Have you ever tried to run uphill with a heavy bag of sand on your back?

How much easier would that run be without that heavy load?

I believe that many of us are running through life carrying an unnecessary load on our shoulders.

A long time ago I read a book called ‘The Pilgrims Progress’ written by John Bunyan, published in 1678.

In the story, a young man carried and met with many obstacles that made his journey harder as he traveled through life.  Only by lightening his load, could he move forward in his life.

Like that young man, many of us journey through our lives accumulating things that weigh us down.  These things can prevent us from living our lives as we would like to.

Our mistakes and failures can weigh heavily on us.

There has never been a person in existence who has not failed at something.  Although we don’t forget our mistakes or failures, they should not continue to burden us. We should learn from them, let them go, and move forward in life.

Emotional burdens, such as disappointment, grief, prejudice, stubbornness and insecurity to name a few. All of these burdens can make our journey in life more difficult.

We can become disillusioned, sad, and defensive, and this negativity can cause our health to deteriorate adding to the weight we carry. This can be apparent in the sad faces of people we know and those that we meet along the way.

Relationships that may have failed or remain difficult, causing us pain, can weigh heavily on us as well.  We may relive the memories of these relationships. This can become a sort of self-induced torture, a load we still hold onto and file into our subconscious.

We can allow past failed relationships to effect the possibility of future positive relationships.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

In many cases, we don’t realise that these are burdens that we do not need to carry.

We just shrug our shoulders and say “That’s life. It wasn’t meant to be easy”.

The good news is that we can rid ourselves of these feelings and lighten the load. After all, carrying the emotional load of others affects us, not them.

People come and go in our lives.  If we know people who aren’t adding to our life, we need to do ourselves a favour and stop carrying them.

There comes a time in our life, when we need to stop and take stock of the way we look at our life and how we want our life to be.

The past cannot be changed; however, we can change how we allow it to affect us.

Have you ever decided to do a ‘spring clean’?  Sorting through what you don’t need or want anymore?  Clearing out all the things you don’t wear, as well as ridding yourself of the clutter that takes up too much space in your home.

I believe we can also say goodbye to the emotional heavy load that we carry and get rid of all the negative things we have in it. If they no longer have power over us, we will feel much more empowered within ourselves.  Only then will we have room for new and exciting things to come into our lives.

When we come into this world we do so with nothing but ourselves. When we leave this world again we do so with nothing, except our character.

Let’s move forward, leaving the past behind. Let’s look around and count our many blessings, enjoy life and be the best and happiest we all know we can be.

Smile and let go. It brightens life’s journey.

– Nancy