Letting Go of Negative Attachments

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“How do you let go of attachments?  Don’t even try.  Effort creates attachment.  Rather,  attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.”  ~ Eckhart Tolle.

1.  The C- concept

When you recognize a quality in the other that was abandoned in yourself, it creates a longing – like a phantom limb. You become mesmerised. When you are attracted to a person, it’s often your “idea” of that person that creates the draw.

I call it you, but in truth, it is my own longing for my lost-self. 

In order to survive our first relationships, we learn to dis-own parts of ourselves they found undesirable. We even forgot it was ever a part of our true nature.

My first clear experience of this was when I met a beautiful woman who was crazy-funny! ..”I wish I could be that free”… When I hung out with her I felt whole – My “C” became an “O”.

In retrospect, she represented an aspect of Self that I had learned to shut down — being spontaneous.  I learned to reclaim the part of myself that could be spontaneous and fun, even if it drew attention to me!

Try this is if your attachment is about a quality in the other: Write about the quality you are attracted to. Ask yourself, is it true that I lack the same aspect?

2.  Compassion Project (to FIX you)

When I resonate with you because I feel your pain, I experience a flooding of MDMA-like chemicals that expand my capacity for loving compassion (read more about Mirror neurons). In truth, I love the way I feel….   It feels like love..

Try this if your attachment is about Compassion –

Write everything you love about (the other). Write the advice you would give them, what you want for them.

Now, take your sentences and cross out the other’s name. Replace it with “I, me”.

For example, “I wish you could see how wonderful you are” becomes “I wish I could see how wonderful I am“.

“If only you could see how much I love you” becomes “If only I could see how much I  deserve to love me“. (See Byron Katie’s The Work/”turnarounds“)

We often think we have to force ourselves to make a decision regarding attachments. But forcing ourselves to act in a way that isn’t in line with what we truly feel never works. We will be done when we get the message… then we are done.

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What if…?

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Are you “codependent”?

Have you let other people’s behavior deeply affect you? Do you feel compelled to control others?

As Melody Beatty describes in her classic book Codependency No More, you are a codependent if you recognize yourself here:

“…the obsessing, the controlling, the obsessive ‘helping’, caretaking, low self-worth bordering on self-hatred, self-repression, abundance of anger and guilt, peculiar dependency on peculiar people, attraction to and tolerance of the bizarre, other-centeredness that results in abandonment of self, communication problems, intimacy problems, and an ongoing whirlwind trip through the five-stage grief process.” (p.36)

What if you could learn to accept responsibility for yourself and allow others’ to, in turn, experience responsibility for themselves? It is, after all, meant to be – we grow from experiencing our world, our environment. We find ourselves that way.

Try Mindfulness – It can help you learn to let go – to recognize what you can and cannot control.