Freedom from Attachment

Some of us have a misconception that things aren’t going our way or we’re “doing it wrong” because we lack a positive attitude; like acting positive is some sort of magic bullet for happiness. It’s not. How does it feel inside when you’re pretending? To be whole, you have to accept all parts of yourself. Acting positive when you’re not is inauthentic… and tiring. Plus we can sense things about other people, much of the time just by watching them walk in a room. There may be a match at a level we struggle to understand, wondering why we’re drawn to certain people.

We are all connected to one another, but it’s not really about positive or negative. It’s more about being open or closed. The energy we put out from this state attracts people who match our availability. If we’re closed, we will meet people who are closed. That’s how it works. When we’re closed, we have a neat and tidy world that is very controlled. It’s familiar. We attract dysfunction because WE are dysfunctional (whether we want to admit it or not). Opening ourselves up and meeting someone who is also open will change things, which is scary. But it’s also much more fulfilling and empowering. Once you understand your part, everything can change.

So how does one shift their energy to be more open? Find your emotional walls, your rules and get uncomfortable. Deal with you. Look at your list of yeses and noes. How far have they gotten you? Start by choosing yourself and being authentic. It’s what builds love and value. Second, express gratitude. When we don’t have gratitude for what we have in our lives, we become cynical and detached from possibility. There is no opening for opportunity. Be grateful for your past relationships—good and bad. Practicing gratitude changes you energetically because it opens your heart. And THAT is positive.

When insecurely attached, a lot of us tend to have unreasonably high expectations of other people. We expect them to show up the way they we want them to, and if they don’t, there’s a problem. We do this to validate we’re ok; that we deserve love and attention. And to avoid disappointment. We’re in a constant state of reaction because we can’t handle disappointment, and at the same time we sabotage the situation to make sure we are rejected so we can feel bad about ourselves. Fun, huh?

If you have a partner who isn’t performing to your standards, it means you aren’t accepting them for who they are. Maybe they do something you don’t like, so you make assumptions about what they believe about you… they don’t value you, they don’t love you, they question your motivation, etc. You personalize their behavior as a means of confirming your negative beliefs. The people in our lives are mirrors for us, and when you don’t want to look at certain parts of them, it’s a clue to what you don’t want to see in yourself.

Instead of being judge and jury to the people in your life, exercise compassion. They are flawed humans just like you. Perfection is an illusion, so stop manufacturing expectations no one can achieve. All it does is create the disappointment you’re trying to avoid. Once you accept your own imperfections, you’ll start to accept others’. Plus it’s impossible to avoid disappointment, so better to learn how to deal with it when it happens.

Those of us who are perfectionists, or trying to prove we are good enough, often take the comments and actions of others personally. It may have nothing to do with their intention, but when we feel judged, we internalize, personalize and think everything we do is wrong. We forget people have their own issues, often projecting their fears onto others, but it can be hard to see that when our emotional buttons are pushed. Who gets annoyed when dealing with customer service? Uh, just about everyone, right? We think they’re deliberately trying to ruin our day, so we get angry and self-righteous. Oh yeah, I used to be that person. I don’t react that way anymore.

When you stop to realize it’s not about you, things shift. You don’t know what’s going on with other people; you’re not in their head. Maybe they had a stressful day, or feel guilty for being at work when they have a sick kid at home. Their behavior likely has zero, zip, zilch to do with you. So when you find yourself in a state of reaction to someone (whether it’s a loved one or a stranger), take a breath. Then instead of personalizing, find compassion. This actually isn’t for the benefit of the other person, it’s about doing it for yourself because you’ll feel so much better. We are all flawed humans, and embracing our own flaws helps us more readily accept them in others.

Patience and waiting are two different things, and many of us in attached relationships are in the business of waiting. We wait for someone else to make a move so we feel safe; we wait for signs from the universe to tell us what to do. Waiting is a mental strategy with winners and losers, and it has nothing to do with authenticity. When your goal is to win, you allow the other person to make a move first so you have the illusion of control. You don’t want to do the wrong thing and risk losing.

