Imagine Your Life as a House

Imagine your life as a house. Each morning, you wake to another drama-filled day. As the sun sets, all the emotional baggage gets stuffed into Hefty trash bags and tossed into the garage. Eventually, the stuff piles up, especially if you’ve lived in toxic situations at home, work, school, or wherever for extended periods. It doesn’t take long before a rancid smell moves into the living space, no longer requiring you to open the garage door to trigger your misery. The rotten smell of unresolved drama permeates the entire house.

The nature of the debris in the trash bags varies. It can come from divorce, financial stress, contention with family members, a friend’s death, or any other overwhelming challenges. Too often, the emotional baggage propagates feelings such as resentment, disappointment, and jealousy. Regardless, the result is the same—the heap of trash rots and affects your home or, in this example, your life.

What Can We Do?

Do you open the proverbial garage door, break open the bags, and sift through the filth and stinky fumes trying to figure out what’s gone wrong? Do we think, I’ve got to work through all this garbage to sort out my problems? Over the years, I’ve become more skeptical of this approach.

I knew that the scriptures revealed the meaning of life, the plan of salvation, and so forth, but I’ve learned they’re also a survival guide. As I searched them—and life experience and other credible sources—the Spirit strongly confirmed this conclusion: God will take our emotional baggage and hurt if we surrender and give them to Him.

How Do We Let Go?

As with our house, we can clean and unclutter our lives if we surrender our egos and fears, open the garage door, and haul the smelly, drama-filled trash bags to the curb. Once we shut the garage door and turn our attention to the disinfection of our homes with love, kindness, repentance, and forgiveness, we transform our homes and, therefore, our lives.

As we do this, the heap of emotional drama shrinks. Keep hauling it to the street to get picked up and taken away—no need to rummage through it and relive the trauma. The gospel teaches us repeatedly that the Savior will take our emotional baggage if we let Him. A most precious and amazing part of the gospel is letting go, as illustrated by the following verses:

Scriptural Guidance

Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
(Isaiah 43:18–19)

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
(Matthew 11:28–30)

Let It Go

I close with wisdom from the Beatles, Bob Marley, and Dr. Seuss: Let it be because every little thing will be alright in the end, so if it is not, it is not the end.

Forgive others, and He will forgive you. Serve others and draw close to Heavenly Father, and He will draw close to you. Surrender your pain to Him; He will carry it for you. Open your garage door and haul the trash to the curb. Let it go and trust Him. If you give yourself to Him, He will take you under His wing. That is His promise.