When you examine your emotional baggage, which affects you mentally, physically and spiritually, you see that the unresolved and unquestioned beliefs, judgements, stories, disappointment, rejection, trauma, unmet needs, blame, shame, obligation, resentment and ’rules’, all boil down to pain, fear and guilt. None of us are exempt from emotional baggage but it’s the way we carry it and what we choose to proceed with.

Anything that stops you from creating, forging, and sustaining loving relationships is a block.

You might be more aware of the symptoms of the block than the block itself. Do any of these sound familiar?

• Avoiding relationships or punishing yourself for previous involvement. 
• Feeling trapped in a dating pattern.
• Toxic relationships.
• Recurring complaints, issues, situations and fears.
• Fear of abandonment, rejection, losing/gaining independence, or fear of loss and sacrifice. 
• Coming from a place of inferiority or superiority.
• Taking up roles within your relationships and attendant habits including people pleasing.
• Not owning your power.
• Reoccurring feelings of blame, shame, resentment, guilt, sadness and anger.

The relationship blocks are excessive fear, walls (emotional guardedness), seeking validation, roles, untruths, living in the past, guilt and grievances, controlling the uncontrollable, projection, and resistance to change.

We have a great capacity for love (just ask anyone with more than one child who worried unnecessarily that they might not have enough love to go round, or anyone who wailed, “I’ll never get over this!” only to love again), but there’s only so much emotional baggage we can carry before it becomes a block, not just to loving relationships, but having self-esteem. This is good, because if we had the freedom to accumulate without encroaching on our quality of life, nothing would change.

In recognising our emotional baggage and the blocks it creates, we open a path to transformation. It’s not just about unpacking our past, but about repacking for the future with wisdom, resilience, and self-awareness. In doing so, we reclaim ourselves.

As we lighten the load of our emotional burdens, we find that our capacity for love, care, trust and respect, both for ourselves and others, expands.

Step into a new chapter of love and self-awareness with the ‘Break The Cycle’ ecourse.

The post The Invisible Burden: How Emotional Baggage Shapes Our Love Life appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.