Let’s talk about attachment which happens when people form friendships, intimate relationships, have babies, etc. There’s some level of clinging that bonds us…and we aren’t aware of the tie when we’re not conscious and present.

I’m sure a newlywed bride and groom would put lots of effort in protecting and prolonging their honeymoon phase so that it goes on as long as possible. Because if that honeymoon phase ends, what will that mean? That the love’s gone too?

I’m sure most parents would admit to thinking that if anything happens to their child, they’d die. God forbid someone hurt their child, they’re ready to murder any suspects.

Attachment Leads To Worry

Now that I’m older, my mom confesses how she always used to worry about us 5 kids constantly, day in and day out. Worried if we were safe, dead, in bad company, you name it. It plagued our household. That fear wore her down and you could see it on her face. And, like most women, she set the tone of the house.

She watched the news every day 6AM and again at 5PM, so she’d warn us about what new guns, drugs, or gang to watch out for this week. In her eyes, the world was getting worse by the second and our lives were at risk. She held the responsibility of raising her kids in “this world” because it was nothing like when she was young.

She can fortunately say that her worst fears never became reality, so all that time spent worrying was time gone that she would never get back.

So now she says she’s let a lot of that control go, that she supports us living our lives as adults and is trying to accept that we all make our own way, find our own paths and create our own futures. It was not always easy for her to take her hand off the wheel.

She will still fall into worry, especially now as a grandmother but thankfully she’s a lot more at peace than before. Does she want anything to happen to us? Of course not. Is she able to enjoy more deeply the time she does have with us? Absolutely.

Life coach, Martha Beck, says that to care for someone can mean several things. Adore them, feed them and tend to their wounds. But care can also signify sorrow, as in ‘I’m bowed down by cares’ or anxiety as in ‘be careful’ or investment in an outcome, like when we say ‘who cares?’ the word love has no such range of meaning: it’s pure acceptance.

Caring like my mom cared with all of its sadness, fear, worry, safety precautions isn’t love.

In fact, when my mom was in worry, she was expressing her attachment to her family as her possession. She was worried that if something happened to her, she’d die. She can’t let that happen and that fear clouded her ability to just enjoy us in the moment.

Attachment Is Possessing

I look at my friendship with my best friend, who’s been with me through thick and thin since we were 5 yrs old. She can’t do anything that would make me love her any less. Even if we had a disagreement and didn’t speak for years, I’d still love her. I love her without condition.

We don’t always have the best of communication and we get caught up in our own worlds like if we’re seriously dating someone, yes. We probably won’t hear from each other for awhile. There are weeks that we don’t talk at all. We rarely call each other. Sometimes that can hurt when I’m not in a loving, understanding frame of mind and sometimes, I take her distance personal.

But eventually, I come to remember the truth: that life happens and even though we go in different directions, we are connected at the heart. She knows it and I know it. And when we talk again, it’s like not a day passed.

My love for her doesn’t need for her to act a certain way that’s within my area of comfort so that I can continue to love her. I love her no matter what she does.

Love is when you remain calm and peaceful in the midst of pain, separation, divorce, loss, gain, growth, failure, betrayal. Nothing can uplift or remove the love in your heart. You remain joyful no matter what’s going on in the world.

This may sound coldhearted or impossible to you but that just means you’re still attached to the idea that love equals possession and responsibility. The responsibility to care for this possession.

When you care too much, you forget to love.

Free From Attachment

Let’s make this clear. Let’s have an activity. No paper necessary, just use your head.

Martha Beck has a quick exercise that I just love. She says to think of a person you love, but about whom you feel some level of anxiety, anger or sadness. Next, think about how your loved one must alter himself or her behavior before you can be content.

Complete this sentence, by filling in the blanks:

If _____(whoever it is) _____ would only _____, then I could feel _____.

Now, scratch out the first clause of the sentence “if blank would only blank then”

And what does that leave?

“I could feel _____”.

Regardless of whatever happens, to you, around you, to your loved ones, around your loved ones, you will be just fine.

I invite you this week to do Martha Beck’s exercise with 1 or 2 people in your life. What comes up for you?

In the comment section below, let me know how you’re trying to control other people’s behaviors in order for you to be happy and tell me how you just choose to be happy now.