Attachments: What Are They? Knowing When and How to Let Go

By Lori Lines

Attachment is quite the spiritual homonym! At first pass, attachment denotes a bond or connection. Attachment can mean a loving bond, a toxic bond, or a parasitic entity. It is clear that not all “attachment” is created equal and can represent a set of juxtaposed dynamics.
 
Healthy Attachments
A healthy attachment is based on autonomy, accountability, and individuality. These bonds honor our universal need and desire for community and connection. Whether with friends, family, or romantic partners, these connections inspire and support us along the path of self-realization and actualization. They are essential components of living a happy, healthy, well-adjusted existence.
 
These relationships form a firm foundation from which we depart to explore the world, cultivate our personhood, and pursue our purpose. We return from time to time, whether daily or annually, to renew our spirits, commune lovingly, and seek solace.

We don’t feel tied down by dutifulness or indebtedness, nor do we feel the push to earn the love and support these connections offer. Healthy attachments ebb and flow naturally with time, picking up or ending along a free-flowing continuum.

Unhealthy Attachments
An unhealthy attachment is based on codependence, poor boundaries, and fear. These attachments detract from our autonomy, accountability, and spiritual and emotional well-being. Whether with family, friends, or romantic partners, these connections serve as obstacles along the path of self-realization. They are detrimental to a well-adjusted, healthy existence.

These relationships hinder us from exploring the world, nurturing our personhood, and pursuing our higher purpose because we are afraid to relax our grasp as we desperately cling to them. There is a deep-seated panic that if we depart from them, we will be abandoned and alone, without solace in the world.

Unhealthy attachments keep us locked in a vicious cycle of false hope, anxiety, overthinking, and despair. These attachments make us feel tied down and trapped by a false sense of duty and indebtedness to the individual, belief, or circumstances they cord us to. We feel the constant ache and sometimes agony of having to earn our position in said dynamic, no matter how uncomfortable and deleterious.

Low Vibrational Attachments
Entities or low-vibrational attachments can happen to almost anyone, though they often seek out those with porous auras and weakened energy fields. This is often the result of trauma, low-vibrational thoughts, intentions, or behaviors.
 
Thoughts, intentions, and behaviors profoundly affect our vibration. Moving through life with a low or negative resonance will attract people, circumstances, and entities that resonate at similar, negative frequencies. Mental, emotional, and spiritual states like jealousy, fear, alcoholism, self-victimization, or ego-masking will attract circumstances or people that perpetuate jealousy, anxiety, addiction, and situations that trigger the victim’s complex and ego-defenses, respectively.

When we deny these maladaptive, low-frequency aspects of ourselves, we lack awareness of our shadow self and the entities that attach themselves to it. This causes a vicious cycle wherein the shadow self feeds the entities, and the entities fuel the shadow self. Thereby contributing to a state of stagnation where one is trapped in a vicious cycle of anxiety, denial, and despair.

Practicing Non-Attachment
Identifying who and what to release is relatively simple. This doesn’t mean it is easy; When we closely identify with attachments, it can be hard to recognize which ones we must remove. It all begins with being intuitively aware of when, where, and with whom we feel poorly and when, where, and with whom we feel genuinely fulfilled.
 
Recognizing What to Release
Some hallmarks of unhealthy attachments and low-vibrational entities that need to be released include

Assigning an exaggerated sense of admiration or dependency to someone or something
Emotional dysregulation, such as angry, tearful, or panicky outbursts
Experiencing stagnation and frequently encountering “obstacles” in life
Feeling triggered to react, lacking the awareness to respond
Overthinking others’ motives, intentions, and opinions
Viewing others with jealousy, unreasonable distrust, and envy
Painful or agonizing “needs” for someone or something
Feeling incomplete or chronically unfulfilled
Unwillingness or inability to take accountability for emotions or outcomes

Obstacles to Non-attachment
The primary obstacles to releasing negative attachments are the fear of disconnection and the inability to define the self without the attachment. One must establish healthy connections and rediscover their personhood and self-worth to counteract these fears.
 
While human-to-human attachment is necessary, every earthly bond is vulnerable to human fallibility and the temporary nature of the physical. The only connection that can empower us to cut ties with an unhealthy one is one to the Divine. By forming a conscious bond with the Universal Divine's unconditional love, harmony, unity, and peace, we no longer feel the numbness, emptiness, directionless, purposelessness of disconnection. We can better see unhealthy, unnatural attachments' limitations and deleterious effects.

Connection to an existence born of higher consciousness can also foster a more profound sense of unconditional love for the self, unity with the shadow self, and harmony across the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies. This eliminates the need for unhealthy attachments and shields us against the draining force of low-vibrational entities. In this way, we can redefine our personhood as balanced, peaceful, fulfilled, and whole unto ourselves. 

Achieving Non-Attachment
When we first begin the process of detaching, we may experience waves of fear, despair, aimlessness, or even rage and resentment, making the process a challenge to navigate. It is essential to frequently reorient oneself to the reason for detaching, be it greater happiness, health, or peace.
 
Another essential practice is embracing the present to avoid generalizing, catastrophizing, and panic-attaching. Whether through meditation, mindfulness, or grounding, remaining in the Now prevents us from projecting ourselves into the anxious “what ifs” of the future or the despairing “should haves” of the past.
 
Remaining mindful of the present also creates an objective space to fact-check limiting beliefs, negative thoughts, and emotional reactions; By contradicting these negative ruminations, we prevent ourselves from clinging to unhealthy attachments or opening ourselves to entities.
 
By taking responsibility for our reactions and reconditioning ourselves to respond mindfully instead, we begin to appreciate our own accountability for our emotions, experiences, and outcome, cultivating self-mastery and, in turn, independence, empowerment, and self-worth.

Living & Loving with Non-Attachment
Living a life of non-attachment may seem scary to those who aren’t familiar with the concept. Ultimately, you can better love others and yourself when you establish healthy boundaries and allow everyone to become, achieve, and awaken what they are destined to.

Why Let Go
When you live a life ensnared with cording, you inhibit your ability to grow, change, and manifest because a life of attachment is a tethered, limiting existence. By letting go, you achieve two things that may seem counterintuitive. You become the sovereign authority over your life, and you surrender to the power of the universe. While seemingly opposed, surrender and personal sovereignty go hand in hand because they both lead to freedom. To be the authority over your outcomes means you are free to manifest the experience you need and desire. To surrender to the universe is to be free from the need to control people, circumstances, or outcomes because you trust that when you are in alignment, everything will work towards your greatest good and highest purpose.

The Art of Surrender
Surrender means fully embracing the present, accepting your powerlessness in the unrealized future, and releasing the unchangeable past.  The Now is where you find stillness, peace, and immeasurable power! With that peace and power, the possibilities are as expansive as the bliss. There is no fear, no lack, no pain, and no attachment because we are one with ourselves and the Divine. No attachment is needed when we are already complete.
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“The root of all suffering is attachment.”
The Buddha

In love and truth,
Lori Lines