5 Steps to Unpack your Baggage

Black, gay men and transwomen are some hurting people. We go through many difficulties with all of the intersections of our life and it's hard. We have the highest incidence of all kinds of disparities from homelessness, disease and mental health issues.

Also, we are taught to be strong. Whether you consider your given sex a part of you or are transitioning to your understood gender, from a very young age we are taught that boys don't cry, we must be resilient and dust yourself off and try again. So, we never get a chance to just deal with the shit we go through. We just hold our heads up and keep on going.

But, we have to find some time to unpack.

As I was speaking to one of my mentors, she explained it in such a way that it made sense to me. I'm going to paraphrase her analogy into the way I think it is most easily communicated. Think about an apartment. Some people only clean-up when they have company coming over. In those instances where suprise visits come up, they just throw everything in a box in the closet to get it out the way. Then, you decide to move apartments and, not only have you misplaced and can't find things, but you will also have to unpack all the shit that you have built up just to pack it again to move.

Same thing when it comes to dating, friendships and other issues. If you keep on throwing it in the back of your life, at some point when you meet that ideal person or reach that new opportunity, you won't be ready because not only do you have baggage, but it's unclean, misplaced and won't be able to find the root causes. So, we must figure out how to unpack our baggage.

How do we do this? I'll give you a couple ideas that have worked for me.

1. No projecting, start reflecting.

I lie to you not. Back in the day, I was a hoe. Lol... A real hoe. Sleeping with Tom, Dick, Harry and their boyfriends-- and sometimes while I was in relationships. I would lay next to my man when I know I was next to your man a few hours earlier. Let my dude's phone ring one time, message notification go off too many times or his Facebook be going off and I would be heated! I would argue him up and down that he was messing over me and tell him I refused to be played-- all the while playing him. That, in itself, is projecting. Projecting is basically blame shifting: taking your subconscious thoughts, insecurites or actions, denying their existence and putting it on the next person. We see it all the time through simple things that are commonly said in our communities like, "I'm unbothered. You mad?" In reality, if we dealt with the way we felt and not threw it on the next person, we would be much better off.

2. Learn that alcohol, sex, drugs, relationships, clothes or popularity aren't concealers.

I think being social and having fun is not only enjoyable, but necessary. I'm also not into grown people being judged by the things that they do and are responsible for. Still, we can't deny that many of our vices come from a place of disappointment, insecurity or hurt. When my mom passed, I started to drink too much. When I was lonely, I had sex with anybody I could find. When I didn't feel good enough, I went out every night. If you were transparent with yourself, you would be honest enough to say that in almost every case these things are happening out of unhappiness. Doing them, though, doesn't leave you any happiness. After you come down, bust your nut, take off your clothes or break up for the umpteenth time, those same feelings will still be there. Teach yourself how to deal with those things as they are and keep from using other things as concealers.

3. Shave down those callouses.

Remember it is a natural phenomenon to feel. Yes, that is a complete thought. You should feel things. One of the best parts of life to me is all of the feelings that come from it: from the excitement of a new relationship to the anxiety around a new project to the bittersweet feeling of your friends going back home to another state to the invigoration after a good bedroom session to the nostalgia you feel when you go visit home-- feelings make life worthwhile. If you don't feel anything during moments where you are sure there are feelings doesn't mean they aren't there, it probably means they are supressed. Shaving away the callouses that keep us from feeling things are important. We think that callouses protects us from pain, but actually it just suppresses it. What callouses actually keep us from doing is making accurate decisions. You know, the dude you know you shouldn't have been with, but you continued dating anyway? It's because of that callous. You know the dude that did everything right but you just couldn't get with? It's because of that callous. Callouses suppress everything-- and not just bad; it can keep you from receiving anything good also.

4. MasturDATE

Masturdating is the object of learning how to date yourself, learning what you like. This goes beyond being able to be in a successful relationship but also being able to be a great friend, employee, employer and/or family member. To know yourself is one of the greatest things you can bring to the table. Unfortunately, we live in a society that is so caught up on connection that we will take a disconnected attachment because we have not spent the time invested in figuring out what we like or don't like, want for our future or our passions and purpose. Dress up nice, order you an UberBlack, and go out to a place with nice ambiance or just sit in your underwear, hair unkempt and find your favorite movie or music and figure out what it is you like. It helps when dealing with your baggage because you start to appreciate all the good things you have and are working on.

5. Allow yourself to hurt.

This is the hard one. Who actually wants to hurt? Who wants to sit around and think about all the things that make us sad? The reality is hurt is essential. In life, sometimes things that aren't growing naturally come from the fact that they are growing out of place and, at times, we have to be completely bent apart to heal. In other words, sometimes you can't fully heal because you won't allow yourself to hurt. Other times, we recognize we seem to be dealing with the same things over and over again not realizing that the reason we can't get out of this cycle is because we haven't given appropriate time to actually go through the situations to get to our hapiness. It is true that time heals all wounds. Don't put a temporary band-aid over something that needs to be cleaned out and stiched up. Our tears water our growth.

All I truly want is for my community to be whole, loving and growing. We would be a lot further if we allowed ourselves to unpack our checked baggage and compartmentialize what is necessary to take as a carry-on. You'll catch that on the way out. Lol

- The Normal Anomaly