What's in Your Bag?

Call it baggage, trauma, junk. It's the stuff we all carry around that has made life hard.

It's the stuff that forms our bullshit narratives, those stories we tell ourselves over and over. That because we've experienced hardship we will never have anything good again. That because we have experienced trauma we are broken, failures, unsuccessful, not enough, don't belong. We all have these bullshit narratives; some of us listen to them more than others.

This week, a friend offered me this: what if your baggage wasn't so heavy? What if, rather than weighing you down, it was something that offered perspective? What if that baggage was filled with tools?

Where we've been, what we've experienced good and bad, gives us a point of view. Your perspective on the world is unique to your lived experience. Its that perspective that creates a burning in your belly and gives you something to fight for. That fire is a tool just for you, a unique tool fitted precisely to your hand to do your work in this world, whether that's breaking generational patterns, ensuring others don't experience the pain you did, or perhaps creating a more accessible future for all.

Don't forget the tool that's made just for you.