What Are You Still Carrying?

Welcome to Heal Talk Tuesdays with Liza, where transformation begins as we evoke, embrace, and evolve.

Why do we remember what hurt us more than the things that are very good? Have you ever had a beautiful day where people are literally complimenting you, you’re having a good time, you’re celebrating, and you feel appreciated? Everything seems absurdly wonderful. And then, as everything is winding down, one person makes a remark, either about you, about your body, or just a snap remark. And then what happens?

You take that and you go home fuming. Not only in the car; you go home, and that one comment, not the laughter, not the compliments, not the beautiful moments, nothing. It all goes away, and just those few words make an impact, and you replay them over and over, over and over. Why did this person say this? What did they mean? And it’s like nothing else matters except that one negative remark.

So isn’t that interesting? Because we can experience a hundred wonderful things in life, and yet that one unpleasant experience stays with us. Why? Why is that? Because our brain is wired in a way that pays attention to potential danger and the things that are negative. Psychologists call this a negativity bias. The word is negativity bias.

So today, I want to take this conversation somewhere a little bit deeper, somewhere that maybe you have not even thought about, because it’s everything we think we need to carry through our life.

Greetings, greetings, greetings, and welcome to Heal Talk Tuesdays. This is Liza. It’s so good to be here with you, isn’t it? By trade, I’m a clinical hypnotherapist and stress management consultant. And this is the platform where I come to you every week, showcasing something about our brain, something about our psychology, our society, something about our life, and my 3E Method, which is in my book: evoke what was, embrace what is, so that you could evolve to what will be.

See, the things we chase. Think about it. From the moment we are young, we are taught how to strive. Get good grades. Get a degree. Find a career. Have a good relationship. Be successful. Make money. Even the dream of having that white picket fence home, and even driving a beautiful car. So, life: getting married, having children, being successful, all of that. And somewhere along the way, we start measuring ourselves by what we have, what we have achieved, and what others think of us. You see, that reasoning, judging, analyzing, criticizing factor is from our frontal lobe, the conscious mind.

So what do we do throughout the years? Just a few days ago, I went through my drawers and cleared out everything I have not used in over three years, maybe even five years. I think it was five years. All the things that I know I will not be using, I just bagged up. I had two huge bags. Because if I haven’t touched it in five years, do you think I’m going to touch it now?

So we collect titles. We collect clothing. We collect accomplishments. And sometimes we even collect disappointments. We collect resentments. We collect and hold on to regrets. We remember who betrayed us. We remember who backed us. We remember who hurt us, who walked away from us, who failed to recognize our worth. We know everything about them, their name and every essence of who they were. And we carry those experiences as though they belong in a suitcase, or in a drawer that we are obligated to hold on to.

Do you resonate with me? Are you smiling? Because perhaps you have been holding on to some of those? That’s right. Sometimes we even hoard resentment and anger. “I’m going to get to them somewhere, somehow.” We even say there’s karma, and I’m going to wait until that karma happens. But let me ask you this: what exactly is all this? That’s the question we rarely ask.

One day, each of us is going to come to our final breath. At a celebration of life, I was listening to the priest as he was giving his sermon about the person who had just passed away. And it reminded me of a podcast I was listening to, where an amazing celebrity was sharing how he had grudges and resentment toward his father. But on the day his father was dying, he was right there next to him. And when his father took his last breath, he was there, and he held his hand. He said that at that moment, everything faded away. Because it didn’t matter if it was good or bad. At that last moment, the person who is going is not taking anything with them. Not even whether they were a good person or a bad person. Does that make sense? Not whether they hurt someone or were hurt. None of that matters.

Because when that day comes, the house stays, the car stays, the jewelry stays, even the bank accounts stay, the titles stay. They all stay right here. Nothing goes with them. None of it goes with us. And those arguments we spent years replaying, those negative words, “that one person said this,” or “this one person did that.” Actually, I think none of that matters. All the times we tried so hard to impress, those sleepless nights worrying about what someone thought of you: how much of that really matters?

When we think about it, I want you to ask yourself: how much of that negative energy have you been holding on to? Carrying with you, either knowingly or unknowingly? You know, one of the things I talk about in emotional weight is exactly this. Sometimes we carry this emotional burden, resentment, anger, and we just stuff it in right here, in our body, in our psyche, in our mind.

What if you just stopped at this very moment and you just went… blow it all away? Just blow it away. Either fire coming out, or bubbles and bubbles coming out. It doesn’t matter, as long as you just blow it away. And someone said, “Why can’t I just spit?” If you want to spit, spit. I don’t care. Scream it. How? Blow? Spit? It’s just releasing.

Because pain matters. I’m not saying what happened or what others did is insignificant. The pain matters, the kindness matters. Our reactions matter, and our actions have consequences. Either you have hurt someone, you have said something to someone that was spiteful, or you heard something so derogatory that you held on to it. But what happened to you does not have to be the final definition of who you become.

