Learning to let go and open up
I love control. Then again, who doesn’t? And it’s a good thing to have autonomy over your life. It’s mature, it’s loving both to yourself and those around you. It’s a slippery slope, though. Especially when you grew up hearing about “manifest destiny” and “becoming whoever you want.” After losing my dad, I didn’t seem to know how to move forward, how to make decisions or what to expect.
I was a victim of my trauma and so I needed a period of time where I learned how to regain control of my life. These are all key aspects to progressing as humans. We all need this. Years later, I find myself in a much healthier place. There’s still this part of me that’s holding on though. “To what?”, you may ask. It’s hard to explain and it wasn’t until I listened to this book by a Zen Buddhist that I realized what it was.
Attachment. This word is often understood in John Bowlby’s work in Attachment Theory. It’s worth a read here if you’d like to learn more about it through a psychological lens. In this case, attachment can be defined as the action of holding on to, controlling, or identifying with a feeling, thought or experience.
Practically, attachment tends to mimic anything in our lives we need to understand, feel or predict. If you find yourself physically, emotionally or mentally tensing up, tightening your grip or being resistant to change, you are attaching. Start to be aware of these moments and observe. As you start to do this, ask yourself, “What am I really trying to hold on to?”
Why we attach
Sounds pretty easy but it’s often hard to recognize. It’s different for everyone so a general answer will not suffice. It is true though, that we all share the underlying biological and sociological needs to attach. In essence, we all need love, security, safety, and somewhat predictability in our lives. We want to know if x happens then y will be the outcome.
If you’ve experienced any sort of deep trauma in your life, this may be foreign to you. It was for me and you don’t realize it until you see healthy models and examples of those who understand attachment but don’t give in to it as an identity. We should all honor our good intentions of why we attach but not succumb to the lasting effects of attaching.
Imagine this
Imagine yourself on a roller coaster ride. You are going uphill, abruptly moving towards the pinnacle of both your fear and the ride. You start to descend and there’s immediate panic. It feels good to grab that bar on the roller coaster ride as you speed downhill with your stomach in your chest.
But, when you loosen your grip and ultimately let go; putting your hands in the air, you learn what freedom is. You surrender to the moment and trust that it won’t hurt or abandon you. You’re still at the mercy of the amusement ride, sitting in your little car as life takes you up and down. Now, you learn to smile and ride vs. gripping and stressing. When the ride is done, what will your experience be?
What we attach to
Emotions
Over attachment to emotion is like having food in your teeth. It's meant to bypass and be processed, not latch and stay unprocessed. When this happens, we don't realize it. We may feel it but it usually takes someone pointing it out for us to detach from it. Emotions are signposts and zip codes but not addresses.
Whether it’s anger, sadness, pleasure, happiness, or any of the other feelings we experience, we are not our emotions. I must admit, I’m a feeler. This means, my feelings are easily hurt and I take things too personally but also that I’m (fairly) emotionally aware and have a deep sense of others’ emotions as well as my own; entrenched with compassion and empathy. There are two sides to every coin. What emotions do you most associate with? and How do you attach or detach from them?
Thoughts
The thinking mind has the deepest grip on us as a society. If you grew up in the West, especially in America, near a big city, are well-educated and on social media, it’s hard not to think. We live in a constant stream of thoughts, racing through our heads, with no off switch. It’s like an endless game of laser tag where you think the objective is to look at the laser instead of tag the other team.
In this internet age, we don’t allow our minds to rest. When we are not making survival decisions, we are filling our minds with empty entertainment. We look to drugs, alcohol, social media and relationships to fill the void.
When was the last time you just sat with yourself? With no agenda or expectation, just being. We all say we need a break and it’s not as physical as it is mental. We so easily self-diagnose, scapegoat and blame others for our lack of trying to be with our thoughts. Be with your thoughts. Don’t try to push thoughts out nor latch on to what comes to mind. Be the observer and curiously state to yourself a statement such as “Hmm.. that’s interesting”, simply acknowledging the experience and being present, knowing that it will fade and be forgotten soon.
