Table of Contents
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Introduction
I keep myself bound to their words. I determine my value based on the way they look at me. My immeasurable flaws are on full display for all to see. It’s all they see when they look at me. I can’t pretend to be anything that doesn’t stem from my rooted insecurity. I can’t maintain a false face of happiness and an aura of confidence. I always feel so low comparing myself to others because it always feels like I am lacking. I always feel like I am being judged but that is me projecting my feelings about myself onto others. I become too overwhelmed by the presence of other people, negatively affecting my self-esteem. I tend to absorb any minute thing that disturbs me, letting it affect my self-perception and my mood. I no longer want to succumb to these negative thoughts. I no longer want the words and opinions of others to determine my value as a person. This thinking pattern has been with me since I was a child. It’s going to be a struggle to overcome. I’ve wondered if there was a way that I could separate myself from obsessing over other people.
In my journey of personal development, I’m confronting the traits of myself that aren’t self-serving in the grand vision I have of myself and my life. Self-concept and individualism are all things that I’ve talked about that I’m still trying to implement in my everyday life. I’ve still found myself projecting my negative feelings onto others, believing they think what I think of myself. I am flawed, and my every fault is displayed for everyone to judge me. It’s a paranoia that encompasses me. I hadn’t heard of detachment or knew what it meant to start implementing it in my life. But I knew that I wanted a change. I want to be able to escape those negative feelings. I want to detach from everything beyond my control.
Understanding Detachment
Detachment is the act of letting go of what you cannot control. Things outside your physical body and consciousness are not your responsibility to manipulate. I cannot force others to align with what I want - no matter how hard I try. What I am in control of is myself, my reactions, and my emotions. This truth is hard for me to implement in my daily life. I am so attached to everything beyond me that I don’t feel centered in myself. My perspective always falls outwards, outside of my desires and feelings. I am always so overwhelmed and completely consumed by what overwhelms me. Detachment means to let go of anything that creates and promotes internal suffering. Based on my dominant patterns and habits I hold onto whatever causes me suffering. I keep it close because it’s familiar to me; I know of pain and keep it. Detaching from things beyond ourselves doesn’t lead us to live a life with nothing to cling to.
Detachment doesn’t separate us from the life that we live, instead, it changes how we react to what happens. It allows us to feel our emotions without letting them control us. We can engage fully with life without external factors determine our self-worth. It helps us to realize that we are not defined by the struggles outside of ourselves.
Benefits of being Detached
There are many reasons why someone needs to start implementing detachment. Mental Clarity. Attachment to certain outcomes can limit mental thinking and turn our emotions turbulent. For me, I get attached to certain ideas or struggle, I can’t focus on anything other than that. I neglect myself and my thoughts are filled with fears and negativity. Letting go of attachment frees the mind of being constantly worried, which helps with making better decisions when allowed to see the bigger picture. Emotional Stability. Detachment can also manage emotions. I am always completely overtaken by any emotion that I have. I don’t exist within the balance. I let things that other people do ruin how I feel. Practicing detachment allows you to not cling to certain emotions or external validation. When you detach from the opinions of others you only have yourself who can give you validation. This can create emotional resilience when you trust and value yourself. Detachment can help you to focus more emotional energy on yourself, enhancing self-awareness, where you can get clearer on your perspective. By understanding yourself you can accept yourself.
Personal Growth. Detachment from expectations can free you to new experiences. I've always had this little voice preventing me from trying new things because I feared embarrassing myself in front of others. I stopped myself from having fun and developing self-trust because I was so attached to how other people viewed me. Life comes with failures, but the failures won’t hurt as much when you detach from perfectionism. Many aspects of self-growth involve instances that may be uncomfortable for us. Focusing on the journey and not the desired result lets us fully engage with it without being overly critical and insecure. Detachment is also healthy, releasing unnecessary stress. There are many physical ailments that can occur with unregulated stress.
What we think ultimately shapes our perspective on reality. Negative thinking manifests into the physical world. Stress negatively affects our physical and mental health.
