Whats In Your Baggage?

Lets Talk About Our Baggage

I am not asking you about your carry on for the plane and if there are any liquids or electrical items you need to declare; I am asking about your invisible baggage. The one that we drag behind us filled with anger, disappointment, trust issues, sexuality, confusion, shame, hate and a bunch of other emotions.

We are born into this world wholesome and innocent without any emotions, we don’t know that one of our parents could turn out to be an abuser or that your best friend will die in a tragic accident at 14, that you will become body conscious, that people will judge you on whether your skin is black or white. We are simply present as new-borns, just there in the moment. But as we grow, so does our baggage.

We are told not to touch our privates as its dirty, despite being curious We are told to stop crying else we will get a smack, despite being upset or sad We are told to not play with certain things as it is messy despite just being creative We are told to not eat chocolate or drink fizzy pop as they are bad for you.

From there.

We think it is wrong to be curious about life or sexuality as someone or god will judge us We think it is wrong to be emotional as it is a sign of weakness. We think it is wrong to show our talents and be creative as its messy and people do not like show-offs. We think it is wrong to eat junk food as we will get fat, and fat people are none desirable

So you see from a young age without us even knowing we start stuffing things into our invisible little bag and as we grow they grow from children aged 7 with small sand buckets in to a 20 something year old with a suitcase. Why do we suppress how we feel? Because we are told to and told we should behave and act in a certain way.

When I was around 14 I developed an eating disorder ( I’ll be doing a blog about this ) and after months of hiding my 'dirty little secret' I mustered up what little courage I could to finally confront my dad about this demon I had stuffed in to my bag. I sat on the living room floor repeating in my head 'Dad I’m bulimic, Dad I have an eating disorder' I think I was hoping that by repeating it that it would somehow just come out verbally and eventually it did and honestly I got the exact response I expected from him after a short conversation of him asking what bulimic means and me saying I make myself sick he told me to go to my room as he didn't what to look at me right now. I still feel physically sick thinking about that moment, I couldn’t believe I had told him my big secret and he couldn’t even look at me, my own dad I know it must of been a shock hearing that your daughter had a mental health problem but all I needed from him in that moment was a hug, I needed him to tell me it was going to be alright, we would get through it together and that he would support me in my battle. Instead I got a rejection I felt abandoned, weak, stupid, scared, dirty, embarrassed all those things stuffed into what now felt like a suitcase and I was about to start paying for that excess weight.

When I was about 18 I started dating this guy and he would always say to me I was so hard to read, he never knew how I was feeling or what I was thinking and that’s exactly the persona I had built myself. A Few years prior to dating this guy I told everyone I had an eating disorder and that I beat it and people were always saying how proud they were of me to overcome such a tough challenge etc and the thing is I hadn’t beaten it I was lying through my teeth about it, I was still dragging around my bulimic demon in my suitcase but from that lie people thought I was strong. After going through that emotional rejection with my dad I didn’t want people to see me being emotional or sad, I didn’t want them to think that I was capable of being vulnerable in case they rejected me for being weak. I carried on like this for years burning up inside this strong character where people looked up to me.

I will fast forward to my early 20s I’m still burning up in my fake strong shell when I start dating a person who I fell in love with, I thought this person was ‘the one’. Out of nowhere this person that I loved starts to bully me, physically and mentally there I stand with my rose tinted glasses on believing that ‘that was the last time, they won’t do it again’ but I found myself being slowly broken down, my plastic strong shell of a persona had cracked and there inside I found that rejected little girl again that’s weak, stupid and scared but what I now realise is that, that person was a soulmate a soulmate that I had signed a contract with in a previous life to make me strong this person knew I would need rebuilding and that soulmate happened to be in the form of somewhat of a narcissist, But that was the jack hammer that I needed to crack that shell and start my rebuild.

From the point of cutting ties with that person I also cut off the paddock to my baggage I let all those emotions out. I learnt that it is okay to be weak, sad, quiet, loud, scared, be purple if I wanted to (sudden image of veruca salt from Charlie in the chocolate factory there) okay maybe not purple but you get what I’m saying. In our adult lives we make a sudden connection with another soul that encourages us to cut those virtual padlocks and throw that tired and battered suitcase that we've been lugging shamelessly around with us in the skip, They allow us to work on ourselves, they tell us that;

Its ok to like girls, boys or both. Its ok to cry Its ok to be angry Its ok to be by ourselves Its ok to be scared

Some people say 'it’s better to of loved and lost than to of never loved at all.' and I agree, I don’t just mean that about losing other people I mean in a sense that we need to lose ourselves, to be at rock bottom in our deepest darkest hole in order to begin the rebuilding process. You do not start by building the roof of a house, you start at the bottom. It may not happen all at once start by taking an item out of your suitcase at a time we have to look at negative situations, negative people and our so-called misfortunes as the building blocks. Like a flower that starts as a seed in the dirt, it pushes through the earth and stands in the rain, snow, heat possibly even gets trodden on until eventually it realises that it’s not as fragile as it thinks. It stands tall and blooms, the wind may catch it now and again giving it a wobble and yet it remains, it thanks the gust of wind for testing it and making it a little stronger every day. Some flowers have seeds that are picked up by the wind and distributed all over and guess what another seed starts to grow, do you know who originally produced that seed, the previous one the one that was trodden on and tested in all conditions but still grew strong, be thankful for your wind you may not see it yet but it has or will carry you.

You are a flower Be brave Push through the dirt Stand in the rain Open your baggage

Remember... Its ok Thanks for reading. Bee 😊