Mindset Nugget: Becoming aware of ego attachment
As human beings we form attachments to people and things because of our association with what they represent to us. E.g. we get attached to our body shape, if it looks a certain way, we feel happy and if not, we feel we can’t be happy. Thing is, it has nothing to actually do with our body shape and everything to do with what our body shape represents to us.
Here’s how the ego attaches:
The ego creates emotional attachments
You then project this onto the thing/person (it’s because you’ve got the money, the house, the car, the right partner etc..)
And then you feel enough (you feel safe, secure, worthy, loved etc…)
The ego then adapts to this norm
It gets used to what it has/achieved (this becomes the new norm)
And then, you don’t feel as emotionally satisfied, so you want MORE (more money, an even ‘better’ body, a bigger house, more compliments etc…)
In order to feel enough once again (and so this pattern continues)
The challenge is you can’t ever feel ENOUGH trapped in this cycle. We end up relying on the thing/person in the pursuit of feeling like we matter. We pin our confidence, our happiness, our self worth or our success to that thing/person. So, if it’s lacking or missing, we feel that somehow, we’re less than, that we’re not enough and we go chasing after ‘it’.
The trouble is the more needy we are, the more we may repel the thing we are actually grasping for. So we would probably benefit from finding ways of not attaching so much to things. When we attach, we actually move out of connection, so we want to find ways of moving back into connection. The difference between attachment and connection is that attachment means ‘I need that thing in order to feel a certain way’. Connection is that ‘I feel a certain way no matter what the thing is’. This comes from within rather than from an external source.
One way of reconnecting is to express gratitude for what we already have. We take for granted so much until it is not there, running water, a roof over our heads, food in the fridge, a healthy functioning body. It’s not that we want to get rid of desires, it’s about not being in the energy of lack, feeling heavy, empty. We don’t have to wait till we get something to be content.
Another way to reconnect is to get in touch with your body by moving it. As usual as I write, I also like to do a bit of learning and research and I came across a relatively modern Japanese dance form called Butoh which practitioners use to feel connection with everything. To find out more about this click the link: