Detachment Is Not That You Should Not Possess Anything, It Is That Nothing Possesses You

The word detachment is very topical in contexts such as self-help, personal growth and spirituality. Something that is happening very often is that we tend to confuse some terms and approaches.

Detachment is not, at all, “not possessing anything.” Nor is it to build affective relationships where to avoid, precisely, that affective attachment that gives us security and well-being.

Detachment is something more intimate, as well as essential to our psychological and emotional balance. It is about preventing things – and people – from possessing us.

In this way, we must be able to give ourselves the freedom to build more harmonious and respectful relationships. Relationships without dependencies, without victimisms or the recurring phrases of “without you I am nothing .  ” We invite you to reflect on it.

Attachment and detachment

The term of detachment has its roots in Buddhism. However, in the field of psychology and pedagogy we have, for example, attachment parenting and relationships based on healthy attachment.

They are two different concepts that it is necessary to understand in order to benefit from them, in order to build much more integral relationships where we respect and, at the same time, be respected.

Healthy attachment

For Buddhism, one of the greatest sources of suffering is attachment. However, the connotation it has here is not related to attachment in the field of parenting or affective relationships.

The human being, when he is born, needs his fellow men to survive and feel safe to understand the world. In healthy attachment parenting, parents attend to the child’s needs. They allow you to be close to feel safe. Caresses, hugs and a bond nurtured by love are key to their development.

On the other hand, affective relationships based on a mature attachment are those where two people give each other freedom to build a respectful and happy relationship.

People need to strengthen the bond with the people we love. This implies developing a type of attachment with which we feel safe, with which we feel united to someone who loves us and whom we love.

If at some point dependency, blackmail, and the need for control appear, that attachment is no longer healthy and becomes toxic.

Detachment as a form of personal integrity

Let us now delve into detachment to clarify important aspects. This term does not mean, at all, that we should give up everything we have. The absolute detachment from all things is not synonymous with happiness.

Lack is precisely one of the greatest sources of uncertainty, fear and sadness. Now, the excess of dependencies, of attitudes that hold us to things, to people and to scenarios, are indeed sources of suffering.

• If we build our life around a single person to the point that our happiness depends on their moods, whims and attitudes, then “there is something we are doing wrong.”
• If we are “attached” to our family in such a way that we do not dare to make a life of our own away from our father’s walls, “there is also something we are doing wrong.”
• When we cling to work, to the exclusive need to move up, to earn more money to own more things and have more social status, “there is something we are doing wrong”:  we are forgetting to be happy.

Detachment is a form of personal integrity, because it reminds us that happiness is not in the pocket of others or in accumulating things. Happiness is born first within us to feel like a complete, free and mature person.

How to apply “detachment” in our daily lives

Accept the uncertainty. When you set a goal or an objective, don’t focus all your hope and happiness on the result. Learning from the process and accepting uncertainty is also essential.

Do not focus your well-being and happiness based on what others do or do not do. It is a source of suffering that we must control. Try to depend on your own actions and be receptive to what people do spontaneously and without you expecting it.

If you become obsessed with having them do certain things for you every day and every moment, you will live in unhappiness. Insecure people are the ones who most need to cling to those around them, who most need to have things or to get them, because that is how they satisfy their emotional deficiencies.

Don’t confuse desire with need. It is not the same, for example, to “wish” that I win the lottery, to “need” to be graced with the prize because only then will my problems be solved.

Take care of your self-esteem, fill your gaps with certainties, with the assurance that you are a complete person, capable not only of being happy, but of making others happy.