Unpacking emotional baggage so you can let go of limiting beliefs

Discover how unpacking emotional baggage can help you let go of limiting beliefs, freeing you to live authentically and embrace your true self.

*This is the written version of 'its not you' podcast episode #46

Over the years, I've traveled a fair bit on airplanes. And every time, I do and bring the same things. I bring a carry-on, which is, you know, like a miniature suitcase on wheels, and my checked luggage.

And then this one time, I thought, I'm going to try traveling without my checked luggage. And so I did. At first it was a weird feeling because similar to having a morning routine, you just go in and do the same thing that you've always done, and it just flows.

It was that. I'm used to having this bag, and what if I forget something? And what if I'm gonna need something that I would normally have in this bag?
And, oh, oh, wait, wait. I stuffed all that stuff in my oversized purse :)

But seriously. I wanted to do it as a bit of an experiment because I'm not a light packer. I bring too many of everything because most of the places I go to has fluctuating weather.

So, you know, I gotta be prepared if it's cool, if it's too warm, if it's mediocre, I just gotta be prepared.
So I bring a little bit of everything. But now, just as an aside, something I haven't learned yet, I bring too much. Knowing full well when I go to these places, I always buy clothes.

Because I'm talking mostly places in Europe where I can get really cool clothes that are four years before they're going to show up in my country. So I like being a little bit different.

So anyway, this was a really tough decision for me to not bring my carry on because there was that aspect of it too, right? It was that extra space, should I want to buy something. So amidst all of these excuses I was trying to give myself for not letting go of the extra bag, I let it go.

I decided, okay, this is what I'm doing. And off I went. Get to the airport, check my luggage through security, and go to my gate where I get a coffee or something. And as I'm turned around after receiving my coffee, I go to grab my luggage, my carry-on.

And I went into instant panic. I was, 'where did I leave my bag?' And in my mind, I'm quickly (in seconds), you know, backtracking where I went. And then it hit me.

Oh... I didn't bring it! So, like the morning routine we have, it became habitual for me to have that bag with me all the time.

Even though I made the conscious effort to not bring it, my habit took over. Or should I be more specific? My subconscious program pattern took over.

Then, when I realized, oh, yeah, I didn't bring it, I felt an immediate sense of relief.
Now I got to tell you, relief for two reasons.

One, relief that, 'oh, I didn't forget it. I don't have to backtrack and do all this stuff.'
And two, the freedom of not having this stupid bag to drag behind me all the time and weave in and out of people and move it out of the way. And make sure nobody takes it.

Because you know... there's always that announcement at the airport that's always saying, 'always keep your eye on your bag.'

Okay, so there's that. But then I felt a crazy sense of freedom. As I'm talking about it, I still remember the feeling. Describing it is going to be a whole other issue.

It was just like all the things I just explained. I don't have to worry about weaving it in and out of people... It's just like, it's just me and my overstuffed purse. I literally felt lighter and freer just from not having that extra baggage with me.

I could get up, go check out the shops unencumbered. I could walk to the bathroom unencumbered. I could go anywhere I wanted without the limitation of dragging my baggage around.

Now. I know what you might be thinking. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay.

I believe you that there's all this freedom because of one bag you didn't bring along (wink wink)...

I know what it sounds like. Trust me, I thought it too. And that's why when I did go sit down and chill at the gate, I started reflecting on this crazy, liberated feeling I had and asking myself, when did I feel this before?

When have I felt this liberated before? And a few things came up for me, but the most prevalent one was when I let go of caring about what other people think. As long as I was consumed with what other people thought I was basing my decisions on that.

I was internalizing everything. Making everything about me. I was overconsumed with things outside of myself rather than what makes me, as an individual, happy. It was chaotic and tumultuous in my head.

When I let go of the fear of being rejected. When I let go of the fear of people judging me, I felt emotional liberation. The same liberation I felt not having to drag my baggage around.

And in that moment, that's when euphoria shone its bright light above my head and said, there it is.

This is the perfect metaphor, comparison, analogy for what we do in our day to day life. We carry our baggage around needlessly and endlessly afraid of what we might be or who we might be without it.

Afraid we might lose something. Afraid we might lose ourselves without it. Only to find out when you let it go, it is most liberating.

The problem is, our baggage has become a part of who we are, who we think we are. It's become a part of our identity. Some of our baggage is the stories we tell ourselves. The beliefs we have about ourselves.

And the fear is, who will I be without these beliefs?

Who will I be? It's almost as if people were to challenge their beliefs, they would suddenly go poof and be a nobody. Starting from scratch. Rebuilding who they truly are. And that terrifies people. Because along with that comes a risk of losing their friends and their family.

I mean, if you up and change everything about yourself, why would anybody around you not have resistance to that? You're not who they got to know. You're not who they accepted or on the other side, you're not doing what they want you to do anymore to keep them comfortable.

You're doing something for you when you drop your baggage. Because when you feel light and free, you will no longer have that heaviness abound, telling you to just conform, just fit in, just go along, do what they want. It's easier that way, because now you know it's not.

The fear of losing love from family and friends is one of the top three things people fear when they're looking to, say, come back home to themselves. To do right by themselves instead of doing what everyone else expects of you.

