Like the woman we mentioned who said she was shocked that she had become a “shrew,” or the man we know who still can't eat dinner with his father without it turning into a shouting match, none of us sets out in life to drag old bitterness with us. And there are few feelings worse than waking each morning for work with a knot in your stomach or facing the holidays with dread. Now it's time to take those resentments out into the light of day so you can see what you would specifically like to resolve.

This next part is important. Imagine for a moment that you have accomplished everything on your wellness list. Answer this question:

Now, as you ponder this, please also shut off any old “tapes” that are going to be negative. Maybe you feel like you can never forgive your best friend at work for stealing your ideas—and that promotion that should have been yours. But don't use absolutes like never. Say “for today I cannot let go, but perhaps tomorrow I can.”

Finally, think for another moment and answer this question. This question is important because it's the first mile-marker you're going to see as you take yourself to a better emotional life.

When there is a positive change in one area, other positive changes will occur somewhere else. If you think of life as walking that tightrope, the balancing act is an art form unto itself. But like a true tightrope walker, you cannot afford to feel wobbly and pulled in different directions. You will feel stressed and unbalanced. The positive effects of letting go of old baggage may reverberate through your health and wellness (less stress-related illness) or through your job (your new, positive attitude may win you new fans in the executive office). So think small goals, no matter how unimportant it may seem, and how far you may feel from your larger goals, and know even baby steps can help you restore balance into your life.

It really is a good idea to start with small signs. Avoid all or nothing thinking, and avoid being too ambitious. For instance, we know a woman who suffered through an abusive childhood and then went into an abusive marriage and—you guessed it—had a bullying boss. She attended a seminar about “forgiveness,” but the abuse she suffered was so terrible immediate and absolute forgiveness would really have been a tall order. This set her up for failure and then more self-criticism (“Why can't I forgive? I'm not doing it 'right.'”) A better solution would have been to take small steps toward letting go of her old pain—such as finding a support group; writing unmailed letters to her abusers so she could vent her feelings; finding a therapist; and resolving to make one new, positive role model friend.

In the quest for balance, there is no time like the present. Many of us avoid looking at our “old issues.” We feel we should be “past that.” Or we may truly have lived through something horrific—a divorce by a vengeful spouse that bankrupted us or harmed our relationship with our children or an abusive family member who remains a bitter, cruel person—and it hurts to delve backwards. We may feel we should be over things by now. Or, quite frankly, the veritable glut of self-help books has turned people off from finding help. There are comedians who make light of the “dysfunctional family”—after all, aren't we all dysfunctional in some way or another? But our guess is a still, small voice inside tells you that sooner or later you have to deal with your past resentments. There are clues—stress-related illnesses that come up again and again (such as the “flu” you get every Thanksgiving, the instant tension in your neck every time you see your boss, the sweaty palms every time Caller ID says your father is calling). These old baggage issues aren't going to vaporize and disappear without work. You'll just bury them deeper and deeper. So the question we ask you is this one: Wouldn't you rather deal with this now and get it over with and move along in your quest for balance, rather than dealing with these same issues 10 years from now (with 10 more years of these rotten feelings and stress reactions)?

Now is the time to rid yourself of the aches, pains, and unhappiness that emotional baggage brings with it.

We all have the fantasy. Running away from it all for a while. Come on . . . haven't you ever pictured being swept away to a deserted island; taking a permanent vacation at Club Med; ditching house, spouse, and kids and disappearing to a tranquil cabin in the woods somewhere? Whatever your fantasy, it all revolves around one word: escape.

Unfortunately, even if you take some baby steps toward unloading old “stuff,” it's a constantly evolving process. You may feel like you have forgiven Monster Boss today, but three weeks from now you may find that the resentment has landed right in the pit of your stomach again. That's okay. But constantly evolving or not, you can't run from heavy baggage. It will find you—even in the middle of the night, waking you up and causing insomnia or restless sleep.

Another problem is very often we have baggage related to people we can't just excise out of our lives—like ex-spouses we have to interact with because of our children, parents, siblings, coworkers, even our own kids.

Using our principle of small measurable steps, you can reduce your baggage in baby steps by:

Chances are you already know some baby steps you can take to reduce emotional baggage in your life.

Probably the most controversial aspect of letting go of emotional baggage is the issue of forgiveness. Pick up any one of a hundred self-help books out there, and they will say forgiveness is essential for moving on and you must do it for you. This is often sound advice, but we also know people who have survived “the unforgivable.” What is the unforgivable? Rape, murder, incest, vicious acts of betrayal . . . the heavy hitters of emotional baggage. We know people so badly abused they still sleep with the lights on. So must they forgive these heinous sins?

Frankly, we think not. We advocate (a) looking at the pain, not hiding from it and (b) moving on, but not necessarily forgiving. We can all parrot the “forgiveness” is the “right” thing to do party line. But why? If someone murdered one of our loved ones, we would have to find a way to deal with that. (See Chapter 11 for more on this topic.) Whether it is a philosophy of “bad things happen to good people” or a philosophy of existentialism, we all need to make sense of the most senseless of acts. September 11, for instance, calls upon every person touched by that tragedy to make some sort of peace with what they lost. Forgiveness may be a part of that. But if you can't get to the “F word,” settle instead for finding a way to have peace by processing the pain until it's no longer so visceral.

Now it's time to balance your world with clear ideas of your goals in the emotional baggage arena.

Now ask yourself this question:

If you answered with a 9 or 10, that's impressive. But stick around because there is always more to learn. Remember that life has a way of throwing you a curve ball just when you think you have it all together. Remember how we said you may have felt like you moved on regarding your best friend who stole your spouse or harmed you, only to find those bad feelings landing in your stomach again three weeks from now?

If you are full of old resentments and gave yourself a low score, ask yourself this question:

If you are thinking that there simply couldn't be anything in a score that low, you're wrong. If you didn't give yourself a flat zero it is because in some small ways you are doing a few positive things to be emotionally healthy. It may feel small or inconsequential but change is built on tiny, baby steps. A step in the right direction is powerful because it takes you closer to your goals. You didn't take the bait when your ex called. You spoke civilly to your nemesis at the company picnic.

A true sense of balance will come when you wake up one morning keenly aware that you don't have a headache as you head off to work. Or your ex-spouse will call you because he or she messed up the visitation schedule yet again, and you just shrug and say, “Okay, what can we do to fix it?”

But if you wobble on that tightrope, know that life is full of the winds of change. It's okay if the headache returns tomorrow. It's all about making progress and changing your life to a more balanced picture one step at a time.