Attachment

Start with the Event and allow the feeling it produced to be present. Attachment is a Discover tool, not a way to avoid, explain away or change the feeling.

Once the feeling has been accepted, ask: ‘What were my expectations?’ Another way to ask is: ‘What did I want to happen?’ or ‘What do I feel should have happened?’

Describe the event using only what could have been observed. Remove judgments, motives and words such as always or never that turn the event into a larger story.

‘My lazy partner ignored me as usual’ contains opinion and interpretation. ‘My partner was sitting on the couch while I was doing the dishes’ describes what actually happened. The factual statement gives you a clearer place from which to examine the reaction.

Ask: ‘What is the belief I am attached to?’ You may find that partners should know what each other needs, that work must be shared equally, that care should always be reciprocated or that fairness requires a particular response.

The attachment is not simply that you wanted help. It is the belief that reality should have matched the expectation and that you cannot be okay when it does not.

At the retreat, my attachment was not only to how another person should behave. I was attached to the belief, ‘I am sensitive and caring at all times.’ The accusation of insensitivity threatened that identity.

We can be attached to being good, competent, independent, fair, spiritual or any other image we believe must remain true. A reaction may reveal the effort required to protect that image from contrary evidence.

Recognizing an attachment does not mean that you should stop wanting honesty, help, fairness or respect. It distinguishes a preference from the demand that life must provide it before you can be okay.

You can make a request, set a boundary, change an arrangement or leave. The discovery concerns what you have made internally dependent on the outcome.