All types of hoarding. While I truly do think everyone has a personal responsibility to take inventory and determine whether what they are holding on to has real value or has become meaningless or even burdensome when it comes to possessions, I feel even more strongly about letting more than a box of old magazines and the program from your 8th grade band recital go.
Most of us are carrying around at least a few pieces of baggage far too heavy and holding nothing but weighed down emotions. You know what I mean; the guilt about missing your child's play or not being a "room mommy", the constant nagging voice about not being as competent or successful as the other people in the room, the regrets for not taking another direction with your life, the persistent notions that if you never were something, you can never be it now and the huge trunk of low self esteem or poor self image we permitted everyone else to add to on our life's journey.
One of the most incapacitating bits of "stuff" we carry around with us is worrying what other people might think if we don't live up to their expectations or worse what they might discover if we actually become transparent. But, living behind a film of cover up and fear is like trying to put make up on in the dark. You might think you have pulled it off well, but in the daylight it's quite flawed and far from appealing. It doesn't work for you because it's really not you.
I remember several years ago, announcing to one of my friends that while her opinion was heard, I was not going to change my plans because she felt less than supportive. In a surprise comment, she retorted, "Well it's about time you finally stopped trying to make everyone else content!"
It was a refreshing wake-up call.
Too many people want everyone to be happy before they move on with their own plans and dreams. Too many people believe their dreams are secondary to other people feeling content.
I don't think we need to step over people to go the direction we want to go, but I do think we need to ask them to get out of our way and sometimes not even tactfully if we have tried to in the past and it doesn't work.
 |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/83776439@N00/8463363061/ |
If you are running out of a burning building, I hardly think it's time to graciously ask someone it they mind moving aside, but many times we have accumulated so much advice from everyone we hardly can save ourselves.
How light would your life be if next year you stopped carrying around any regrets you had and bundled them up for removal? How much less anxiety would you feel if you cared less about what everyone else thought and more about what you know you need to do to get your best life going?
How much less aggravation would you have to deal with if you minimized your contact with those who only add to your frustrations and bring you down? And how much easier would it be to get through all your day if you could just be the real you and not who everyone else expects you to be?
Living up to our own expectations is often quite difficult enough, when you add in the expectations of everyone else it becomes insurmountable.
I am not advocating being callous and cruel or even self-serving; just being better able to take care of you by not having to make sure everyone else is okay with it before you start.
Want to make your life better? Clean out your closets, your drawers, your garage, your office and then clean out the negatives in your emotional baggage. Stuff the regrets, poor self image, years of self doubts, low self esteem and replays of how you don't deserve the best and finally say, "GOOD RIDDANCE".
Whether it takes professional help or a good friend to help you rid your life of the debris that weighs you down and drags you through another year of less than what you really want, get it out of your life once and for all.
With every year of carting around the regrets from the past, the opinions of others, the poor self esteem someone gave you to hang on to, the belief you can make everyone happy and the unfair expectations you permit to weigh on your shoulders, you live life more disabled.
Baggage stuffed with all the wrong things is useless and the price you pay to haul it around becomes prohibitive.
 |
| http://www.rtwblog.com/about-the-challenge/ |
Is it time to "weigh" in and get rid of the rest of you to finally move on with the best of you?
What type of "baggage" do you want to send on a permanent vacation?
Is it time to take the NO Baggage Challenge?
No comments:
Post a Comment