Staring at your phone instead of just contacting the other person creates anxiety, overthinking and focusing on them instead of yourself. You want reassurance you won’t be rejected or abandoned, but waiting and hoping won’t prevent that. You seek validation that you are ok because deep down you don’t feel ok. All of these feelings confirm the negative beliefs we have about ourselves, and we prove them over and over again.

To stop the waiting game, you first need to be aware you’re playing. Are you holding back from engaging with others? And when you do engage, is it authentic or are you trying to strategize your way into a winner’s position? Speaking your truth is hard because it’s the opposite of waiting. No one is going to make it safe for you to proceed so you have to step into the discomfort and do it anyway. If you’re waiting to hear from someone, reach out and say whatever is true for you. Maybe it’s simply, “I enjoy our conversations and was just thinking about you.” It’s not about manipulation or trying to get something from them. It’s about taking your power back, saying what’s true and refusing to play the waiting game.

There is a belief in our culture some of us subscribe to that we have to work hard for everything. If it comes easy, it’s either not worth having or we don’t deserve it. Our perception says there’s something wrong if it’s easy. We prioritize effort to force the results we emotionally live and die by, leading to a lack of boundaries followed by overwhelm and exhaustion. This is rampant in work environments where the “first to arrive, last to leave” ethos is valued. But it doesn’t just happen at the office. In both jobs and relationships, we look for challenges so we stay in perpetual motion, only feeling we have value when we’re solving problems. Unfortunately this can lead to creating drama and problems so we have something solve, but when that’s where we focus our energy, we’re avoiding. Great distraction, huh?

As a kid, if you didn’t know how to gain attention, unconditional love or validation for just being alive, you would start performing tricks to get it. This belief carries over to adulthood so you think you need to work hard to earn love, respect, recognition, money, etc. But it’s just not true. There are no gold stars for swimming against the current. If you go WITH the current you still have to swim, but you will go farther without working as hard. You’ll find you are more emotionally present and available too. This is the difference between struggle and ease. When you find yourself struggling, ask what will happen if you don’t put forth so much effort. What will you lose?

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Out of all relationships, the parental one is the hardest to change. Our parents were our first teachers about love and acceptance, so we not only pattern our behaviors after them, their opinions matter more than we care to admit. As children we thought they were always right, which meant we were wrong if we didn’t agree or feel the same way. Their worldview helped shaped ours whether we fought against it or not. Consequently as adults, many of us have a hard time trusting our feelings. Parents may also act as masters of pushing our emotional buttons. Parental guilt, anyone? In those triggered moments, we see them as people who don’t understand us, resulting in anger and distancing OR going the opposite direction and over-giving (rescuing, caretaking, etc.) to get validation.

Things start to change when you’re able to see them as people, not just as parents. They are flawed and react emotionally just like you. Having emotionally open conversations instead of slipping back into parent/child roles can help. Even if a parent is resistant, you can still find your voice and speak your truth. And if they start pushing your buttons, you get to choose your response. Instead of saying, “Stop disrespecting my choices,” you can flip it to a more empowering statement, “I feel good about my choices, so I won’t engage in a conversation which questions my decisions.” This is not about telling a parent they are right or wrong, it is saying what you choose to engage in, period.

I have a free download to help with this, providing example statements to put the focus on you (not them) so you can reclaim your personal power. You can’t change them, but you can change how you interact with them. Visit my show notes page to download “Parental Conversation Scripts: How to Diffuse Heated Conversations.” http://bit.ly/2jSKO7K

So many of us think fulfillment is just on the other side of X. I’ll be happy when I get married, am able to travel, get that awesome job, buy a house, have a few kids, etc. But how often do you put energy toward what you think you want, get it and realize you’re no happier? Then you set a new finish line, arrive and still find something is missing. Focusing on a destination comes from a state of lack.

This happens all the time when we compare ourselves to others. So-and-so has a vacation home, high-powered job, beautiful spouse… if I had those things I’d be happy too! But you aren’t walking around inside that person. Maybe he/she is filled with anxiety, drowning in debt and has family issues. You have no clue because the things outside of us don’t necessarily correlate to what’s inside (in fact they often don’t). You probably know all of this intellectually, and yet I see people struggle with it all the time.

