Freedom from Attachment

Getting past insecure attachment can leave us wondering what that actually looks like. We have no clue. When you start dating, it’s hard to tell what’s good for you. Do you slip into your old ways out of habit? Is there a connection or not? Are you afraid? What’s going on for you?

You go deep into analysis, trying to figure out how to proceed so everything is clear in your mind (I better be careful about doing this or not doing that!) You might spend hours thinking, making lists and doing mental somersaults instead of doing the one thing that will help you get clear: living through the experience by doing. You have to actually date to work through it. You have to allow yourself to experience what you would usually walk away from or talk yourself out of. You have to step into the messy, convoluted, uncomfortable as f*%@ fear.

If you’ve been an avoidant, I guarantee dating someone who is NOT an avoidant will feel like a trip to Mars. You’ll feel uncomfortable, and yet, there might be something oddly soothing about it too because it’s something you crave. But if you find yourself slipping into your old yo-yo ways, stop and get inside your body. Relax into that feeling of tightness and fear so you can let it go. Only then will you have real clarity about what is going on with you. You can’t just read about it or listen… you have to take action and feel the emotions that come with it. Don’t lock yourself away from these opportunities to heal… take them and really live.

Getting past insecure attachment can leave us wondering what that actually looks like. We have no clue. When you start dating, it’s hard to tell what’s good for you. Do you slip into your old ways out of habit? Is there a connection or not? Are you afraid? What’s going on for you?

You go deep into analysis, trying to figure out how to proceed so everything is clear in your mind (I better be careful about doing this or not doing that!) You might spend hours thinking, making lists and doing mental somersaults instead of doing the one thing that will help you get clear: living through the experience by doing. You have to actually date to work through it. You have to allow yourself to experience what you would usually walk away from or talk yourself out of. You have to step into the messy, convoluted, uncomfortable as f*%@ fear.

If you’ve been an avoidant, I guarantee dating someone who is NOT an avoidant will feel like a trip to Mars. You’ll feel uncomfortable, and yet, there might be something oddly soothing about it too because it’s something you crave. But if you find yourself slipping into your old yo-yo ways, stop and get inside your body. Relax into that feeling of tightness and fear so you can let it go. Only then will you have real clarity about what is going on with you. You can’t just read about it or listen… you have to take action and feel the emotions that come with it. Don’t lock yourself away from these opportunities to heal… take them and really live.

Getting past insecure attachment can leave us wondering what that actually looks like. We have no clue. When you start dating, it’s hard to tell what’s good for you. Do you slip into your old ways out of habit? Is there a connection or not? Are you afraid? What’s going on for you?

You go deep into analysis, trying to figure out how to proceed so everything is clear in your mind (I better be careful about doing this or not doing that!) You might spend hours thinking, making lists and doing mental somersaults instead of doing the one thing that will help you get clear: living through the experience by doing. You have to actually date to work through it. You have to allow yourself to experience what you would usually walk away from or talk yourself out of. You have to step into the messy, convoluted, uncomfortable as f*%@ fear.

If you’ve been an avoidant, I guarantee dating someone who is NOT an avoidant will feel like a trip to Mars. You’ll feel uncomfortable, and yet, there might be something oddly soothing about it too because it’s something you crave. But if you find yourself slipping into your old yo-yo ways, stop and get inside your body. Relax into that feeling of tightness and fear so you can let it go. Only then will you have real clarity about what is going on with you. You can’t just read about it or listen… you have to take action and feel the emotions that come with it. Don’t lock yourself away from these opportunities to heal… take them and really live.

Looking for patterns in nature, people, the universe, etc. is a natural thing, and even critical to our survival. But when patterns collide with insecure attachment, it can become a whole other circus. If we are stuck in scarcity (which is where many insecurely attached people live), we watch other people and their actions like a hawk. We’re looking for patterns in their behavior so we can predict what comes next in an attempt to feel safe. This is limited, of course, because instead of being in the moment, we are attached to the outcome. If we think the pattern will lead to a negative outcome, we try to control and manipulate it. And if we think it might be positive, we are on our best behavior to ensure it goes the direction we want, sometimes even walking on eggshells. Using patterns to predict outcomes in this manner can leave us hung up in hell, far, far away from real love.

