When I went to England and Scotland five years ago, I took two large suitcases and a carry-on with me. Although I packed enough clothes for a trip twice as long as I was going, the cases were still light to carry.

While I was filled with great excitement and anticipation, I was worried about how I would manage the very full schedule. I was also anxious about rising early and being ready in time for each early-morning departure.

Worse than those emotions for me was my terror of flying, especially over the ocean. I had joked with friends that I couldn’t swim, and they replied, “Don’t worry, Diana. If your plane crashes into the ocean, you will already be dead.” Great comfort.

Being the shopaholic that I am, I just had to purchase a souvenir at each stop on my trip. Often my choices were heavy (like books), and as the trip progressed, the suitcases began to get heavier to carry.

Soon, I was dragging them. To take liberty with Dickens, “They were ponderous cases.” When the bus driver offered to help me, he strained from the weight of the cases and groaned.

At the airport, the buckles broke from the pressure of all I was carrying, and they had to wrap heavy rope around them to prevent my baggage from spilling out. I’m surprised my baggage didn’t drag the poor plane down.

Throughout our lives, we all carry our own kind of baggage. Some of our bags include wonderful memories of special events: our children being born, falling in love, our wedding, graduations, our children’s first steps.

Good baggage comes in all shapes and sizes and can bring a warm smile across our faces or a leap in our hearts. They are the bonds that make our lives worth living when the other baggage threatens to intrude. They are silver threads amongst the cold.

The bad baggage—the painful memories that all of us carry—can at times almost break your back. No matter how deeply we may try to bury them, these pesky packages of pain and regret can pop up at any time to torment us.

They are hangers-on. Decades have passed, and suddenly, a song, a scent, can trigger us back to our past, and we are once more faced with emotions that we have long ago felt.

Sometimes when we are facing a difficult moment in our lives, our memories let us down and make us recall past hurts. It hardly seems fair, does it?

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we repeat this behavior? Can we retrain our minds to lock some doors and open others? If someone figures out a way to do that, they will become millionaires.

Baggage—good or bad—often has an anticipatory effect, causing us to revisit old hurts as we move toward situations where we might be hurt again.

Self-sabotage is real. Think of a time when you were in a car, and the driver suddenly braked. You looked ahead and saw that you might hit the car in front of you.

Your foot pressed into the floor, your hand reached out for support, and your muscles tensed. You are scared of being in an accident, and your body prepares for the worst.

We can do that many times in our lives, and whether the event we fear becomes reality or not, there is damage done in the pre-living it as much as in the reliving it.

How many times was it getting late and your children weren’t home, the phone rang, and pow, you’re sure that it’s the police calling to say there has been an accident? It can be good practice to remind yourself that this has happened before and all was well. Past events can be a good resource for calming our fears.

But what if there was a time when the news was bad? Your subconscious is predisposed to anticipate another bad outcome.

Many years ago, my daughter was late coming back from an errand. I wasn’t worried because she might have made an extra stop or a hundred other reasons. When the phone rang and it was the police telling me that she had been in a terrible accident, I was devastated.

That old baggage repeats itself whenever anyone is late. It’s not logical, but it has to do with emotional wiring.

My husband Ron died of cancer. It was devastating and currently lives in my memory baggage. As soon as I heard that my son had terminal cancer, all those painful feelings rushed back to join my new anticipatory one, pure bedlam.

I have developed a mantra that goes, “Yes, but not now. Yes, but not yet.” We are in the now. Let us not drag a painful future into our lives before it is time.

And about that baggage of good stuff—that first kiss, hugs from your children, all those happy times—draw on those.

Like taking a cold shower, you can try to divert your feelings of pain or fear with your arsenal of happy, good times. Count them. Have the good ones not outnumber the bad ones? At least try to give them equal power.

Like spring cleaning every year, maybe try to sweep out some of that bad baggage to make room for the new good stuff coming around the bend.

Sure, nothing is so good or so bad that it lasts forever. We logically know that. So why not see what old damage you can take to the dump? Is it happening now? Will it happen yet?

Then, catch your breath. Live in the now. Now, doesn’t that feel better?