You might’ve heard a lot along the lines of experiencing everything fully, be it good or bad. In fact, you yourself might be a big advocate of thorough experiences, and why shouldn’t anyone be? Amidst the idea of positivity of completely immersing yourself in experiences, it becomes difficult to comprehend – why suddenly this thought of detachment? And how is it the key to live a full life?
What Is Detachment?
Google defines detachment as – ‘the action or process of detaching; separation; disconnection.’ However, here, the point we are trying to make is not about letting everything go, getting isolated, and becoming a saint in the Himalayas. It doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience fully penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it, specifically speaking, all the bad experiences penetrate fully. That way, you’ll be able to let it go completely.
Immerse Yourself In The GOOD And The BAD
Recall those moments you felt like – “Damn! I don’t want this moment to end” or “I wish I could stay in this moment forever….”
When you let everything fill you completely, you not only remember the visuals of that happening, but you capture the feelings too. All the happy memories go down and get locked in the treasure chest of your heart (see what I did there?), but life isn’t fun and games all the time. It is a roller coaster ride, with every life having its own unique sets of highs and lows.
As we walk down the path of life, I believe it is important to know and recognize these highs and lows, so that the next time you encounter them, you’ll know better than last time, and detachment will help you with that. Simply put, detachment comes out to be a way of learning lessons from varied emotions.
Fear and pain are not anonymous to anyone, but many times we resist such emotions, we try to oppose it with happiness – not really a bad way to tackle it, but not exactly a good one either. You hold back on these emotions because you are too afraid to feel pain, to get hurt, and you slowly start to feel vulnerable. When you hold back your hardships, you don’t allow yourself to go through them thoroughly, and you can never get to being detached. You’re too busy being afraid.
The Act Of Detaching
When you throw yourself completely into that emotion, you allow yourself to dive in. Feel your emotions as deeply as you can. If someone’s words hurt you, or if someone vented out on you or you happened to disappoint yourself (we all do this), completely, immerse yourself in that sadness.
Experience things completely; you will realize how pain feels. You’ll realize that there are so many different types of pain you feel. Write it down. You’ll understand it. You’ll begin to recognize it. Now you need to detach yourself from that emotion and take a step back. Taking a step back, now that you realize the feel and texture of the emotion, you can say – “Okay, this is fear. Let’s step back from it and find a way to tackle this situation efficiently.”
Emotions are inherent, an amazing intangible feeling we are born with. They are meant to be felt. Resisting them their true nature will only put you in more pain. Do not bottleneck their path. Accept how you feel. We all hit rock bottom, but that rock bottom should become your solid foundation to build yourself. The first step in doing so is accepting yourself, your emotions, just the way they are.
You don’t have to let such emotions negatively influence you. Realize that like everything is impermanent, and this too shall pass. Turn the faucet on, let the emotion wash over yourself thoroughly, then detach from it and slowly get ready for the take on. This way, this one emotion won’t hinder your tasks, activities, and aspirations, and you’ll be able to squeeze out every drop of life.
A quote from spiritual leader Eckhart Tolle, summarizes the idea very well –
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