Detachment is not a cold, hostile withdrawal; a resigned, despairing acceptance of anything life and people throw our way; a robotical walk through life oblivious to, and totally unaffected by people and probs; a Pollyanna-like ignorant bliss; a shirking of our true responsibilities to ourselves and others; a severing of our r's. Nor is it a removal of our love and concern, although sometimes these ways of detaching might be the best we can do, for the moment.
Ideally, detachment is releasing, or detaching from, a person or prob in love. We mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically disengage ourselves from unhealthy entanglements with another person's life and responsibilities and from prob's we cannot solve.
Detachment is based on the premises that each person is responsible for himself, that we can't solve probs that aren't ours to solve, and that worrying doesn't help. We adopt a policy of keeping our hands of other people's resp's and ten to our own instead. We allow people to deal with their own disasters that they have created. We allow people to be who they are. We give them the freedom to be resp. and to grow. And we give ourselves that same freedom. We live our own lives to the best of our ability. We strive to ascertain what it is we can change and what we cannot change.
Detachment involves "present moment living." We allow life to happen instead of forcing and trying to control it. We relinuish regrets over the past and fears about the future. We make the most of each day.
Detachment also involves accepting reality. It requires faith-in ourselves, in God, in other people, and in the natural order and destiny of things in this world. We believe in the rightness and appropriateness of each moment. We release our burdens and cares, and give ourselves the freedom to enjoy life in spite of our unsolved probs. We trust that all is well in spite of the conflicts. We trust that someone greater than ourselves knows, has ordained, and cares about what is happening. We understand that this someone can do much more to solve the prob than we can. So we try to stay out of His way and let Him do it. In time, we know that all is well b/c we see how the strangest (and sometimes mostpainful)things work out for the best and for the benfit of everyone.
