Perhaps one of the first aspects to be embraced within clearing mental and emotional “baggage” is an expressed commitment for enjoying balanced and vibrant health. Whether an inner promise or shared resolutions with people most meaningful to us, the endeavor will take flight as an intent ranging from soft and subtle thought, to perhaps an impassioned declaration.
As we choose the light of life’s teachings as seeing interconnectedness of all circumstances and conditions within our path and why they exist, then there is a fruit to be had — a celebration of oneself as ease, inner quiet and understanding.
Our behavior as expression is generated from within two mechanisms: memory and creative flow. Our “baggage” is memory-based as ever-increasing complex systems of stored information. This content resides biochemically and structurally as the physical body, the subtle emotional body and then into even more subtle realms where neuroscience and spirituality are intertwining, defining non-local memory.
Alternatively, creative flow is experiencing the infinite moment where insight, intuition and creative impulse are accessed within the “subtle energy realm” of the heart. As this “flow,” we nurture and expand our emotional intelligence, embracing thought as a creative process. Becoming this living artistry, we realize that the thinker — you / I — is in control of that which is being thought, and reflectively felt as emotion.
Whether you choose a soft, slow pace or a deep dive, which can include analysis and understandings of causation and symptoms, here are heart-centered ideas for a practice of clearing mental and emotional baggage:
• Awareness of Ruminating — By consistently drawing on images of the past, we recreate the circumstances as an emanating energetic vibratory pattern. This energy is in conflict with clearing the baggage. We cannot simultaneously ruminate and clear. As thoughts come up, allow them without resistance. A metaphor for this is weight training. We go to the gym or fitness club and engage in resistance exercises. It is resistance that builds our muscle. With mental and emotional baggage, we want the opposite — the less we resist our undesired thoughts and emotions, the less effect and control they possess. They have nothing to push up against.
• Forgiveness — A powerful practice sourcing heart, forgiveness can free us from the web we weave as mental and emotional baggage. As we come forth with inner strength and courage to be vulnerable, there is a preciousness, a soft nurturing that guides and speaks its subtle and loving communication from within. Immersing into a heart-centered lightness of being, we can trek even deeper into forgiveness of oneself. This is a jewel, as it can function as a gift of release from the devastating mechanisms of shame. Forgiveness is an eloquent surrender, yet an empowering pathway within healing.
• From Blame to Learning– As we learn from situations rather than blaming, we expand into infinite possibilities in terms of growing relationships and evolving beyond circumstances and conditions. We focus on possibilities of how we can engage, share, interact intelligently, creatively, emotionally and pragmatically for boundless healthy abundance as outcomes.
• Heart Consciousness — To reside within our heart brings forth understanding and knowing. As we ease our mental activity, we can “listen into” gentle teachings within this boundless expanse of heart consciousness.The physical region of our heart possesses a non-physical domain. This is experienced as a soft simultaneous focus on the point just slightly above and between your eyebrows as well as the area of your heart. This process stimulates heart-brain coherence and is access to a non-physical luminous “textural” infinity.
• Loving Kindness Meditation — As our “baggage” stimulates images of people with whom we are negatively entangled, there emerges opportunity for directing loving kindness to them. Either silently or spoken out loud, we authentically and soulfully share words for their well-being and ultimate happiness. You will be tapping into depths of courage and inner strength and emotional maturity in exercising this process.
Within these practices, there is neuroplasticity — the ability of your brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience. Flow in the stillness, allowing for remembering your life’s meaning which is to live as happiness!
