How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you are pulling a heavy suitcase behind you. Now, one by one, pack your suitcase with everything you get. Can you tell how much heavier it has gotten?
It’s not the load that breaks you down. It’s the way you carry it.
— C.S. Lewis
You are tired, and you are aware that you are carrying a heavy load. That burden is real, and it squeezes you, pushes you to fall, suffocates you, and makes you anxious. Sometimes you don’t even have enough air in your lungs, and you feel like time is running out while you’re still trying to escape from what torments you.
The Emotional Charge
It is largely a true cliché: Life is not as free as it appears; enjoying it comes with various costs that we must inevitably pay. One of them is to not stop feeling emotions, both good and bad, with which it is often easy to form relationships.
Every day, we are exposed to new experiences, which can be difficult to process. These loads can be small and light, or they can be so large and painful that professional assistance is required to bear them.
In fact, the moment you’ve freed yourself from your loads and gathered the imminent learning of carrying them, you’ll be able to feel it, just like when you pack your suitcase for a trip, then you will be able to choose which emotions you want to carry with you and how you have to carry them.
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Why is Letting Go So Hard?
For some, letting go is almost impossible. They might be fearful that if they let go of their present situation, they will end up with nothing. For others, it might be an emotional attachment to a person or situation that is preventing them from taking the steps to move forward in their lives.
No matter what is preventing you from letting go, if you don’t take the steps to do so, you will never be able to move forward with your life. You may think you can hold onto anything forever, but the truth is, the longer you hang on, the tighter your grip becomes. The tighter your grip becomes, the harder it is to break free.
Tools to help you Upload your Mind with Positive Thoughts
Working with tools that help us upload our mind with positive thoughts and improve contact with what touches our hearts is one of the keys to emotional intelligence; negative events will always be a part of you, but they don’t have to become burdens. How are we going to achieve it?
1. Understand the Damage
You may feel cornered by negative ideas and have a heavy heart. Focusing on the damage it’s giving you and set limits that help you to enhance the cracks through which the light enters.
2. Know Your Goals
They say that wanting is power, especially because we have the ability to summon the will from within when we need it the most. Only your willpower will provide you with the strength to shape how you live with your burdens.
3. Knowing forgetting isn’t overcoming
Most loads come from the past because they are feelings that we accumulate along the way. In this case, you can tell yourself that, just as joys give us wings to fly, sorrows can also serve as springboards for us to learn from our mistakes. To overcome the past, express and release your sorrows.
4. Self-assurance
Although it can be very useful and even beneficial in certain circumstances to talk about your problems with someone, you must remember that your burden is yours, and learning to live with it and get rid of it is a process of self-awareness and growth.
5. Lighten your heart by packing your mind with knowledge
Lighten your heart by packing your mind with knowledge, like when we go on a trip that requires us to carry bulky luggage, we need suitcases to put it in and, most importantly, we need to organise to figure out what is more important and what is less important. The same thing happens with the experiences we accumulate in our lives: if we try to move forward with a soul full of weight, we will fail.
Related post: If you ask the Universe for something, let it be Tools
We must not burden ourselves with the weight of unwarented obligations
Messymom.co
How to Start the Process of Letting Go?
Letting go is not something that happens overnight. It is a process that can take time and effort, but the end result is worth it. When you are finally able to let go of those things that are holding you back, you will feel lighter. You will be able to move forward with your life and be open to new experiences.
If you are having a hard time letting go of something in your life, start by asking yourself a few questions. What is this item, person, or situation preventing me from doing? What do I need to let go of in order to move forward in my life? If you are willing to open yourself up to the process of letting go and be patient with yourself, you will be able to move forward with your life and be open to new experiences.
Once you’ve let go of your burdens and learned from having carried them, you’ll see that, just like when packing your luggage for a vacation, you’ll be able to choose which emotions you need to carry with you and how you need to carry them.
To understand this, just imagine how a sailboat speeds along with the aid of a tailwind, and you’ll get an idea of what it’s like to have a mind that feels weightless, devoid of both emotion and cognition.
The way in which you handle your emotional burdens is a sign of intimate maturation. To get to the bottom of it, take the help of mental health experts to figure out what experiences weigh you down, how this emotional weight is holding you back, and what you can do to start emptying out the junk.
‘This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla.’
I loved this – We should not burden ourselves with unwanted obligations!
5 years back I experienced this feeling of being burdened with unwanted obligations and was in a complete stressed and depressed set of mind. Just like the way you mentioned how to analyze if that thing, person etc is restricting me in moving ahead or not… I did exactly that and Yes, now I can say I am in a much better state of mind and less burdened.
I loved the first quote. It is how we carry the burden. It is not always easy to let go. We need to do it to heal and move forward.
So true we should not burden ourselves with anything that leaves us feeling low or small. No need to take too much stress over anything. Lovely write up.
There is a reason why it is call emotional ‘baggage’. While we all know that we must not dwell on things unnecessarily, in many situations it becomes very difficult to do it.
Letting go is never easy. We get so attached to the things we love, and we don’t want to lose them. But sometimes, to move on, we must let go. I fully agree with you that if you’re holding on to something that’s no longer serving you, it might be time to let it go. It’s OK to be scared and uncertain. But we shouldn’t let that stop us from moving forward. We should Trust that whatever is meant to be will be. And have faith that everything will work out in the end.
