Dropping Some Emotional Pounds for 2024

While I never like to look past Christmas, I do have an activity I recommend you start thinking about now, and try out after (or before)  the new year kicks off. It is relatively simple, but it is not at all easy and it takes some real courage to do. On your computer, in a notebook, whatever, write out all the things that someone did to you that were wrong, all the times people didn't do what they were supposed to do, or did things that they shouldn't have done that affected your life. Every time you were treated unfairly or got a bad shake from life in general. This will very likely be a painful process. You may re-open up some old wounds. 

But when you do reopen them and pour your heart and soul out on the paper, it will prepare you for the next important step, which is to let it all go. Symbolically tear up or burn the list if you want to, but let go of all of these past grievances, emotionally. Why would you do this? The better question is, why would you carry it around in the first place? Imagine wearing a backpack filled with heavy rocks. Maybe the thing weighs 100 or 200 pounds and just walking around with it in your daily life. It's going to wear you down. It's going to tire you out. It's going to prevent you from going as far as you possibly can in life. This is true to for our emotional baggage too. It is heavy and weighs us down, holds us back. It is only when we let it go that we can truly free.

So it's just that easy, huh? Let it all go? Of course not. If it were easy to just dump all of our baggage, we wouldn't be carrying it around all the time. But we often don't even really try to get rid of it. Perhaps we really and truly were wronged by someone else and treated unfairly. Maybe it was 100% someone else's fault and it had a major negative effect on our lives. There might not have been any sense of closure and the problems remain unchanged, unfixed. It is very difficult to tell yourself to suddenly not care about these things anymore. What is the other option though? To hold on to all of it and be bitter? How does that benefit you moving forward?

Some things may be too hard to get rid of. Many of us have permanent scars. Striving to let go of as much as we can, even if it's not everything at first, is still very helpful. This doesn't mean all is necessarily forgiven either. It's not about forgiving. If you are big enough to forgive everyone for their past wrongs as part of letting it go, then great! I myself am not always able to do this and for me, it's more about not letting things bother me anymore than forgiving those who wronged me. Many years ago, I lived in fear. It was rational fear too as every day, I was physically threatened in some form - sometimes attacked, spat on, yelled at, challenged, etc. I don't forgive any of the people who did this to me at all but I am also not mad at them either. I let go of all that. I truly and honestly no longer care and I swear to you and God that never have I thought about getting revenge on any of these people. Not once have I ever even fantasized. I used to carry these feelings around and I was a pretty angry, not particularly happy, son of gun. Dropping this emotional baggage was a huge step for me and I could not have been able to have the better life I have now without it.

But what about trying to use some of these past grievances as fuel and inspiration to drive yourself to be better? The negative stuff can definitely motivate you. Sports teams always try to adopt an "us against the world" mentality but for general, day-to-day living over a long period of time, I don't think it's very healthy and again, it will wear you down. Learning from past mistakes is a whole different ball game though. Learn from your experiences, take what you need, then let the rest of the emotions go. You'll be amazed how much lighter you can feel!

One thing I have not touched on yet is if some of your grievances are with yourself. Things you did that aren't proud of or times when you feel like you failed or screwed something up. We all have plenty of these too. This is another case where you can learn from it and move on. Let go of the emotions and bad feelings, keep the lesson. And forgive yourself too. It might be hard but you've got to live with yourself for the rest of your life, right? It doesn't do much good to stay mad.

Just like many of us will be looking to shed some holiday weight in 2024 (myself very much included), let's try and drop some emotional pounds too. First you've got to figure out what it all is though. Write it down. Even if you think you don't need to write it down, do it anyway. More things will come out and we want as much as we can. Again, this will not be a fun activity. You might have a lot of stuff buried down deep and it's easier to just ignore it sometimes. Maybe some of it is too deep for you to get to on your own. And there may be stuff you can't simply let go of. This is where therapists can certainly be helpful! In any case, I would bet you would be a lot happier overall if you can discover this stuff and let it go so you don't have to keep carrying it around on your back all day. The work you put in here is more than worth it. In fact, what could be a more worthy cause than your emotional well-being? What, I ask you???