How to Get Rid of Emotional Baggage: A Guide for Men

Emotional baggage is an extremely insidious thing. Many of us do not attach importance to it. Even more of us do not know about its existence. Also there are fools who believe that emotional baggage cannot in any way affect our present, let alone the future. Such beliefs are extremely damaging.

If you notice that your life is going in an enchanted circle, this may mean that you are dragging along an unnecessary, destructive emotional baggage. Man with emotional baggage constantly returns to the starting point, and you will continue to be perplexed. But if you read this article, you should know, you are lucky: today we will teach you to recognize this dangerous enemy and fight it. You won’t be one of these unhappy men with emotional baggage.

What is Emotional Baggage

Dealing with emotional baggage is not the easiest thing and here is why.

Life is a journey, during which our luggage is constantly replenished with something new: experience, acquaintances and connections, impressions, emotions. When they are positive, it is not difficult to bear, but as soon as pain, negative experiences and memories are accumulated, it becomes difficult even to step off the place. This baggage turns into a heavy load.

Emotional baggage is known as unresolved problems of an emotional nature, all disappointments, mistakes and psychological traumas of the past, which are a heavy burden. Everyone is attached to his past in one way or another. And sometimes, when it becomes something that detains and limits, it is necessary to get rid of it.

Carrying emotional baggage is harder for those people who pretend that everything is fine and that they take only positive experience from everything. These people lie not only to others - their main problem is that they lie to themselves. Denying the existence and importance of negative experience, they deprive themselves of a valuable source of knowledge. Of course, the emotional baggage does not disappear anywhere - it does not care how its carrier behaves in public.

Do not be afraid to work out your emotions. If you find yourself in the same unpleasant situations (this is especially true in the relationship), then most likely you yourself model them - subconsciously, of course - in order to live negative emotions and learn from it. Perhaps, at some point in time your self-esteem suffered, you had to part with a carefully guarded illusion, you survived the betrayal - we have another thousand options, but we think you have already understood everything. So, all this accumulates in the form of emotional baggage. Negative emotions do not have a limit, which cannot be said about your nervous system. Try to find some info about what dating women with emotional baggage is and you’ll have an opportunity to look at yourself from the side. It is a very useful experience too.

Emotional baggage consists of many components. Below you will find a list of what would be useful to let go. All this presses on you, especially in difficult situations, and does not let you live peacefully. Release the following:

• Regrets about the past
• Toxic relationships
• Painful attitude to criticism
• Errors that torture
• All doubts about the future and your abilities
• Everything you cannot control
• Fears that prevent you from revealing your full potential
• Attachment to results, not process
• An ardent desire to gain the approval of others
• Painful emotions that do not let you step forward
• Uncertainty, unrealistic expectations and negative thoughts
• The role of the victim

Types of Emotional Baggage

Despite the fact that we can name dozens of kinds of emotional baggage, you need to know only three emotional baggage examples. They are the most pernicious and widespread.

Your family is not you

The family plays a very important role in shaping our character and worldview. The main character traits are laid in childhood. Perhaps your childhood memories are associated only with bright, pleasant emotions. You grew up in an atmosphere of love and understanding. But, unfortunately, this is not the case with everyone. You will be surprised to learn how many families around you exist in a very heavy, emotionally negative atmosphere. Children in such conditions receive baggage, which most of them carry for a lifetime, encountering troubles and not understanding the reasons for their appearance.

If your family has aggressively suppressed your personality since childhood, the complex inevitably develops in you. A person with this complex is in two states: protection or escape. Intermediate states are what seem to him "rest". In this case, a person needs to work with this idea: the opinion of family members about the identity of another member of the family is not true in the last resort.

Perhaps you witnessed a divorce of parents, which brought a lot of tears and pain. Perhaps one of the parents - or both - behaved very ugly to the former partner or to the children. In this case, in your emotional baggage there is a complex of mistrust. You want to blame your partner even when she did not do anything wrong. If you catch yourself on this thought, then it's time to throw this baggage into the dump. But first you need to analyze it!

Your new partner is not your ex

This type of emotional baggage from past relationships is very dangerous. Relationships bring a lot of emotions, including negative ones. The fact is that almost any end of a relationship is a traumatic experience. The deeds and words of a person whom you loved in the past (and your feelings in connection with them) can influence your next romantic experience, even months and years later. If your ex-girlfriend deceived you, you will subconsciously suspect her and all subsequent partners of dishonesty, and without a reason. Such emotions lead only to unhealthy relationships, whereas full-fledged relations should be based on virtues, love and mutual understanding, and not on destructive phenomena (excessive jealousy and so on).

