Joyful Lifestyles:
Weekly Insights

HEALTHY DETACHMENT
All of us encounter toxic people and situations in our lives. During those times we need whatever helpful tools we can find to stay balanced and clear. One of the methods I use to maintain perspective is to create a healthy level of detachment. Healthy, because I still have my heart engaged, but am not running amuck in an emotional minefield.

The following real-life dialogue explains how this technique works:

CHELLE: First, think of your mother cutting you down and criticizing the plans you made for your daughter's wedding. See her face, hear her mean words.
MY FRIEND: All right, got it.

CHELLE: Now, visualize yourself floating above that scene, gradually getting higher and higher.As you do, the image of you and your mom gets smaller and less distinct.
MY FRIEND: Okay, so I'm visualizing the entire scene,
not just her, I'm floating above myself and my daughter too.

CHELLE: That's right, because it's the whole "event" that hurts. Now keep rising until the image is just a fuzzy cloud floating far below your feet.
MY FRIEND: When I get up high enough, I can no longer hear or see her face. Is that too high?

CHELLE: No that's perfect! Now, just let the picture drift away, out into the ethers.
MY FRIEND: Yes, that feels better.

CHELLE: Here's a set of signals that I use to help trigger this "Distancing Process"
1. Go to Distance
Feel yourself disentangling from the chaos, the venomous words, the cruel attack, etc.
... pulling back to a distance where you feel like an observer who is not
emotionally charged by the picture before them.
2. Go to Vertical
Then you do the process that we just went through of
pulling up, and away, from the picture.
3. Leave it in the "Mystery"
This is my favorite! I often hold this thought when the dark side of a
person or event comes up, so that I'm not drawn into it.
MY FRIEND: You create a mystery novelette where she is a character?

CHELLE: No, "leaving it in the mystery" means NOT trying to understand or explain it; instead, allowing it to be "out of your hands" ... then, you proceed beyond it.
MY FRIEND: Do you have a hard time with that one? I do.

CHELLE: It used to be difficult, but with practice it has become almost automatic.
MY FRIEND: I feel a need to be able to explain things;
if they are irrational, it bothers me badly.

CHELLE: I had that same problem, but can keep myself in a
place of clarity now by focusing upon these wise words --
"Delete the need to understand and to be understood."
It's a major key to inner peace, personal happiness and authenticity.
MY FRIEND: I never knew that!

CHELLE: Think about it. In the Big Story, "being bothered"
makes absolutely no tangible difference, except to keep YOURSELF constantly upset or irritated. It's all about letting go of this illusional idea of control we humans THINK we have,and thereby relinquishing our "need" for it.
MY FRIEND: Guess I have a lot of work to do.

CHELLE: Don't we all ......

~ Chelle Thompson ~