When the Bag You Rely On Starts to Weigh You Down

Are you sure that what you're carrying you is helping and supporting you, or is it weighing you down by necessity, habit and fatigue?

Do you have a favourite bag or backpack? You know, the one you use all the time that you love to bits but it’s so full of ‘stuff’ that it’s become heavy and you never really know where the bottom is or what’s actually inside it! Me too. I think that’s fairly normal!

But what if this is also true of our minds? What if we’re carrying far more than we realise  and rarely stopping to check what’s actually in there?

As parents of children with additional needs of any sort, life can feel repetitive, dull, challenging and endless. So much of our energy goes into getting through the day that we don’t always notice when things subtly change.

And when we don’t notice change, we miss an opportunity because paying attention to those shifts can genuinely improve our lives, and the lives of those around us.

Think of it like that favourite bag. Every day we add lessons, experiences and beliefs from our past into it. We carry it with us constantly, and every interaction, decision and conversation gets filtered through what’s already inside. It becomes part of who we think we are and how we believe the world works.

Most of the time, we don’t question this. We don’t even realise we’re doing it.

We do the same thing when we imagine the future. A challenging conversation coming up? We automatically check the bag first. What happened last time? Who will be there? What did they say before? What usually goes wrong? Will it be the same again? Should I respond differently — and do I even have the energy to?

And again, we rarely pause to notice that this is what’s happening.

Without meaning to, we carry what we’ve learned from the past straight into the future and assume things will unfold in the same way.

But are they?

Really?

Sometimes something unexpected happens. A conversation you’d been dreading goes better than you imagined. Or worse, someone responds in a way you didn’t anticipate at all. You walk away feeling unsettled, unsure what to do with it, unable to slot it neatly into what you “know” about that person or situation.

That feeling of a slight internal wobble is what it’s like to put the bag down for a moment.

When the bag is down, we’re forced to look again. We review the situation from a fresh angle. We notice that not everything fits the old pattern anymore. And in that space, there’s an opportunity: to add a new learning, to challenge an assumption, to respond differently next time.

As a hypnotherapist and coach, I notice that those moments are often where real change begins. Rather than waiting for big external events to force us to stop and reassess, I encourage myself and my clients to unpack the bag regularly. Quietly. Gently. On purpose.

When we do that, we start to see the habitual patterns that shape daily life. We can look at what we’re carrying, decide what’s useful, what still supports us, and just as importantly, what no longer does.

The key question here is simple, but not always easy:

Is what I have in the bag actually useful to me?

Some things you might explore are:

• What do I believe about other people?

• What do I believe about myself?

• Which past experiences shaped these beliefs, and what meanings did I take from them?

• How do I usually respond to challenge?

• How would I describe the person I think I am?

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There’s no judgement in asking these questions. The bag has played an important role because it helped you survive, adapt and cope. But because it’s your bag, whether you realised it or not, you also get to choose what stays in it.

So looking ahead, there’s another question worth asking:

What else might I want to carry that would serve me better?

Linking back to the earlier reflections, you might gently consider:

• Do my views about other people make me feel more or less hopeful about the future?

• Do the beliefs I hold about myself help me grow — or cause me to shrink?

• Are the meanings I made from past experiences still relevant now?

• If I responded differently to life’s challenges, would that make things easier or harder?

• Am I content with the version of myself I believe I am?

These are deep questions, and you don’t need to answer them all at once — or at all. But if you’re carrying the bag every single day, it’s worth checking whether you really need everything inside it.

Why live life in a way that doesn’t support you to be kinder, more accepting, or more compassionate towards yourself?

None of us are perfect. That bag was a favourite for good reason; it served you well and still does. But by occasionally unpacking the bag and consciously choosing what we put back in we can begin to improve the life we’re already living, and hopefully create better outcomes for ourselves and, by default, for our children too.

And if you’d like support unpacking your bag and deciding what genuinely belongs there now, you know where to find me, elizabeth@mamasinthistogether.com or via the facebook page.