"Detachment is a means whereby we allow others the opportunity to learn how to care for themselves better."
This statement helped me make a quantum leap in my understanding of how detaching from others could be loving.
How detachment is loving others
1. Those I care for might learn to look within, and trust themselves for self-direction, including when and how to ask for help.
If I refrain from trying to manage their problematic situation, the people, I care about may learn something about thinking for themselves, problem solving, and when and how to ask for help. They might learn to better listen to their feelings and intuitions, to heed those little voices we all wish we listened-to more. They might learn to better recognize when they want help and how to request it in ways that leave them feeling good rather than embarrassed or ashamed. In short, letting them manage their own affairs gives them the opportunity to draw on their own inner resources, instead of mine, and from this direct experience of their abilities, no matter how groping or uncertain, they can build competence and may thereby increase their confidence. I believe this is the No. I and most natural avenue leading to increased self-esteem.
2. They might learn more about cause and effect.
My not intervening allows others to have an uninterrupted experience of the cause and effect relationship between their actions and the natural consequences of those actions. In this way, they have a direct encounter with their personal power to contribute to their own pleasure or pain. Allowing people to have appropriate sized, real problems, and real responsibility for working out their solutions, seem to greatly facilitate this learning.
3. They might experience the motivation to continue on or change.
Pleasurable and painful experiences often provide us the motivation to repeat what brought satisfaction and change what didn't. We all use this kind of emotional energy to move us forward in life. These motivating energies arise naturally from within and feel much better to respond to than the attempts by others to motivate us through guilt, fear and other forms of coercion.
4. Self discovery and enjoyment might occur.
If I grant others the freedom to think, feel, value, perceive, etc. as they wish, and they relax because they feel respected and safe, they might discover many new things about themselves. They might discover what they really like, feel or think. They might have moments of creative insight that inspire, excite and encourage them. They might invent new, more satisfying dreams for their lives than ever would have appeared under the pressure of my controlling presence.
Whenever I find myself struggling with the impulse to step in and begin trying to manage another life, or solve his or her problems, I find it helpful to review the four points just presented. They strongly motivate me to remain lovingly detached.
Now, how about the ways loving detachment benefits me?
How detachment is loving for me
1. I am relieved of the strain of attempting the impossible.
By carefully reviewing my experiences of trying to control other people's physical behavior, sobriety, health, learning, emotions and opinions, I have come to one conclusion. The only thing I might be able to control is a person's physical behavior that requires that I possess enough physical strength and am willing to use it. If I accept my powerlessness to control the other things, the inner lives and wills of others, then I relieve myself of the stress and strain of attempting the impossible. This is a primary way for me to create more serenity in my life. In fact, if I practice this process deeply enough, I sometimes reach the point where I form no opinion about what another should do. This is a truly liberated and refreshing moment for us both.
2. What other people)think of me can become none of my business.
If I am powerless to control the thoughts, perceptions, values or emotions of another, then I can liberate myself by accepting that their opinions of me are none of my business. Accepting this as fact, I not only free myself, but the other person as well, because I cease my attempts to control their inner workings.
3. My attention and energy are freed to focus on improving my own life.
I have plenty of problem areas in my own life. Obsessing about another life can help me avoid the pain within mine. But the time and energy I spend obsessing about another life I don't spend on mine, and if I do this enough, my life stays at its current level of unmanageability or gets worse. Loving detachment gives me the opportunity to invest my energies in my life.
4. I can express my love or caring in ways that bring me joy and satisfaction.
When someone I care for is struggling with a problem, or feeling some kind of pain, I usually want to be supportive or helpful. But, I want to offer the kind of help that would bring me joy to offer and them joy to receive. One of the ways that I have developed a picture of what this help could look like is to recall the times when caring friends or others have offered me assistance in ways that I enjoyed. What did they do? While showing no sign that they felt responsible for solving my problems, they offered me four things:
* Their compassionate, empathic understanding of how I perceived and fell about my situation.
* Their experiences and learning from similar situations for my consideration.
* Their genuine optimism about my abilities to work through my struggles.
* Their willingness to help, on my terms, in ways that were congruent with their needs. To be offered understanding, companionship, encouragement and assistance, but not interference, is the most satisfying help I have known. Offering this to others increases both the joys in my life and my self-esteem.
Looking at the eight ways that I see detachment as being loving, I conclude that the most basic reason for practicing it is to provide an opportunity for people's lives to be improved. The lives of those I love may be improved because I respect their powers of self-care enough to let them have a chance to reap the potential benefits of struggling, learning and succeeding on their own. My life is improved because I avoid unnecessary distress, retain energy I might have wasted, and offer caring and support in ways that bring me joy. In these ways loving detachment plays a powerful and rewarding role in helping me to both live and let live.
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How Detaching Can Be Loving For All
murag mao murag dLi hehehe
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