The weight We Carry

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People don’t always realise that the secret to looking younger isn’t necessarily found in a bottle, a cream, a needle or a treatment.

I believe there is so much more to it than what we see on the outside.

For me, a huge part of it comes back to our energy and having a safe space where we can work through the things that have happened throughout our journey our thoughts, feelings, emotions, experiences and the things we have carried with us for years.

It is about being given the tools and knowledge to help us navigate life from there on.

But it isn’t a one-fix-wonder.

Working on ourselves is something we continually come back to. It is a constant plugging back in, checking in with ourselves and taking accountability for our own actions and behaviours.

Because the truth is, we aren’t all angels. We aren’t all pure and delicate.

We are human.

And we are here to have a human experience.

Being human comes with lessons.

It comes with behaviours, reactions, beliefs, values, personalities, patterns and experiences that shape who we become.

Sometimes we can be kind, loving and compassionate, and sometimes we can react from a place of hurt, fear, anger or protection.

That doesn’t make us bad people.

It makes us human.

What matters is whether we are willing to recognise those parts of ourselves and take responsibility for them.

All of these things make up the person we see looking back at us in the mirror.

What Are We Carrying?

When we begin working on ourselves, it can take years to unravel the layers of thoughts, feelings, emotions and triggers that have built up within us.

Some things we may not even realise we are carrying until something triggers them.

I see these emotions as suppressed energy.

When we don’t allow ourselves to feel something, process it, understand it or release it, where does it go?

It can become stuck within us.

Our energy field can become overloaded, not only from our own life journey but, for some of us, from the energy we pick up and carry from other people too.

We can spend years absorbing situations, relationships, environments and experiences without realising just how much we are holding onto.

And I believe that this can affect us physically as well as emotionally.

Think about smoking or drinking alcohol. We know that these things can be toxic to the body.

But imagine adding those things on top of emotions that are already being suppressed, stress that has never been dealt with and experiences that have never been fully processed.

To me, it is like adding another thick, heavy, old duffle coat onto a pile of coats you are already carrying.

One coat might be manageable.

But keep adding them.

Another experience.

Another heartbreak.

Another disappointment.

Another argument.

Another trauma.

Another person’s energy.

Another thing you never allowed yourself to say.

Another emotion you pushed down because you had to keep going.

Eventually, that pile becomes heavy.

And sometimes we become so used to carrying those coats that we forget what it feels like not to have them on.

When our energetic body is carrying so much, I believe it can begin to show up in the way we feel, the way we move through life and even the way we see ourselves.

It is almost as though we are ageing underneath the weight of everything we have never allowed ourselves to put down.

What Death Becomes Her Made Me Think About

I love watching fantasy series and films, and recently I have been watching Grimm.

I watched an episode where a person had the ability to take the life force from another human being, causing them to age within hours, and that energy was then turned into a cream that could make someone else appear younger.

Obviously, this is fantasy.

But it made me think about how close the symbolism is to the world we live in today.

We are constantly looking for the next thing that will make us look younger.

The next cream.

The next treatment.

The next injection.

The next laser.

The next procedure.

And I’m not saying there is anything wrong with wanting to look after yourself or wanting to feel good about your appearance.

But what if we have become so focused on changing what is happening on the outside that we have forgotten about what is happening on the inside?

That thought then brought me to Death Becomes Her.

There is something about that film that has always stayed with me, especially when I think about the way society has become so focused on youth and appearance.

The women in the film are desperate to remain beautiful, youthful and wanted.

They are given the opportunity to take a potion that promises to preserve their youth, and they believe that by changing what they see in the mirror, they will finally have what they have been searching for.

But underneath all of that is something much deeper.

They want to be loved.

They want to be wanted.

They want to feel important, beautiful and enough.

And yet neither of them has truly learned how to love themselves.

That is what makes the film so interesting to me.

They have found a way to change the outside, but the potion doesn't heal what is happening on the inside.

It doesn't remove their insecurities.

It doesn't heal their jealousy.

It doesn't change their behaviours, their beliefs or the way they treat one another.

They may have the appearance of youth, but they are still carrying everything they were carrying before.

Looking Outside Ourselves

And that made me think about how often we do something similar in real life.

We can change our hair, our clothes, our skin, our bodies.

We can use creams, treatments, injections and procedures.

We can spend money trying to hold onto the appearance of youth because somewhere underneath it all, perhaps we are frightened of what ageing represents.

Maybe it reminds us that time is passing.

Maybe we are worried about no longer being wanted.

Maybe we compare ourselves to younger versions of ourselves or to other people.

Maybe we are looking for reassurance that we are still beautiful, still desirable, still worthy of attention.

But none of those things can truly be healed from the outside.

Because you can change what is looking back at you in the mirror, but you cannot change what is looking back at you from within.

You can smooth the skin, but you cannot smooth over an emotion that has never been processed.

You can change your appearance, but you cannot inject confidence into a part of yourself that doesn't believe it is worthy.

You can try to erase every sign of ageing, but you cannot erase the experiences that have shaped you.

What If We Asked A Different Question?

And this is where I believe we need to look deeper.

Perhaps instead of constantly asking ourselves, "How can I look younger?" we should sometimes be asking:

"How can I feel lighter?"

What am I still carrying?

What am I holding onto?

What haven't I allowed myself to feel?

What parts of myself am I still trying to hide?

What experiences am I still allowing to define me?

Because when we begin to work on those things, something changes.

We may still age because we are human and ageing is part of being alive but perhaps we don't have to carry the same heaviness as we do.

We can become lighter.

We can become more connected to ourselves.

We can laugh more freely.

We can find joy again.

We can stop living from old wounds and start responding from a place of greater awareness.

And perhaps that is a far more meaningful form of feeling young.

Not trying to become the person we were twenty years ago, but becoming more alive in the person we are today.

The Real Transformation

That, to me, is the part Death Becomes Her made me think about.

The potion could change their appearance, but it couldn't give them the one thing they were really searching for.

They were looking outside of themselves for something that ultimately had to be found within.

This is where I believe energy healing and having someone hold space for you can become so powerful.

Not because someone else is going to magically fix you.

They can’t.

And I certainly don’t believe I can fix another person.

What I can do is hold a safe space for someone to begin exploring what they are carrying, to help them start unravelling some of those layers and to give them tools, awareness and support as they begin taking responsibility for their own healing and their own journey.

Sometimes you don’t even realise how heavy you have become until someone gives you permission to put something down.

You start to see the light between the trees.

Clarity can begin to drop in.

Your focus can become sharper.

You begin to recognise your own patterns and take accountability for the parts of yourself you may not have wanted to look at before.

You begin to understand that healing isn’t about blaming everyone else for what happened to you.

It is about acknowledging what happened, understanding how it affected you and then deciding what you want to do with that knowledge moving forward.

And that is where our inner light begins to shine differently.

It starts on the inside and eventually becomes visible in our outer reality.

The more layers we shed, the lighter we can feel.

Like a snake shedding its skin, we can release what no longer belongs to us.

Not because the past never happened, but because we no longer need to carry every piece of it into our future.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest secrets to feeling younger.

Not trying to become someone you were years ago, but becoming lighter in the person you are today.