So... the question this week is "what do you carry with you"?
It's a complicated question, depending on how it's framed.
I believe we come to this earth with some baggage already attached. We have lessons to be learned from previous lives and genetic memory. In that sense, we carry traits from our ancestors, both physical and emotional.
We come to adulthood carrying the baggage from our childhoods in this life. Since no one I knew grew up with Ward and June, I would assume nearly everyone has at least some.
We carry the lessons of this lifetime and the memory of circumstances which bring about our learning them. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow has no road map. We just learn, and learn, and learn a bit more. Eventually, we stumble on many pots in different locations, filled to different capacities.
Along the way, we make a lot of choices about what to do with our baggage. Do we bury it in the back of a closet and hope it goes away, tattered and beaten up as it often is? Do we give it away to someone else who might be able to use it? Do we throw it in the landfill, hoping to never see it again? Or do we continue to carry it around, pulling it behind us everywhere we go?
Maybe we dismantle it and use the parts to create something else. We use it to inspire, to educate, to comfort others. Do we use it to be in service or do we use it to firmly entrench ourselves into permanent victimhood?
They're all valid choices, each with their own benefit package.
I choose to integrate mine, rather than overcome it. The word "overcome" implies a psychic battle .. a winner and a loser. Victory and defeat. I prefer to think of these various things I carry around ~ from past life lessons, genetic memory, childhood and adult experiences ~ as tools that I can use to inspire others.
As we unpack our baggage, we can usually find nuggets of wisdom here and there, hidden in the corners and the side pockets, wisdom we've gained, reasons that make sense in retrospect.
I am a person with a great deal of faith. These experiences we carry and the wounds, unhealed and healed, bring us closer to the person we are meant to be. I believe that is true for each of us.
is what we learn, and
so we teach it over and over again until we learn..."
A Course In Miracles
