What's In Your Backpack?

What’s In Your Backpack?

People often say that when something bad happens, or when you go through something that you’re supposed to put the past behind you and move on. This advice has always seemed to make a lot of sense but now that I think about it, where does all of that past that you’re chucking over your shoulder go?

For years, every time I experienced a setback, a failure, a disappointment or the like, I simply tossed it behind me and kept things moving along at a rather brisk pace. Then one day I realized that I just felt heavy. I got to a place where I just could not move forward anymore.

In church on Sunday the Pastor touched on this subject, and he said that back in old days the punishment for killing a man was that his dead body would be tied to your back. Imagine having to go through life with a heavy, smelly rotting dead person on your back. That dead person represents the old you. I know that image is rather grotesque so let’s liken the dead person or the old you to an over sized and over stuffed backpack.

When you put your failures behind you, you are placing them in an overweight back pack that represents your emotional and psychological baggage. In order to move forward it is necessary to acknowledge or address those things or people that have hurt or harmed you. I’ve found peace and healing in using those negative situations in my writing, thus helping others while simultaneously freeing myself of the extra baggage.

So today I encourage you to remove that back pack, empty it out. Lay the things that were in it out before you. Deal with them, learn from them, and use them as stepping stones so that you may reach further and higher without the heavy burden.