Emotional baggage refers to the feelings you have about your past and the things that have happened to you. These emotions shape how you see others and how you see yourself. They often have a negative impact on your behavior and your attitude.
Baggage is extremely powerful because it influences how you conduct yourself in relationships. Baggage shapes the types of people you are drawn to. Baggage affects how you think, how you feel and how you behave in relationships.
Even people with the most “normal” upbringings have baggage. You do not need to have experienced severe trauma in order to have baggage. Everyone, everywhere, has baggage.
Despite its widespread existence, we spend a lot of time making excuses for our baggage. We defend our mistakes. We justify our mistakes. We run and hide from our baggage. In actuality, we simply need to accept our shortcomings.
People tend to either sweep emotional baggage under the rug by pretending it doesn’t exist, or react negatively by withdrawing, feeling hopeless or behaving angrily. Many times people try to deceive themselves into thinking their baggage doesn’t need to be dealt with or that it will go away on its own. Neither one is true.
When you think about your emotional triggers you are better equipped to handle situations that arise. It is important for you to find a sense of hope and a willingness to heal from whatever in your past is troubling you. The key to dealing with emotional baggage is to be aware of it, know it, own it, and handle it so that it doesn’t interfere with important relationships moving forward.
You have two choices: Continue “as is” by dragging your baggage around with you from relationship to relationship (the very reason it continues to accumulate and spill over into multiple aspects of your life), or use the opportunity to learn from your past.
If you have issues, you can still be in healthy relationships. Own your issues and take responsibility, relieving others of the burden of your “stuff.” Once you understand your past and your limitations, you can then go to work on them and ready yourself for real, fulfilling relationships.
Contact me for help in keeping your baggage in check so you can have happier relationships.
Carrie
You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this
topic to be really something which I think I would never understand.
It seems too complicated and very broad for me. I’m looking forward for your next post,
I’ll try to get the hang of it!
Thank you so much for your kind words. I am so glad it helps!