Detachment

So what is detachment? To me personally, detachment is all about giving up control of an outcome, and to ‘let go’ and allow the higher purpose to come though. Remember, everything does happen for a reason – and letting go of your own personal outcome can give space for a much better universal outcome to come into place!

Detaching can also mean:

• Allowing people the freedom to be themselves and to make their own decisions and choices in life ( even if you do not like the choices they are making)
• Not saving, rescuing, and trying to fix another person from doing or feeling something.
• Releasing people from your life who may not be supportive of you
• Openness to accepting that you cannot change or control another person, place or thing.
• Establishing a safe distance from people who may be abusive or controlling of you
• Establishing good emotional boundaries between yourself and others whom you may have become dependant on it the past – which may have led to you not being able to develop your own sense of independence
• A process where you are free to be yourself – and do not change your own behaviour just to keep other people happy – even if they don’t like what you are saying or doing!
• Allowing other people to take personal responsibility for their own actions – Practicing tough love and not giving in when they come to you to save the day when their actions have led to issues / problems for themselves or others.
• Allowing other people in your life to be who they ‘ really are’ rather than who ‘ you would like them to be’
• Ability to avoid being hurt, abused, taken advantage of by people.

Detachment does not mean to stop loving and caring for people – just allowing them to be who they are! Detaching and letting go can seem difficult at first – especially for the born fixer’s in life! However, relinquishing the need to control opens up a whole new word of possibility and wonderful unknown miracles which you never believed were possible! Detachment is often just a fear – fear of how things may work out – according to our own personal needs and agenda’s.

Do you find it difficult to detach from others? If so, you may:
• Find yourself easily influenced by other people’s opinions – people may manipulate you.
• Find people in your life becoming emotionally dependant on you and running to you to ‘ sort things out’
• Risk being taken advantage of by others or manipulated into doing things that you do not really want to do
• Find yourself in situations where you are relied upon too much to solve things or ‘fix things’. Everyone may just think that you will sort things out rather than sorting them out themselves.
• Find yourself focused on making life better for everyone else, instead of focusing on what you can do for yourself to live a happy healthy life – overly responsible for other people’s happiness.
• Find yourself deriving your self worth solely from a continuing unhealthy relationship with a person, place or possession.
Often people find it difficult to detach from situations due to the fact they feel they may be losing control. Detachment is often about control – wanting an person to do or say things, an outcome to be how you would like it to be, or an inability to keep a safe distance from someone which may require your own personal self control.
So how do we learn to detach?

1) Set a firm intent to commit to detachment! Decide to be yourself and allow other people around you the freedom to be who they are.
2) Recognize that detaching and letting go may feel uncomfortable at first. Acknowledge the uncertainty you may feel and hand over the problem to a ‘higher power ‘to fix. Often the universe has a much better solution than we have to any perceived problem!
3) Set good boundaries between the person, place etc with whom you may have become dependant / involved with
4) Make sure you take back your power! Especially from things / persons in the past which may have effected your emotional wellbeing and happiness
5) Recognize when you try and rescue / save other people – This is your pattern which you have the ability to change! Try minding your own business!
6) Accept that some people may be toxic and may have an unhealthy impact on your life. Stop making excuses for them and make a choice to release them from your own life. Release them with love.
7) Stop blaming other people for your own situations / problems. We all have choices and can take personal responsibility to change things. Do not blame other people for your own unhappiness.
8) Practice letting go of the need to save, fix, or improve a person’s life. (Except your own of course!)