I'm a new person

[25yearsmlc]

Teach me how to detach! I need to detach!! I can't keep getting emotional every time I find out something. This is wearing me out!

I used to be the same way. I finally went to a workshop and, among other things, began to learn detachment. It wasn't called that then, but that is what it was.

the whole concept of NOT letting others' behavior or beliefs about me or comments about me, matter much,


was an absolute breakthrough for me. It began when I was going to work in the city and there was a mentally ill homeless man who HATED me for some unknown reason. He'd yell vulgarities at me everytime he saw me get off the subway.

I used to wonder who I reminded him of OR what I was wearing that set him off
and finally it hit me that the guy lived on a grill, and I was letting HIS RANTINGS affect ME. I was looking AT MYSELF as if HIS thoughts were relevant.

But his "data" about me was not real. So it did not matter.

My mother in law also believed things about me and said things about me that were unkind and unfair and usually the result of her own issues.

Her data about me was not real. But let's suppose now & then she had a point and that I had a flaw.

So what? IT's NOT her job to tell the world what is wrong with me - but since I have NO control over that

the best route for me to take is one of confident choices based in doing what I believe to be right, not "vengeful" or "self righteous" but quietly moral.

To put it another way that helped me, is to put it in state terms or legal terms.

I'm a lawyer. So it helped me to think of MY choices & life as "MY JURISDICTION" which does not belong to anyone else.

Only I decide for me and I Do NOT INVITE comment on MY choices or care what others say.

I may even tell them, w/loving kindness, that I am "not inviting comment or their feedback".

Imagine being South Carolina. You run your state your way and the way your folks want it run and you have coast line to think of and southern heritage.

Now imagine Idaho, which does NOT have coast line or the same heritage, telling the world what is wrong with South Carolina.

South Carolina would laugh it all off and say "Who are YOU, Idaho, to tell US how or what to do?"

It just isn't in their state/jurisdiction to decide for you.

Own your own authority for how you live. Don't let anyone cross your state lines with their opinions unless you seek them out and invite them in.

The gossip & negative predictions cannot cross into your state;

they are pollutants that contaminate your pathways.

Hope that analogy helps.