Like most people I have my own cache of emotional baggage. By the age of 43, it’s pretty hard to have avoided experiencing emotional knocks, disappointments and other occasionally negative incidents in relationships. And of course, my heart and mind remembers these things as I move forward in my life.
I’ve often talked about trying to check my emotional baggage at the door when entering a new relationship because surely a new connection with someone doesn’t need to be bashed around the head with the disappointments of relationships past. But today I saw a short film on gaia.com that made me rethink this mindset.
I subscribe to Gaia for their daily yoga videos and this morning I found myself clicking on a different link entitled Baggage. During the film, people lined up at an airport check-in desk to check their baggage and leave it behind. Characters were checking their anger, resentment and all the memories and experiences born out of their past relationships.
But one character had returned to claim his baggage. He’d realised that his recent break-up was caused because he never really offered his partner anything in return. His checked baggage left him like a blank page with no experience or depth.
The idea that our baggage could also serve a constructive purpose took by surprise. After all, aren’t we supposed to leave all that stuff behind and simply move on? Isn’t that what wise people tell us?
Perhaps it’s not as simple as we’ve been told.
Everything in our past has shaped and influenced us. Those experiences have helped to create who we are now, right in this minute. They have taught us love, strength and compassion, and helped us define our boundaries (or where they should have been). In my experience, it is the seemingly negative experiences that have taught me more about myself, who I wish to be and what I wish to create than anything else.
I still believe you should be conscious of how your baggage influences your interactions in the present. And, if it is impacting negatively on your current relationships, then you should look at it with a keen eye, see it for what it is, then make different choices to achieve a different outcome this time round.
But this short film has also made me realise that my baggage doesn’t need to be checked because it has also made me a more interesting person. Life experience, positive or negative, is something you should carry forward because it brings with it a plethora of awarenesses about yourself and your interactions on this planet.
My emotional baggage has helped to create me. But it does not define me.