Faith Filled Family Magazine September 2016 | Page 100

What’s Holding You Back? By Chris Benton I have studied people for years including looking at myself too and to be honest, I believe that baggage is what holds most people back. I watch so many people quit things from marriages to passions to even sometimes their purpose because of the baggage they have in their lives. Think about this, everytime something happens to you in your life it creates baggage. It is through your struggles that creates this baggage. I don’t care which area of your life you have baggage. I mean we all have baggage. The problem is that we hold on to that baggage until it completely controls our lives. Let’s take a look at a few parts of our lives: 1 Relational Baggage: This is probably the hardest one to swallow because you get into a relationship with all your heart. You do what you are supposed to do and have high expecta- tions but what happens? In many cases, whether they cheat on you or just up and leave you, you’re wronged. So now you take this baggage into your next relationship.You start the next relationship just a bit more jaded and guarded than your last. You have a small wall over your heart because you don’t want to make that mistake again. You start to grow in that relationship and BAM you are blindsided again! You start questioning who you are. Now you decide down the road that you may be ready at love again so you start dating and find someone that you connect with. This time you go into the relationship even more guarded and the guy is trying to get in your heart but you won’t let him in because of the baggage from your other relationships. He tries and tries but you won’t budge so he decides to leave because he feels getting past your past baggage is close to impossible.Here we go spiraling out of control thinking you are worthless because you can’t be loved. Now you start doing all kinds of things that you know you shouldn’t because you just can’t handle