Each of us carrys on our backs the weight of situations lived in the form of an emotional backpack, its contents are the memories and experiences that we have and that in one way or another we cannot let go and are reflected in our lives.
If we don’t learn to empty our backpacks from toxic and negative experiences, it will become increasingly cumbersome over time and eventually affect our mood and relationships.
- Carrying our emotional backpack on our back without occasionally removing what we carry inside creates emotional wounds that need to be healed.
Today we tend to overload ourselves, not only in the workplace, but also emotionally, every experience we have leaves its mark, one way or another, the important thing is that this brand will help us to move forward and grow, rather than creating chains that unscreote us to the past by their emotional weight.
Moving forward with emotional wounds that open and hurt is very different from moving forward with wounds that have already healed and given us a learning opportunity.
The ghost of guilt, the feeling of betrayal or abandonment, criticism, the emptiness of absences or the weight of frustration, increase that weight that makes us walk slowly and prevents us from enjoying life, are experiences that mark and transform us, and are part of our history, but how does that backpack empty if it ends up becoming part of us?
Go through your backpack and think about everything in it, both what you put and what other people left behind. Do not hesitate. Although you cannot see it, it is present in your daily life. Keep in mind that many of your reactions are related to the weight you are supporting; you have to learn to distinguish between what helps you and what doesn’t. Overflowing your backpack is an obstacle to any path you want to take.
Don’t let your backpack overload so much that you can barely move and life becomes too heavy, don’t lose the urge to move on and don’t leave your present in the hands of the past, don’t worry about forgetting, because forgetting is not a friend of intent.
It is necessary to empty this backpack, even if it is a difficult and complicated process, to learn to grow instead of “being in the same place”. The first step is to recognize what it weighs and accept it.
At first, you may even be overwhelmed by a sense of identification and attachment that prevents you from getting rid of the weight that makes up your emotional backpack. This vertigo is the result of a routine masked fear; you’ve gotten used to these wounds, and without them you’re nobody and you feel a void inside you, but believe me, it’s just the fear of uncertainty and the unknown: the fear of letting go.
Learn to give up everything that slows you down in the past and exhausts you, accepts your mistakes, identifies and knows your emotions, gives wings to your dreams, discovers your strengths, values yourself and, above all, learns that growing up is accepting what happens to you and not fighting, but learning from all experiences. Remember sometimes letting go? It’s not just a farewell, it’s a thank you for everything you’ve learned to move on.
Emptying our emotional backpack is a big step forward to let in other feelings and new experiences, some experiences will help us continue to grow and others we will have to heal again, but that’s life, let go of the weight that paralyzes you for your own good and for the sake of your back.
Main image courtesy of Lucy Campbell.