There are so many things that make up who we are. There is obviously the genetic traits that are passed down to us by our parents that may not be changeable. There is the environment we grew up in that has an impact on who we become. There are also the experiences we have that play a large role as well.
These experiences can be light or heavy. The light ones like experiencing new things, being in love, or having things go in your favor. What others consider failure can even be a light experience if we are able to frame it as a lesson learned or recognize we would regret not having tried. It’s as though these experiences are a bouquet of hot-air balloons and we can barely keep our toes touching the ground from the upward pull they have on us.
The heavy ones are those things that make our clothes feel like they have weights in them. These are things like a devastating loss or a thought pattern that developed in childhood that has lasted in adulthood. Getting up from the couch, walking down the street, and sometimes just trying to breathe feel like more work than we can do. If we go through enough of the heavy ones, it becomes this burden we drag through life.
These experiences are influential enough that they sort of get written on us. Sometimes you can see them clearly and other times they are carried in a way that is hidden. It’s usually pretty easy to see the light ones as those are ones we don’t want to hide. It’s the heavier ones that we may not recognize in others.
Part of the good around me is that we all have light and heavy experiences. This means that we can understand how wonderful it is to celebrate the happy times and how important it is to help others when they are going through something difficult.