Love and Attachment, Part 2: Attachment

As human beings, we often confuse love with attachment. Actually, human relationships include both.

In the last post, I wrote what my Source told me about how to recognize the difference between love and attachment.

Love, we were told, expands, rises above our natural desire to be loved, wants the best for all. It comes from our inner Self and flows through our heart to others. Thus we often think the other is the source of our love, but in fact it is within us all the time. And love is the same energy, whether it’s for a child or a lover. (For more details, see Love and Attachment, Part 1: Love is Love is Love.)

What, then, is attachment? Here’s the rest of the conversation:

Love if a function of our divine Self, which is ever-expanding, while attachment is a function of our human aspect.

The human mind is often afraid, because it can only predict a future based on past experiences. It can only perceive what is physically present. It knows nothing about eternity, energy, or infinite abundance.

In a finite world, there is only the beloved we know at the moment. The one just over the horizon, just beyond this moment, doesn’t yet exist.

So whenever we are faced with letting go of anyone we love, we anticipate the end of love itself.

“Oh yes,” we say, “there are other people who love me, but it’s not the same!”

No, it isn’t, because we have decided, in our human minds, that this person is the one who will carry our projection of the romantic other, who will represent for us all we think we lack, and who will enable us to have that blissful, deep experience of intimate connection.

Because in that connection with the other, we connect with our own Self.

Finally, I asked, “What can we do about all this, then?”

Dissolve the attachment. Love cannot be dissolved, but it can be released, and it can release the beloved. Or it can be transformed, from lover-love to friend-love, and can manifest a different relationship.

To be ready to let go of attachment, you first need to go through the emotional process of grieving for the relationship. You can't use meditation to short-cut emotional recovery. It doesn't work, and if you do, you will miss the lessons you could gain from the relationship. You would then attract a similar relationship into your life, to give yourself the opportunity to learn those lessons.

Give yourself a break. Learn the lesson this time, so you can move onto a different experience. The learning is the gift found within any painful relationship experience. Let yourself receive, open and appreciate the gift.

When you have grieved, been angry, cried, protested, reflected and finally feel you can accept the end or transformation of the relationship, then it's time to dissolve your attachment so you can move on.

Next time, I'll give you a method to use, either by yourself or with the help of someone experienced in spiritual healing and meditation to guide you. Until then....

Love, Light and Joy,

Susan