Traveling Lighter
/I was in a few airports this weekend. I love watching people and wondering what their stories are. People walking through an airport is like a laboratory of what it means to be human.
This time, I especially noticed who was moving lightly through the airport with ease and who seemed bogged down and burdened, as if life weighed heavily on their shoulders. Some people seemed to be enjoying life and some seemed to be struggling. Some seemed to have a spring in their step and some seemed to be shuffling along.
I wondered what was going on inside them to evoke this observable difference in their energy.
I sent love and compassion toward those who seemed burdened. Maybe they were traveling to a funeral. Maybe they just experienced a break up. Maybe they aren’t sure how they are going to pay for this trip. Maybe they are in a season of illness and traveling is zapping what little energy they have.
Then I noticed how for those who seemed to be more burdened, they were also the ones who had a lot of literal baggage with them. They had overstuffed bags, multiple bags, and heavier bags. I wondered if there was a correlation. It could be that life is hard and our stuff makes us more comfortable so we bring it all with us. Or, maybe it is that they are struggling to make decisions because life is overwhelming, so just bring it all and make decisions later. Or, maybe we get into habitual behaviors and forget to be aware that we could travel a lot lighter.
This pondering inspired me to think about lightening my own baggage as much as possible. Literal and figurative baggage.
Could I travel lighter through all of life? Could I walk into a room and not take suitcases of history in with me? Could I encounter people and situations with no baggage at all?
When I think about this in terms of relationships:
Can I go to that family gathering and encounter everyone as if I’m meeting them for the first time? Leaving the bag of scorecards and past mis-steps at home while greeting them with no emotional baggage or angst.
Can I walk through the halls of my school or work and pretend it’s the first day there, we are all new, and none of us know each other? Releasing the baggage of remembering all of the past hurts, comments, and competition so that we could start fresh again.
Can I remember when I first met my spouse or partner and we didn’t know anything about each other yet? Forgetting all of the idiosyncratic things that irk me today, and instead greet them full of wonder and delight.
If we could leave our baggage at home, it would allow us to travel lighter through life.
This doesn’t mean a free pass for people that have hurt you, but it does lighten the load you carry around with you all the time. As I watched people in the airport, the ones who walked lighter seemed friendlier, smilier, and more fun to be around. So, maybe traveling lighter attracts good things - if we walk around lighter and happier, the world greets us with more joy.
Try it this week and see what you notice. Set down the heavy bags, take a little break from carrying around past emotional pain and see how it feels. It’s always there to pick up again if you miss it. But, what I’ve noticed already (and it is only Tuesday) is a lighter feeling about life. If I stop keeping score and hanging on to the past, it feels like I’m stepping into the fun sense of freedom that lies ahead.
Lighter feels better.
We have the choice to travel lighter. It may feel scary to not take it all everywhere you go, but try it just this week. I think we are going to find that it is actually causing us more pain to drag it all around. Maybe that’s why we are all so tired - we carry heavy emotional baggage everywhere we go. If you feel some resistance in traveling lighter, ask yourself: Why does it feel safer to keep carrying it? What feels risky about traveling light? Why do I like to burden myself with this heaviness?
Freedom can feel scary because it is foreign land for many of us, but leaving the baggage behind allows us to explore the fullness of life and enjoy our people more.
More joy and better relationships are coming our way if we can learn to travel lighter.
Lighter brighter days ahead,