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Once we get to a certain age, not only do we come with invaluable experiences, we come with baggage, the clumsy term we use to collectively identify all our mistakes, regrets, naivety, or our immaturity in love. This baggage that we carry around can and will so easily morph into part of us that sometimes we don’t actually want to let it go. It becomes our safety net and our familiarity in new scenarios, but ultimately it does us very little good. Here is why and how you must let it go.
Understand it’s baggage, not your entourage
Accepting our baggage, maybe that we’re slow to open up because of past hurts, or that we find it difficult to trust, will make love harder in new relationships. It’s essential to recognise that baggage weighs you down, it is not part of an entourage that makes you stronger or less vulnerable.
What if you could ditch the tethers holding you down? What if you could enter a relationship knowing full well that, when the time is right, you will let go without fear and full of hope?
Well, you can. But you first need to challenge these fears that you’ve become comfortable carrying around.
Question yourself
Letting yourself go in relationships, as with anything else, starts with taking a more in depth look at yourself. How much do you let go outside of relationships? What is it exactly that you hold back from a lover, and what do you believe will happen if you don’t? What’s your intention in keeping a hold of yourself so tightly?
You must be able to answer questions like this before you expect your actions in a relationship to be based on love, rather than fear.
Recognise the illusion of safety
The illusion that your needs are being met by cocooning yourself in this cosy and secret place, to which your lover has limited access, will start to fade very quickly when you take a longer look at the reality of it. Where in your relationship are the weak points that have been caused by you trying to protect yourself, not allow yourself to fall too deeply, to trust fully, or to show who you really are?
Acknowledge that you’re missing out
It’s easy to think that protecting yourself by not giving away too much, or by showing very little vulnerability will keep you safe. What you need to remember however, is that the same wall blocking entry to the situations you fear, may also be repelling some of the extraordinary and positive experiences waiting to enter your life.
There are times when we must start to break down the barriers we’ve built up around ourselves, in order to view what greatness lies on the other side.
Build coping mechanisms and strategies
All of us know, however fleetingly we have experienced it, the feeling that freedom or total abandonment can give us. Whether your experience of it has been in reading a book, going to the movies or laughing with a best friend, you’ll understand why it is so sought after in love.
Yes there are risks, there are always risks, this is part and parcel of life. It’s not up to us to build walls to eradicate them, but to learn how to take the good with the bad. The most healthy way to let yourself go and to begin breaking down any barriers, is to create strategies that will really keep you safe. This means that if any of the negativity you fear does occur, you have the skills, strengths and support to deal with it.
Written by Tori Ufondu for Macbeth Matchmaking