Most of us go through life carrying around unnecessary emotional baggage as result of accumulated thought processes about our life experiences. By internalizing a judgment about ourselves, and the way we think the world ought to work, our biography becomes our biology. Our struggle with anxiety often stems from a core belief that we are somehow flawed. Despite new opportunities that come our way, we’re stuck in an insidious, self-sabotaging loop.
There’s a concept in spirituality referred to as “travelling without a shadow,” in that you leave no trace of yourself as you go. Imagine, if like the movie starring Jim Carrey, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” old memories would zap away and each new life experience would be seen with fresh eyes. Now granted, that’s a bit extreme, but the point is we would travel through life more lightly, without the past influencing our present and future choices.
Very few of us were taught in childhood that we were essentially good, but rather that we were good if we did our chores, combed our hair, looked and kept our room neat. Basically, we were good if we pleased our parents & teachers. We’ve been brought up in a world that touts the notion that we’ll be okay when we have the love relationship, money, education, job title, approval, recognition, the house, car, talent, and the list goes on. To a large degree, we have learned to search outside ourselves to have something define us.
We feel driven to grab from life because we believe that something we are going to get will make us more valuable and compensate for what we feel are our inadequacies. The problem with becoming emotionally or psychological attached to things of this world, including other people’s opinion or approval, is that it comes from a perspective of lack. Sadly, no matter what we get, we will continue to recreate the conditions of lack, and we are diminished to the extent that we seek something to fulfill us.
Nothing outside yourself can make you more valuable. Besides, hiding behind surface appearance like status or a relationship is destined to fall apart anyway. It’s formed out of an unhealthy attachment, rather than connection that supports your highest self.
For example, let’s say you’re attached to a destructive relationship, only to find your emotions thrashed around like a roller coaster. Rather than be relieved when it doesn’t work out, part of us feels punished that this person has been taken away. Even if you know on some level that it had to end, the fear of being without is overwhelming and keeps us attached.
Life sometimes feels like it’s crashing around us, and we fear that the pain of being without will be so unbearable. Relationships & job titles often become a pervasive comfort zone we inhabit to avoid our feelings. When one relationship doesn’t work out, we quickly grab another partner. If we have a job with perks and prestige, we’ll hang on even though we hate it. This helps fill the void temporarily, but yet all those things we hope will fill us up, merely covers up a core belief that we will be nothing without it.
Nature in its infinite wisdom has created a process of disillusionment. A lot of what we gravitate towards is based on a weak foundation from the start. No matter how wonderful our attachment to form seems, it is only there to serve our highest sense of self. So, the universe will constantly bust you and make your life uncomfortable until you get on the path that’s meant for you. We may worry about the embarrassment of what others will think, or fear that we’ll be lonely or empty, and so it’s difficult to let go of the “stuff.”
By attaching ourselves to outcome, we’re fighting the natural phase in life that has to occur to support our authentic selves. If a toxic relationship or job doesn’t support your best self, then it will inevitably end – whether you initiate it or allow it to take its own demise. This often leaves us really feeling desperate because we are mourning something that was not serving our best interest; yet feel devastated when it starts to fall apart.
The difference between connection and attachment is the difference between being and attempting to define yourself by some preconceived idea of “normal.” Ironically, if we stopped trying so hard to escape our feelings and just sat with the discomfort, a good part our anxiety would start to dissipate. We’d be able to hear ourselves think without all the distractions we use to escape from ourselves.
In my life, I know that every time I tried to make something happen, became attached to outcome, or tried to get approval, these were not the areas in my life where things flowed freely. It seldom worked out the way I envisioned, and often resulted in a lot of pain, anxiety, and depression. The point is not to get people to try to see you favourably; rather the point of enlightenment is when you don’t care. When you don’t care, meaning you’re not attached to what others think, then life unfolds in a way that is effortlessly magnetic. That’s real power!
There’s something freeing about letting the world do what it’s going to do. We all have different parts of our lives where this is easier to do than others. It’s not the doing that heals our lives, it’s the consciousness and relinquishment of control that heals our lives. Instead of having the goal be success as we define it, why not eliminate the middleman and make your goal simply to be happy. Our decision to be happy comes from the realization that nothing can be added to your life to make it better. Similarly, when you make a mistake, it can’t make us less. We are so afraid that if people got to know us, they would be horrified. Nobody’s going to think you’re enough, if you don’t think you’re enough. You won’t believe you’re enough when you define yourself with things of this world that you have no control over.
When focusing so intently on how things appear in the world, it costs you the ability to sense your inner compass. You may think that by becoming too internally focused, you won’t be able to successfully navigate in the real world. Speaking for myself, until I was able to look within myself, I felt as though I ran around on the periphery of life, as though I was watching myself in a movie and not connecting. I did a paste up job on my personality and projected an illusion that I was together, but my attachment made me to feel trapped and controlled by the belief that I needed to be “on” all the time for others to like me.
The world often seems frightening when we’re trying so hard to get things done – almost like we’re running around in circles. What’s truly important isn’t out there, rather it’s derived from an energy from within us that has to do with our sense of purpose, our sense of meaning, the core of what makes us unique. This energy is what allows us to make a real connection with other people in our lives whether with family, friends, or in the community.
If you’re having a hard time letting go, whether past or future, consider the possibility that it’s never going to happen. When you can let go of the idea of making it happen and take some weight off, you then have the context in which things can unfold.
Be willing to recognize that there is within us a being so abundant and complete that there is nothing that this world could give us that would augment this being within. Let go of clutching and grasping at anything or anyone. Embrace a pure, relaxed acceptance of who you are. Recognize that this being within us is who we are, and that right now, in this moment, we don’t need anything more to make us better.
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us….” Helen Keller