TOO MUCH BAGGAGE

When you are born, you enter the world with an unseen empty, very large suitcase. In my case it was an unseen empty huge steamer trunk with a hundred compartments. All just ready to be filled with ..........! You really have no idea that it even exists and little by little it becomes filled with all the things that make up YOU. It is sort of apropo considering that you do need some of your baggage to make pertinent decisions that affect your life no matter how they may turn out. All of us are aware of the things that are being put away in the cases yet very few of us clean them out often enough. When it overflows and you can't seem to shut the top then you know that a limit has been reached and it must be emptied. It must be emptied in order to clear the way for new incoming baggage yet to be discovered. Perhaps the word "baggage" is inappropriate but it still is carried like luggage with you day after day and gets heavier and heavier as the years go by. If we opened up each compartment and looked at what we socked away we would end up just throwing it all away because you can't drum up the reason as to why it was there in the first place. However there are certain things that we hold and cling to as the answers to the whys and the wherefores. Once again they are just pieces of some distorted past reasoning for why you felt the way you did, as in the past. PAST, being the main word. As in over and done with, never to be again, etc....etc....Remember PAST and DONE....
In conclusion ask yourself why did you hang on to the past reasoning in the first place. Was it familiar, and made it easier not to move forward? Or were you just afraid of having to take a look at yourself and accept the role you have created for yourself. Whatever the reasons it's time to dump the past and sanitize the suitcase from all the crap that has been rotting there for the longest time.
My baggage came with so many options I could not even keep up with them all. Funny thing about the options they were never utilized because I just kept stuffing more in the trunk. The options were always there but they were just pushed aside and unrecognized until later and then it was way to much to handle in one clean out. Removing all the past debris allowed the options to surface and be seen more readily.

My first cognitive packing day was in the summer of 1962. It was that year that I would really start packing that steamer trunk. Being not quite ten yet I was well on my way to begin the packing process that seemed so innately born.
This summer day had begun like most childhood days and as always Saturdays were the best. Everyone was home and the neighborhood bristled with activity and the sound of lawnmowers and kids playing resonated through the air. My record player was cranking out the repetitive songs and the home activities fell in step with the music. A sunny summer Saturday it would always would end up with an outdoor barbecue, or as us southerners would say "a cookout". With the house getting cleaned and the laundry on the line all we had to do was just pass the time being kids. The excitement of those days reigned supreme and the summer days went on forever. On this one special day it would have a surprise attendee that would alter the course of my life for many years.
Enter ....the steamer trunk.
He did not wear a logo like "Samsonite" or "Louis Vuitton" but alas he came packaged in black and yellow with a shirt that read "Western Union" and a funny black hat that had a place where a letter stuck out from it. I had never heard of Western Union and the somber quiet that fell on my parents suddenly changed the mood of the day. It seems that when a man appeared that dressed like that, he was bringing news that something bad had happened and he was bringing the letter that would detail it all. He had a pad with him and that required a signature. My Mother nervously signed the paper and then he handed her the letter, said Thank You, and turned and left as quickly as he had arrived. The moment of reckoning would be staved off till later as she realized that she did not want the day to be ruined by this yellow letter. She went inside and left it and returned, and told my Father they would deal with it later.
No one explained it to me, but it was emotionally obvious that something ominous lingered after the Western Union man left. I could not let it go and pushed the limit of too many questions, each time being shot down and told it was nothing to worry about. Ergo.. first mind trick object to place in its compartment: WORRY
After some time had passed other neighbors joined in our festivities yet all the commotion did not detract from what lay in the yellow envelope. I remember going for a "bathroom" break and curiously holding the letter and trying to figure out what magic information was written on the inside. BUSTED!!! Reprimanded to go back outside I left and on my way out I subconsciously slid in another mind trick in its compartment...CALCULATING
The repeated calculating trips to the bathroom that day produced no results as the letter vanished from view. Geez...it was like I was being drawn and possessed by this letter and had no reasons except a foreign gut feeling that I had to know what it contained inside it's paper walls. As the evening wore on my Mother had disappeared and I had not noticed her disappearence,as I was easily distracted with the happenings in my own back yard. I tripped over a croquet ball and as I picked myself up I saw my Mother approach my Father with a smile unlike I had ever seen. I could not hear what was being said at the time but I had a vague sense that bad news did not arrive at all. Still I was curious about the letter and had no idea that it would change the course of my life. Intuitively, feelings were vibrating within me and I had no knowledge as to how to recognize exactly what was happening, but I can tell you it was really powerful. The evening would end with a surprise that would stun my Mother, my Father, the neighbors visiting and spin me completely out of control.
POST IT NOTE on trunk....don't forget to take "CONTROL"

When you take moments of time, void of distractions, the transparent views of how your world became created becomes in full focus. Albeit hard to accept and not easy to swallow. My cognitive medicine was voraciously vile and hideous and as time has passed it has aged into a vintage wine with still a bite to every sip.

When opening your private suitcase remember what you put in it years ago you can no longer wear and it must be thrown out or given away. I have chosen to throw it all away and each day my trunk is getting smaller and my reality suit fits much better. I no longer carry the weight of the past as it no longer has room in my carry on.