All of us have experiences in our life, that sometimes turn into un-resourceful baggage. Some really common ones are fear of being hurt, fear of looking stupid/failing or insisting on doing things in a certain way even though it does not serve us or the people around us.
So many people crave the clean slate that a relocation can provide. But guess what – everything that you’ve experienced so far in life will come with you unless you choose to leave it behind. Obviously there are a lot of beautiful things that we want to keep. But there tends to be a lot of old stuff that can go.
How then can we do that? It’s not easy to throw things away when we’ve had them all our life. They are part of us, wether we like it or not. Well, this is a big part of what I help my clients with. Because sometimes we have blind spots and are not aware of them or how to change them.
If you know you have some stuff to get rid of once and for all, here are my best tips:
- Start with awareness. Sit down in a calm and quiet space. Grab a pen and piece of paper, and remember that this is for your eyes only. Write down what scares you, what annoys you and what you don’t want. Be 100% honest with yourself and write it all down. Review your list – are there any surprises?
- List what you’d like to have instead. If we focus on what we don’t want, we’ll actually get more of that, so when you have the awareness of the things you’re looking to get rid of it’s time to list what you want instead. For example, if one of your fears is that you won’t have any friends in the new place, what you want might be ‘I’m looking forward to meeting new people and creating lasting friendships that support and nurture both my new friends and me‘.
- What we resist persist. The more we try and hide something, the more it will play up. It’s sometimes painful to be honest, but it’s also the fastest way past the old baggage to your new compelling future. A clean house won’t come unless you take on the act of cleaning.
This might sound like a big undertaking, but remember that there is plenty of help to get, so if you’re struggling a bit, contact me today for a free 30 min relocation exploration session. Even if you’re not moving right now, this exercise can still be very useful.
And if you feel after reading this that there is nothing for you to clean out, I’d like to challenge you on that. You might not be ready to clean it out right now, but we all carry baggage, and at some point it get’s a bit too heavy and impractical to keep it. I like to think of it as a bit of a travel chameleon shedding it’s old skin and setting out on a new adventure to bring on board lots of new experiences and connections.