We learned to look for patterns as kids, when we relied on them for our emotional survival, but as adults they destroy our emotional wellbeing. Our focus is not on abundance, but rather on trying to predict and control the unknown. This behavior gives us a false sense of security that all is ok; that WE are ok. Again, it’s an attempt to find safety outside of ourselves. So rather than open up to love and all the uncertainty that goes along with it, we protect ourselves by looking problems. Maybe you look for a dead end, then slip into a wild fantasy of a brick falling on the other person’s head to wake them up. If you’ve noticed yourself doing this or something similar in more than one relationship, it’s a pattern. If you always look for reasons someone (or some job) isn’t right for you, that’s a pattern, and it keeps you safely stuck right where you are. Listen to learn how to spot patterns in your own life. You may be shocked at all the places you find them.

Looking for patterns in nature, people, the universe, etc. is a natural thing, and even critical to our survival. But when patterns collide with insecure attachment, it can become a whole other circus. If we are stuck in scarcity (which is where many insecurely attached people live), we watch other people and their actions like a hawk. We’re looking for patterns in their behavior so we can predict what comes next in an attempt to feel safe. This is limited, of course, because instead of being in the moment, we are attached to the outcome. If we think the pattern will lead to a negative outcome, we try to control and manipulate it. And if we think it might be positive, we are on our best behavior to ensure it goes the direction we want, sometimes even walking on eggshells. Using patterns to predict outcomes in this manner can leave us hung up in hell, far, far away from real love.

We learned to look for patterns as kids, when we relied on them for our emotional survival, but as adults they destroy our emotional wellbeing. Our focus is not on abundance, but rather on trying to predict and control the unknown. This behavior gives us a false sense of security that all is ok; that WE are ok. Again, it’s an attempt to find safety outside of ourselves. So rather than open up to love and all the uncertainty that goes along with it, we protect ourselves by looking problems. Maybe you look for a dead end, then slip into a wild fantasy of a brick falling on the other person’s head to wake them up. If you’ve noticed yourself doing this or something similar in more than one relationship, it’s a pattern. If you always look for reasons someone (or some job) isn’t right for you, that’s a pattern, and it keeps you safely stuck right where you are. Listen to learn how to spot patterns in your own life. You may be shocked at all the places you find them.

Looking for patterns in nature, people, the universe, etc. is a natural thing, and even critical to our survival. But when patterns collide with insecure attachment, it can become a whole other circus. If we are stuck in scarcity (which is where many insecurely attached people live), we watch other people and their actions like a hawk. We’re looking for patterns in their behavior so we can predict what comes next in an attempt to feel safe. This is limited, of course, because instead of being in the moment, we are attached to the outcome. If we think the pattern will lead to a negative outcome, we try to control and manipulate it. And if we think it might be positive, we are on our best behavior to ensure it goes the direction we want, sometimes even walking on eggshells. Using patterns to predict outcomes in this manner can leave us hung up in hell, far, far away from real love.

We learned to look for patterns as kids, when we relied on them for our emotional survival, but as adults they destroy our emotional wellbeing. Our focus is not on abundance, but rather on trying to predict and control the unknown. This behavior gives us a false sense of security that all is ok; that WE are ok. Again, it’s an attempt to find safety outside of ourselves. So rather than open up to love and all the uncertainty that goes along with it, we protect ourselves by looking problems. Maybe you look for a dead end, then slip into a wild fantasy of a brick falling on the other person’s head to wake them up. If you’ve noticed yourself doing this or something similar in more than one relationship, it’s a pattern. If you always look for reasons someone (or some job) isn’t right for you, that’s a pattern, and it keeps you safely stuck right where you are. Listen to learn how to spot patterns in your own life. You may be shocked at all the places you find them.

We all have our inner wisdom, our intuition, our self-awareness… and I believe the greatest epiphanies come from that place. We’re able to see how so many decisions come from fear. We may fear there isn’t enough love for us; that we can’t have enough; that WE aren’t enough. So we look for someone else to fill us up, get comfortable and stay there, hooked and waiting for more. It’s like a fix we need to keep us going.

But living from fear is disempowering. We have no personal power because we’ve given it away to somebody else with the hope they’re the magic pill to stop fear from haunting us. We believe everything must come from outside of us, even our “cure” for fear. We hold tightly to someone who cannot possibly fill us up, yet we hate ourselves for feeling this way, so we end up rejecting them on some level. We push them away only to pull even harder to get them back. It’s a horrible game of tug-of-war with fear, and when you throw attachment into the mix, the stakes feel even higher.

What would it be like to be loving instead of manipulative? Yes, fear is manipulative, driving us toward that temporary fix which never solves the problem. Wouldn’t it be nice not to be stuck in attachment and overcome by the fear of loss? It starts with taking care of the feelings percolating inside of you rather than putting that responsibility on someone else. To empower yourself, you MUST feel your feelings and get honest with yourself. When you stop feeding your stories of fear (the ones that repeat in your head, detached from reality), it changes your feelings and your actions. You have to shift inward to see that success and fulfillment are inside jobs. Once you shift the pattern from fear to love, emotional freedom results. Find out why fear holds you back, keeping you stuck in attachment.

