Seriously, my dear, is it time to get rid of the ‘baggage’? If it feels like you are dragging a trolley full of luggage with you everywhere you go (fashionable luggage of course, you are a Burnout Queen) it may just be time to celebrate losing your luggage.
Oh I know of what I speak. I spent years weighed down by baggage. In fact, my luggage resembled one of those amazing vintage Vuitton travelling wardrobes with a nook, cranny, tiny drawer, or hidden compartment for everything that I was afraid to leave behind. What it didn’t have was a mirror so that I could see what continually packing around all this stuff was doing to me.
I was exhausted from carrying it around and yet somehow I was afraid that if I put my luggage down, left it in a corner somewhere, I would be giving up. I wasn’t sure what I would be giving up or even how I would be giving up, but I felt or believed that if I ‘lost my luggage’ I would somehow miss something that was of vital, life-or-death, importance. So many smart, creative, sensitive women are afraid to let go of something from their past because in some way letting go feels like giving up, or giving in, or accepting defeat. But it’s not!
Darling, there is a big difference between giving up and letting go.
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Giving up is an unconscious act that develops over time. Burnout involves lots of giving up. You give up what you enjoy, what makes you happy, what brings you meaning, your priorities, and even your values. Over time you give up your true Self, the very essence of who you are. Last but certainly not least, with burnout you give up hope.
Letting go is a concsious act, a choice, a decision to pack-up and move on. I remember being told so many times in the past to ‘just let it go’, the problem was, I didn’t know what I was supposed to let go of let alone how to let it go. So instead I added ‘feeling like a failure because I couldn’t let go’ to my list of things I couldn’t let go of.
Hanging onto the past doesn’t allow you to build the resilience you need to deal with new challenges, pressures, and problems. In fact, the freedom to experience and enjoy anything new simply doesn’t exist when you can’t relinquish the past. Hanging on to the way things ‘used to be’, ‘were supposed to be’, ‘you were promised they would be’ keeps you trapped in a time warp ripe with resentment, disappointment, cynicism, and disillusionment.
Letting go opens the door for transformation.
Letting go involves thought and self reflection. Start by asking yourself why you are hanging onto the past and why you need to let it go. Letting go allows you to clear the debris, dissolve old ideas, change habits, and release or transform old patterns.
Do you know, or perhaps have suspicions about, what you are continuing to pack in your luggage? Sometimes we have to let go of what we know, who we know, and maybe even who we are.
Do you need to let go of…
- a friendship that drains you more than fulfills you
- a bad situation you have stayed in too long
- a career/job that depletes your soul
- beliefs that don’t fit you anymore
- old learning
- obsolete attitudes
- self-criticism
- maybe even an ‘old’ you
We resist letting go because we fear the ‘pause’ between the exhale and the inhale; the place between ‘what was’ and ‘what isn’t’…yet. Well, my Darling, don’t be afraid. That place between the exhale and the inhale is also the place of of possibilities, dreams, and opportunities. It is the place of ‘What if?’.
When you let go you discover the power, courage, & freedom to allow life to flow through you.
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In letting go you create a future that is different from your past, a future free from burnout forever.
PS. The BOQs would love to hear from you! Leave your wisdom and comments in the box below.