Would you rather carry baggage or balloons?

We are sisters
Holding tight to expectation, heartache, and grief
We struggle to move forward
Weighed down by despair
Ready to be happy
We are sisters

Holding onto painful emotions, traumatizing experiences, and unfulfilled expectations is something many people do. This collection of negative memories, regrets, and/or disappointments is often referred to as emotional baggage. Yet, why do we insist on dragging it everywhere we go?

Maybe you’re not aware that you’re holding onto all manner of toxic feelings, but it gets heavier over time. You add to your load slowly, year by year, until one day you’re so weighed down you’re unable to move forward. You stop, burdened and confused by your lack of momentum, stuck in the rut your baggage wheels have created.

“You can check your emotional baggage at the curb and aspire to become a gentle warrior or you can carry it on and continue to be a wounded soul.” ~ David Roppo

Is it possible to release past hurts?

What if each bad memory could be sent back to the past and kept there?

Emotions are meant to be felt and then released, but instead you hug them to you, hold tight, and never let go.

You can’t change anything by hanging on.

You can’t go back and redo the situation by remembering it.

You can’t begin to heal until you allow everything to wash through you, and then let it go.

To make it easier, start saving good memories.

Imagine each one as a balloon.

Give it a color and fill the entire balloon with a happy memory, grateful moment, or a time when you felt blessed.

As you accumulate more and more balloons, it will become harder to hold onto your extra baggage.

It’s easier to release the bad when you feel more balanced between light and dark.

Make it your life’s mission to collect as many balloons as possible.

If you’re busy looking for the good in life, there isn’t time to keep hold of the hurt.

Just for today:

I will release everything that I don’t have control over.

I will allow my child to carry his own baggage.

I will only hold space for my child’s journey.

I will focus on collecting balloons.