If you feel that you need support and understanding of a new partner, tell him or her about it. Explain that you want to learn to trust again. If you have encountered a toxic person in the past, you will constantly be wary of repeating a similar scenario. It takes a lot of work on yourself to heal the wounds, although after the treatment scars are often left.

You do not need to continue to carry this painful, emotional baggage. If someone is bad to you, it's only their fault and responsibility. Think about the fact that you took the next step, left all the emotions associated with the past and now you have a legitimate right to a new relationship, the right to happiness and the right to feel that you are loved, valued and respected.

You now - it's not you in the past

Perhaps this is the hardest thing to realize. The past is something that we can either accept or deny. In the first case, we leave the past behind by analyzing it. We derive a useful experience that will always remain with us. In the second case, the past will press on us, interfere and do so that we will repeat the same mistakes.

A sense of guilt does not generate creative energy, but it takes the vitality very well. Burning shame for your past actions means that you risk stumbling again because fear is in you. Let go of guilt and let go of emotional baggage too. You in the present and you in the past - these are two different people. And only because of the past experience you became what you became - more experienced and wise person.

Do not let your emotions take over you. Yes, you may not have the most pleasant and positive memories of some moments in the past. Nevertheless ... you do not need to carry all this baggage with you all the time. Unpack it, study its contents and draw conclusions. Now pack it and discard it. Or just leave behind you so that you can move on to a happier and brighter future. Remember that positive thinking and a positive attitude towards life can help you get rid of many "items" of emotional baggage. And when you drop all this ballast, you will feel an inexpressible ease and freedom. If you are dating someone with emotional baggage, try to explain these things in the most understandable way.

Now let's see what techniques for overcoming emotional baggage exist.

Letting go of Emotional Baggage

If you want to get a step-by-step strategy on how to get rid of emotional baggage, then this is it. This is a complex and long process, like everything connected with the past. You will need to gradually focus on developing some habits.

Phase one: recognize the moments of attachment

The first phase of getting rid of emotional baggage is awareness of the problem. It's about recognizing that there are situations when you begin to be emotionally attached to something. In these moments, you may feel somewhat uncomfortable or vague. It's time to free yourself.

For example, someone criticized you and you took it to heart. Or deeply regret that they did not do something. Maybe they made a fatal mistake and now they feel guilty. Whatever it is, you need to let go of all this emotional baggage. In order to get rid of it, ask yourself these questions:

• What emotional baggage makes me feel unhappy?
• How else does he make me feel?
• What are the short-term and long-term consequences of this?
• Why is it important for me to release this baggage?
• What advantages will I get when I release it?
• Where do I start?

These questions are the starting point. However, it is important that you do not stop there. It is necessary to work out three more phases.

Phase two: write down your thoughts

The second stage of this process requires that you take your time to write your thoughts on paper. This should be a daily exercise.

Take a notebook and write down your current thoughts and experiences. Describe also the problems encountered, but which you could not overcome because of emotional baggage. Dig deep and list absolutely everything that made you feel unhappy this day. Then take a deep breath and consciously decide to let it all go.

You can create the following ritual: tear out the page and burn it. This will be a powerful metaphor for liberating yourself. Then just move on. Leave the past in the past.

Phase three: practice becoming a witness

The third stage requires a little practice. Become a witness of your experience. Look at your problems from the perspective of a third party.

This witness does not judge or criticize. He just watches, both outside and inside. He notices what happens to the outside world, and also draws attention to feelings, emotions and thoughts. Develop awareness and attention. Find out how to make decisions, what your reactions and behavior are. And again, all this without condemnation.

It works because you are like an outsider. It's easier for us to think about our personality at a time when emotions are not started up.

Phase Four: focus on moving forward

The final phase is to train yourself to focus on moving forward.

Our thoughts now and then focus on the past, present, and future. We want to move forward, but our regrets, mistakes, failures and similar luggage bring us back to the past.

Life in the past keeps us in check and prevents us from moving forward. We seem to be hostages. One of the best ways to separate yourself from the past is to allocate time for visualization. Allocate to it about 20 minutes a day.