. I think it depends a lot on your personality, and where you are in the process. Counseling is a good tool for discovering what your baggage is. So is conflict in your life. Where there is conflict, there is your baggage. [No, your problems are not the rest of the world’s fault.] I have found the writings of Martha Beck, Byron Katie, and Arjuna Ardagh helpful. Others have read these authors and been–Meh. Twice I had a 5 days silent retreats (at home, I did not have money for a retreat center) and those were very helpful. I do think that setting the intention of setting the baggage down will help make you mindful of writers or methods that will work for you as you encounter them. And like de-cluttering, it is not a process that you are ever “done” with.

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  5. Béatrice says:
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    This a beautiful and very inspiring post. A life without fear is so tempting and so far from my reality! I am not sure what my emotional baggage is but I suspect it is related to my fears. I have quite seldom conflict in my life but it might be because I live abroad so seing my old friends and family is rare and fun! I am fortunate not to have annoying people in my life right now but I am probably my best ennemy 😉
    The writings of Michael Singer have helped me a lot.
    What I have sometimes done in my life is to go on holiday abroad alone. I asked friends who live far away if I can live in their home while they are themselves on holidays and contributing to paying their rent. I spend for instance 10 days alone in Barcelona in my friend’s appartment (just an efficiency appartment), the flight was extremely cheap and I went to the market for groceries, that was cheaper than at home so in fact I saved money during that time. It was not total silence because I spoke to people in the shops, but I was on my own in unknown surroundings and I find that totally helpful to get some perspective in life!

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  7. Diane says:
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    I found by Louise Hay was a great help. Only I wish I had read it when it was first published as it would have saved me a lot of angst, problems and other negatives things that entered my life (or that I created)!

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