Detachment down2basics: Here's an article I've found on detachment from your x's - maybe this will help some of us - it has helped me some! Enjoy and hold your head up...
Detachment is the:
Ability to allow people, places, or things the freedom to be themselves.
Holding back from the need to rescue, save, or fix another person from being sick, dysfunctional, or irrational.
Giving another person "the space'' to be him or herself.
Disengaging from an over-enmeshed or dependent relationship with people.
Willingness to accept that you cannot change or control a person, place, or thing.
Developing and maintaining of a safe, emotional distance from someone whom you have previously given a lot of power to affect your emotional outlook on life.
Establishing of emotional boundaries between you and those people you have become overly enmeshed or dependent with in order that all of you might be able to develop your own sense of autonomy and independence.
Process by which you are free to feel your own feelings when you see another person falter and fail and not be led by guilt to feel responsible for their failure or faltering.
Ability to maintain an emotional bond of love, concern, and caring without the negative results of rescuing, enabling, fixing, or controlling.
Placing of all things in life into a healthy, rational perspective and recognizing that there is a need to back away from the uncontrollable and unchangeable realities of life.
Ability to exercise emotional self-protection and prevention so as not to experience greater emotional devastation from having hung on beyond a reasonable and rational point.
Ability to let people you love and care for accept personal responsibility for their own actions and to practice tough love and not give in when they come to you to bail them out when their actions lead to failure or trouble for them.
Ability to allow people to be who they "really are'' rather than who you "want them to be.''
Ability to avoid being hurt, abused, taken advantage of by people who in the past have been overly dependent or enmeshed with you.
Re: Detachment down2basics: Page 2....
If you are unable to detach from people, places, or things, then you:
Will have people, places, or things which become over-dependent on you.
Run the risk of being manipulated to do things for people, at places, or with things, which you do not really want to do.
Can become an obsessive ``fix it'' who needs to fix everything you perceive to be imperfect.
Run the risk of performing tasks because of the intimidation you experience from people, places, or things.
Will most probably become powerless in the face of the demands of the people, places, or things whom you have given the power to control you.
Will be blind to the reality that the people, places, or things which control you are the uncontrollables and unchangeables you need to let go of if you are to become a fully healthy, coping individual.
Will be easily influenced by the perception of helplessness which these people, places, or things project.
Might become caught up with your idealistic need to make everything perfect for people, places, or things important to you even if it means your own life becomes unhealthy.
Run the risk of becoming out of control of yourself and experience greater low self-esteem as a result.
Will most probably put off making a decision and following through on it, if you rationally recognize your relationship with a person, place, or thing is unhealthy and the only recourse left is to get out of the relationship.
Will be so driven by guilt and emotional dependence that the sickness in the relationship will worsen.
Run the risk of losing your autonomy and independence and derive your value or worth solely from the unhealthy relationship you continue in with the unhealthy person, place, or thing.
Re: Detachment down2basics: Page 3...that's all for now... ;D
Detachment is a control issue because:
It is a way of de-powering the external "locus of control'' issues in your life and a way to strengthen your internal "locus of control.''
If you are not able to detach emotionally or physically from a person, place, or thing, then you are either profoundly under its control or it is under your control.
The ability to "keep distance'' emotionally or physically requires self-control and the inability to do so is a sign that you are "out of control.''
If you are not able to detach from another person, place, or thing, you might be powerless over this behavior which is beyond your personal control.
You might be mesmerized, brainwashed, or psychically in a trance when you are in the presence of someone from whom you cannot detach.
You might feel intimidated or coerced to stay deeply attached with someone for fear of great harm to yourself or that person if you don't remain so deeply involved.
You might be an addicted "caretaker,'' "fixer,'' or ``rescuer'' who cannot "let go'' of a person, place or thing you believe cannot care for itself.
You might be so manipulated by another's con, "helplessness,'' overdependency, or "hooks'' that you cannot leave them to solve their own problems.
If you do not detach from people, places, or things, you could be so busy trying to "control'' them that you completely divert your attention from yourself and your own needs.
By being "selfless'' and "centered'' on other people, you are really a controller trying to "fix'' them to meet the image of your "ideal'' for them.
Although you will still have feelings for those persons, places, and things from which you have become detached, you will have given them the "freedom'' to become what they will be on their own merit, power, control, and responsibility.
It allows every person, place, or thing with which you become involved to feel the sense of personal responsibility to become a unique, independent, and autonomous being with no fear of retribution or rebuke if they don't please you by what they become.
Re: Detachment down2basics: ok - I've found the rest of this article - posting it now...hope you enjoy this and find it useful! You've heard of the "12 Step Program"? *lol* ;DSorry it's soooo long though, but I think it's worth the read! God Bless!!
How to develop detachment
In order to become detached from a person, place, or thing you need to:
First: Establish emotional boundaries between you and the person, place, or thing with whom you have become overly enmeshed or dependent on.
Second: Take back power over your feelings from persons, places, or things which in the past you have given power to affect your emotional well-being.
Third: "Hand over'' to your Higher Power the persons, places, and things which you would like to see changed but which you cannot change on your own.
Fourth: Make a commitment to your personal recovery and self-health by admitting to yourself and your Higher Power that there is only one person you can change and that is yourself and that for your serenity you need to let go of the "need'' to fix, change, rescue, or heal other persons, places, and things.
Fifth: Recognize that it is "sick'' and "unhealthy'' to believe that you have the power or control enough to fix, correct, change, heal, or rescue another person, place, or thing if they do not want to get better nor see a need to change.
Sixth: Recognize that you need to be healthy yourself and be "squeaky clean'' and a "role model'' of health in order for another to recognize that there is something ``wrong'' with them that needs changing.
Seventh: Continue to own your feelings as your responsibility and not blame others for the way you feel.
Eighth: Accept personal responsibility for your own unhealthy actions, feelings, and thinking and cease looking for the persons, places, or things you can blame for your unhealthiness.
Ninth: Accept that addicted fixing, rescuing, enabling are ``sick'' behaviors and strive to extinguish these behaviors in your relationship to persons, places, and things.
Tenth: Accept that many people, places, and things in your past and current life are "irrational,'' "unhealthy,'' and "toxic'' influences in your life, label them honestly for what they truly are, and stop minimizing their negative impact in your life.
Eleventh: Reduce the impact of guilt and other irrational beliefs which impede your ability to develop detachment in your life.
Twelfth: Practice "letting go'' of the need to correct, fix, or make better the persons, places and things in life over which you have no control or power to change.
Re: Detachment down2basics:
Steps in developing detachment
Step 1: It is important to first identify those people, places, and things in your life from which you would be best to develop emotional detachment in order to retain your personal, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. To do this you need to review the following types of toxic relationships and identify in your journal if any of the people, places, or things in your life fit any of the following twenty categories.
Types of Toxic Relationships
( 1) You find it hard to let go of because it is addictive.
( 2) The other is emotionally unavailable to you.
( 3) Coercive, threatening, intimidating to you.
( 4) Punitive or abusive to you.
( 5) Non-productive and non-reinforcing for you.
( 6) Smothering you.
( 7) Other is overly dependent on you.
( 8) You are overly dependent on the other.
( 9) Other has the power to impact your feelings about yourself.
(10) Relationship in which you are a chronic fixer, rescuer, or enabler.
(11) Relationship in which your obligation and loyalty won't allow you to let go.
(12) Other appears helpless, lost, and out of control.
(13) Other is self-destructive or suicidal.
(14) Other has an addictive disease.
(15) Relationship in which you are being manipulated and conned.
(16) When guilt is a major motivating factor preventing your letting go and detaching.
(17) Relationship in which you have a fantasy or dream that the other will come around and change to be what you want.
(18) Relationship in which you and the other are competitive for control.
(19) Relationship in which there is no forgiveness or forgetting and all past hurts are still brought up to hurt one another.
(20) Relationship in which your needs and wants are ignored.
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