The thing about the things we hold onto...

My plane was delayed. It happens. So I found myself with unplanned extra time, walking around the airport with my ridiculously heavy bag slung around my shoulder. I thought that I had packed everything in so well…so thoughtfully placed and organized. I even experimented handling the weight by picking it up a few times before I left the house… it passed all initial tests. But the longer I held it, the more I believed that a damaging neck or upper back injury was about to occur. The combination of my bra strap digging into my precious shoulder with the bag strap perfectly placed right over it was just too much to take. Periodic breaks became necessary.

During one of my important pauses I found myself thinking...why do we hold onto so much?

We don’t only hold onto stuff, we hold onto feelings, experiences, pasts. We hold onto guilt, hurt, anger, grudges. We hold onto what we said, what someone else said, what we wish we said. We hold onto shoulda’ woulda’ coulda’ all day long. …And the list goes on. But if we’re holding onto such unbelievably outrageously heavy things, isn’t there a point when we have to just put it all down… and breathe?

The thing about the things we hold onto is that they stay and hang out on the surface of our world...more than we care to admit. Even if you think you’ve been wildly successful at pushing it all down, pushing it all away, hiding it all so no one can see… sorry to burst your bubble darling dear…the only person you are fooling is your own precious self. No matter how hard we try to push it all down… certain things are simply indigestible.

Our bodies, our spirits, our souls… these gorgeous things are not built to digest things like guilt, anger, fear, hate, regret. Just like our stomachs can’t digest poison… we have to get it all pumped out… or the consequences are, well, ugly. So it all stays there, at the forefront, poisoning your every moment. The held onto stuff inches it’s way into whatever we do or say or experience. The held onto stuff takes up so much space in our bodies that we can’t invite the good stuff in…we are full of undigested crap. I know, fun.

So, you have undigested-held onto-past-crap that is influencing you more than you were willing to realize…and now you’re admitting it silently to yourself with a little smirk on your face. Yes, you. Love love love it. Welcome to being human. Congratulations, you’ve arrived. But that’s not me giving you permission to hold onto it forever. This is me caring about you like crazy and letting you know I get it while at the same time saying… it’s time to put down your bag honey. Take a breath.

Consider what you hold onto. Be curious. Why do you need it? Why do you want it? How is it serving you? Is it making your day, your life, your self… better? Really? What would your day, your life, your self… look like, feel like, be like if for just a minute, you let it go?

And that’s the thing about the things we hold onto.

Love like crazy,
Brooke.