ROPE BURN

ROPE BURN

I have been thinking a lot this week about attachment, the word itself conjures up images of unhealthy relationships with childhood toys or denotes neediness. To ever say someone has "attachment issues" means they are unable to let anything go. So what exactly is attachment? It's a joining, it's also a fondness and it can also be a disorder. In this article, I want to talk about the things or people we are attached to that may or may not be healthy for us. Let's discuss broadly then about what attachment can do:

Let’s look at a schoolyard game of tug of war. Each team pulling a long rope on either end until the opposing team is pulled over a mark, one person at the end of each rope is the anchor; their responsibility is to hold the team in place and ensure as little "give" or slack as possible. What if one team just let go, that's right, just left the rope completely? Well, the other team would fall, and the anchor would feel that fall the hardest. They would all fall to the ground with the same vigour that they held on at all. The team who let go would have to all let go at once so that they too don’t take a tumble.

Stay with me now and imagine a little more if you will, that you are the “letting go” team and there on the other end holding on for dear life are all your attachments, hanging on and there at the back of this elaborate tug-of-war. At the very end is your anchor, the ONE big one that if you had to let that one go, some of the others may also fall. In this example I want you to imagine that letting go would be freeing and not a task of resisting fear, letting go would be you walking away from your rope burn, from the tugging and pulling and hoping and wishing and praying that you would feel, well FREE.

I have been toying with this topic so much that my analysis paralysis had to ask, “Is letting go irresponsible?” let us dig a little deeper:

Attachment to a person, Idea, task, event, or relationship is what I am talking about so here is the philosophy of detachment

“Detachment also expressed as non-attachment is a state in which a person overcomes their attachment to desire for things, people or concepts of the world and thus attains a heightened perspective. It is considered a wise virtue and is promoted in various Eastern religions, such as Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism and Buddhism” - Wikipedia.

Sounds amazing, but again, is it responsible? YES

Here is an example: I have an attachment to a particular habit it’s something that I am trying very hard to give up, what if I just by desire or intent decide to release this habit and admit that I no longer want it to control me or define me or be mine at all, I let it go, I walk away and say "this thing no longer serves me and my attachment to it, is of no consequence to me" just by deciding, that in itself feels adult and responsible. 

There is a flip side, we cannot pick and choose in my tug-o-war if we are becoming enlightened and higher serving spiritual beings, we must release good attachments too. We have to let the things we love go too we have to release ourselves of the attachments of EVERY part that we are tied to so that we can soar above it and see it in the perspective it deserves. 

I love my children more than every breath of my own life (not a very detached statement) I wonder if I released my "attachment to them" if that would free them or wreak havoc with my maternal instinct and I would feel like I love them less? Our love and attachment the same? I don’t think so.

So I have decided to stop white-knuckling it through life and just release the rope just a little and see how I can say "let it go" release it and maybe, just maybe the other side won't get hurt, they won't fall hard and I will be free. Slow small steps of detachment for me. So I can be free of the good opinion of others, become self-actualised and transcend into a supernova star or something. Until then, I will let go of:

-         Fear

-         Your opinion of me

-         Self-doubt

-         Pride

-         The good things that I hold on to

The laws of detachment:

Allow others to be who they are

Allow yourself to be who you are

Don’t force situations, solutions will emerge

Uncertainty is reality – embrace it

Now wish me luck as I now release this article into the cyberspace of things