Notes From the Universe is an ongoing series of blog posts based on chosen prompts and co-created with the Universe.
Prompt: The Mechanics of Attachment and Letting Go
Imagine that your mind takes up physical space, and when you focus on something or hold it in your thoughts or heart, a part of you is inside of that object, person, or time period.
On a day to day basis, an average person might wake and drink coffee, drive to work, talk with coworkers, look at their phone often, eat a healthy meal, and meditate. Let’s say that a year ago, this person ended a romantic relationship and its ending still causes them pain, so they choose to bury that pain rather than allow it to bubble to the surface. They also are concerned about the health of their elderly mother, and what might happen if that situation worsens.
It is as if their mind is literally inside of all of those situations, objects, people, and past and future times. The problem is, those things do not exist. There is no past or future and nothing external from our collective Oneness. Attachment is always to illusion, so an attached mind is nowhere real. You have given huge parts of yourself to imagined concepts that do not exist, and there your mind remains. This is what attachment looks like, and this is why it causes pain.
Attachments are huge energetic pieces of your mind that you have deposited into things external from yourself, thereby cutting off an enormous amount of your own mind. This also cuts off your own manifesting power and your ability to see loving opportunities for yourself. You’ve done this by imagining that external things hold authority over your happiness- that you can be free only if these situations go a certain way in the future or if something happens to change the past.
Attachments are huge energetic pieces of your mind that you have deposited into things external from yourself, thereby cutting off an enormous amount of your own mind.
Eventually, everyone will have to let go of everything. It is inevitable; only the time it takes to happen is different for each person. This is not a fearsome process, because attachments are only ever pain. They are the only cause of pain.
It will seem to you when you are attached to something or someone that the attachment is the only thing preventing you from sliding into complete despair, anxiety, or depression. You’ll think that clinging to your attachment is holding onto hope, and it may feel in your body that if you allow yourself to let that attachment go, that you will lose the object, the outcome, or the person that you so deeply desire. It will seem like holding onto the attachment is the one chance you have at achieving the outcome you desire, when exactly the opposite is true.
It will seem to you when you are attached to something or someone that the attachment is the only thing preventing you from sliding into complete despair, anxiety, or depression.
This is the deep state of confusion of humanity- you believe that your attachments are the only things keeping you emotionally above water, when in fact they are the cannons blowing holes in your ship and sinking you, preventing you from having all that you desire and far, far more love than you could possibly imagine.
It may take many instances of letting go of specific situations, people, and objects before you can begin to see and trust for yourself that the process of letting go actually makes you feel freer, happier, and more loving and loved every single time.
You’ll come to trust that when you let go of an attachment, more, not less, love, safety, prosperity, fun, laughter, adventure, and even material luxuries and money find their way into your life through very surprising new doors.
It can seem difficulty to trust the process of letting go, because it does often involve the surfacing of pain, and a period of blankness that might even seem like purgatory. Remember we said that huge parts of your mind are inside of those things you are attached to? Well, what happens when you let go?
Whether you let go willingly from purely a mind level (which you can do easily during meditation) or an external situation seems to “take” something from you and forces you to let go abruptly, the process will feel similar internally.
Your Mind Energy Returning To You
So let’s say that your phone breaks, and you transfer your number to a new phone, but you loose all of your pictures and photos- hundreds or thousands of them. These photos you loved, you looked at often, and they gave you a sense of who you are, your place in the world, who your friends are. They were a collection of your history. You looked at those photos every day and felt certain patterned emotions from them. You based your identity of yourself now around who you thought you were in your past.
A huge chunk of your mind, and therefore of your energy, was in this device. It was in the photographs you collected, and in all of those hundreds of moments in the past that you thought defined who you are right now. When you lose those photos, that huge portion of your mind, of your energy, is finally free to come back to you. And it does, quickly.
