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By Sheri Verdonk
June 28, 2009
Prologue
A story is told of two Zen monks, Tanzan and Ekido, who were walking
along a country road that had become extremely muddy after heavy
rains. Near a village, they came upon a young woman who was trying
to cross the road, but the mud was so deep it would have ruined the
silk kimono she was wearing. Tanzan at once picked her up and
carried her to the other side.
The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were
approaching the lodging temple, Ekido couldn’t restrain himself any
longer. “Why did you carry that girl across the road?” he asked. “We
monks are not supposed to do things like that.”
“I put the girl down hours ago,” said Tanzan. “Are you still
carrying her?”
Taken from Ekhart Tolle’s “A New Earth, Awakening to your Life’s
Purpose.”
Baggage! Believe it or not this subject
was hard to get on paper. I think the reality is because I’m so
close to the topic that it is hard to separate myself from my own
baggage enough to talk about the lessons learned. In the midst of
trying to get this all down on paper I saw that I too was carrying
someone else’s suitcase. I thought I had it stored away, unopened
and was dealing with the fallout not in the literal sense but in the
figurative. The suitcase did not belong to me and it should have had
little to no impact on my life. My mind knew it was not my burden to
carry because nothing in there belonged to me, however, in helping
someone who is loaded with baggage seen and unseen, I have
discovered that it is me who is “holding the bag” and finding it
difficult to respond to everything else in my life in a way that is
mine alone and not a result of unwanted, excess baggage that belongs
to someone else.
So it is through my very difficult, painfully personal journey as an
Adoptive Parent that brought me to this talk on bags and baggage.
However, when you sort through it all, we all can relate. As I tell
my story and try to encourage you on a path that is your own, think
about the suitcases in your own lives. Whose are they? Do they
define who you are? More importantly, are you weighed down by
someone else’s stuff?
As many of you may know, Ron and I are adoptive parents. We started
our journey back in Brazil, six years ago; when we decided that it
was important to become a part of our global community. You know the
saying, “Where we are, so is our family.” We felt we had an
obligation to be a part of the larger community and help if we can.
So we began working and helping out an orphanage for boys aged 4-18
or so. Some of the boys were adoptable, most were not. That did not
really matter at the time because we weren’t considering adoption.
Our plan was simple; we wanted to help make life a little better for
those boys by holding food drives and clothing drives and insuring
that mental stimulation was a regular part of the boy’s lives. We
applied for grant money to buy beds and provide a play area on the
orphanage grounds. We were trying to give back a little of those
things we privileged folks take for granted in our own lives. We
were also creating a sense of community in our daughter. In
retrospect, I think it was there in those visits when I think I had
my first conscious understanding of what baggage that is not yours
can do to your life and see how if you let it; it can hold you down.
First though, let me define baggage. Baggage is defined in Merriam’s
Dictionary as luggage, impediments, encumbrances, things and
moveable’s. They range from gear and suitcases to parcels, overnight
cases and steamer trunks. In this definition you can see that
baggage can be as small as your carry on case, to as large and
difficult to move around as a steamer trunk. Excess baggage refers
to extra suitcases you take on your trip and in these days and times
will be charged extra for all pounds over and above the allotted
amount. Metaphorically speaking, we all have baggage. Family guilt
is some heavy baggage and the orphanage director was carrying a
heavy load.
The burdens the Director of the orphanage bore were not hers; she
was living her father’s dream and carrying on in the footsteps of
him as well as her mother. She presented a face that on the surface
said she was doing what she wanted to do, helping children who had
been a part of her childhood. She was doing her part to help
humanity and the cruelties of life. But her true dream was something
different and she was going through the motions of life wearing the
clothing of her parents that didn’t fit nor were they wanted. The
same with the boys, they were there in the orphanage for a lot of
reasons, with no one to attend to their specific personal needs, not
enough food, no personal space, poor educational opportunities and
families that had left definitive marks on them as people that more
often than not they were bound to repeat in families and
relationships of their own.
Then we adopted and I began to feel the weight of someone else’s
traumatic past life. As an adoptive parent, we found out the hard
way about unwanted, unusable baggage. Attachment disorder is that
baggage. But we had not heard about that. We thought that we could
add a young life to our family, love him, give him opportunities,
educate him, compensate for the wrongs that were done to him through
no fault of ours, and in turn have another loving member of our
clan. If only it were that easy. That was before we knew about super
glued baggage. The stuff that is hard wired to your psyche. That
makes you reject something good because of past wrongs. Baggage so
heavy, that the holder is incapable of extricating himself from its
influence.
In our adoptive journey, we have come to be parents to a child who
suffers this kind of baggage. It is called severe Reactive
Attachment Disorder or (RAD). Well…Reactive Attachment Disorder is
Steamer Luggage and it leaves all in its path with fanny packs of
problems and influences that affect day to day living. Attachment
Disorder is defined by Nancy L. Thomas, an authority on the subject,
as the condition in which individuals have difficulty forming
lasting relationships…..it results from being abused or being
physically or emotionally separated from one primary caretaker
during the first three years of life.
