This is Dating While Gray, the grown-up's Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships.

I'm Laura Stasi.

So far this season, we've explored some ways to find love, like using dating sites and apps, hiring matchmakers and coaches,

unofficially tapping social media. But no matter which path we take, the journey to find

love can be more difficult if we're lugging a bunch of unnecessary stuff with us, so to speak.

Yep, we're talking about baggage. Hi, Laura. My name's Joel, and I have a question about

baggage. People use the term like it's something that makes someone undesirable as a relationship

partner. Well, I tend to think that it's something about a person that will

interfere with your ability to have a healthy relationship with them. So the question is,

what is baggage and what do you do about it? I think that's a hard one. Older people, of course,

have a lot of years of living already behind us. So all that living, is that baggage? Or does it depend on the particular

details of our lives and how we've dealt with them? And maybe it's what we're willing to share

and also to receive to see if our baggage plus a potential partner's baggage equals a manageable

load. Hi, I'm Sherry Tennant.

I am a life coach.

I'm turning to Sherry for some help on this topic.

Along with being a life coach, she's a professional counselor.

She's based in St. Louis, and we're going to be hearing from her throughout this episode,

along with Grey Daiters juggling a carry-on or two.

I began my conversation with Sherry by asking her why some of us fear are personal histories

might be holding us back from finding a romantic partner.

Some of my clients struggle really because of fear and so it's really removing some of the

...