Dr Oz & Valorie Burton on Emotional Baggage: Fear is Not a Stop Sign

Dr Oz: Emotional Baggage

In this episode, Dr Oz invited 50 women to pack a bag, but not in the way you might think. They had to pack something that represents the emotional baggage that is weighing them down in life. To help them unpack the feelings and fears that are standing in the way of living the life they want, Dr Oz invited life coach and self help expert Valorie Burton to coach these women. Get her four steps to shedding your Emotional Baggage.

Valorie Burton: Picture Your Destination

She shared some great advice with the women to help them change their thought processes, step by step, and move forward in their lives. She told the women to “picture your destination,” the place you would like to reach but haven’t been able to. A woman named Tricia said that she has negative associations between change and tragedy, making it difficult for her to cope. Valorie wanted the women and all of us to stop focusing on our baggage. Tricia said she wants to be able to accept change as positive. Her symbolic baggage was keys, which reminded her of moving in high school, followed by the sudden death of her first love. She said that change makes her physically ill, at which point she shuts down.

Dr Oz & Valorie Burton: Recognize That Fear Is Not a Stop Sign

Valorie said that fear is a normal emotion as we try to make steps toward change in life. But she said that should not prevent us from going forward: fear is not a stop sign. Another woman in the group had a wine bottle as her baggage. She said that she is afraid of failing, which is what she believed happened to her mother, whom she does not wish to emulate. Valorie got the woman to connect honestly with her. She has chosen to use wine as a coping mechanism, which she said is the only thing her mother never drank. Instead, she wished she could use exercise or yoga as an outlet, but has not pursued those changes so far.

Valorie Burton: Validate Your Emotions

When we are making changes and letting go of the past, we are losing something and it is OK to confront those raw emotions. The woman admitted that she lost her mom at a young age and helped raise her siblings. Valorie told her she is entitled to have strong emotions about the loss of her mom and the loss of part of her childhood. Dr Oz said he thought that we were supposed to discard our baggage, but Valorie said that losing her mother is part of this woman’s story, and she can’t let go of that. “Rather than it being an open wound…it’s a scar,” Valorie said, indicating that we’ve come through hard times in our lives. But scars don’t hurt anymore, unlike wounds. We have to embrace our scars as badges that represent who we are.

Dr Oz: Repack Your Baggage

Pam chose a cigarette to represent her baggage. She started smoking as a young woman, in an attempt to lose weight after failing on diets as young as age nine. Her lifelong weight struggles made her very emotional, and she found comfort (and results) in cigarettes. But ultimately, Pam wanted a healthier life and self-acceptance. Dr Oz said that we know things like cigarettes can hurt us, but it’s an example of the power our emotional baggage has over us. To recap, the four elements that Valorie Burton used as guideposts were:

• Picture Your Destination
• Recognize That Fear is Not a Stop Sign
• Validate Your Emotions
• Repack Your Baggage