Are you aware of the weight your carrying? What about the weight those around you are trying to juggle? Have you ever thought about it, have you ever stepped back and looked at those closest to you and asked if there able to hold up what they have on their back or have you just unknowingly maybe added to the pile or had others add to yours? I think for a number of people the answers to those questions is probably no, it possibly hasn’t ever occurred to them or felt very relevant. But we all carry weight in some form, for some it’s so light they barely notice it or are able to choose to ignore it. For others it’s like a lead anchor pulling them ever downwards. This weight might have been passed on from generations past, or it might be new and unique to us personally. It might take the format of societal norms or standards, possibly parental expectations or traumas you have experienced but we each carry our own weight in some way or another. For me it has often felt like the sheer weight of the world is sitting on my shoulders. Like there is just so much to carry that taking a single step forwards, even just a shuffle in any direction is just simply too great. Like it’s such a heavy weight to carry that you feel constantly at risk of being crushed underneath it at any moment. It feels as though even while doing your very best you will still never be good enough or measure up. You start to feel like the weight you bare has become a part of you and that therefore you wouldn’t be whole without it but you can’t possibly carry it forever without being crushed or consumed by it. One of the hardest parts of carrying this weight is you constantly feel like and are reminded that others just don't see the overwhelming weight on your back. This can often make you feel like you are doing something wrong, or that this weight is not that much and you should just keep quiet and carry on. But this isn’t the truth, you don't deserve to carry and struggle under an unbearable weight no matter what form it takes on or how heavy others might perceive it to be, it is a weight only you know the truth of and you deserve to be free from feeling trapped underneath it.
This sense of weight is really captured in this piece I created when I felt very lost and consumed by the darkness and weight I was carrying. For me it really represents my little inner child and the weight that she carries and is struggling under. I think it holds such so much depth and shows such a dual nature and a sense of juxtaposition. I think at first glance you can be fooled to see the light and joy, you look and see a lovely little girl, dressed up and holding a set of wonderful bright coloured balloons. But there is a flipside or the side behind the curtain. I think this light happy version is only what you see if you look briefly and at the very surface level, for me as you continue to look, and perhaps dig a little deeper you start to feel and see the truth that lies beyond the 'fun and light' exterior. For me this little girl doesn’t look like she is running and playing, or looking up to her balloons in happiness and wonder or even ahead at family or friends with joy and excitement. It’s much more heavy and sombre. The balloons look almost as though they are a weight she is tethered to, rather than the joyous, light, sense of childlike hope, wonder and freedom that they give out on first impression. For me they look like heavy weights that are just too much to bear, they are dragging behind her almost holding or even pulling her backwards. It feels as though with just a single gust of wind and she will get swept away with them, or crushed by their weight. To me the strings she carries are like ties to the balloons and to the weight they represent. Ties to the tethered weight she feels she has to follow her everywhere, that always drags along behind her, that she can just never escape. The strings are too long for her little frame, indicating the weight and struggle she fights with being too great, but she still can't let them go because they are a part of who she is expected to be, and slowly this means she thinks they are a part of who she is. The balloons then also represent so much more than this for me. On the surface they are bright, shiny and colourful, they hold an element of fun, youth, innocence, magic, but that’s only the pretty surface, the illusion. They are a pretty distraction that hide what is really happening on the inside and for the little girl. For the little girl they are heavy, and too big, there are too many of them to keep control of. I think if we peel back the bright shiny front we will find a much darker and heavy reality we are asking this little girl to carry. To me the balloons feel like pieces that you gather up through your life. They feel like each one individually is thought to be light and not too much, so its handed over to her. They could be experiences or expectations, some might be traumas, some might be positive, some are roles she has to play in certain places (who you need to be at home, how you need to behave at school, how you need to be in public, for the camera or for work), some are traits (be smart, be well behaved, be quiet, be attentive, be a good girl). As individual balloons each piece that she has been given is not considered too be heavy and not too much. The world operates from a point of view that it’s just one light little balloon the girl can easily control and mange this. But in doing that they don’t realise or forget to check that she has already been given so many to hold, so much to carry and together there weight is just too great. Then there are the bubbles around her head, to me these are all the unsaid thoughts, experiences/traumas and feelings, all the things that she has to keep locked inside, the parts of her and her experience she has to hide. I get the real sense that she is almost being asked to pose for a photo or taking part in what is supposed to give the outwards image of a super fun day out. But she isn’t having fun, she isn’t enjoying the balloons, they feel foreign, false even and too weighty. The pretty picture she is being asked to create feels in such stark contrast to how she really feels. She looks as though she is looking down to her feet, her hair falling across her face, a sense of hiding, perhaps even hiding the tears as they make their way down her cheeks. I get the feeling she is almost thinking why can’t they see me, why can’t they see my pain, or sadness or tears, why can’t they understand the balloons are too much, they are too heavy. I get the sense that she has almost lost hope of being seen and that she knows she needs to just keep taking on the weight of each balloon that gets passed to her, keep posing for the photo, plaster a smile on her face or hide when she can't. I can feel the confusion she feels over why she doesn’t feel happy when everyone is telling her she should be. For me it really looks like even though she is only a little girl new into the world, the weight of the world already sits so very heavily on her shoulders. She looks so alone, she is not looking up in hope or wonder, she is not looking ahead at family waiting for her, she is frozen in time, isolated, alone and fending for herself.
