The Cost of Emotional Baggage

As Africans, most of us struggle when it comes to dealing with emotions. Many of us went through emotional challenges in our childhood that were kept top secrets by the society, with a view to protect us from their burdens, and some to protect family names and relationships.

To unpack this, think of your emotional capacity as a four roomed house. Any painful and traumatic experience that you haven’t dealt with, you lock in one of the rooms. Life goes on and stuff continues to happen, before you know it, three out of your four rooms are filled up with ‘skeletons’ and locked away. You then live your life in two parts: one part guarding the room/s filled with skeletons, and the other part carrying your day-to-day duties.

Wherever you go, be it at work, in business or in any relationship, the world expects the value from a wholesome you. When things are good, you show up whole and fully present. The moment anything happens that threatens to open the room/s and let the skeletons out, you lose it, and manifest the undesirable behaviors our societies battle with today. This all happens unconsciously to defend your skeletons, unfortunately at the expense of your full potential.

This week, I invite you to pause and reflect on all the painful, traumatic, and shameful experiences you have gone through in life, no matter how small you think they may be. Go out and look for a professional to help you take out these skeletons, one by one, and confront them to bring them closure. This will open you up and release your full emotional capacity to show up as one whole person, consistently throughout your life.

To admit that you have an issue that you can’t handle on your own is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of self-love and maturity.