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Physical and Mental Baggage: Can You Let it Go?
July 16, 2010 | 27 Comments
When I was in high school, I was always afraid that I wouldn’t have enough time to go to my locker in between classes. As a result, I was one of those kids that lugged around a 70 lb backpack full of every textbook, notebook and binder that I might require in the course of my day. It was always such a relief to throw my overstuffed backpack in the backseat of my ‘99 Saturn at the end of the day. A literal weight off my shoulders.
In much the same way, many of us carry around a lot of extra weight in life. For some of us, it’s physical weight in the form of body fat. And for even more of us, it’s mental weight in the form of grudges and other emotional baggage. And just like my backpack, how good it must feel to let it go.
Our mental weight often manifests itself physically. Who among us hasn’t – at one time or another – tried to eat their emotions? Moreover, many of us become anxious and stressed over situations and people that we haven’t yet accepted; as stress levels rise, the hormone cortisol is released into the body. Cortisol regulates energy and increases cravings for fatty or sugary foods. In other words, our mental baggage can manifest itself as physical baggage on our human bodies.
How freeing it would be to release it all. If it’s no longer serving you, why continue to carry it around? If it’s a grudge that you’ve had, what do you stand to gain by feeding it? Chances are it’s only sabotaging you, your life, and perhaps your health and happiness.
Let it go. Release it. Be free.
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Davey, I can relate to that right now. I am around 70 lbs overweight right now, and apart from taking cortizone due to my asthma, I also get really stressed out and start to eat fatty and sugary foods on the back of my folks. One of the biggest stress-causing things and a personal goal has finally concluded. And that was to get my Pilot License. But now, I am working toward my second big goal, which is to lose weight. And yes, you should write a book, you are an awesome motivational speaker
Love you, kisses and hugs
dear davey wavey – this blog post hits me directly where i LIVE, in every regard. since age 10 i have been an emotional eater, and currently carry around 100 lbs of literal excess weight. and there’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind that it stems directly from the metaphorical emotional weight i’ve been carrying around since childhood. three weeks ago my parents decided to stop speaking to me because i refused to get in the middle of a dispute between them and my older brother, and it’s looking like this is going to become a permanent split between my parents and i. my mother is, i’m certain, an undiagnosed borderline personality disorder case; my childhood was hell, and i’ve stuck it out as best i can into middle age, maintaining a relationahip with my parents. but now they’ve removed themselves from my life, and i’m left picking up the emotional pieces, which i’ve been doing my whole life. everyone has their row to hoe, there are so very many that are so much harder than mine, but it’s a tough time, grieving the loss of my parents despite my every effort to reach them from a loving place. didn’t mean to unload on you here, really just wanted to THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for being an important part of my support system through all of this – you keep me centred in love, and remind me that everyone, even my mentally ill mother, is doing the best they can, no matter how horrible and hurtful appearances may be to the contrary. you have taught me to express always from a place of love, and that is a huge lesson for me. please know that the work you do through your videos, blog, twitter, and facebook is GREATLY APPRECIATED and that you DO reach people, and you DO make a difference. when you say “i love you, blog buddies” i feel it; please feel it back when i say, “i love you, davey wavey.” – jonathan L
Jonathan, while you might not want to rekindle the relationship until your mother has herself sought some help for her borderline issues (I’m only making this observation based on what you’ve said here), don’t lose hope that the split is permanent yet.
It may be but none of us knows what the future does hold. People come in and out of my life often, including my extended family. Most because we all get preoccupied with whatever is going on in our own lives and don’t readily take the time to stay in touch with loved ones and friends as perhaps we sometimes should. The point being, anything could happen in the future.
The key now is to do what you can to address the needs of your own life.
Like you, I’m carrying extra weight (about 70#’s if you ask me – less, if you ask others – LOL). I found this particular blog entry to be interesting in that I have seldom dealt with stress in a healthy manner. I eat my emotions or I “sit and stew about what is bothering me, often times watching the damn television” (which is why I’ve decided to cancel the cable as of this month). What would be a better approach would be to get out again and ride my bicycle or walk. You could do this in a mall in your local area if heat is an issue, as it is here in Texas (God, was yesterday ever hot!)
Eat salads; lots of vegetables… You’d be amazed at how tasty a salad can be if you take the time to create some salad dressings of your own with a good olive oil and some tasty vinegars and seasonings and you can vary what you use so that they don’t always seem the same. I’ve been doing this a lot of recent; mostly because I’ve just reached a point where I’m really fed up with the extra weight that I did gain.
