What's In Your Bag? Therapy Thoughts on Dumping and Sorting💛
Hello again ♡,
One problem I see over and over in my work as a therapist is that we have the wrong name for our pain.
And when we have the wrong name for our pain, we may believe a narrative about ourselves that is not based in the truth.
Let me explain.
So often we have our identity mixed up with others, or mixed up with painful moments in our story. The problem can also be that we don’t always know the difference between who we are - and our struggles. Or between who we are and the expectations of others.
In other words, we don’t always know what is ours to carry and what is not.
When we started this journey on earth our bags were metaphorically empty. We weren’t carrying any false interpretations or false narratives about who we are. But for some of us, that empty bag only lasted a few moments or months, and we began to carry the pain and dysfunction of others. Your empty bag can be filled with a parent’s mental health struggle or addiction that impacted you daily. Your bag may hold some of the unresolved pain your family never addressed for themselves and passed down to you. Your bag may hold the painful things someone did to you. Your bag may hold the painful ways society has treated you. Your bag may have a lot of different things in it.
Now your bag also may hold love, and deep faithfulness of a caretaker. Your bag may hold the kisses your grandmother gave you, or the prayers your babysitter prayed over you. Your bag may hold the beautiful way you were immediately held when you cried as a baby. Your bag may hold a beautiful assortment of gifts given to you by the love of others.
We all need to periodically open up that bag, and pour it out to sort through it all, to sift what is yours to carry forward and what is not.
Have you every carried a purse or backpack around for so long that it starts to be weighed down with things you don’t need? You may find old receipts, crushed snacks, a stick of gum, mints, and maybe something you’d lost at the bottom. What we're carrying around in our heads is very similar.
We may need to open the bag, dump it out and name it all.Â
The way your aunt always hugged you and winked just at you and made you feel so special: Keep.
The way your father told you that you're nosy and ask too many questions: Toss.
The way you felt when you made your first best friend: Keep.
The way you blamed yourself when you were hurt by someone else’s dysfunction: Toss.
If you could dump your bag out and sort it - what is one thing you would leave behind, and one thing you would keep? ♡
Recent Episodes:
Episode 97: Guided Meditation: If You Are Tired
This meditation makes space for us to exhale and nurture our souls if we are feeling tired. It has been a long couple of years and many are reporting a lot of exhaustion. This mediation makes room for all of us to be, to name it, and to nurture those tired places.
Think of it like a warm cup of tea for your soul.
(These short guided meditations are ones I wish existed. They are topical, easy to follow, and made to feel therapeutic. They are short and combined with very calming beautiful music.)
Finally, this:
"Never allow anyone to be humiliated in your presence."
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 - Elie Wiesel
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"Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage.
Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are."
— Augustine Of Hippo.