Emotional baggage is that heavy stuff you feel but cannot see, the thoughts and fears that prevent you from having healthy relationships, and the feelings that you might not recognize you have. Nasty stuff, this emotional baggage.

How to Recognize When You Have Emotional Baggage

It’s easier for us to spot emotional baggage in other people than it is to see it in ourselves. When we carry baggage we might feel miserable or unfulfilled for a long time without understanding why.

We may feel like our friends just aren't right for us, or our maybe even that we’re just “bad” at friendship.

If you've got emotional baggage you might be feeling like:

• Friends are always taking advantage of you
• You’re scared about opening up emotionally with people
• You are judging a friend’s actions based on what another friend did
• You don’t believe people want to be your friend

 

Dealing With Emotional Baggage While Still Making Friends

We’ve all got a bit of emotional baggage so if you’re working through things right now you aren’t the only one. Don’t hold off on making friends, but do continue making an effort to get beyond your emotional sticking points.

It helps to look at your baggage as just that, things you choose to carry with you. You can’t help what has happened to you in the past, but you can control what you do now. The way I look at it is that people in the past might have hurt me, but I want to be happy and have healthy relationships in spite of them. Do I want to spend the next five years hurting and sad or living my life with good friends and supportive people?

Then the next question is, how can I accomplish this?

You might find that by going to therapy or a support group like Al-anon helps you identify areas where you’re still carrying baggage. Others might be able to work on it through self-reflection and writing down the times when they feel awkward or scared connecting to people.

But in order to work through it all, you can’t isolate. You have to be choosy about who you share your vulnerable moments with and how you begin to trust people, but little by little you will make you way to meeting new people and forming a genuine friendship. 

 

Forgive the Past So You Can Live a Joyful Future

Learn what forgiveness is and isn’t so you can be clear about why it is healthy for you. In order to move on to the future you need to forgive for your own sake. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you’re giving the person who hurt you a pass, but it does mean that you’re letting go of the anger and hurt so you can embrace the joy of good friends. The choice to forgive comes first and the feelings follow. Remember that you have control over your life and how you live it, not the people who hurt you.

 

The Way Emotional Baggage Affects Friendship

People who have dealt with a lot of emotional issues may believe that they aren’t worthy of friendship. That simply is not true! What’s more, don’t let your past create a pattern of dysfunction in your current friendships. Recognize things like:

• Toxic friends who try to get close
• Times you act like the toxic friend
• When people are mean and pick on you
• When you wait for friends to hurt you because that’s what always happens
• When you push a friendship too fast, not letting it develop naturally

 

You might also have unreasonable expectations for your friendships, wishing them to be closer than they are and sharing details of your life that your friend is not ready to hear. People need to develop a level of trust in a friendship before they share their most personal stories.

Another common pitfall is projecting your desires for closeness onto a brand new friend, wishing them to be a mentor and perhaps even a parental figure. This can put undue pressure on the friendship and as a result it won’t develop properly and eventually end. 

Emotional baggage can make friendships harder to navigate, but since we're all dealing with something it shouldn't stop you from making friends. Be sure to self-reflect and learn any lessons that pop up along the way. Each new argument and happy moment offer something for you to learn and improve the way you deal with your baggage.