The older I've become the more I understand completely that there are certain kinds of life experiences that rip a person's soul, spirit, mind, and heart so thoroughly that they never recover completely. "Choosing to recover" plays a very small part in this equation.
No matter how hard they try, what they try, when they try it, they can't fully recover. That's how deep the experience cut.
We've all seen these people.
Sometimes it's called PTST. Some have the "thousand-yard stare" when they talk to you. "Walking wounded." Some look completely normal. No outward manifestation of the pain and turmoil inside.
There are more of these people out here than we can imagine.
This is "emotional baggage" at it's worse.
Conventional literature and the "community of concern" ignores how very real and difficult it is for too many people to let go of this kind of searing "emotional baggage." There's very little acknowledgement that it exists.
Personally, whenever I see someone who's strident, bitter, unengaged emotionally, difficult, a street person, an abusive spouse, a tyrant boss or co-worker and any other number of unpleasant human behaviors, I ask myself: What happened? How did this person get to be like this?
No question that the baggage we bring with us becomes part of our landscape. That's why no one can outrun a bad interpersonal relationship. You've got to find out what YOUR part is in the problem, and deal with it if you can, otherwise you take the problem (baggage) with you.
Getting rid of the baggage is simply not that easy. Especially when your soul and spirit have been torn apart.
Definition of baggage, huh? Oofda. All I can tell you is what it means to me. For me, baggage is emotional wounds that didn't heal well. And for me, if it's good, it isn't baggage. I think most of us have at least one of these wounds. It's like an Achilles' heel; a sensitive area that you protect. If something threatens my Achilles' heel, I have to simply not engage.
Quippan says, . . . . Getting rid of the baggage is simply not that easy. Especially when your soul and spirit have been torn apart.
Then, too, it depends how "sensitive" you are. If you develop a thick skin, and realize that not much in our puny, individual, and globally insignificant lives will be remembered 100 years from now, it puts things in perspective.
Or, if your soul and spirit have truly been torn asunder, never again to see the brightness of the sun, and cast, for all eternity, into the darkest, deepest depths of despair, then you have two choices: Either kill yourself, or admit you're a drama queen, and get over it.
I agree with Quippian that getting rid of that burden of baggage isn't easy ... yet I feel that it can be done.
Having an emotional bond with experience(s) from the past that remain painful and unforgiven is what I would call "emotional baggage". For instance if relationship has failed, usually each party had something to do with the failure. The person who is eventually able to see beyond their own ego and look objectively at their own part in the failure ... forgiving self as well as the other, is able to heal ... and be of some help to someone else who may have a similar situation. We all are merely human, we make mistakes, even though we may truly be striving to do the best we can with what we know at the time.
If a relationship failure happened when the person was too young to have any effect on their environment or on the one who caused the pain, forgiveness of the other is still possible. The behavior and the pain it caused will most likely never be forgotten. With effort, forgiveness for the perpetrator can eventually take place in the heart of the victim. I feel it's worth striving for. Until that forgiveness happens, emotional baggage will keep being dragged around, affecting present relationships, or even causing relationship to be avoided altogether, in order to avoid being hurt in such a way again ... so yes, it remains part of that person's "landscape".
Baxtor, much as I like you, and you know I do like you, I am truly appalled at your comments directed at Quippan. They were flip, glib, unfeeling and cruel. I suggest you check out her profile, and then come back here and make some kind of apology.
gotta say, I like GothamGal reply and agree with her on most of it. I'll add that My past experiences (what you call baggage) is only called baggage if I consider it a burden...I've worked hard at laying those burdens down but have access to any of the lessons I need to go back and gleam new light from.
Those experiences are the road map to me now...without them or knowing about them you don't see the whole picture of who I am today. I want to be known for the WHOLE picture.
HaHaHaHa, baxtor, you're a trip! I've been called a bunch of things, but never a drama queen. Is that better than my usual title, "Attila the Hon?"
Your response indicated one of 3 things about you:
1) Walking wounded. Spirit/soul so obliterated you don't even know you're effed up.
or
2) Never had a real ass-kicking. As Chris Rock says, "Show me someone who ain't never had a ass-whipping, and I'll show you someone who needs one." .
or
3) You didn't get any last night! Or the night before!:-):-):-) This happens when one is mean.
I'm cool, martilnmexico. Thanks.
Like I said, when I see someone exhibiting interesting human behavior, I try to figure out "what happened?" "How'd they get this way?"
I stand by my remarks.
Emotional baggage for some people is a real life changer. Really onerous. For others, it's a mere inconvenience. Has nothing to do with sensitivity. Has everything to do with how far up your arse life's pointy-toed boot has been shoved. And too frequently, the individual has very little say in the matter.
Some fascinating responses. For me, baggage equals a burden, something that weighs you down, makes moving forward difficult. We have all had hard and painful experiences and most of us have learned from them but those who can move on in life without forever being pulled backwards by past failures can't be said to have 'baggage'. I have had some extremely rough experiences but I refuse to let them spoil my present and future.