That huge portion of your mind returns to you, where it belongs, but it is empty. It has for so long been filled with thoughts of a past that no longer exists and with an addictive dependance on checking your phone. When you let go, the newly released energy returns to you as a completely blank slate to be filled with “the now.” For some, the worst part may be the emptiness, and the confusion about how to fill it. It will not seem to be filled instantly- rather, you may feel deep pain, a sense of loss and grief, and sadness or anger.
When you let go, the newly released energy returns to you as a completely blank slate to be filled with “the now.” For some, the worst part may be the emptiness, and the confusion about how to fill it.
These feelings are neutral, but most people, especially those who have just begun the practice of letting go, will add fear on top of them, so the weeks just after letting go of something big can be a very fearful time for many. But very soon, if you accept the feelings and allow yourself to feel them instead of being afraid of them, the mind energy that has returned to you it will fill itself with beautiful things that match who you are right now.
When you have these intense emotions, rest assured that are passing through you; they are on their way out. They are your old limiting patterns leaving forever. There is nothing you need do to make them leave except stop trying to make them leave. That is the only thing that can hold them.
It is safe to feel them very deeply. It is safe to have shuddering cries, to scream in anger in your car, to go to a kickboxing class to move the energy through your body. It is safe to feel these intense and sometimes scary emotions. They are not consuming you. They only need to be seen, and you are the neutral observer. You see them, you feel them, and soon enough, the pass and are gone. Your old patterns have left you through your willingness to feel through them rather than run from them in fear.
You see them, you feel them, and soon enough, the pass and are gone. Your old patterns have left you through your willingness to feel through them rather than run from them in fear.
The Gray Period/ Purgatory
Unless you are very used to this part of the pattern, you may be disturbed that you also feel bland, gray, and very confused.
Remember that the physical world is an illusory metaphorical mirror of your mind, and that we are all literally of One mind. In every single possible situation of letting go of an attachment, what you have let go of in reality is not a physical thing, but an idea. You have let go of a false, limiting, and incorrect idea and allowed yourself to return to the unified truth of love. This change of mind will then reflect itself to you in the physical world.
This can be very disorienting.
Here you are one day, with a false and painful idea in your head, and suddenly you’ve allowed yourself to let go of it. You can understand what happens next by imagining that the Universe (who will do all of this next part for you- your work is done) is lifting you up out of this false idea and into a higher state of wisdom.
This will be experienced as deep confusion, because you may start trying to solve your problems with a past way of thinking. However, it is exactly this past way of thinking that you have let go of and are being pulled up and out of. You can not solve your problem from that mind space. It is not until you land (which will appear to take time) in a new, higher perspective and a higher wisdom that you will be able to understand that there is a completely new way of seeing and interacting with your “problem” that you were utterly unable to conceive of before.
The time of rapid ascension into this new perspective can seem blurry and confusing, and trying to solve your problems from the in-between state is like trying to figure out which path at an amusement park leads to the next attraction while you are still riding the rollercoaster. Wait until you land safely in your new wisdom, and you will find that a new and happy path is lit for you.
The time of rapid ascension into this new perspective can seem blurry and confusing, and trying to solve your problems from the in-between state is like trying to figure out which path at an amusement park leads to the next attraction while you are still riding the rollercoaster.
There is no judgement on our side for those who find the process of letting go too difficult to face. It can take a lot of bravery to be willing to go through this process over and over, but being willing to face your fears and pain is how you will ascend.
You can practice with little things in your life. For many people, practicing letting go of clutter is an excellent place to start. Be present through the process, notice your feelings, and accept them gently as if you are talking to your sweet and innocent inner child.
Everyone will make this journey at some point, in this life or the next. Why wait? Your attachments are the only thing keeping you apart from the love you so dearly want and so desperately search for. Do you want to be apart from that for one hundred more lifetimes, or even one hundred more days?
Perhaps it’s time to rip the bandaid off. We will be with you every moment, even when you fear we have abandoned you or you lash out at us in anger. With everything you let go of, you will feel a deeper and more loving connection with yourself and the Universe. We are here always to support your human adventure in love and emotion.
In Love,
The Universe