(In my case, I blame “some” of my weight on my fight with cancer – they had me on prednisone. However, I’ve been in remission for a couple of years now and cannot use that excuse forever. The truth is that I suspect MORE and MORE of my problem may be exactly what DW is talking about here; stress.)
I was stressed in my last job… You were stressed with your parents growing up. Today, I’m stressed because I’m looking for work in an economy where jobs are scarce.
Anyway, keep your chin up and I hope life gets a little easier for you now that you’re refusing to allow the parents to drag you into the middle of their own arguments.
Namaste,
Michael
dear michael – thank you for your kind and supportive words. how lovely to discover that, among all the other wonderful things this blog is, it’s also a loving community unto itself. i quit smoking nearly a year ago, and i’ve been using that (and recent family drama) as an excuse for not eating better and losing weight – “can’t attempt too much all at once,” and all that. but you’re absolutely right, the time for excuses is over; salad time for me indeed. your words of encouragement re my family situation are touching, and greatly appreciated, and you’ve reminded me to hang onto some hope. (i live in southern ontario, canada, and it’s hot as blazes here too! seems to be everywhere.) thanks again, and take care – love, jonathan L
sorry, also meant to say – i got rid of cable tv over five years ago, and have never regretted it. (still heavily into dvds, but anyway…) and GOOD LUCK with your job search – jonathan L
DW-Bravo-good post, grazie
At this point in my life, I encourage the lifestyle where you make no enemies. I can honestly say there is nobody I hate in my life. It takes too much energy to stay mad at people. I can dislike people, but given the situation, I can sit in the same room as them, talk with them, be genuinely friendly, but at the end of the day remind myself that inviting any form of negativity into your life would compromise yourself.
All of this is so true! I know recently my stress has shown itself into the form of a stutter so bad that I can barely get any words out when before I had never stuttered before! The hard part is when I do start stuttering is getting my mind back to a normal state so I can talk normal! As always Davey your blogs are wonderful read!
good
I just found your blog and I have gone through alot of the subjects you have passed by. I wondered if this was going to be lame or boring, but when I finished looking I realized that you have things to say. Some of things are fun topics serious ones or things you have encountered on your way. I have enjoyed your blogs so far and I think I will continue to watch them in the future. Keep them coming, I think everyone will enjoy them in some way
)
your right davey …..its great thankz for making my day
Its nice to know that there are other ppl who have gone through and are going through similar experiences. I myself was suffering severe depression for fear of not being accepted if it were ever discovered that i am gay. It reached the point where my depression began to manifest as physical health problems, i was passing out. And it wasn’t until i got help and later came out that those manifestations went away. I’m much healthier for it now and its all thanks to your blogs Davey Wavey.
See my response to Jonathan, DW. This was a good blog entry… Thanks for sharing the info. (I’ve also bookmarked that nutralegacy site that you linked to in your entry; not a bad resource for info!)
Namaste,
Michael
Davey, I can imagine that some gay male students may have wanted to pry their fingers into that school rucksack to take out your jockstrap to sniff, especially by mid-week or later when your teen man-odours had accumulated!
There are a lot of things to shuck in life. Some examples that you did not mention are snobbery and prejudice. Snobbery leaves one in danger of being “one-upped” by another snob or a snob-buster; it can be stressful living with that threat! Prejudices just keep one from enjoying (and benefitting from) a lot of possibilities in life.
Pax, Jerry Parker
Amazing how your choice of topics can hit so close to home for so many people!! My physical weight has grown over the last 10 years which has also caused my mental weight to grow. I’ve never been an “A” type personality and this just adds to the stress both physically and mentally. Doing the simple things to relieve all of this is actually very simple but it seems to be almost a phobia for me. I’m amazed by your insight to so many topics for such a young age. THANK YOU!
Nice post, Davey!
Your insight is great!
However, the opposite is true for some, like me. Stress, anxiety, and depression can cause me to have no appetite and consequentially, not eat (nor sleep too). I dropped over 10 pounds in one week just a few months ago after having having a lot of stress dumped on me. It is almost like the mental load almost physically fills us. People that cannot eat when stressed should loose the mental weight, so that they do not loose too much weight or develop malnutrition problems as a result of not eating enough. Both situations are dangerous to our physical health, though
Having too much stress and anxiety is unhealthy, no matter which way one goes. It is great that you are encouraging to release our mental baggage!
pat you are very right, during my breakdown, i lost 8kgs in one week, which was enormously dangerous considering that at the time i was already underweight. Your desription of the mental weight physically filling us describes exactly how i felt at the time.
