THE EMOTIONAL BACKPACK- Understanding What You're Carrying…and Why It's So Heavy
Our Emotional Backpack…We All Have One
I feel we are all born with one. You can't see it. But you're carrying it right now.
Every unresolved argument. Every moment you swallowed your feelings instead of expressing them. Every time someone hurt you and you told yourself you were fine. Every disappointment, loss, embarrassment, and fear you never properly dealt with.
It all goes into our backpack.
And every time another one of those moments, pain, disappointment or loss etc. occurs, the weight we carry gets heavier.
Here's the problem with emotional backpacks…they don't empty themselves. You don't wake up one day and find the weight has gone. You carry it into every relationship, every conversation, every challenge, every version of yourself you try to become.
Until you deal with what's in it.
I carried mine for 44 years.
Carrying that emotional weight can take its toll. It can impact relationships, self-worth and self-belief, health and mental wellbeing, opportunities, and the list goes on. For me, depression, low self-worth and feeling like a fraud. Underneath was the shame, self-blame, guilt, embarrassment and fear. A fear so deep I couldn't even name it. All of it packed in tight, hidden under a functioning life, a successful business, and a smile that said "I'm okay".
I wasn't okay. I wasn't fine.
And the backpack was getting heavier every single year.
What Goes In
The emotional backpack fills up over a lifetime. Most of what's in it went in before you even had the language to describe it.
Unresolved experiences. Things that happened to you…in childhood, in relationships, at work, in life… that you never fully processed. They sit in the pack not as memories, but as weight. As actions, reactions and behaviours that often seem disproportionate. And…as patterns, they keep repeating.
Suppressed emotions. This is how they show up… Anger that you never expressed. Grief that you didn't allow yourself to feel. Fear you pushed down because there wasn't space to feel it. These don't disappear…they just compress.
Shame and self-blame. The stories you told yourself about what those experiences meant about you. I'm not good enough. I'm a fraud. I don't deserve better. These are the heaviest things in the backpack…not because they're true, but because you've been carrying them so long that they feel true.
Unspoken truths. The things you've never said to the people who needed to hear them…or to yourself.
Masks. Every version of yourself you perform for others rather than simply being. The "I'm okay" mask. The strong one mask. The always coping mask. The people pleaser. Whatever mask it is…it can bury you even more. Each mask you wear adds weight.
What It Does To You
Most people don't realise how heavy their backpack is because they've been carrying it so long it feels normal.
But it's not neutral. It's not just sitting there quietly.
It shows up in your reactions…the ones that seem too big, over excessive, for that moment.
It shows up in your relationships…the walls you put up, the distance in your emotions, the patterns that keep repeating no matter who you're with.
It shows up in your performance…the self-doubt that undercuts you right when you need to be at your best.
It shows up in your body…tension, exhaustion, a heaviness that no amount of sleep seems to fix.
And it shows up in your identity…a quiet, persistent sense that you're not quite living as the person you know you could be.
Here's the hardest truth.
The backpack doesn't just affect you.
It affects everyone around you. Your partner. Your kids. Your team. The people who experience the version of you that's carrying all of that weight…whether they know it or not.
The Good News
You don't have to carry it forever.
The backpack can be unpacked. Not all at once…that's not how it works. And not without some discomfort…I'm sorry, that's just inevitable and unavoidable. But layer by layer, item by item, you can lighten your load.
And when you do…something remarkable happens.
Energy returns. Clarity returns. Your reactions soften. Your patterns shift. Relationships deepen. The mask comes off. And underneath it all, you find the person who was there all along, before the weight started piling in and smothering the real you.
I know this because I lived it. At 50, I finally started unpacking mine. Eight years later…I'm still going. Still learning. Still finding things I didn't know were in there.
And I can tell you without hesitation…it is the most important work I have ever done.
I know what it is like to be on the other side of it…with the backpack being almost empty (they are never fully empty as we are human). And now I get to support others on their journey, to fast-track what has taken me years to learn. And seeing people come out the other side is one of the most rewarding things I get to do in my life.
Practical Tools: Start Here
You don't need a therapist's couch…
All you need is honesty, a journal, and a willingness to sit with what comes up.
Here are four tools to start unpacking today.
Tool 1: The Inventory
Sit somewhere quiet. No distractions. Journal in hand.
Write at the top of the page: What am I carrying right now?
Then write. Don't edit. Don't judge. Just write whatever comes.
It might be a relationship. A conversation that's never happened. A memory from years ago. An emotion that keeps surfacing. A fear you've been avoiding.
Write it all down. Every single one. This is your inventory. The first honest look at what's in the backpack.
Tool 2: The Weight Check
For each thing you've written…ask yourself honestly:
How long have I been carrying this? What has it cost me? What am I afraid would happen if I put it down?
That last question is the important one. Most things stay in the backpack not because we can't remove them…but because we're afraid of what's underneath them. The fear of what we might feel. The fear of what we might have to face. The fear of who we might be without the weight we've been carrying.
Tool 3: The One Conversation
Look at your inventory. Find the one thing that keeps coming up. The thing you've been avoiding the longest.
Now ask…is there a conversation that needs to happen around this? With someone else…or with yourself.
You don't have to have it today. But write it down. Name it. Acknowledge that it exists and that you've been avoiding it.
That acknowledgement alone is a form of unpacking.
Tool 4: The Daily Reset
Every morning…before the day starts, just take two minutes.
Ask yourself three questions and write the answers:
What am I grateful for today? What am I carrying that I can choose to put down today? Who do I want to show up as today?
This isn't positive thinking. It's a daily practice of awareness, of noticing what you're carrying before it runs the day.
The Next Step
These tools are a beginning.
They're designed to create awareness, to help you see what's in the backpack and start the process of taking things out.
But some of what's in there has been packed in for decades. Some of it needs more than a journal and a quiet room. Some of it needs a safe space, real support, and people who understand what you're carrying.
That's what the moMENtum Revolution workshop exists for.
xaxNot to fix you…because you're not broken.
To give you the environment, the tools, and the support to finally start emptying what's in your backpack.
If you're ready for that…the next step is here.
And remember…Today's Courage Shapes Your Tomorrow.
Brett Dellar
