Every day non-attachment

Crap. This again. I’ve felt this before, many, many times. It’s an uncomfortable sensation with which I’m all too familiar. It feels like a bowl of hurt mixed with a swirl of anxiety topped off with disappointment- a sad sundae indeed. I feel it every time things don’t go my way. To be more specific, I feel it when I’m looking for one outcome and get another. When the feelings arise, I sigh to myself, a little frustrated for having let it happen again. Then, I remind myself to resume my practice, the practice of non-attachment.

Non-attachment is an Eastern term. I don't practice Buddhism, but the basic idea of it rings true for me. The concept of non-attachment comes from the idea that we create suffering for ourselves when we attach to people, things, results, or anything that’s temporal. Life is transient and we don’t have control over many things. When we think we do or we fixate on things going a certain way, then inevitably we feel frustrated, at best, crushed, at worst. That type of pain is needless and we can minimize it by understanding some things about attachment.

Ways we attach

Attachment is common and insidious. We attach when we make plans with friends. We attach when we have certain aspirations for our lives or even the lives of others. We attach when we keep texts, voicemails, and pictures from people. We attach when we double, triple, and quadruple check our phones to see if certain people liked our posts yet or if they appeared to get our messages. We attach when we aren’t just looking for a reply, but we want them to reply a certain way. Is this sounding familiar to anyone or am I alone in being Team Neurotic at times? If this is you, then you’ve undoubtedly experienced the sad sundae as well. Exhausting right, not to mention just really unpleasant. The only remedy for alleviating the pain is to detach.

Ways we detach

Detachment isn’t about becoming aloof or uncaring. You still might care deeply. You just forfeit your expectations. Detachment, then, might look like deleting messages rather than holding onto them. Whether they are positive or negative, you are ruminating on what’s already passed and can no longer be. Letting go allows you to be free. Another example is if you send a warm message to someone and they don’t reply or not the way you want. Let that be okay. Did you reach out for the response or simply to show love? Detachment might also be granting people room to be who they are. It can be hard to see people make certain choices. But love grants others that freedom; it doesn’t control or force. Control only creates suffering for you.

Think about this the next time you start to feel hurt or mad about something. Ask yourself if it’s possible you attached to a certain outcome and in doing so, created your own pain. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but when these feelings arise, they offer a gentle reminder that there’s more practice to be done. That’s a good thing.