Davey, you are totally right, but how we can let it go?
Belal, while i dont pretend to know how to shed emotional baggage, i think that the process is unique to all of us. For me it was the support of my closest friends to encourage me to tell my mother how i was feeling and thus get the help i needed. The therapist, my friends, the medication i was on, and davey wavey blogs, corny i know but true, they all helped me to come out thus shedding my emotional baggage, which was stressing out over the fear of what ppl might do if they discovered that i am gay. It might help to be aware that all this was occurring in a small country down in Australia.
So i think that if we all say great friends, some time and a bit of davey wavey we can learn to take the days problems in our stride.
This reminds me of Up in the Air because George had a backpack and was talking about letting go of things. Just thought I’d mention that.
I love what your saying,but it’s easier said than done. I’m a teen, and I admittedly have a lot of emotional baggage, moreso than most i think. I’m either gay-leaning bi or gay, have an extremely homophobic friend, a verbally abusive mother, and come from a homophobic family living in one of the most homophobic areas of one of the most homophobic states. I admit it’s caused some damage, in this case constant paranoia and distrust of people, but I feel that the sooner a person recognizes it, the sooner they can come to terms with it. Not necessarily recover from it, but it’s at least a step in the right direction.
TriNova, whenever you have to depend on someone for food, shelter, etc, unfortunately you have to do what you have to just to survive sometimes like not telling them the truth about who you are. Once you are able to provide for yourself it is mcuh easier to be yourself. As for your homophobic friend I doubt that the are really your friend so be careful. Know that you are not alone in how you feel.
I agree we are the ones who must start our change. Sometimes it requires others to help or support us.
What I will say is depending on the intensity of the mental baggage it may be a process of integrating it into your life as a work in progress. It may even be something that takes your whole life to fully purge. Acceptance of the problem is the first step, however. Then we can begin to live with and resolve the issues.
No issue is to big if we take it step by step and are not afraid of asking for help now and then.
Hey Davey,
If we are pure of heart in all situations throughout our lives and we always work with intention and maintain unconditional truthfulness… I think it is a requirement to go through life without removing any part of it… some call it baggage I call it the stuff that makes up who we are and whether the weight is heavy or light has more to do with the relative situation not whether or not you have so-called baggage or not. I’m not saying consciously have in your mind your whole life story and share it every chance I get… but I am saying take your whole life not just the good not just the bad not just the mundane or fantastic but every part. It’s kinda like as a scenario I have my favorite cousin and I love them more than any of my other family members but there is this one thing they do they say like constantly when they talk I hate it when they do it and it’s constantly driving me nuts… anyway this is a genetic part of who they are a innate part of their personality… then all of a sudden one day and onward from that point I only hear them use the word like in proper context and language… I hated so much when they used to use like all the time… but now that they don’t say it anymore I realized that it’s just not them it’s not the cousin that I love more than anything in the world sure it drove me nuts but I loved them for who they were not for the the things about them that I hated or liked. In essence now when I speak to them it’s like talking with a stranger I don’t even know who they are anymore. In essence as we go through life I think what is important is that we have the ability to transcend our own frustrations, pet-peeves or dislikes because we know how ever much we hate these things… in reality we love them as much as those things in which our unconditional love is clearly apparent and we must learn to love the things that we hate because we love to be alive we love the things we love but without those things we hate what we love would not be the same so our level of loving must be the same for those things in which we hate as much as those we know that we love!
Kenneth R. Livingston
No REGRETS in life not in a single moment I’m to happy about who I am and so happy that I am alive… I thought I hated my parents for years because they said they didn’t love eachother anymore and I didn’t really like the people that either of them were… but then I realized I love them unconditionally because I love that I’m alive I get to experience this the good the bad the ugly the hate the love the hurt the pain the beauty the peace the turmoil the color the grey the jealousy the greed the comprehensive picture and that’s why I love to be alive I get to experience it all what ever it may be. It would not be the same if it wasn’t how it was and how it happened and what and how it will happen!
Kenneth R. Livingston
Hey Davey,
Keep in mind being alive does not end when a person dies. Being alive is a choice anyone can make for a lifetime or an eternity!
Kenneth R. Livingston