We have all been stuck in situations, relationships, jobs, and cycles that we keep trying to navigate and we continue to hit the same dead-end... We expect that if we keep trying something is bound to change even when we know it won't.

You know what I am talking about, right? Those times you know no matter how much you try, how many different approaches you take, and how much you want it to be different, you're going to end up in the same place, stuck.

I need to be real with you, I see you, I see you trying, I know you don't know what you want or what is next, none of us do, and if I’m being totally honest I recently realized I was driving up and down the same deadened street for a while when it came to figuring out my job and what was next... so I say this with love, you look ridiculous.

I am all for trying, for giving things an honest and real chance, for doing the work, for putting in the hustle, the sweat, and the tears... but common' you need to know when enough is enough. Stop choosing to suffer, stop doing the same thing over and over again waiting for a different outcome, stop choosing be stuck, stop choosing to keep hitting the same damn dead-end. You know in your gut how this is going to turn out, so why do you keep doing it?

It's like driving down a street that's a dead-end, but you didn't see the sign before you turned down it, happens to all of us. So you drive down thinking this is your road, your path, then boom. DEAD-END. You reverse it out of there but then get back to the start of the street and instead of taking a new street, finding a new way, looking for an alternate route, you decide drive down that dead-end road again. And again. And again. I’ve been there, a lot, and I’m sure I’ll be back there again, so I know what you’re thinking, maybe if you drive down it one more time it will have changed, but common' we all know road work doesn't happen over night... it's still a dead-end.

At this point the neighbors are looking out their windows thinking "What the hell is this? Clearly lost. How many times are they going to drive up the street until they realize this is a dead-end? TURN AROUND!"

And now you need to make a choice. Do you keep driving up and down this street going nowhere but hoping somehow something happens or do you pull over, open up the GPS, and welcome any directions from the neighbors on how to get where you want to go?

It sounds silly, I know that, but it happens, and a lot of the time we don't realize that we are in these cycles ourselves. I was in a cycle with my career for two years... and I was willing to jump at anything just to jump, even if it meant jumping to something that I didn't want only to end up back on the same dead-end street because I didn't know what else to do. I was stuck.

I took the opportunity after noticing the cycle I was in with myself to pull over, to regroup, to make sure I had the right destination plugged into my GPS. I welcomed directions on how to get where I wanted to go and guess what happened? I got better directions, I pulled out of that damn dead-end street I'd been driving up and down for two years. I started to course correct. I got clear about where I was going, about what I wanted, and you know happened? Someone offered me a job, a job that was right on the road I wanted to travel, in the direction I wanted to go. I had to get out of that dead-end street, I had to reevaluate, I had to examine where I wanted to go, what did I want the scenery to look like on my way there, and then it happened... but I had to be willing to back out and course correct, and admit that I was absolutely stuck.

Are you on dead-end road? Have you been there for a while? It’s time to regroup, to reevaluate, to own that we are all a little lost, to get clear on where you want to go and then ask for some directions.

You're on the train station platform waiting for your train to arrive and you notice that everyone walking by you is leaving their bags at your feet or by your side... Then you hear it... Your train is approaching the platform, but you're bogged down by all of these bags that aren't even your... what do you do?

Obviously you leave that shit and hop on the train with just the bags you brought with you... duh. We all know not to look after unattended bags, let alone take them with us...

But what if those bags weren't just bags, what if they were other people’s emotional baggage? How does that change... stop and think about it...

How many times in your life have you ALLOWED someone to drop their emotional baggage on you and how many times have you gotten on the train with that emotional baggage... I'm going to guess a lot. I'm guilty of it too...

For a really long time I carried around other peoples emotional junk, we all have, mine was from my parents. Shout out to my mom and dad... (by the way they are amazing, but parents mess their kids up, it's in the job description). I took on some of their personal ish over the years... and you took on your parents ish... and my kids will take on mine... it's the way it goes, there is no blame to place, it is no ones fault, it's just what happens.

But here's the thing... it is your fault if you choose to get on your train of life with someone else’s baggage knowing that it's not yours to take... that is on you. It is your responsibility to always be checking and looking for the baggage that someone abandoned with you and it is on you to do the work to break the ties to it and leave it behind.

I hear you, it is soooOOOooo much easier to blame everyone else, to say "Hey this is your fault!" but the truth is it's on you to let the baggage go. I've spent the last year and a half sorting through the bags at my feet, saying ohhh mhm this is mine, nope that's not mine, and where the hell did I pick this up?! I've inspected my bags, I've looked to see who I may have dropped some of mine off with because I need to find them and take back ownership.. but all of this is on me.

It takes a lot of work, self-awareness, and healing... but you get to choose what baggage you take with you. You get to make the choice on what affects you and what doesn't. You have the option to leave it all behind and lighten your load, but you have to be willing to take ownership and stop blaming everyone around you who left the baggage with you.

I'm going to botch the quote, so I'm not even going to try, but Wayne Dyer once said something to the effect of if I were to take the person that hurt you, caused you harm, the person you blame and fix them and get them to see their ways, would that fix you? No, it wouldn't. Their healing and acceptance of their behaviors and actions have no bearing on your healing and ability to move on.
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What he is getting at is that your healing, your baggage, your ish is all on you. It's not dependent on someone taking ownership, or an apology, of someone coming to claim the bag they left you with. You need to make the choice for yourself to heal, to let go, to leave what isn't yours behind.

I have plenty of my own baggage that I have created over the last twenty-five years for myself, I don't need to take anyone else's with me.