Move your baggage for a happier marriage. Many people live with baggage, events that have happened in their lives, and never come to peace with them. Not had closure, healing, and acceptance. You have not processed the emotional component of events that have occurred in your life, particularly when you were younger.
This is life with not much baggage and a person who is thriving in their marriage
- Your breathing is normal, and muscles are soft.
- You are present in the now
- You can and do enjoy pleasure and joy
- You can cope and enjoy change
- You are grounded and centred
- You trust the flow of life, you do not need to control
- Your free from emotional and psychological pressures that clouds your judgment and thinking, your more objective.
- You see things for what they are. You know, a letter from the bank is not a death warrant, but a reminder to get your accounts in order. An argument with a loved one, it does not mean it’s over. It means we just need to have a good discussion.
- You can tame the monkey mind and practice meditation
- And many more ……
This is a person with baggage who is in survival in their marriage
- Your breathing is strained, and muscles are tense.
- You are not present in the now, you are in the past or future
- You are unable to enjoy pleasure and joy
- You cannot cope and enjoy a change
- You are not grounded and centred
- You do not trust the flow of life; you need to control to feel safe
- You are not free from emotional and psychological pressures that clouds your judgment and thinking, you’re not objective.
- You are unable to see things for what they are…
- You cannot tame the monkey mind and practice meditation
- And many more ……
The question to ask yourself is, do I live in survival, or am I thriving and calm?
How did I get to this survival hypervigilant way of living?
You got here due to a stressful event, you got here due to trauma. You have baggage which is affecting your present-day and the quality of your marriage.
For example, at five years old, your dog died, and trauma locked in the body. The fight, flight, freeze response, and your body has never come back down from that. Your body does not know that that event is over. Your unconscious is keeping you safe and doing a fantastic job.
Then you continue in life and you have more stressful and traumatic events and again, the body goes into the fight, flight, freeze response. For some people including myself, I have been in the survival way of living most of my life.
Trauma locked in for me at the beginning of my life when I was adopted out. My body went into fight, flight, freeze, and has never come down until very recently due to the work and healing I have done.
As an adult, you might have a looming work deadline, you might have a public speaking gig, you might have an argument with a loved one. You’ve got the bank sending you warning letters. These can all trigger you into the fight, flight, or freeze.
The psychological changes…
The psychological changes in your body when you are in fight, flight, or freeze are meant to last for a short period, just till the danger until you face the danger and whether you fight, flight or freeze.
We can remain in a state of persistent arousal with limited opportunities to release the built-up tension and we repeatedly react in this way over and over and over again over decades. When you are in that fight, flight, freeze mode, you suffer, you can suffer enormously. It is a survival mechanism and its habit-forming, it is what you know. It is terribly difficult if you behave like this in your marriage and many people do.
When you’re in fight, flight, freeze you feel unsafe. The unconscious is doing a great job in keeping you safe. Sometimes expert help is needed, particularly if it’s deep childhood trauma. Working with a therapist to go back to the original event to release the emotion around it is needed.
So, the goal is to come down from living in a survival way of living and living in a calm, thriving manner. You are either in a heightened state of survival or you are in a relaxed calm place within yourself free from your baggage. It’s your choice.
Tune into to my Empowered Marriage Podcast to learn more. This fortnight’s podcast is available now and discusses this topic in more depth. Move your baggage for a happier marriage – https://www.powerofchange.com.au/empowered-marriage-podcast/
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