Attached To It
"Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace." ~Bhagavad Gita I am all about letting go of things except for the things I want to hold on to. I think we may all be a little like that. I realize that we get attached to how things are, no matter how much we aren't ok with how things are. It is amazing how you can ask the universe to change or get rid of something, shortly thereafter get what you asked for and immediately begin to mourn your loss. We are a complicated bunch.
I coach my clients to let go and cry about it. I coach them to embrace the feelings that they have, accept them without judgement. I encourage myself to do the same. Attachment happens for most of us. We get used to just about anything we are repeatedly exposed to or that we repeatedly do. The issue isn't the attachment necessarily (though if you could do without it then woohoo!!), it is believing that the attachment means you cannot do without it or that you won't recover without whatever it is you are attached to. We humans will run from pain much quicker than we will run towards happiness. So if leaving something will cause pain we will choose to stay even if happiness is assured once the attachment wanes.
What if we chose to be courageous? What if we chose to take the feelings that we associate with loss and assign different meanings to them? What if the pain of losing something was associated with growth, development. What if we didn't judge the pain of detaching as bad? We could use it as a signal that we are on the right track, that we are becoming, that we are moving forward. Life can be challenging and exciting and whatever you decide that it is. Challenge pushes you to change. Shedding habits, expanding ideas, transforming yourself… this is where freedom lives.
"Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached." ~Simone Weil
xo
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