Exhaling Attachment

I realized when she said the words, that it was the essence of what I’ve been struggling with. It was a message that traveled right to me, as if placed in her mouth in that moment, specifically for my ears.

I was in a yoga class seeking deep breath to quiet the noise.

“Being tied to attachments can create the most severe form of human suffering,“ she said while I dripped into savasana.

I set a few tears free, common during the practice of yoga that seems to hold a key to my contemplation.

I’ve struggled with change, now and again, in recent years. Too much change. Changes in family structure, change in my roles, changes in others, changes in the dynamics of close relationships, changes in self, changes in loved ones’ health, changes in dreams, and fluctuation in my perceived strength in times of elevated test.

I’ve anticipated the difficulty of parting with the home that helped me raise my children, the home that holds our firsts and provides me with a sacred sense of security when it seems so scarce.

I long, now and then, for the roots and connectedness that I felt in past large family gatherings that has slipped away.

Traditions have significantly shifted and will continue to do so.

My dog, my first baby, ages rapidly. She struggles with the most basic tasks we often find involuntary. She is a tie to a past life that no longer is, enhancing the fragility of foundation.

I’ve lost people very important to me and I will inevitably do so again. It’s the pattern of all things.

The feeling of hollowness over these changes is a limb of attachment.

I recognize hints of attachment even to ideals, the potential in a person or a situation.

Attachment to loved ones existing in ways that I saw best fit. Feeling the dynamic of a relationship shifting into a new shape, one unfamiliar.

I’ve wrestled with the disconnect between who I am and who others are comfortable knowing me as.

Attachment may even exist to things that were said and done that maybe could have been handled differently.

It threatens to shackle us to scars of fears, rejection, or patterns of mindless behavior cultivated or imprinted over time.

I stand at the edge of new challenge once again and I pay close attention to my response, craving intention to carry me through.

It’s the natural, inevitable pulse of life – change constant, yet beating to different rhythms, sometimes slow and steady, and other times pounding rapidly – that we are to exercise the acceptance of.

What if I let go completely? Am I capable? Is there a net? Am I ready to be this independent of familiar anchors? Am I ready to grow stronger as a woman? Am I resilient enough to continue on the path that unfolds in front of me? Am I brave enough to trust in its abundance?

Tethered to a familiar mass, and feeling the rope slip through my desperate grip, I’m aware that fixing my gaze backward will leave me exhausted, emptied. I won’t have these things back, and I’ll lose a little bit of myself in the process.

It’s an active exercise, working to reshape attachment. Over and over again, we’re asked to reconsider, to recalibrate. To respect and honor and value the relationships with loved ones for the beauty that they were in their season, what they added to our lives, and what they may evolve into.

I want the love I felt for others, and places, and experiences to be free of guilt, weight, or resistance. I want the scale to remain heavily weighted on the side of possibility and not scarcity.

Breathing in the memories and richness of the people, places, the relationships and exchanges, knowing my time with them has been realized, honored, and perhaps passed, and exhaling the weight tied to gripping them too tightly in fear of letting them go is my answer to keeping them near.

*It’s been my pleasure to connect in this space and it’s provided me opportunities for growth and opportunity. I’d love to write more. If you feel inclined to do so, you are welcome to share this post and help me along… Cheers, J