The reason I like Buddhism so much is that it is a religion that is focused on non-attachment.
I have moments where I am in this state.
More than moments. I would say that my life is about 80% non-attachment at this point. I go through life being ok with 80% with what comes at me, good or bad.
It’s that 20% that trips me up once in a while.
Sometimes people ask, “How do you feel good as an empath when everything around you feels bad – angry people, spaces of turmoil, etc? When you are feeling into that, how do you not get swept up in it?”
Sometimes the meditations and shielding exercises I have posted on this site work.
Sometimes they don’t.
So sometimes we just get sucked into going with the energetic of the crowd.
It doesn’t feel good.
But what is worse is being attached to the good feeling.
For the past year I have cleansed and healed myself every weekend after a week of, pardon my language, bullshit 3rd world stuff.
I walk into school on Monday clean and ready to go, and just by virtue of walking in that building and joining the collective there, that good feeling usually gets shut down in less than 15 minutes.
The learning I have acquired from this is to not be attached to the clean energy and good feelings.
I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but sometimes I think my strong desire to be energetically clear only adds to my discomfort from feeling the discordant collective around me.
I know that I have other posts that say, “Stand in your good feeling and overpower the energy around you.”
Yes, do that.
But if you can’t, then just accept that that is the space you are in right now.
The words I keep hearing as I write this are the John Lennon song “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”.
Because nothing is permanent. Even our darkest night will have a dawn.
I find that thinking this way slides me through those times a little faster.
~ Peace ~
Indigo Leslie
Ah, I know this discomfort tooo well! I am passionately attached to the feeling of clean, peace, and calm though. And yes it gets blown up by darkness/chaos all too often. Stuff lingering in folks that they aren’t even aware of.
My warrior blood is running too thick and strong these days to want to be non-attached. I feel like I’m attached, to hopes, dreams, and brighter days ahead – and this hope powers each breath that blows the darkness back.
My two cents… it’s going to get harder before it gets easier. We will really, really truly have to start working together, interdependently each day. This universal body of light, or collective consciousness, whatever you know it as, is being knit together tighter and tighter. The pain causes us to reach out – sometimes to give energy, sometimes in need of energy and healing. We must, must learn that noone is in this alone. We all really, deeply need each other for what is to come. We are all cells in one body, it’s only the idea of separation that continues to separate us.
I don’t know how non-attachment fits into this, as it’s actually a process of pretty extreme re-attachment, in healthy ways, one to another. Building community. Engaging, equipping, empowering one another to BE what we are all BECOMING.
I have to practice the non-attachment when I become aware that someone is choosing something less than the Light, and I cannot try and usurp their Freedom to do so…. then I must love and bless from a greater distance… But I am still attached, because we are ALL IN THIS TOGETHER in a deeply connected way that is way beyond words. That’s we we feel the pain and the brokeness so much. We will need to draw together and become even more attached to one another, relying on the collective strengths to bring more light and heat into the darkest places… The pain is meant to send us into one another’s arms, to encourage us to truly Love our neighbors as ourselves! my two cents anyways!