Acknowledge your bag
The latest events in my life show me even clearer then before the importance of knowing you’re in the process. Realising, that it is just a journey we’re on, and the acceptance of the unknown which lies ahead, is a treasure. Only then we are able to observe and reflect on what is going on, the situations that we encounter ant that encounter us, our reactions to it, the lessons we are drawing from them. Naming our trauma, our conditioning, our wounds.
If you are not ready to change, you won’t notice, you won’t acknowledge. Your mind will push it away because it is uncomfortable to see, and difficult. Over the years your mind has developed exquisite techniques to deal with the inner pain. You treat it as a joke, telling it as an anecdote, making people laugh. Maybe it's a denial 'They were right, I was bad, I deserved it'. Maybe it’s a form of self punishment, or a mask you wear everyday, or your unexplained anger at the society and the world.
It is difficult to see, and even more so to do something with it. To change.
The commitment to change is everything. Only then a true healing can happen. Too often we rely on someone’s else to do the job for us. Give me a pill and solve my problem. Give me acupuncture and that will heal me. Only it doesn’t - if we are lucky the symptoms disappear, or hide for a moment, some balance is brought back. But we go back to doing what brought the problem in the first place. And it throws us off again!
To change means to burn and arise from the ashes. To be completely honest and naked with our emotions, to see them, to feel them, and… to let them go. Really - you don’t need to nurture that anger that rose because some asshole crossed your way on your way to work, someone threw a comment which caught you off guard, or you didn’t fulfil your expectations towards yourself. Feel it, let it move you, let it move through you and out. It's just a sign, that something is important to you.
Similar with the anger or other powerful emotions some of us might be carrying around for years, maybe all their life. It’s like a stone heavy, huge bag, attached to our back. Most of the time, it’s difficult to notice it - it’s hard to twist your head 180 degrees, and you keep looking ahead of you, into the future.
It will feel very unfamiliar, to drop that baggage off your back. You might feel an unpleasant cold breeze, in the place that was comfortingly warm for all these years. (Doesn’t matter that it was irritating your skin, and stabbing your back, warm is warm and cosy!) So maybe you only drop a bit of its contents at a time, leaving it do decompose into the Earth, or for the wind to pick it up. Or you take the bag off your back, and actually acknowledge that it is there, then put it back on. Next time you might even peak inside.
With time, awareness and practice you will notice: it’s much easier to walk on without it!
If you are ready for a change, and commit to becoming better, you do it out of love towards your being. It’s ok not to feel it every minute of your day - but remind yourself. I love myself. I am ready to change. I am the only one who can truly help myself.
We are equipped with so many techniques and holistic ways which can assist us on this process. You don’t have to do this journey alone, but you alone need to decide for it, when you are ready.
And the difference you will feel is spectacular.