"Tips to Let Go of your Life Baggage"

Tips to Let Go of your Life Baggage

Everyone has a life baggage, fear, insecurity and anger. All of these are brought about by emotional traumas that were consciously and subconsciously experienced in life. Do you know who doesn’t have these life baggages? Children.
Children are the best inspiration. They love unconditionally, forgive easily, are brutally honest about how they feel and they have no sense of judgment or resentment. If we all learn to go back to being like children, then the world would probably be a better place.
The problem is, we can’t. The next best thing to do is to learn from what children do best – play. Thus, we come to our first tip in letting go of your baggage.

Tip #1: Be like a child

Be forgiving, be loving, be curious, and most of all, learn how to play again. Be like a child. Do not take life seriously and see the joy in little things. Experience, explore and create. Summon your inner child. So many adults have forgotten how to play because they think it is only for children – wrong! Playing is for everyone and it is one of the best ways to relieve stress. Set an hour or two every day to play. Set a play date with your kids or even your adult friends. Do something that you genuinely find fun and exciting.
Take a leisurely stroll on the park, take out your coloring books, paint with your hands, borrow your kid’s Lego collection and build something. The choices of fun are numerous. Playing will help you feel lighter, feel a sense of excitement everyday and look at life from a lighter perspective. It will remind you that not everything in life is hard and heavy. Learning how to play again will also make you a more fun and joyous person.

Tip #2: Breathe

When you feel stressed and depressed, go out, get some fresh air and breathe deeply. Breathing has lots of health and emotional benefits. Proper breathing techniques are used in exercise regimens, sports and stress management because the way you breathe can improve your entire performance. Learning proper breathing techniques can help manage feelings of anxiety, stress and anger. You can learn these through exercises like Yoga and Pranayama.
There are also simple breathing techniques that you can find online. When you have a healthy mind and body, it is easier to feel good about yourself. When you are constantly happy, it is also easier to let go of the negative feelings you are harboring.
Whenever you feel anger, fear, anxiety and negativity drawing in, close your eyes, breathe deeply and count to ten.
You can also try the simple breathing technique, which was developed by the Heart Math Institute that allows you to mimic the same exhilaration when you feel joy. The principle of this exercise is to use the power of the heart above your mind to redirect your thinking to optimism and positivity.

Here are the steps:

Put yourself in a comfortable sitting position and close your eyes.
Concentrate your mind on the center of your chest where your heart is located and feel the rhythm of your heartbeat.
Inhale for 6 seconds then exhale for 6 seconds.
Keep breathing in and out for a 6-second interval until you find a steady, comfortable rhythm.
Once you achieved a steady breathing, switch your focus on one thing that really makes you feel happy. It could be a life event, a special place or a person you love.
Do this for at least15 minutes every day.

Tip #3: Forgive others and yourself

Still can’t forgive that person who bullied you in high school? Still have hate feelings for your ex-lover who left you 1 year ago? Couldn’t forgive yourself for losing that contest? We all have little pains in our lives. The reason why it stays in your thoughts and emotions is because you allow it to linger. The answer to letting go can actually be taken from one of the most used clichés in the world – forgive and forget.
If you are harboring pain, hate, anger or a hurt pride and ego, forgiving can be difficult. So here’s a technique – recall, learn the lesson, affirm forgiveness, then let go.

Step 1: Recall
Whenever you start to remember the hurtful thing that happened and the negative feeling that goes with it, dwell on it for a while. Remember the details and ask yourself why it happened. Was it a random act of cruelty against you or did you actually have some fault in it? Sometimes, you have to look at the scenario objectively, without being biased to your feelings and see what really happened.

Step 2: Learn the lesson
Learning the lesson in the incident is the most important step. Remember that everything happens for a reason. It may have happened to teach you a lesson or because you have to lose some things in your life to make room for bigger and greater things.

Step3: Affirm forgiveness
Once you have settled on the life lesson that the incident brought you, make a statement of affirmation to forgive yourself and the other person involved. Recite it several times. Use this statement whenever the negative feelings start to resurface.

Step 4:Letting go
This is something that you should do actively. Forget about the bad feelings and incidents by mentally shoving them out of your memory. It will be difficult at first but just like exercise, it will get easier in time.

Tip#4:Divert negativities

Sometimes, it is just difficult to control negative emotions such as irritation, envy, pessimism and anger, but did you know that you can actually turn these negativities into your greatest advantage? A wonderful October 2013 article posted in Huffingtonpost.com enumerates the various negative feelings and how you can turn them into something positive and productive.
Anger, for example, is what sparks other people’s creativity. The same thing with sadness and loneliness. Some of the most beautifully written music lyrics, art paintings, poetry and books were out of the spur of intense feelings of anger and melancholy.
Envy, is another negative trait that you can use to your advantage because it drives you to get what you want and become better.
Losing something or someone teaches you to be grateful, for sometimes, you cannot see the true value of something unless you lose it.
Pessimism can make you even more productive because you tend to see the things that may go wrong first and prepare for them.
When you cannot let go, convert. Learn how to channel your negative traits into something positive and make it work to your advantage.

thank you for reading ..
Arcy C.