West River Eagle

At the heart of it

Detachment, with love


This week has been wrought with many emotional lessons, and I am not sure I know how to apply all of them, but one lesson that I learned and liked most is this idea of detachment. 


Detachment, according to the Betty Ford Foundation is choosing to allow others to learn from their mistakes. 


We can detach in many ways, two of which are with anger and with love. 


When we detach with anger, we tend to do so based on the emotional turmoil of the moment, and we often offer up ultimatums that we do not always honor. 


When we detach with love, we choose not to assist someone in certain ways and let the person fail or succeed on his or her own. 


In a parent-child relationship, we do this a lot. We choose to let the child go out with friends and hope that he or she does not get hurt or in trouble. 


If the child violates, let’s say, a curfew law, then we may allow the child to face the natural consequences of his or her actions when he or she is picked up by the police. We may add to that an additional consequence to help curb such behavior in the future. 


No matter the consequence, every parent takes a risk the next time the child goes out. There is no guarantee, even if the child promises, that the child will respect the curfew this time around. 


When we detach with love, we must also have endurance. We have to be ready for the next time something might happen, and we have to know how it will make us feel, and what we are going to do about it. 


I think this is where many people find themselves with addicts and troubled marriages/relationships. We ask ourselves, how much more of this can I take? 


I think there are times when we do need to walk away from or set boundaries around a toxic relationship or an addicted loved one – but I agree with the concept of doing so with love. 


We need to take ourselves in consideration, and think about how our emotions and lives are spent invested in worrying about the other person. If we are not healthy, we cannot help someone else. 


Many religions teach this same concept, but the one that comes most readily to mind now is when Jesus said that he needed to rest, and could not help any more people at that time. 


Everyone needs to rest. Everyone needs that strength to face the day and the people in our lives, because dealing with people is not easy, and dealing with unhealthy people is even harder. 


Consider your own situations, and take time to think who and what is toxic in your life. How can you detach from that person or thing? 


When dealing with people, think about the natural consequences of the person’s choices. Are there any? What are they? How can you let those consequences happen? How can you think to ensure that you do not feel responsible for those consequences? 


Detachment of any kind can be difficult, but I think we need to consider more that when we do detach, we need to do it not based on an emotional reaction to an event or a series of events, but base that detachment on thoughtful actions you can take, live with and follow through with to help yourself and those around you live more content and fulfilled lives.



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