Emotional Attachments & Power of Letting Go
“In the process of letting go of the past, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.” – Dipak Chopra.
You have invested your energy (emotions, time, and money) in everything you “have” in your life. And when I say “your life” I mean your life situation.
Emotions are energy in motion.
Money is a product of your time & energy investment.
And you can only invest your time by investing your energy.
In that sense, your essential resource is energy.
But let’s separate the energy into emotions, time, and money as your three primary resources.
Think about your family, partner, friends, job, project, University, or car. You have invested some of these three resources into everything you “have,” right?
When we invest our energy in something, we take it as a part of ourselves. And what do I mean by that? We take it as part of our identity: I, me, and mine. And we become emotionally attached to it.
You are emotionally attached to people, things, jobs, places, habits, plans, ideas, and beliefs because you invested your emotions, time, or money into them and integrated them into your identity.
Letting go means breaking the emotional attachments, which can be very painful. And why is that?
Whatever we invest our energy in, we make it a part of ourselves, we make it a part of who we think we are. We identify ourselves with the people, things, and concepts in our minds.
When we are saying: this is my partner, my friend, my pet, my idea, my opinion, my house, my car- we are taking external things, as well as internal thoughts, beliefs, and ideas as ourselves.
That’s why people get offended or angry when someone questions their opinion, doesn’t like their idea or says their car is ugly. 🙂
The truth is that who we are is much more significant than what we have and do. And what do I mean by that?
You are not your name, position, title, job, family, partner, pat, things you own, ideas, or your opinions. That is all part of your identity, but you are not your identity. There is the essence of who you are & there are concepts & things you identify yourself with.
Your current identity is the story you have about yourself and it is the product of all your past experiences and current beliefs, habits, behavior, & actions. Science today shows that we can change our identity. Here is an article on this from psychologist Dr. Benjamin Hardy.
You can change your thoughts, beliefs, behavior, opinions, ideas, patterns, relationships, profession, and things you have, and by that change your identity, but you can never change the essence you are. And who are you in essence?
Who you are is the formless life-force energy behind everything you believe, think, know, and do.
You are the being behind everything you are “having” and doing. You are the life.
You are the spaciousness behind your identity that gives rise to your identity and everything you have or do, and we call that spaciousness a consciousness.
Understanding this truth helped me let go of relationships & choices that no longer serve my highest good.
For example, by making a painful- but courageous decision to leave my studies, I decided to stop investing my energy, emotions, and time into something that doesn’t give the energy flow back to me but draws my energy from me.
By doing so, and crying out the emotions I felt because of that decision, the energy I was investing in that attachment got back to me, and as a result of it I felt more freedom, joy & alivness. Soon after, new people, opportunities & experiences got into my life.
I understand that at the moment of letting go, we only see and feel the pain of breaking the emotional attachment, and we can`t see new beautiful “things” that will arrive in the future after we create space for them.
That’s why we need faith.
You need to believe that by letting go of the old that no longer fulfills you, you are creating space for new, more fulfilling experiences to get into your life.
And that’s the truth.
Every time you let go of something, you might cry and sob and be in pain for a while, but soon after you let yourself feel the emotions, you will start experiencing fresh energy getting into your life.
And every time you decide to let go of something that no longer serves your higher good, you straighten your muscle of courage. So you can do it more easily again when it’s needed.
And how can we know when we are attached to something?
Whatever has the power to disturb our peace of mind is an indicator that there is an emotional attachment.
Getting the power back to ourselves means seeking our attachments & making courageous decisions to break them.
“You only struggle because you’re ready to grow but aren’t willing to let go.” – Drew Gerald.
With love,
Ivana