Letting Go of Emotional Baggage: Getting to Acceptance
"I'm ready to let go of my emotional baggage, but I don't know how."Easier said than done, but yes, there are steps you can take that will lead to the "letting go."First, let's look at what "letting go" means.What can you expect?Often people have the notion that if they really work through their baggage, express their feelings and go to therapy that they will be free of the painful memories they have stored so long. This is not exactly the case. You never forget or get over your history."Letting go" is a shift in your physical, cognitive and emotional responses to the memories. It means you are able to think about it without your heart pounding or your blood pressure shooting up. It means you have shifted your mindset from one seeing yourself as a victim of your circumstance to one seeing yourself as a resilient person who came through difficulties and is stronger for it.It means that the intense, overpowering feelings that nearly drown you have become much less intense and are tolerable. It means that you are in command whereas before it was in command of you. It means it is no longer interfering with your life or relationships because you recognize and handle it when it comes up. It may even mean that you use your experience to help others going through something similar. That is how we define "letting go."We have found that by courageously facing the genuine and deep feelings, the authentic emotions, connected with our painful life circumstance, something quite remarkable can happen within our brains. The fragmented and desperate pieces of our memories and our lives coalesce and integrate within the deeper parts of ourselves, and, miraculously, we feel more like the whole and genuine person that is the best of us.The most important action we can take to let go of our baggage is to feel, and feel deeply; that is the choice that we can consciously make as we embark on this journey, with all its promises and perils, a journey that will naturally return our shattered lives to a whole.