#1242 - Attachment
“Our journey is about being more deeply involved in life and yet, less attached to it.” — Ram Dass
It's so easy to develop an attachment to things, ideas, jobs, places, projects, people, pleasure, roles, labels, success and sometimes even pain.
We develop an attachment anytime we convince ourselves that who we are and what we can do depends on that external thing.
You may convince yourself that your authority depends on your position. That your creativity depends on a substance. That your energy and joy are all due to the person you are in love with. You may convince yourself that the power of your initiative is all in its form or configuration.
Yet, I truly believe that nobody and nothing can get out of you something that is not already there. External things are just triggers that awake something that was there but dormant. Keys that unlock inner doors that were closed.
The energy, creativity, joy, and power you experience are already in there.
Yet, we often forget that and convince ourselves that the source of our power is outside, in something or someone else. And because we don't want to lose that sense of power, we develop attachments.
And with attachments comes fear.
We fear losing that external thing or person we believe to be the source of our inner state. And that fear turns our attention entirely outward until we become detached from our inner power.