Owning your baggage in order to effect change

As humans, we all have emotional baggage. We carry our limiting beliefs, past traumas, and fears of the future with us as we walk through our jobs, our relationships, and our lives.

Not all baggage is created equal. And how a person relates to their baggage can have a huge effect on how much weight they are carrying at any given time.

Some of us have overpacking tendencies and take a “throw it in and squeeze it shut” approach to our baggage. 

Some of us are fastidious about cleaning out and inventorying our baggage regularly - leading to light and organized loads. 

Some of us can’t handle the weight of our baggage, and when it feels too heavy to carry, we put it down.

Putting our baggage down is fine to do from time to time, however, once we put it down we may feel tempted to ditch it or ignore that it was ever ours in the first place. Especially if it was heavy. Especially if it felt uncontrollably messy.

The issue is - the baggage will get picked up.

Usually, it gets picked up by the people we come into contact with. Sometimes, we will even subconsciously hurl our baggage at others to carry. In the best case scenario, this is not done out of ill intent. In the best case scenario, we do this because we see them carrying a lot of baggage that looks similar to ours and we convince ourselves that it’s actually their responsibility to carry it.

But even if our actions are subconscious and our intent is good: The baggage isn’t theirs.  It never was.

This is what we are talking about when we talk about the invisible yet assumed emotional labor women carry in most workplaces - no matter their title or pay level.

This is what we are talking about when we talk about people of color routinely putting the emotional comfort of white people above their own - and still being blamed and harmed in the process.  

This is what we are talking about when we talk about marriages where one person always gets their needs met - at the expense of their spouse’s emotional safety and health.

So why don’t we all take our baggage back? The answer is quite simple. Most humans avoid being uncomfortable whenever possible.

If you were carrying someone else’s baggage, especially baggage they subconsciously unloaded onto you, and tried to give it back to them - it probably wouldn’t go over so well at first. The original owner likely wouldn’t even recognize the baggage as their own. They would only feel the uncomfortable weight that has just been added to their load. And so, they would naturally resist taking it on. They might even get angry at you for giving them this baggage. They may think that you the one to blame. They may think that you are the problem.  In reality, you’re the solution.

The fact of the matter is that we have to be the ones to sort out our own baggage. Nobody can heal our wounds for us. Nobody can expand our limiting beliefs for us. Nobody can address our fears but us. 

Yes, we can ask for help. We can get guidance. We can lean on our community. But in order to do that, we need to be carrying our own baggage first. Even if it’s been a long time since we’ve carried it. Even if we are uncomfortable because we wrongly thought that someone else was responsible for it. Even if the weight of it feels crushing. We need to hold it again if there is any hope of lightening the load.

And besides, the baggage isn’t theirs. It never was.