We all have our inner wisdom, our intuition, our self-awareness… and I believe the greatest epiphanies come from that place. We’re able to see how so many decisions come from fear. We may fear there isn’t enough love for us; that we can’t have enough; that WE aren’t enough. So we look for someone else to fill us up, get comfortable and stay there, hooked and waiting for more. It’s like a fix we need to keep us going.

But living from fear is disempowering. We have no personal power because we’ve given it away to somebody else with the hope they’re the magic pill to stop fear from haunting us. We believe everything must come from outside of us, even our “cure” for fear. We hold tightly to someone who cannot possibly fill us up, yet we hate ourselves for feeling this way, so we end up rejecting them on some level. We push them away only to pull even harder to get them back. It’s a horrible game of tug-of-war with fear, and when you throw attachment into the mix, the stakes feel even higher.

What would it be like to be loving instead of manipulative? Yes, fear is manipulative, driving us toward that temporary fix which never solves the problem. Wouldn’t it be nice not to be stuck in attachment and overcome by the fear of loss? It starts with taking care of the feelings percolating inside of you rather than putting that responsibility on someone else. To empower yourself, you MUST feel your feelings and get honest with yourself. When you stop feeding your stories of fear (the ones that repeat in your head, detached from reality), it changes your feelings and your actions. You have to shift inward to see that success and fulfillment are inside jobs. Once you shift the pattern from fear to love, emotional freedom results. Find out why fear holds you back, keeping you stuck in attachment.

We all have our inner wisdom, our intuition, our self-awareness… and I believe the greatest epiphanies come from that place. We’re able to see how so many decisions come from fear. We may fear there isn’t enough love for us; that we can’t have enough; that WE aren’t enough. So we look for someone else to fill us up, get comfortable and stay there, hooked and waiting for more. It’s like a fix we need to keep us going.

But living from fear is disempowering. We have no personal power because we’ve given it away to somebody else with the hope they’re the magic pill to stop fear from haunting us. We believe everything must come from outside of us, even our “cure” for fear. We hold tightly to someone who cannot possibly fill us up, yet we hate ourselves for feeling this way, so we end up rejecting them on some level. We push them away only to pull even harder to get them back. It’s a horrible game of tug-of-war with fear, and when you throw attachment into the mix, the stakes feel even higher.

What would it be like to be loving instead of manipulative? Yes, fear is manipulative, driving us toward that temporary fix which never solves the problem. Wouldn’t it be nice not to be stuck in attachment and overcome by the fear of loss? It starts with taking care of the feelings percolating inside of you rather than putting that responsibility on someone else. To empower yourself, you MUST feel your feelings and get honest with yourself. When you stop feeding your stories of fear (the ones that repeat in your head, detached from reality), it changes your feelings and your actions. You have to shift inward to see that success and fulfillment are inside jobs. Once you shift the pattern from fear to love, emotional freedom results. Find out why fear holds you back, keeping you stuck in attachment.

It's funny how love is often blamed for the pain and agony we suffer. It's really the conditions, or rules, and our own perception of attachment which gets us into trouble and a lot of pain. Love in and of itself is a feeling; a sense of deep caring and you can't stop it or start it at will. It is not mentally controlled and that’s where most get into trouble and it feels unsafe.

Love is safe; everything we attach to it is not. People believe falling in love is something exalted—an intense state with high levels of cortisol encapsulating both excitement and fear. This is not love. For many the state is not sustainable and sooner or later we find we’re either emotionally unavailable or we were just in love with the idea of potential (i.e. emotionally unavailable to a real human connection). This doesn’t feel very safe either because attachment to excitement and fear never is… yet we don’t realize we’re hooking ourselves to the pain of a roller coaster.

Real love is not fickle. Love is safe because "it just is.” There’s no condition it actually needs to sustain itself, so most of what we're reacting to is everything we attach to love. We may feel it is scarce in our lives, so we complicate it. We have been brought up to believe drama is a companion to love, it is not. In the feeling of desiring safety we may get stuck on expectations, on being a drill sergeant with our conditions instead of reaching within to find our own soft place to land. But most of the time we are in resistance to the feelings inside, and the reality outside. We are looking for love to be something else; something that rescues us, that fills the emptiness, that gives us what we never had. Love is not any of those things, and if we really just allowed love to be within us, we could expand and share it without conditions while feeling safe, taken care of and in alignment mentally, emotionally and spiritually.