What if there was a holiday dedicated to letting go of our baggage?

Think about it, who doesn’t have some baggage they continue to cling to like their favorite childhood stuffed animal?

The problem is that we are so used to our baggage that many of us don’t even realize we are dragging around a 10-piece luggage set of crap from our past.

Erykah Badu warned us in her song “Bag Lady” about missing our opportunities in life because of our baggage. However, most of us choose to keep singing along to the catchy tune and totally missed the not-so-hidden message in the lyrics.

“Bag lady you gone hurt your back
Dragging all them bags like that
I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you, is you, is you”

Excerpt from “Bag Lady” by Erykah Badu

The past will stifle you if you let it. I’m doing my best to shake off the past and march towards the future. It’s not an easy task being fully present, but it is the key to being your authentic self.

If there was a day dedicated to letting go of our baggage, I started thinking how I would celebrate National Letting Go of Our Baggage Day?

  1. I’d love to let go of clothes, documents, and other items that no longer serve me, as I’m a hoarder in training.
  2. I’d let go of the pain caused by ex-boyfriends and the battle scars that make me leery of fully jumping into a relationship with no baggage.
  3. I’d let go of wanting acceptance from my parents and wanting them to acknowledge that they are proud of me. I act cool, but part me is still secretly holding out for some acknowledgement.
  4. I’d let go of focusing on the bad decisions I’ve made in the past. I can’t change them so why keep bringing them with me every day into my future?
  5. I’d let go of my fear to succeed. Failure is natural for me as I’m a perfectionist, and we fail all the time. What holds me back is my fear to succeed.

I’m sure I could come up with a long list, which only means I need this day to focus on letting go of my baggage.

So though it may never be marked as another hallmark day like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day or a day off from work like Martin Luther King Day, we all need to examine our baggage and determine what is no longer useful in our lives.

Remember Erykah’s warning; you can’t be truly free while dragging all your baggage from the past. Let it go, let it go, let it go.

 

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