Perceptions
What we look at matters, as my friend Pat says. Our brains are constantly tracking every moment we experience. It then sorts through and keeps what is most important to us and gets rid of what’s not in our sleep. From the time we are children, we start to develop our perceptions and views of the world.
As we get older, we tend to get stuck in these perceptions. We latch on to our jobs, how much we make, who we know, and how much attention we are given. We find political parties, news sources, and internet articles to back up our views. We surround ourselves with those who most understand us and agree with us. Communication with “the other”(anyone different or separate from you) is simply heated debates, seething judgments, or avoidance altogether. We cling to our views and perceptions as reality.
Fantasy and illusion are idols in our world today. We use video games, porn, movies, AI, and VR to create our own worlds. While this sounds normal, it’s not natural. We’re told we can have whatever we want, whenever we want, however, we want it.
As Wendell Berry says,” There was a day when we relied on the mercy gifts to provide for us. The crops and food were dependent on the sun and rain to come. We lived in the natural rhythms of getting things as it came to us. But one day, man will make machines. He’ll get impatient with waiting and relying on those mercy gifts. So, there will be a day when we try whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want it. But, man will get tired of this. We will not be satisfied with this way of living and will eventually return the natural ways. The ways in which we rely on the mercy gifts again and realize, we were made for this” (paraphrased).
How can we stop creating our own worlds and start seeing the one we live in? Of course, it is ever-changing and we should desire that it changes in a positive direction. Yet, on our way there, are we giving up on the process, or staying present with it, even if it’s hard?
Idealism kills awareness. In my meditation practice, I started seeing life as it was, not as I wish it were. I still struggle with living in my own illusions but as a return to my breath, I shift my perception from a world that serves me to a world that I serve.
How we become aware of attachment
A helpful way to see our thoughts and emotions are like clouds in the sky. Our mind is the sky and clouds come and go. At first, the clouds appear as though they have substance and permanence, but as we move closer, we find they’re transparent and temporary. Not only that, they go just as soon as they came. Sometimes the clouds are dark and stormy: full of negative and chaotic experiences. Other times they are pure white and clear: stable and positive experiences. Either way, the effective outcome is to learn to observe the clouds and not try to grab or push them away.
In Zen Buddhism, there is a phrase: dana (to give) prajna (wisdom) paramita (to reach the other shore). It means that in each step, the shore is reached. To not attach to anything is to give, doesn't matter what you give if given in non-attachment. We are simply to give our gaze.
How we can detach
As Bob Dylan says, “We contain multitudes.” We are like onions that, when peeled, reveal deeper untouched layers that are more sensitive and true to who we are. As we start to identify these layers and allow love and suffering to pull them back, we continue to the core of our being.
When Michaelangelo was asked how he made the statue David, he said, “I simply chipped away all that was not David.”
We all start as a general block of stone. Untouched and unformed. As life goes on, we are slowly chipped away. Piece by piece, we start to understand and see who we are. At the end of our lives, we will be ourselves. Not perfect and still unfinished, yet, the truest form of who we are. Until, all that remains is simply, you. What will your final masterpiece look like? Our ability to let go, to trust the process and be chipped away decides this.
Welcome change, be thankful for everything and see life as a gift. Freedom is learning to let go and open up.
“As long as you have some fixed idea or way of doing something, you cannot appreciate things in their truest sense. To be able to stop the babbling brook at any time is freedom.” - Shunryu Suzuki
You are not your job.
You are not what you do.
You are not what you say.
You are not what you think.
You are not what you feel.
You are not what you perceive.
You are not anything you identify with, are known by or find value in.
You are simply you. As we learn to stop attaching to things, we learn to be where we are, accepting our life as it is and appreciating the way the world is. We become less cynical, judgemental, less aggressive, and more patient, kind, wise and loving. This is how we learn to let go and open up, this is non-attachment.