And sometimes it will happen where some people walk out of your life. But even though you've got history, do you want to live the illusion? Like, do you want to live with these people who secretly despise the new you, or rather, the real you?

And then the next comment is, yeah, but, okay, fair enough. But where do I find new friends? Nobody knows where to go to find new friends because they haven't had to look for a lot of years. Because a lot of these friends have been friends forever.

So, in response to that, there's a few things I want to address. The first is, that that kind of thinking is projecting your fears into the future, which is never good. The second thing is, when you come home to yourself, when you are one with yourself, these things don't even enter the equation. They're no longer top of mind.

Remember, you're liberated from those past feelings, so that particular baggage is gone.

And by that being a concern, it shows how aggressively you're hanging on to your baggage. And I don't say that in a judging way. It's for awareness only. And the final thing I'll say on that is this.

None of my clients have experienced this. What they came back and said was they feel more open to express themselves. More confident in expressing themselves. And in doing so, it seemed to have opened a door that allowed their friends to know more of who they truly are and like them even better.

They said the relationship flowed better because of that honesty. Actually, it's honesty at the end of the day. Honesty about who you are.

Now, I can't guarantee that some people aren't going to walk away from you. But again, as I said earlier, if they can't accept you for who you truly are, why fight to keep them in your life? That's like fighting to keep your baggage.

The baggage that won't let you move beyond where you're at.
The baggage that keeps you stuck in negative patterns.
The baggage that keeps you self-sabotaging and letting everybody else's opinion define your life.

There's a saying, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't." Which is to suggest, better you hang on to your baggage because you know what that brings. You know you're comfortable with that versus letting go of it and not knowing what's out there for you.

In other words, what if all my friends and family leave me, and I'm literally all alone in the world? Yeah, that's not the kind of thinking that's going to get you where you want to go. So let's not even think about that.

But that is an unconscious belief that many people have which prevents them from getting the life they want.

So let's talk about you now. What are stories that you are hanging on to?

• Do you believe good things only happen to everybody else, but not you?
• Are you hanging on to a story that you're not good enough
• Or you're unworthy
• Or nobody will ever love you?
• Or if someone gets too close to you, they'll run like hell in the other direction if they get to know the real you?
• Or maybe you feel like you're a bad mom.

Consider all these stories that you tell yourself.

And when you think about them, where do you feel that feeling in your body? Cause this is the baggage. Where do you carry your baggage?

Is it on your shoulders? You know how we say, "I have the weight of the world on my shoulders?"
Or some people will say, "I feel like there's an elephant sitting on my chest." Or maybe it's a physical sensation inside your body, like your gut is twisted.

Whatever it is, feel what it feels like in your body, having these beliefs, these stories.

Now describe to yourself and for yourself all of the qualities of this feeling.

• Is it heavy or light?
• Does it have a color? And what color?
• Does it have a shape? And what shape?
• Is there somebody's voice or a voice attached to it?
• What does that voice sound like?
• Is it loud?
• Is it soft?
• Is it mocking?
• Is it your mother's voice or your father's?
• Or maybe it's your voice.
• But whose words are they?

Great.

Now, you should have a handful of qualities, and what we're going to do now is address them one by one. So let's take the heaviness.

Let's assume that this feeling of all of these things compounded gives you a heavy feeling. I want you to imagine that heavy feeling lifting up and hovering over the area where it's heavy for you. So, for instance, if you feel like you have an elephant sitting on your chest, that heaviness there, imagine it lifting off of your chest and hovering above your chest.

Now, I want you to take the color of that feeling and imagine the color being completely drained from it. And if you want, you can replace it with a preferred color.

Great.

Next, I want you to take that feeling and the shape you gave to it and change that shape. So if your shape was round with spikes, you're going to want to soften those spikes or smooth them out around the ball. And maybe go a step further and stretch that ball into another shape.

Awesome.

Now, let's move on to the voice, and let's have some fun with it. So, let's say the voice is harsh. And let's also say that when you hear this voice, it's really close to your head. I want you to take that voice and imagine moving it away from your head.

And when you hear that voice now, it's so far away from your head, it's almost a whisper. All you can hear now is (the whisper of), "Oh, you're such a loser. Don't even try it. You're never going to amount to anything."

And if that's still too loud or still too annoying, I want you to imagine the voice is changed to something really hilarious, hysterical, and unbelievable.

And when I say unbelievable, I mean a voice that you would never take seriously. Like, imagine Daffy Duck telling you you're a loser. Or, and I know I'm going old school here, but, you know, Miss Piggy. "Oh, Kermy. Kermy, you're such a loser."

Pick a voice, any voice, and replace it with that horrifying voice that you've heard too much of over your lifetime. Now if you followed along and you did all this, you should feel a whole lot different about those beliefs.

Those beliefs will have a whole new feel to them or they're gone. So now that you've done that, I want you to go back to that - what was a heavy feeling somewhere in your body or you know - again was it above your chest or on your shoulders?

If it's still there, I want you to imagine now that it's turning to dust and a big wind coming along and blowing that dust into the vast universe where it will heal and cleanse.