[su_dropcap style=”flat”]L[/su_dropcap]IVING WITH emotional baggage is depressing; it weighs you down. Not everyone is happy, more people go from day to day not smiling or feeling their day is wonderful. How often do you wake excited about the morning ahead? Or do you feel you’re not intelligent or that you’re really aren’t good-looking enough to get a promotion or find a long lasting relationship? This doubt in yourself creeps in from someplace inside your mind. It may be a voice or a feeling you get when you try to move forward in your business or relationships. This is all personal belongings from your past. It’s time to recycle this misinformation and release yourself from this limiting self-image.
Everything Is Better When We Love Ourselves First
It begins with self-love. How did life get this way you ask? When did you stop loving yourself? It started when you gave up your power to others. Infants are born powerful. They have no fear, full of joy they want to give and receive comfort. Something happened either early on or as you grew up. There is startling new evidence that some infants during gestation experience emotional stress[1] they carry into adulthood.
It flared up when you started listening to that voice that says you’re not good enough. Did it begin in childhood at home or maybe school? The truth is it doesn’t matter. Somewhere earlier in life someone or something made you start doubting yourself. Maybe you’re not unique, perhaps you’re not smart or good-looking said the voice.
Letting Go Of The Voice In Your Head
All this is crap. The voice is incorrect. It is emotional baggage sent your way either knowingly or unknowingly. Families and life environments’ like schools, career or the workplace breakdown our assurance in ourselves. Much of it is done as part of your cultural upbringing. This doesn’t mean it was bad. For centuries, it’s been acceptable to be critical of one another. Human beings are evolving, growing. This system of tearing one another down is considered to be childish and bullying. Still there is a fundamental disconnect between who we truly are and how we see ourselves.
It’s time to begin releasing your emotional baggage. Let me share 3 steps to help you start. This short article can’t provide you the in-depth coaching I do with my clients either virtually or in my office though it will give you these tools to release your emotional baggage. Unraveling these mental chains isn’t mental health; it’s spiritual awakening.
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3 Steps To Release Your Emotional Baggage
- Find your sacred space
Everyone needs a place to relax or be quite. It can be a place in your home. For one client it was her car. She loved to drive to a park and then sit on the hood of her car letting the sun touch her face. Your place may be in your mind or a physical place.
It should bring you peace and allow you to regroup during a busy day. Many chose to start their day mentally visiting their sacred space. For my client, she ‘visited’ the park in her mind too. She had a perfect memory of the spot that she recalled many times daily.
- Gift yourself a better mantra
If you fill your day with mental comments of doom, then your day will be filled with unhappiness. It can be little things. You hit every red light plus a fender bender ahead causes traffic to slow even further. That was just the beginning. Three clients decide to not use your business any longer. Your internal dialog remarks, ‘this is how everything in your life doesn’t work right’.
What if you began your day with a better mantra? Start with a simple smile, and an internal mantra, ‘Everything today gets better for me’. When something isn’t how you desire – meet it with your better mantra no matter what.
Personally, I didn’t believe this could work. It took weeks maybe a month then I noticed one day my life was better. That was years ago and today I rarely have a negative thought. Don’t get me wrong things aren’t perfect but the small stuff doesn’t bother me and things that block my way don’t depress me. I envision a solution and it always appears better than what I had in mind.
- Confront the pain
What is your pain? To release your emotional baggage, you’ll tell yourself about your fears.
A conversation with yourself. I have a client who makes a phone call to herself every night. Sharing with herself like a special friend. She opens up about how her marriage ended and it hurt. She also forgave herself for ending the marriage. Talked to herself about the lack of communication and how she now felt ready to talk.[/message]
I like the ‘personal phone call’ idea. You don’t have to actually call yourself unless you wish.
These 3 steps are a beginning to help you release your emotional baggage. As entrepreneurs, carrying heavy gear blocks you from connecting with others. It causes specific triggers. In relationships or business if we carry our fears with us they crop up and stop us from our success. Start today using these steps and visit our website or more help.
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[1] Professor Vivette Glover at Imperial College London and Dr Pampa Sarkar of Wexham Park Hospital, Berkshire 2007
