Only when we are able to apply the laws of detachment, thus defeating the ego, will we finally stop suffering.
Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: December 29, 2021
In the approach to personal growth and spirituality, detachment is crucial to achieving happiness. It means overcoming the barriers of the comfort zone to stop living in fear of losing dimensions to which one clings excessively. Only when we will be able to applying the laws of detachment, thus defeating the ego, we will finally stop suffering.
Let's try for a moment to explain what happiness is for us. Some would say that the happy person is one who has great resources, a good partner, a large checking account. All of this undoubtedly covers many of our most basic needs.
But do these dimensions offer an authentic sense of well-being? In fact, the more accurate definition of happiness couldn't be simpler: the happiness is the absence of fear, it is not knowing anxiety.
It basically means knowing how to love, appreciate and get involved in a more balanced and healthy way, freeing oneself from the excesses that put chains and binds. Clipping their wings.
Practicing detachment is therefore the first step in reaching such a state. It is allowing ourselves to be freer, lighter, less attached to what we have or lack. It is living with the heart without compulsively needing anything or anyone. At the same time, it also means being capable and knowing how to give oneself to others with authenticity and without pressure.
The emotional release generated by detachment offers the possibility of living more honestly. It is then that the option to grow, to advance with full knowledge of the facts, presents itself before us.
Without harming anyone, without others limiting us with the chains of passionate, filial or even maternal love. So let's learn to put into practice the simple laws of detachment.
The laws of detachment
Be responsible for yourself
The first law of detachment invokes a fundamental principle of personal growth: responsibility. Let's think about it: no one will remove every stone for us that we find on the road. Like no one will breathe for us or offer to take charge of our pains.
Each of us is the architect of his own existence and that takes courage. It means that we must detach ourselves from the opinions of others, from the need to be recognized, from external approval to carry out decisions, dreams or projects. We are free people, ready to create the destiny we deem appropriate.
Being fully aware of the right to be builders of one's own destiny, we keep in mind the following dimensions:
- Don't put happiness in the hands of others. Do not conceive the idea that finding a partner or always receiving family recognition is essential to be happy in this life. Loneliness is sometimes the best company to fulfill.
- If the barometer of satisfaction and happiness depends on what others give, there will only be suffering. The reason? They will rarely meet all personal needs.
- Cultivate happiness, feel responsible, mature, be aware of your decisions and their consequences, choose for yourself and never let your well-being depend on the opinions or advice of others.
Live in the present and accept reality
In this life nothing is eternal, nothing remains, everything flows and it resumes its journey weaving that natural order that is sometimes so difficult for us to accept.
We are almost always focused on everything that has happened in the past and that somehow now becomes a heavy burden that alters our present. We are often so "attached" to all those events that happened yesterday that we forget the most important thing: to live.
We put all our attention on family disagreements, on the trauma that surrounds us and affects us, on the loss, on the sentimental disappointment or the unsurpassable frustration ... All these are anchors that hold, that put the chains on our feet and they are hooked to our soul.
Detachment is also joining forces to look to the present and allow us to heal our wounds. We must encourage acceptance, assume reality and not resist certain tests. Furthermore, a Sometimes we have no choice but to forgive and even forgive ourselves.
Only then will we feel freer, ready to appreciate with all our senses the here and now, this gift in which we have our true opportunity.
Laws of detachment: promoting freedom and letting others be free too
Freedom is the fullest, most complete and healthy way to enjoy life, to understand it in all its immensity.
Detaching does not mean cutting ties or establishing them in the name of emotional coldness. Quite the opposite. It is a dimension in which we can learn to iron out fears in order to love in a more authentic and respectful way.
Knowing how to give and let oneself be received without pressure, without blind needs, without anxiety or with the eternal fear of being abandoned. It is preferring without the need for others.
Another aspect to remember about posting is that we are not obligated to be responsible for the life of others. There is therefore no shortage of those who yearn to find a partner to escape from loneliness or even to heal old wounds of yesterday.
Let it be clear that none of us have an obligation to be a hero. To save others to heal their loneliness or the fractures caused by old relationships. These bonds only generate suffering.
Intense attachments are never healthy, think for example of those obsessive parents who go too far in protecting their children and prevent them from maturing, from advancing safely to explore the world.
Detachment is vital in these cases, as it allows for overcome the limits of certainty to learn from the unexpected, from the unknown.
Accept that losses will happen sooner or later
In every Buddhist and spiritual current there is the idea of ​​impermanence. We are talking about that dimension in which we are forced to understand that in this life nothing lasts, that nothing can last forever.
Relationships and even material things change, mature and often even fade away. We therefore accept the idea of ​​change, absence and even loss as a vital law to which we cannot close our eyes.
Some people will go away forever, children will grow up, some friends will cease to be and some loves will leave the warmth of our hand… However, many other things will come. Because life is change, but also movement and all this is part of the laws of detachment.
And as such, we must learn to accept it in order to face it with greater integrity. With greater force. But what will never change is the ability to love: we always start with ourselves.
Conclusions
If you want to start practicing the laws of detachment, first of all you will have to learn a identify the emotions and feelings generated by the attachment element (it can be a person, a situation or an object).
So ask yourself what purpose it fulfills in your lives and always keep this in mind. Then be grateful for what he has done for you and let him go.
