Letting go of excess baggage

For this, we will need several envelopes slips of paper and a pen.

We start the exercise with a visualisation.

Imagine you have started walking a new track. Your going somewhere special but the track is not clearly marked, although you have some guidance.

You’re now stating the slopes. Heading up a mountain. You can see the mountain top. It’s clear, but below is cloud.

You’re excited perhaps to get moving. However, you have a heavy backpack or are towing lots of luggage. You need to get rid of some of it, even if you don’t want to.

You have things that you feel work for you and you should have these things with you, but they’re still a weight on you.

You have things you know you don’t need any more. They are not working any more. You want to get rid of them but you haven’t got round to it. Being creatures of habit and sticking to the familiar perhaps. Maybe you haven’t thought about it, or just assume that you’ve got to have these things.

Life changes and on this journey in particular we’re looking at life changes. Possibly we’re looking at going in somewhere radically different.

So in your envelopes, you’ll put things written down on your slips of paper.

Can be internal stuff like beliefs values, obligations, or can be behaviour – things you do. Or stuff you like to keep – collections, possessions etc.

In the first envelop, that you will label “right now”, are things you really don’t want any more. People, places, feelings etc. These may be designated by you with one word, or a couple of words,

You will get rid that envelope – burn or shred.

Then there will be things you’re not sure about. Keep, but maybe later let go of them.

Put them in the next envelope labelled “not yet”.

On the slips of paper there might be some descriptions.

A third envelope. Labelled “soon”. You know you have to get rid of them, but you don’t really want to immediately do so, and you may feel a connection.  Not a need though. It’s the stuff you’ll keep for a short while. It is still baggage that will weigh you down.

The two envelopes that you don’t get rid of immediately, put somewhere, where are you can see them fairly often.

One is labelled “not yet” and one is labelled “soon”.

Look at them for a few days or even a week and maybe even shift some of the slips of paper around between the envelopes.

When you’re ready to let go of things that you don’t really want to, but you need to, take the “soon” envelope. Let go of it, perhaps with some ceremony, or prayer. Decide how you will let go of it – could be flames from a candle or shredding and putting shreds into the sea.

The other one, the “not yet” last one you may keep until you get really tired of it. You never really use those items, but you might have some fears and some defenses about why they’re so relevant, and you might need write down on the back of the slip, why it being kept.

A tricky one is what you do with duty bound activities, that you would like to let go!

A list – not complete!

goals

commitments

possessions

obligations,

habits

relationships

connections

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