Baggage as set in cement

Another rich metaphor dawned on me this morning to playfully capture some of the dynamics of emotional baggage. What if our baggage is "set in cement"?

1. Then our hidden potentials and latent powers look like motionless statues that parody authentic prowess.
2. Then baggage makes our life hard to endure, hard to handle and hard for others when they smack into it.
3. Then resolving our baggage calls for breaking it apart and creating cracks in it's certainty, rigidity and fixations.
4. Then the experience of get beyond our baggage can be expected to be shattering of our preconceptions and convenient rationalizations
5. Then it appears the process of working on our baggage calls for more toughness, endurance and resolve.
6. Then no amount of tender loving care for our baggage will soften it, loosen it or move it out of its stuck place.
7. Then it will take a breakdown for breakthrough of our natural resources to sprout up like weeds in the cracks of cement.

Messing with what has been "set in cement "will feel like a tragic loss of pride, certainty, convictions, familiarity, meaning, purpose and control. It will involve a disorienting experience where nothing looks the same and familiar responses seem to be unavailable. The break up of this established, fortified mindset will create the space for unforeseen possibilities to emerge in our abilities, outlook and relationships.