Leave Some Baggage At Baggage Claim

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could simply lose our emotional baggage the same way our luggage gets lost by airline companies? If only we could turn off our emotions and memories that easily. 

Even the most “perfect” upbringing has its baggage. It doesn’t require a traumatic event or abuse to have emotional baggage. Perhaps you grew up in what most would consider an ideal family environment. You mother was a stay-at-home mom and your dad went off to work every day. You had  siblings and the family went to church at least three times a week. By all accounts, you had a great childhood … and you did. But that perfection may have spilled over into you adult life and you have discovered that your expectations for relationships are far too high. Why?  You parents never allowed you and your siblings to see any conflict between them, so you grew up with an ideal that in a perfect relationship, there shouldn’t be any conflicts or disagreements. Not so.

You would be hard pressed to not know someone in your life that has experienced some emotional or even physical trauma during their formative years. Whether it involved the death of parent, a nasty divorce, physical abuse or severe emotional abuse, someone that we work with, go to school with or even live with has lived through something traumatic. The difference is how these individuals have dealt with the emotional baggage that comes along with the trauma.