Recently I flew from Las Vegas to Phoenix. When passing through the security line I was delayed while they searched my handbag. Knowing they'd find nothing suspicious, I casually suggested to the 2 TSA agents rifling through my bag, "Should you find anything I don't need, please feel free to discard it!"

How many of us saddle ourselves with much more than we need? This question applies to more than material baggage. We're talking emotional baggage here.

It occurred to me- if our hands and hearts are saddled with extraneous "things," we leave no room for what serves to feed our souls. Have you ever stopped to think of what makes you happy?

Sorry...but winning the lottery isn't a valid answer!

Especially for those of us who are survivors, money would slip through our hands as fast as fancy cars would zip us to wherever we wanted to go. We could wear extravagant jewelry on every finger and designer clothing to make us look like fashion plates. We could buy mansions complete with infinity pools. Heck, throw in a pool and a guest house, too!

But then what? Come the next morning we awaken as the encumbered soul who wears a smile on the outside, but carries sadness within.

How exhausting. How sad. How unnecessary... just like the possessions that haven't ever made us truly happy.

Imagine, if you will, opening your hands to allow all that serves no positive purpose to slide through your fingers. Imagine what happiness would look like if you could cradle it in your hands. Imagine if I told you that we actually DO have both the ability and the right to hold happiness!

Whatever happened in our past and even in our present day life does not need to stay within us like a stopped-up sink! It has already bruised and crushed our souls many times over. Must we replay it like a tape loop to re-injure ourselves (since that is a familiar feeling our abusers instilled within us)?

Know this: abusers made choices for us with reckless abandon for our happiness. Their happiness and insatiable, sickening, selfish sustenance overruled our God-given right to happiness. For them we were a means to an end. So... DOES it ever END?

We wish it never began. Then it would never need to end!

In actuality, it does END-- with US! We deserve so much more than our abuser's leftovers that drag behind us, attached by a twisted tether. We have both the power and the right to LET GO of it ALL!

Let's go, my friends! Seek and find a therapist, social worker or even a trusted friend to listen and help you sort through and throw out the emotional junk . You have the power to make every single day "trash day;" just kick to the curb those angry, ugly memories we neither want nor need!

Yes, the tears WILL flow. The pain and memories may once again course through your veins. But guess what? That's what happens when you let go and they're on their way out!

Don't waste another minute. Things take time, but if you start now, it won't be long. You never deserved to be abused, but you absolutely do deserve happiness.

Open your heart and your hands. We're now collecting only happiness. Take as much as you want, because it's yours for the taking!