No wonder they ask you about your parents in therapy. But I would
also add that first as a child and then a teen and throughout your
adolescence and into adulthood, issues arise, are dealt with or not
and ultimately manifest themselves as a part of your life. Some
would say that Attachment Disorder falls under the umbrella of Post
Traumatic Stress Syndrome of which we all fall victim to in some
degree or another. Others might say it was the school of hard knocks
or life. The end result is the same. So, it stands to reason that
you don’t have to be adopted or fostered to have experienced
something negative and challenging in your childhood that shapes
your life as an adult.
So suffer he does and it is not a word I use lightly as he has
suitcases and baggage that are hard fixed to his innermost self,
baggage that six years of being in a family and therapy cannot make
him discard. In those bags are experiences and traumas that most
would say create a foundation in your being that in general we as
rational, thinking human beings learn from the experience what is
necessary for survival but discard as new and more feasible
responses become the norm. But a child with reactive attachment
disorder clings to them as a lifeline, afraid to discard the old and
embrace the new for to let go is death. That’s us too……
Sound familiar; do you screech and yell like your Mom or Dad? Are
you afraid to eat foreign food or travel to new places? Are you
quick to anger and distrust? Do you find yourself attracted to the
bad boy or girl or same type person that hasn’t been the best fit in
your life? You too may be carrying the baggage of your childhood or
past experience some good and some not so good if it holds you bound
and prevents you from experiencing your life fully and completely.
Environment versus Nature, this debate still goes on. We are made
with a preset genetic makeup and this is impacted by the environment
in which we live and function. Every experience, either positive or
negative shapes who we are, by virtue of how we are able to cope,
which in turn is influenced by our genetics as well as the
environment.
We all come to the table with bags. Are they yours? But the bags
individually are not the problem. Eckhart Tulle says “it is only
when memories ...take you over completely and turn into a
burden…your personality, which is conditioned by your past becomes
your prison.” Things happen. Life is lived. We have life
experiences; we internalize the results and then carry it on into
the next situation. Everyone understands the term baggage. It is the
residual memories and current response to past experiences. It’s the
stuff in your life. The stuff you collect like the rock collection
or coin collection or the outfit you wore on a fantastic date that
is now two sizes too small but you keep it just in case. It is the
conditioned response to yelling or fussing that drives you crazy or
causes you to react in a certain way when it happens. Your suitcase
is filled with all kinds of things that you hope to open up and use
on your trip called life. But does the case belong to you? Sandra
Brown, psychotherapist and author says that “Understanding and
responding to your red flags …. Will aid in changing your life and
your future …www.womensselfesteem.com
Knowing that we all are shaped by our experiences, what can we do to
let go of the things that hold us down? That’s good question, so I
posed it to some friends as I sought an answer. My friend Jacqueline
said “… there are a few ways to look after that baggage, you can
close the suitcase up tight, hide it under your bed and not think
about it. Always knowing it's there, to bother you, knowing one day
you have to unpack it. Or you can open it up, throw the manageable
stuff in a pile to be dealt with, throw out some stuff you don't
need to think about anymore. But all your favorite things that you
love and want to take care of; put them in the dry cleaning pile so
they won't get damaged. Knowing that through life we will pack and
unpack many bags. Success to life is not the final destination; it
is the journeys we take to get where we are going! She ended her
comments with “May your life be full of dry cleanables.” I liked
that……. I only wish that it were just that easy to sort through….
Put another way and by another friend who said “our past does not
define us, nor does our future. It is the beauty of the present and
the profound understanding that the present is a present that (we)
must understand.
Living with a child whose past defines his present and immobilizes
him from experiencing full joy has brought it home how much we are
not bound by the suitcases we carry. We can’t be if we expect to
function in life. The pain of his past keeps him from reaching his
full potential and experiencing meaningful, lasting relationships
with the people in his life. It keeps him locked from happiness and
ultimately success. He cannot let go of the past. What about you?
Are your hands clasped to your past? Do you repeat past mistakes and
squander away moments of your life in regret? Eckhart Tolle again
says “refrain from mentally dwelling on the past, regardless of
whether it was something that happened yesterday or thirty years ago
…learn not to keep situations or events alive in our minds…..return
our attention continuously to the pristine, timeless present moment.
Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being
present now.” All we ever really have is now. Yesterday has come and
gone and tomorrow is not promised to you.
We as humans have this unique ability to process things that happen
in our life and learn a lesson that will make us stronger. We are
not doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents or even ourselves.
Watching someone who is bogged down in pain that was not his doing
is terrible, but what’s worse is trying to help and finding myself
weighed down in the process by his bags that were too heavy for him
and now he’s passed them on to me where they are impacting my life
not necessarily for the good . So I struggle to meet each day with
the new Verdonk motto which is “Today is a new day!” Every day is a
new day, filled with promise and opportunity.
If you have come to recognize that you have been carrying around the
bags of your past, Today is a new day. In the words of Steve
Maraboli, “Today, many will break through the barriers of the past
by looking at the blessings of the present. Why not you?”
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