Trailer: Hand Baggage Only with Suzette Shahmoon

Our experiences shape us. So many of our interactions make us form beliefs about our self and the world we live in. That moment when you put up your hand in class to answer a question only to get it wrong and face the humiliation of a class full of snickering, can leave you questioning your intelligence for decades to come. Each time you are put on the spot to speak up in public or make your thoughts and beliefs known to others can leave you feeling vulnerable thanks to the emotional baggage that classroom experience has left you with. 

Or maybe you were the kid who was teased by others because of your looks and as a result you struggle to accept a compliment and any kind comments by your friends about your looks are interpreted as disingenuous or inauthentic.

We all carry suitcases of these issues around with us all day long. It’s experiences like these which can  cause us to pack harmful beliefs into our emotional bags. 

The list of what can trigger an emotional response and a harmful belief is as never ending as our ability to find things to place into our emotional bags. Sometimes these issues will weigh us down so much we end up mentally and physically exhausted. The emotional burden can manifest as a rise or drop in blood pressure, head aches, stomach aches, joint pains. Any physician will tell you; emotional baggage can affect any and every system in our physical body. 

However our emotional baggage can also affect the way we interact with others. It can affect the way we process conversations and make us react to innocent comments in negative ways.

Think about it… have you ever made a casual comment to a friend which has caused upset and distress? Has someone ever triggered you in the same way?

If we don’t take the time to unpack our emotional bags from time to time we sometimes buckle under their weight, and that is the reason why I have released this series of hand baggage only.

In this series my wonderful guests each discuss different aspects of friendship. How is friendship affected after the onset of a chronic illness? How do you maintain your friends after divorce or separation? How do you make friends when you don’t have the structure of school to support you?