Send to KindleI wonder what kind of home you live in – is it a terraced house, a semi-detached, a house standing on it’s own, or is it a top or bottom of a house split in two? It might be an apartment, in the middle of a greater whole. Maybe you have a room in a house shared with others. I’ve lived in each of these forms of housing, and even in a castle!
What I found was that it really didn’t matter where I lived, it was my home. When I stepped over the front door step or through my room door and closed it behind me, I was in my home. It took years to realise that’s because I am my home, and it’s nothing to do with the house I lived in.
For years I thought that detachment was the same as letting go, until I found it wasn’t. Detachment is a bit like walking into your house, shutting and locking the door and then standing at the window watching what’s going on in the world beyond you, peering through the net curtains and sometimes moving them for a clearer look. Often times it’s seeing others having fun, carrying on without you, a longing to open the door and step out there to play with them. But not knowing how, or worse still unable to find the key and being trapped inside.
Detached is a form of self imprisonment. It is most often borne out of fear, shame and misplaced guilt. There are barriers and not boundaries. Fences, walls and a need to keep others at bay so that you stay safe without the need to connect. Detached can have an air of indifference to the wider world, to those around you, a sort of haughtiness maybe. And it masks the real you underneath. It stops you feeling, stops you connecting and stops you being you.
Letting go on the other hand is, well, different!
Letting go you are yourself, you take responsibility for that which is yours and you let others do the same. You care about others, but not to the point of being fearful of their opinions. You know you fit in some places, and are happy to not fit in the others. You have the security of your heart to come home to, there’s no need to lock and bolt doors and hide behind net curtains watching others play. You can play and rejoice in your own space as well as out there in the world.
Letting go, means being part of the world in which you live, having connections which are meaningful and both receiving and giving support, love and encouragement without keeping score or doing it for the wrong reasons. Letting go means boundaries, not barriers. Letting go is not being attached to things, people, feelings, emotions, anything really. And that’s very different to being detached.
Letting go really is about accepting and loving yourself, and your world.
I had not thought much about the difference between attachment and letting go. Sounds to me like I need to do some self examination to see how and where I’m “detached” and where I’m truly “letting go”. Thanks for sharing!