How to stop your past messing with your future

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Spotify click hereApple click hereThe other day, I ran into a high school friend of mine.You know how sometimes you run into someone and you immediately start talking about everything and it’s like time’s stopped, you’re back in high school and everything’s the same?

Well, that same thing happened to us and we ended up chatting for hours in a local Starbucks.She told me she headed East for a while after college but was now planning on settling back in town, for which I’m really, really excited!

Now, let me tell you a thing or two about my friend – for the sake of convenience, we’ll name her Cate.

She’s this really gorgeous, tall, blond woman. She’s very successful, she’s traveled a lot, and she’s going places in life, know what I mean? It’s like she has the PERFECT life – at least when you look at her from the side.

What blew my mind away was when she said she really, really struggles to find a partner. Not a boyfriend, not a husband – I don’t think she cares about the titles – but a real honest life partner you can trust.

Cate had a bad case of acne and was bullied a lot like a teenager. A lot of the guys made fun of her looks and called her Cauliflower Head, which is awful and heartbreaking and just traumatizing!

I knew she has a hard time dating but I never realized the extent to which Cate’s problem still goes on – almost 20 years down the line! AND NOW, SHE HAS A MIRROR FACE – you can actually google this, it’s a thing when your face is spotless and mirror-like!

She confessed the single status is bothering her more than she wants to admit but every time she goes on a date, she feels really self-conscious and feels VERY uncomfortable if the guy looks at her for a second longer.

When I opened her Instagram profile, I noticed her captions don’t celebrate the life she currently has – so what if you’re single?! – but instead, add up to the pressure of finding a boyfriend.

Cate has captions like eating alone, again L or all the married people be like and I’m over here doing XYZ….. and I eat alone on most days, which is totally fine. And I do things both singles and married people do, know what I mean?

The impression it gave me was that she settled down on being Cauliflower Head for the rest of her life and she wants to retell her story over and over again in every possible way.  

Cate let her high school bullies – a bunch of 16-year olds who knew NOTHING about life – define her life script and the way she spends her life! It’s alarming what our emotional baggage can do to us!

I think my friend is a great person and has a lot to offer emotionally and she’d be a great partner only if LET GO OF HER EMOTIONAL BURDEN!

 

 [h2] Why do we struggle with our emotional burden?  

I explained everything to her that everyone sees a different reality of the same thing. While I really, reaaaaaally LOVE my alone time, she sees it as a big downside in her life. Mindblowing, right?!

It’s the same thing – I eat dinner alone; she eats dinner alone. But the way we think of it is what defines how we FEEL! It took me years to accept the fact that my dad abandoned me and that being ALONE doesn’t mean being lonely – it’s me who has the ability to label the time spent alone as LONELY or FUN.

Our beliefs and values are what defines how we feel but our PAST TRAUMA also plays a huge role in forming our system of values and beliefs.

Unpleasant memories and events create our EMOTIONAL BURDEN. Think of your emotional burden as your very own backpack that you carry with you all the time. Everywhere you go, that backpack comes with you!

Naturally, if you’ve ever felt bad around guys or bad on a date, your brain goes – A-ha! Eureka! This is what makes me feel bad, so let’s just avoid this part forever and problem solved!

And that’s why letting go of your emotional baggage is so hard. It’s not as simple as – oh, just forget about it! – it’s about completely rebooting your system of beliefs and values you have about life.

 

My friend Cate firmly believes it’s impossible for men – for anyone really – to really like her and her insecurity about her looks (even though she looks dead gorgeous now!!!) are holding her back from experiencing some really wonderful things. 

She said that each time she goes on a date, she feels uncomfortable if the guy sitting across the table is staring at her face. I reminded her that he’s probably not even staring at her face looking to find something he DOESN’T LIKE – the guy is probably just looking at her more intensely because he’s really into her! I would stare at a beautiful blond woman like that!  

But the backpack on Cate’s back – her emotional burden – is shaping how Cate thinks and feels on each date!

 

 

[h2] Are you nodding your way until here?

We’ve all been where Cate is right now, myself included.

If your emotional baggage is stopping you from living your best life, here are some strategies you can use to get rid of your emotional burden!  

 

[h3] Look at yourself from a third-person perspectiveWe’re the only living things on the planet that can mentally rewind our lives. We can press play and look back in the past or press play and try and predict the future.  

That same process enables the brain to learn from our past mistakes or be aware of future consequences to protect us and help us survive.

When we encounter a situation – and going on a date or a job interview is a “situation” for the brain – the first thing our brain does is look for a SIMILAR situation that has already happened to us so it can gives us hints and pointers on what’s the best way to handle it.

Let’s say, you get really anxious at job interviews and you struggle to present yourself in the right light.

If you take the time to dig a bit deeper, I guarantee you that you will find the situation zero, as I like to call it – the situation where it all started.

It doesn’t even have to be a job interview - it can be something that happened to you back in elementary school! For example, if your first ever admittance test went really bad, your brain will make a mental note out of it every time you have to talk to someone of “higher authority” like a HR manager!

The brain immediately recognized any similarities and makes us feel the SAME way we felt back then even if the present situation has NOTHING to do with the past one! It’s so easy to feel like a sad six-year-old again, isn’t it? Well, now you know that’s just your brain playing tricks on you!

