Love and Attachment

by Linda Heron Wind, Ph.D.

We have such strange ideas about what love is! Perhaps we received them from our parents who received these strange ideas from their parents and so forth back to some unknown time when the real meaning was lost to the need to control things on a physical level. Maybe it was when we lost the sense of ourselves as spiritual beings having a human experience and the experience became more important than the being.

What is so strange about "love?"

Well, when you love someone you want them to be yours and yours alone! And if they are not the way you want them to be or they don't do the things you expect them to, it means they don't really love you. Thus, we have the sentence that starts out, "If you loved me you would …." Then there is the belief that if we love someone we know better than they do what is good for them and say, "I am only doing this because I love you," as we proceed to tell this person how to run their life.

What is more real and rings true within our hearts is the understanding that love cannot have attachments to outcomes or expectations. It is fully accepting of self and others. It is unconditional.

We have talked about unconditional love for years and have made some progress in doing it with people on the TV or in the newspapers and perhaps those individuals we see occasionally. It is often a different story with partners, children, family members, neighbors, and people we see and interact with on a more regular basis or at least with whom we have a history. In these relationships we find the clear mirrors of the parts of ourselves that we have rejected or judged and conditions begin to spring up like grass in the springtime.

It is here in our families of origin as well as our chosen or spiritual families and communities that we are called to the work of detachment, non-judgment, and acceptance.

We learn to accept ourselves and others with love and detached compassion. No need to change to be loved - being is enough. We are compassionate as we see the struggles of others in ourselves and ourselves in others. We can see our parents' struggles living in us and ours in our children. Love is big enough to allow us all to find our own way in our own unique lives.

This certainly does not mean that anything goes and we just take what comes our way whether it is abusive or critical. It simply means that when we discern that something is not right for us, we can learn to say, "No, that doesn't work for me," with love and connection.

It is in our daily lives that we are shown how we have defined ourselves by money, status, job, role, clothes, food, body, etc. Then like a snake freeing itself from a skin too small we must encounter experiences that allow us to detach from these old identities as we expand into newer more authentic versions of ourselves.

Love does not depend on the conditions of our lives, our physical circumstances, our bodies, our intellect, our skin color, or our wealth. It is unconditional. Love is always present whether we are stuck in the old skin that is too small or we have expanded into the radiance of the true self. We never have to find it because love has never been lost. When we release attachments we gently flow in the stream of eternal love.

Choices must be made
With no attachments to self
Based on what's real

Love flows from trusting
That each moment is perfect
In the Heart of God

If you have comments on these articles or ideas for future topics, call Linda Heron Wind
at (585) 924-5620 or send e-mail to LHWind@aol.com.

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Page last modified May 12, 2003 by RMC