To get anything in the physical world, you have to detach from the outcome and be in the process.— Deepak Chopra
One of the aspects of detachment that speaks to me is releasing attachment to things beyond my control. I have a very stressful situation I'm dealing with, but I am not responsible for the cause of the stress. I am not in control of anyone’s actions but my own. The main thing I take away from the concept of detachment is releasing anything that causes unnecessary internal turmoil. There are so many habits that I do subconsciously that add unnecessary burdens. Overthinking. Perfectionism. Decisions. Comparing myself to others. Allowing others to affect how I view myself. These are some of the things that I want to detach from. There are some shifts that I can take in my life to start the journey of release.
Paradox of Letting Go to Gain Control
It seems like letting go to gain control of a situation is impossible. How can stepping back allow for things to continue? One of the things I’ve learned is that situations will happen regardless of my direct input. I can’t force others to work on my own time, in a way that stops my anxiety. No other human can control my anxiety. A situation that I am trying to detach from is looking for a different apartment. I’ve spent months searching, going on tours, reaching out to companies and I’ve come up fruitless so many times. I’ve been so stressed, depressed, and slipping back into self-sabotaging patterns. There is always a reason why we are attached to a certain outcome or fear. I want a new apartment because I want peace more than anything. I am attached to the idea of getting the perfect apartment. But such a thing doesn’t exist. Stressing out about everything did nothing to speed up the process or make looking for an apartment easier. It only has made the decision even harder.
When I stepped back, I had three places reach out to me. This has been the biggest source of stress I’ve had to deal with for the past couple of months and detaching from it for one day gave me what I spent hours stressing about. The overthinking and fear weren’t necessary. The pressure I put on myself was unnecessary. Detachment is needed to get through life more peacefully, starting with internally.
How to detach:
- Release the desire to have control - recognize what situations we can control. A frustration that I have in the process of looking for an apartment is companies not responding back. I would call, text, and e-mail but wouldn't hear back. I could not force anyone to talk to me. I couldn’t force the situation to work out how I wanted it to. So the need to control the communication has been released. I trust that the right place will find me and I won’t have to accept ghosting for everything to work out.
- Practice mindfulness - stop overthinking stressful situations that are more than likely never going to happen. Overthinking comes from the brain trying to prepare and solve problems beyond our control. Accept that whatever is beyond ourselves and what is unknown is a part of life.
- Journaling - allows us to get to the root cause of our attachments in a safe space. Asking ourselves why we are thinking a certain way, and why we are holding onto negative scenarios to overtake us. There are also writing exercises that let us deal with decision-making in a way that stops our overthinking and attachment. Tam Kaur posted a great exercise in her video on detaching from overthinking. Write what we are worried about. Realistically ask ourselves if it is something we can control. If we can’t, let it go. If we can, make a practical action plan. Journaling also lets us express and see our emotions but releases them to a place outside our bodies.
- Shifting your mindset - challenge negative thoughts with ones that promote balance. When you have deeply ingrained habits of negative thinking stirring your mind to have a more positive view is a huge feat. Shifting your mindset sets the foundation of self-development. In situations of uncertainty or stress, train your brain not to give in to defeat. There may be times when there are feelings of defeat but training your brain to have a better response builds resilience. To improve our situation or ourselves we have to change how we think. We cannot build or grow with a defeatist mindset.
- Developing self-trust - there is only one person that understands us completely - ourselves. There is so much unnecessary shame and pressure we put on ourselves and that makes difficult situations even harder. Detachment gives opportunities to build trust within ourselves. This part is one of the hardest for me. A part of detachment means not relying on others’ opinions above your own. I have a fear of failure, of living my life with regrets, but there hasn’t been a decision that I’ve made that has been terrible for me. There might not be a perfect decision, but failures are opportunities to learn and redirect to make a better decision for the next time.
Conclusion
Detachment doesn’t mean shutting off our feelings and isolating ourselves away from others. Detachment protects us from not letting our feelings control us. Practicing detachment lets us incorporate mindfulness, acceptance, boundaries, and emotional resilience which all can lead to inner peace. It is an essential skill to navigate life’s challenges with greater ease. I want to use this skill to detach from my obsessive tendencies. I also want to use it to release hyper-critical and unrealistic thoughts of myself. It will take more than one blog post to develop, but I’m looking forward to taking the steps necessary to detach from anything that doesn’t promote a healthy love of myself.
Affirmations
I release the need to control what is beyond me.
I release yesterdays burdens and start anew.
I release self-criticism and choose self-love.