To make yourself snap out of it, take the third-person perspective. This is something another dear friend of mine taught me and it helps me get the REAL perspective instead of holding onto what my BRAIN thinks it’s real.  

Look at yourself from a distance – what would that situation look and feel like to a total stranger, someone who didn’t have your bad experience?

Would it be as big as you imagine it in your head?

Would you react the same way?

Would you feel the same way?

99% of the time, that answer is NO!

This has really helped me snap out of an anxious mood and put things into perspective. 

Another exercise I find useful is to pretend that a friend of yours is dealing with the same situation you’re dealing with now. What advice would you give them? This allows you to offer a rational but compassionate advice – because who gives friends bad advice, right?

And I’ve also realized this works wonders because it helps me be kind to myself in difficult times instead of putting myself down for “acting out” – we all know it’s really easy to give advice to others but really hard when it comes to taking our own advice.

 

[h3] What are the beliefs holding you back?

As you all know, I quit my job to run my business full time.

As someone who spent years at a corporate job, I felt very unproductive during the first few weeks simply because I didn’t feel like working from 9 to 5. I often worked either really early in the morning or late at night, while everyone’s sleeping and everything’s quiet.

It took me at least a couple of weeks to realize that I don’t have to work from 9 to 5 now – I can work whenever I want.

So I took pen and paper and wrote down the beliefs I have about being success and it blew my mind away when I realized one of my old beliefs claimed that people who work from 9 to 5 are successful.

Once you dissect your beliefs like that – especially the beliefs that stem from emotional trauma – you’re going to discover a whole new world that GUIDES your mood on a daily level.

I can’t believe I was being hard on myself just because in my head, working late into the night didn’t equal success.

Then, once you’re aware of the beliefs holding you back, you can replace them with NEW beliefs that actually serve you!  

You can do the same with whatever is causing you to feel bad about yourself.

Let’s say you think all men are liars.

Instead of stubbornly holding onto your belief, find the past events that shaped your belief.

Was it that your dad lied to your mom? Did your ex-boyfriend cheat and lie?

It doesn’t matter why you have it, as long as you’re aware of the fact that it doesn’t serve you anymore!

Another thing about beliefs is that the more you focus on a belief, the more you’ll find the proof that confirms that belief of yours.

If you think all men are liars, the only thing that happens is that you find more evidence of all men being liars! If you think all men are interested only in good looks, you find more evidence of men doing that!

It’s the same principle from the Law of Attraction – if you keep thinking about red cars, you’ll keep seeing red cars everywhere you go!

To put an end to all of that, you need to reverse the process or in other words, convince your brain that your old belief is no longer true.

Again, if we take the same example of all men being liars, then look for evidence that supports your new belief: not all men are liars!

Ask your friends and family to tell you examples – there are some wonderful stories about people who’ve kept their marriage vows for 40 years or more. There are long-term relationships where people don’t cheat. There are short-term relationships that fell apart for other reasons – but cheating and lying was NEVER the problem!

 

[h3] Black and white thinking is a no-no

That brings me to my last point – we really like to think in black and white.

It’s how we’ve been programmed ever since the beginning of our lives and it’s really difficult to train yourself how NOT to think like that.

The whole educational system we have in place doesn’t allow for a lot of creative thinking, to say the least. Thinking outside the box and looking for more options.

So we grow up believing that things are either black or white – which is not always true.

Our emotional baggage only makes it more difficult to find the right balance.

Take the same example: all men are liars!

Reality is somewhere in-between: not every man is honest but not every man is a liar. Each man to its own or better said, it’s not always black or white, it’s most often grey!

Try to train your brain not to think in extremes as that plays a huge part in letting go of your emotional baggage.

Let’s say you have a date arranged this weekend – don’t think that either it’s going to be a total disaster or that you’ll fall madly in love right away. What are the odds of any of that happening?

Let me tell you right away – very, very slim!

Chances are, you’re going to have a nice dinner with – hopefully! – a nice man or a woman, and then you’ll take it from there!

Doing a reality check and snapping out of your black and white thinking helps you fight unrealistic expectations and saves you from a lot of anxious thoughts!

 

[h3] You decide on your life’s narrative!

Before we wrap it up for the day, let me tell you one thing – YOU DECIDE ON YOUR LIFE’S NARRATIVE!

I’ve heard stories about people who never manage to move on after trauma and that really saddens me. Past emotional trauma can sometimes be like a pair of glasses that we wear and everything we see, we see through it. It’s the first thing we tell others and it’s the thing we let us define the most.

So my advice today is to try and take off your glasses. It’s not an easy process but it’s not impossible either and it totally depends on you.

You decide what your life’s story going to be like – whether you’re a victim of circumstance or a hero. And let me tell you, heroes and survivors DO have more fun!

You know you can always get in touch with me if you want to talk a past trauma – thank you for your time today!

And if you enjoyed this blog, don’t forget to share it with someone who may enjoy it as well! 

Spot Your Emotional Baggage™. Don’t delay your chance to experience emotional release any further than today. from bernadette balla on Vimeo.