Just yesterday, as I was scrolling on social media, I came to a post, and I can’t remember her name, but they were talking about a girl who was born in prison to a woman who was in prison. She had killed her husband and was in prison; it was domestic violence. And sometimes, yes, it is a defense, but somehow she was in prison, and she gave birth to this baby girl, and she gave the baby up for adoption. When that girl grew up, they told her about her family and everything, because she wanted to know. And this girl goes to Harvard and graduates to become what? A successful doctor. And the moral of the story is: it doesn’t matter where I come from, but who I become because of my choices, not because of my background.

So yes, there is karma. Yes, there is lineage, and there is trauma. Sometimes we carry that in our DNA, in our lineage, and we come up with excuses for that. That is exactly what that is: enabling who we are and accepting those excuses. Because it is so easy for us to hold on to those excuses, put them in that drawer, bank them, and say it’s because of this, right?

Because when our journey comes to its end, what truly remains is not what we accumulated. It is what we contributed. They say if you want to feel less lonely, get involved and help someone else. So, how we treat others, how we make them feel, even with a smile. And I am not boasting about this because I want recognition, but sometimes when you are in a drive-thru, what if you just turned around and said, “Whatever the person behind me ordered, how much is that?” When I stand in line, so many times I turn around and tell them I’ll pay for the person behind me. Not to make it a big thing, but why not? If I can. It’s a small little thing; it’s not hundreds of dollars. It is just a gesture of paying it forward.

We can do that in small increments. It can be with a hug; it can be with a smile. It can be taking your phone, scrolling, and just landing on a name, because if they are in your phone, that means you know who they are. Or scroll past the first one and the second one, and on the third one, you say, “Yes, you.” And just call and say hello. Because what truly matters, I believe, is what we stand up for and who we help, the love we gave and the lives we touched. Our possessions remain in our house right here, but the impact we make, even the smallest one, one gesture of goodness, makes a difference. And not only because of them; it’s because you also feel good.

So imagine taking a road trip, right? You have a destination in mind, you enter that address in your GPS, and off you go. But along the way, there’s traffic, there are detours, there’s “Oh, that road is closed, you have to take the side roads.” And there’s construction, with all these orange cones. Do you get out of the car and move the orange cones? No. You sit in the car. You either get on the phone, or you turn the radio or music on. Some people even listen to podcasts like this one, the replay on YouTube.

And you know why? Just like yesterday. You might even get a flat tire. I got in the car to come to work, and guess what? The battery was dead. No hint, no nothing. So, do I get frustrated? Frustration, because I didn’t get to an appointment where I was supposed to be. And at that same time, I realized, maybe I’m supposed to be here. Maybe I’m supposed to be delayed. And believe it or not, it was exactly then that I realized it, because the garage door was open, and as I was looking at the pathway, I saw my neighbor walking down, and she fell. So I rushed to help her. Now, if I had been gone, maybe until an hour later, nobody would have been there, or she would have had to crawl.

Because eventually, just like being on that road, we do arrive. We step out of the car, we look around, and there it is: that beautiful place that you intended to come and experience. And all the frustrations and everything that happened along the way were happening while you were in it. You may talk about it afterward: “It took me da-da-da-da to get here.” But now what? You see? Now what?

And that’s exactly where we are. Because the road brought you here. You were meant to be here to hear this. But the road is not where you are meant to live. You’re not supposed to stay there the entire time. So, isn’t it exactly what many of us do in our lives? We hold on to that negativity, and yet all we have to do is blow it away, spit it, express it, let it go, and stop holding on to what was.

In my 3E Method, we evoke what was and shed a light on it to understand. We embrace where you are, right here, right now, so you understand everything, and you say, “Now what?” And that’s how we evolve. That’s also how the subconscious mind works, and why we keep going back. So this is where my work as a clinical hypnotherapist comes into play. Some experiences are wonderful; others are painful. And sometimes those earlier experiences influence where you are today, but they don’t have to be replayed over and over. So, aren’t you ready to evoke and recognize the road that you traveled, and then acknowledge it without being stuck, so that you can evolve and arrive, and live and enjoy the trip you planned?

So, a moment of reflection. I want you to think about this. Number one: what are you still carrying from a road you no longer travel? You’re not there. It’s already been traveled. What are you carrying from there? Number two: what are you working so hard to accumulate that may be keeping you from enjoying what you already have? And number three: if your journey ended tomorrow, what would you want people, your loved ones, to remember about how you made them feel, and what the road you traveled meant for all of you? Not what you wanted, not the titles, not the things. What would your legacy be? And how would they be remembered? Or how will you be remembered?

So, it’s not about preaching. It’s about helping you realize that the purpose of the journey, in mind or in reality, was never to spend your life staring at something you have already left behind. It was to experience the life you are living right now. Your past is part of your journey. Your present is where you get to write what comes next, or even come up with a new road to travel. Because you matter. That’s all. In the end, you matter. Your loved ones matter.

This is how we heal within. Not by holding on, but by releasing, letting go, and being grateful. This is Liza. I hope you like and share if this message meant something to you. I hope you look at those three points and say, “Let me go clear some things,” either from my past, from my drawers, from my walls, or from my memory, that I no longer need to hold on to. Until next week, God bless you, and may the universal light surround you always.

And this is Liza Boubari, your expert hypnotherapist. If this message resonated with you, let’s connect. You’re not alone.