For me this speaks volumes and really helped me unlock awareness of the depth of the weight I carry and where it comes from. I feel this dual nature with the sense only seeing good as a glossy surface level with there being so much more present just underneath. I feel this is so true for so much in life and in society, but certainly very true for me. I feel we are so often fooled by the glossy, shiny happy surface that we forget to check if it is the truth, or if it covers so much more. I have always been taught to hide myself and the weight I am carrying to be able to conform to what is expected and to the narrative of life I’m being given. But if you dig below the surface there is so much more hidden from view. So much pain and weight that is being carried, you feel so tethered to the darkness and the weight you are not sure how to let go of it all. You are made to smile, to 'keep calm and carry on', to bare the weight. For me this is what it looks and feels like when the weight of the world is crushing down on you and feels as though its simply just too much to bare. You can't work out how to carry on holding it all up, its simply too heavy but it seems equally impossible to set it down or out run it either, it feels as though there is simply no way to escape from underneath. The weight your carrying takes on many forms, just like this little girls weight, it could be others and your own expectations, its actions and failures, its words that have been said to us or that you have never dared to say, its thoughts and experiences that are locked and trapped deep inside. I realise I have also often even taken on other people’s weight for them, even when it weas not mine to adopt, but I didn’t want anyone else to feel this sheer weight I was so used to. There are just so many things to measure yourself up against and so many things we are taught to lock away but in locking them away we choose to carry their weight forever. The act of locking things deep inside is an act of hiding, it’s an act of adopting or accepting and living in the shame even if it’s not truly yours to bare.
During my healing journey I really started to become aware of the details of this weight, and how it is intertwined into so much of my life and being. I started to hold awareness that perhaps not all of the weight is mine to carry and that even if it is maybe it’s not something I have to fight to keep up with anymore. I started to understand that just because I had been shown and told that you had to silently bare this weight and hide it away it doesn’t have to be this way. That doing this just leaves you alone to carry the impossible weight you hold. I was slowly learning that in reality the only way to lighten your load, to make it more manageable is to start to take it down and break it into smaller pieces. To start to share it in safe spaces, start to let light into the darkness, to start to shift the shame that you have adopted as a part of you and little by little it would get lighter. Just as this little girl is carrying the balloons that she can let go of, you can with help, trust and healing let your balloons go to. As impossible as it seems you can set them down, tie them to a post or simply let them one by one float away. It seems like a difficult process, they feel and seem so intertwined into who you are that if you let go of them there would be nothing left behind of you. But this is only what you believe while you are trapped by their weight. You feel like you and the weight you carry have become one, and that you have been changed irreversibly by bearing the weight for so long. But you are not the weight you carry, it might be a part of your story, it might only be one paragraph or one page in the book of your life but it’s certainly not the entire book. I know when you are trapped carrying its weight it feels like it is the entire book, it feels like it is you, but I promise you it isn't. I have been in this place, I have been so sure it was the entire script, the entire book, but I promise you there is so much more to come. If you want to and if you choose to, maybe with some time or help you can choose to move on from this one section and live out the rest of your story, fill the rest of the book with light, laugher and love. It is possible that carrying this weight is going to have changed you, it will have played its part and contributed in shaping you. But maybe you will come out from under it, more beautiful, more uniquely you and more indestructible than ever before. After all diamonds are produced only under circumstances of extreme pressure but they come out as something strikingly beautiful and holding so much strength and value.
Years ago I came across the saying "Ship's don't sink because of the water around them; ships sink because of the water that gets in them". This at the time didn’t hold much significance for me but it stuck with me and would come to mind now and then but I couldn’t hold on to why it felt important to me. That was until I really gave time and space to think about the weight I was carrying and doing some of the exploration I have touched on here. I really came to understand what was so powerful for me in this quote. I began to realise and to see that all the things I have internalised, adopted from others and picked up along my path through life were ways in which what is happening around me and to me have gotten inside of me. It has been weighing me down and slowly sinking the ship. I realised that I have adopted things that are happening in the world around me and that have happened to me and made them a home within me but these are not me. They feel like they are a part of me as they have worked their way so deep inside and I have adopted them as my own due to the experiences and messages I have received but they do not belong to me. I’m coming to realise that these are not my truth, I have instead been letting the water in all these years, almost welcoming it on board because I didn’t know how to be any different. I was taught to take these things on, I was told it was right and part of life or who I am. But it’s always left me so very confused as to why I am struggling to keep myself afloat, little did I know I was letting the water in. But now that I’m on safe land I can allow the water to slowly drain out, it’s not mine to carry and it’s not a part of me. All of the cracks and wounds that once let water in I can now choose to repair and fill the cracks with the light that lives within me. One day I can dare to enter the water again and know not the difference between the water and me. I will have made the repairs and although there will still be water and turbulence around me, it will no longer have a home in me. Perhaps instead of being places I took on weight and water these places might just become the places where I can become lighter, they can be cracks that the light breaks out of and shines through. I'm constantly reminded and practice in my life that we do not have to carry these weights, we can set them down and move forward lighter, freer and true to ourselves.