This is a very very helpful post. I have gone through a lot of emotional turmoil in last two years and one of my ways of getting out of it was to accept it and set goals for myself to help me reinstate positivity.
Ur suitcase is definitely teaching people how to pack stuff efficiently. This was a very useful post.
To be honest Anjali, I’m not the self help kind of a person but i could definitely relate to several things uv mentioned. I used to be burdened by unwanted obligations, still do often. I totally relate to this one too: ‘For others, it might be an emotional attachment to a person or situation that is preventing them from taking the steps to move forward in their lives.’
Your write up is thought provoking and made me introspect.
Loved the title. And it is so very true. We do carry a burden. Often never leaving space for happiness and contentment.
Love this article. I must agree that most people walk everyday carrying unseen baggage within them and unfortunately without them knowing as well. Being mindful about this and letting go slowly things that we don’t have control of or can’t be changed. This would help open more windows of positivity in their lives and enjoy life to the fullest!
Sometimes the feeling of letting go becomes so difficult. Your tips are very helpful.
Interesting post. Letting go isn’t easy for some people and that’s what keeps them attached to unhealthy emotions. One must learn to move on, with help if needed.
I’ve bookmarked your post for reading it at leisure again and making myself a to-do list for the actions I need to take.
Unwanted burdens always give us heavy hearts or negative feelings. The points you’ve shared here to let them go are really helpful. I always try them in my life and thus it will always keep me happy and contented.
I completely agree. We all carry the burden of self-doubt, regrets, and so much more. Now allowing space for happiness and contentment into our lives.
It’s true. Letting go is super hard. As a mom to a little boy, I make mental notes right now that when he grows up too there will be things that may not work with our expectations. So it’s good to train not to have those expectations and then perhaps letting go at that stage will also get easier.! Thanks for the actionable tips.
Sometimes it is easy but many a times it takes a lot of effort and time. Hope everyone finds a way to shed off this extra burden
I think my life is really heavy. I find the graph of my life going down. It’s easier said than done….all the motivating stuff. Sometimes the root of your unhappiness lies in your family and you just can’t get rid of that.
Sometimes there are situations we go through, in life that we cannot avoid and that make us doubt our worth. I think it is very important that we seek professional help if this becomes overwhelming.
Reading your post itself is a stress reliever for me. It makes us realise how we make it tough for ourselves unknowingly
Your post made me think, and remember many things, and it is very effective too. Unfortunately, now I just focus on my goals, I’ve learned to let things go and I just ignore everything that tends to affect me negatively.
Letting go is a process that takes time to complete. Although the process might be time- and energy-consuming, the outcome is worthwhile. Moving on in life and being open to new experiences will be possible for every one of us. Thanks for the actionable tips.
Really liked reading this post. Acceptance, self awareness and intro inspection helps us to deal with things which pulls us back. Very well expressed.
The weight on our minds is the heaviest I think. We need to divert the mind to relevant stuff and relegate the negative notions to the back burner. I am on a mission to do just this. Lighten my baggage so that I can move faster.
Most of us end up carrying a lot of emotional baggage. It is so necessary not to burden our hearts and minds with unwanted baggage. I think one needs to periodically take stock and jettison unwanted thoughts and issues and lighten the mind.
The majority of us end up with a lot of emotional baggage. It is critical to unload our hearts and minds with tthese redundant baggage.
Letting go is really hard and forgiving oneself even harder
This is an amazing for everyone struggling knowing that you are not alone in the world
I like what you said we should not burden ourselves with unwanted obligations. It’s better to let go of few things which are not in our control. I know it’s hard but eventually we accept it.
This is such an interesting post. Letting go sometimes isn’t easy for many people. They keep brooding over incidents and emotions. Learning to move on is the best thing we can do.
Not holding grudge is one thing I’ve learned long ago and have helped me live my life a lot more lighter. We might think that grudges are only for those heavy things that happen to us but those simple or petty misunderstandings that you don’t let go of and keep in your heart accumulates and isn’t good for you. It’s always better to keep an open communication to discuss on the issue and let it go as soon as you can.
We all have emotional baggage. It’s something that we can’t avoid, and it’s important not to let it weigh us down. I think it’s necessary to take stock of our thoughts and feelings periodically and get rid of the ones that are unwanted and unnecessary. I agree with you that we shouldn’t burden ourselves with things that we can’t control. It’s better to let them go and lighten our load.
Damn! This is a story of every hustling individual nowadays. We carry so much with us that sometimes we forget the purpose and just get into the race. Prioritising is must. Thanks for these points to understand it better
You written this post so well, I am one of those who just can’y let go of things, people and emotions too. It’s really bad, I know that I can’t help it. I need time for it, for letting go.
I so loved the article and you have very well mentioned that if we carry burdens in life and can’t move ahead, it’s small life and we need to learn how to let go.
Letting go isn’t easy for some people and that’s what keeps them attached to unhealthy emotions. One must learn to move on, with help if needed.
I can totally relate to this post and I can say that you have raised some valid points. I feel it is really important how we carry the weight.
Thought-provoking! We often clutter our life with all such trash that it starts to weigh down as you rightly mentioned. I love reading this post, another marvel from your blog.
You are right – our life experiences are really up to us to define.
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