Unpacking emotional baggage

KANISA GEORGE

Inside each of us contains types of baggage. And like some baggage, they have compartments and hidden spaces we use to store all that life has to offer. We fill these spaces with memories, experiences, hopes and dreams for the future and everything else in between. It's a place that houses our deepest desires and, by contrast, can hold harrowing memories.

Invariably, this bag is a life companion and as life takes on various shapes and forms, so does the bag. It becomes heavy, difficult to carry, and sometimes without warning, its contents can spill over, wreaking havoc on our lives. Physically being weighed down by emotions is akin to feeling like you're carrying around a heavy backpack. Researchers found that people who don't get a handle on emotional baggage often feel like they constantly carry what feels like the weight of the world on their shoulders.

So how do we unpack emotional baggage? More pointedly, how do we make the baggage of our past easier to carry?

It's pointless to think about the future without unpacking the past. Yet some of us are guilty of blatant disregard for the negative experiences that got us here. Rather than purposely unload the hurt caused by loss, death or the many other unsavoury things life throws at us, we focus all our energies on escaping. We change jobs, end relationships or obsess over our next vacation and merely shift the baggage to a hidden part of our bag, where it morphs and takes on a life of its own.

In an essay titled "Self-Reliance," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "At home, I dream that I'm at Naples where I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. So, I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples. And there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from."

What he essentially discovered was that you can't escape your emotions. Your memories are the first thing you unpack when you arrive in Naples. So it's no surprise that happiness ends when the vacation is over, and your new relationship often starts to crumble as soon as the honeymoon is over. The baggage of your past has begun to unpack itself.

According to psychotherapist Karol Ward, emotional baggage is a term used to describe all of the unresolved emotional issues, traumas and stresses from the past and present that occupy your mind and body.

This tendency to ruminate or think negatively about unresolved past or current issues seeps into the way we process experiences. Sadly, we carry this perceived view of the consequences into new experiences. When we seek to learn from our past experiences, we exercise healthy behavioural patterns. But this, according to psychologist William Gibson, includes carrying forward threatening and unhealthy baggage.

If not managed, emotional baggage could become far more detrimental than we realise, affecting our health and impeding our ability to practise healthy living.

One study showed that participants's emotional baggage was an important explanation for why they were stuck in old habits, such as smoking and lack of exercise.

Conversely, being stuck in old habits added to their already emotional baggage and made their backpack heavier. Unresolved emotions can also manifest in unhealthy lifestyle habits like uncontrolled spending, comfort eating or random emotional outbursts.

Unless you have a time machine, the pages of our history can't be changed. But what we can control is our perception of it. Some therapists believe that rewriting the story of your memories can make the baggage of your past a little lighter and help you traverse the future with a positive outlook.

Modern neuroscience shows that memory is more about reconstruction than retrieval. Each time we conjure up the past, a part of the parietal lobe called the angular gyrus pieces various bits of stored information to assemble a memory. As a result, our recollection of a situation might change from time to time as we bring to focus different elements of one moment in time. So for example, what we remember about our birthday two years ago might look completely different after five years has passed.

Research has found that our memories change because we reconstruct the stories of past events in accordance with our current narrative. We use the memories of our experiences to figure out who we are and why we are doing what we're doing now. We craft past information to fit our current circumstances and unconsciously edit our memories. Why not reconstruct your memories to create a more positive outlook and unload your backpack in the process?

Instead of ruminating over the bad, find the meaning behind the lesson. What is this memory teaching me? How can I learn from the pain?

Another way to control the narrative is by focusing on positive experiences as often as possible. Research has shown that asking people to "think happy" aids in rearranging memories that might be difficult to manage. It is suggested we think of memories that brings us joy or a moment that remind us of the good life has to offer, as often as possible, to develop happy thinking patterns.

Reconstructing how we feel about a memory requires us to sit and confront it. Unexpressed feelings, regret, unresolved anger and grief stay on a continuous loop if not confronted. Sit with the emotions from those memories and allow yourself to feel them. Listen to what you genuinely feel and acknowledge the emotions.

Most importantly, give yourself time. We often underestimate the power of time, but it allows us to get in touch with those underlying emotions, confront them, and let them go. And through this process, we can unlearn the skill of over-packing.

We all have unnecessary weight in our backpacks, but won't life be a bit easier to bear if we learnt to pack lighter?