Newsflash: there is no destination. The journey is here, now, the present, and you get to choose how you participate. You can struggle and swim upstream, of you can accept where you are and surrender to what comes next. When we judge ourselves and think we don’t have enough, it’s because we don’t feel safe. We think if we surrender to life, something bad might happen. Better to look at those who SEEM to have it figured out, and just do what they do. Unfortunately that doesn’t work. Instead, acknowledge your inner judge, accept where you are and enjoy the journey with all its twists and turns. Fulfillment comes from accepting you’ll never get there because there IS no there.

You attract people exactly where you are. If you’re unavailable, you will attract someone who is unavailable. To attract open, you must BE open. People who are attracted to emotionally unavailable people are attached to UNREALISTIC outcomes, and their idea of a good partner is narrow—as in they need to fit the perfect picture. Maybe you want to meet someone so you don’t spend the holidays alone, providing a very limited opening for what you will accept. Even people who have done work on themselves can be drawn to emotionally unavailable people because it’s familiar. It stems from our negative beliefs, particularly “I am alone” and “there is not really enough.” We often look for evidence our beliefs are true, so we attract painful partners.

As with everything, the first step is awareness. To move toward available, notice what you’re normally drawn to. What checklists do you have? Forget your “type” and pay attention to how certain attractive qualities feel to you. Where do you feel connected when you are with someone? Look for what you usually dismiss (i.e. values). Get to know yourself while being with people (without expectations) and see how you feel about them. Have a conversation without it needing to lead somewhere. Trying to make something happen doesn’t work, so relax and catch yourself if you start picking people apart. You never know when someone will show up, so stay open to possibility. It’s not about control; it’s about surrender.

Authenticity is a word that’s thrown around a lot, but not many people talk about how hard it is and WHY it’s so hard. Why do people go to such lengths to avoid authenticity and hide who they are? Hiding comes from a lack of self-worth. It stems from shame, guilt, fear of judgment (from others as well as ourselves), lack of self-trust, fear of rejection, etc. When we are used to intellectualizing and trying to control everything, letting go and revealing vulnerable parts of ourselves is difficult.

In my years of coaching, I’ve seen all different ways people hide. I myself used to be a Class A hider, and I did it in all areas of my life. What I’ve noticed is there are basically four ways people conceal themselves. They outright lie to themselves and others, they withhold important details, they only reveal the “safe” parts they want others to see (keeping everything under tight control) and they fly under the radar, hoping if they go unnoticed, they won’t be criticized. You may do one or all of them.

Hiding robs us of living a full life. To come out into the open, you have to acknowledge all the ways you hide and own it. Instead of being a background player at the office, put your name on your work. Reveal something to a friend or partner that feels uncomfortably vulnerable. People are going to see you how they choose to see you, so why not embrace the freedom that comes from being unapologetically you?

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Reality is difficult to deal with. It’s filled with uncomfortable emotions, disappointment and fear. Stories are easier because they require no personal responsibility. When in a state of attachment, we often play out stories in our head based on our beliefs. We assign roles to people, making the other person (often a romantic partner) the perpetrator and rescuer so we can play the victim. Perhaps we create a fantasy where our partner, who continually hurts us or invalidates us, is suddenly going to turn around and rescue us. It sounds crazy, but we do it all the time. The characters and setting may change, but the plot is always the same: victimhood.

Waiting for a fantasy to come true is always a powerless position, and it’s how we stay stuck. Being a victim is safe and cozy because you don’t have to deal with your feelings. There is no accountability for your choices. Acknowledging the stories you create and the role you play is hard, but not doing so will keep you on the Drama Triangle of perpetrator, rescuer, victim. Where in your life do you create situations of needing to be rescued? Deciding to live in fantasy or reality is a choice, and it’s yours alone. If your partner doesn’t step up now, waiting for him/her to miraculously do it in the future is a fantasy. Take your power back by speaking your truth, even in the face of potential rejection. Only you can rescue you.