✨ At a Glance:
What happens to all the parts of you that didn’t feel safe to express — the curiosity, boldness, and joy that were silenced long ago?
This week, we unpack Robert Bly’s “long black bag” metaphor, explore how it leads to identity crises, and learn how to reclaim your wholeness.
🧠 The Elite Idea
There’s a beautiful metaphor by the poet Robert Bly.
He writes about “the long black bag we drag behind us.”
“We spend the first 20 years of life deciding what parts of ourselves to put into that bag… and the rest of our life trying to get them back out.”
What goes into the bag?
The parts of you that didn’t feel safe.
Your enthusiasm. Your frustration. Your voice. Your curiosity. Your “weird” ideas.
All the things that made you you… but weren’t accepted by the people around you.
Now fast forward.
You’re successful, intelligent, maybe even leading others — but something feels off.
You hit an identity crisis.
Not because something’s wrong with you —
but because that bag is overflowing, and you’ve been living according to rules like:
“I should be…”
“I must be…”
“I ought to be…”
And none of those rules are truly you.
🔍 Inside My Mind
I remember a period in my career when everything looked perfect from the outside — achievements, promotions, recognition — yet something inside me felt… constrained.
I was ticking every box, yet somehow it felt like someone else’s checklist.
That’s when I discovered Bly’s metaphor — and it hit hard.
I realized my bag was full of the traits that once made me magnetic and free: my spontaneity, my intuition, my artistic spark.
I had traded them for stability and approval.
The work since then has been about unpacking — piece by piece — and learning that wholeness doesn’t mean adding more…
it means reclaiming what was always yours.
🧬 Integrate It
Want to start unpacking your own bag?
Here’s a powerful self-reflection practice:
🧠 Reflect on your childhood roles: Who were you expected to be in your family?
🧠 Write down your top 5 limiting beliefs.
🧠 Ask yourself: What would a healthy belief sound like instead?
Then start practicing:
✅ Notice the voice of your saboteur.
✅ Write and repeat your new affirmation daily.
✅ Journal your progress.
✅ Try new behaviors that contradict the old belief.
✅ Ask powerful questions like:
- Who taught me this belief?
- What has it cost me?
- What would life feel like without it?
And most importantly — find support.
Change rarely happens in isolation.
It happens in connection, reflection, and action.
Because the moment you realize the bag you’ve been dragging…
is full of the real you — that’s when healing begins.
And once those parts start coming out again?
You don’t just think differently.
You become whole.