Today we are talking about how to let go of attachment when you’re trying to manifest something in life. But before we do, I just want to share some really big news – I got published on HuffPost earlier this week, which was super-exciting and something that I had on my vision board for the year. Now, because this has been a dream of mine for a couple of years now and it finally happened (yay!), I wanted to celebrate and I decided the best way to do that would be to help as many other people make their own dreams come true as I can, so I’m pretty much giving away my ”CRUSH it!” 30 day dream-building bootcamp program for the next few days – you can grab it until Tuesday, May 19th for only $37.
You can find all the details at TheCrushItChallenge.com, so go check it out and be sure to get in on that HuffPost celebration deal while you can. You’re going to learn my best techniques and strategies for getting yourself to actually DO what you’ve so far only been “thinking about”.
[powerpress]
So back to today’s topic: Earlier this week I posted an article about how I used the principles of Law of Attraction to manifest getting my article published on the Huffington Post, and one of the principles I mentioned was letting go of attachment to outcomes. This is something I’ve mentioned before, and something I’ve been getting a few questions about lately, so I thought it would be a good time to take a closer look at how, exactly, we can let go of our attachment to what it is that we want.
What letting go of attachment means
First off – what it’s not – letting go of attachment does not mean that you just stop caring about what you want, or that you decide that it doesn’t matter one way or another whether it happens or not. That will never happen because you want what you want for a reason.
What it does mean is that you resolve not to make your happiness dependent on whether or not you get what you want. In other words, it’s not a matter of “I’ll be happy when I find the right person to be in a relationship with” or “Everything will be fine if I can just get this job” or even “I don’t care whether it’s this one or that one, as long as it’s one of them.” All of these beliefs pin your personal happiness, sense of accomplishment or self-worth on something external to you.
It’s an inside job
This kind of thinking is no good. What you absolutely must realize is that your value as a person, your importance in the grand scheme of things, your deservingness of what it is that you want – all of these things are already a given. You are worthy whether you get what you want or not. You are vitally important to All That Is whether you get what you want or not. You are deserving of what you want, no matter what you do or do not do in life, and whether you end up getting what you want or not. And you are loved whether you get what you want or not. None of these things are, or have ever been in question, in the eyes of the Universe.
But you have to come to that realization on your own. Nothing outside of you will ever make you happy, for example. Happiness is always an inside job – you need to be happy just because you’re happy. Pinning your happiness on something external only works in the short term. You win the lottery and that makes you happy… for a month or two, or even a year. But, eventually, you return to your baseline and you’re just as unhappy as you were before you got rich.
Realizing this – that you don’t really need the thing you want to be happy in life, however much you might want it — is one of the keys to letting go of that attachment.
But what if you really want something badly?
If you’re in the situation where you really, desperately want something to happen, my usual suggestion is to find something to distract yourself with. Set your intention, add it to your vision board, give yourself five minutes a day to visualize it if you’d like. But beyond that – let it go. Occupy yourself with other things – live your life – so that you’re not always thinking about what it is that you’re trying to manifest.
When I wanted to get published on HuffPost, I put it on my vision board and thought about it once in a while, in a “wouldn’t it be nice” kind of way, but I was mostly completely immersed in writing my second book while trying to keep my web site running. I didn’t have time to spend pining over wanting to be a HuffPost blogger because I had other things to do.
The intention was set, though, which meant that my subconscious mind was working at. When I’d see other people post their successes in getting published there, it acted as a kind of reinforcement for me: “See! Other people have done it – that means you can, too!” It would give me a little happy boost, and then I’d go back to my book-writing and stop thinking about it on a conscious level.
Less attachment = more openness to opportunity
All of this meant that when the Universe lined up a situation for me that would have the effect of fast-tracking me into getting published, I was ready to recognize it for what it was. And I jumped on it.
Be very clear about this, because it’s really important: when you have less attachment to a particular outcome, or means to an outcome (the “cursed hows” as Mike Dooley likes to call it), the more likely you are to recognize opportunities when they come your way. If you’re not set on things happening in a certain way, you’re more open to them happening in any way. Understand the difference here? When you’re not fussed about how or when, you’re allowing the Universe to hand what you want over to you in the best possible way.
In my HuffPost example, it happened with a completely unexpected post in a Facebook group that I belong to. It was a fabulous example of synchronicity in action, and my lack of attachment allowed me to both recognize that fact, and to use it – to take the actions necessary to take full advantage of that opportunity when it came. Had I had my heart set on being published in a particular way or in a particular time frame, it likely wouldn’t have worked out quite as well. And I would have been stressed about the whole thing, which is never helpful.
It may have been four months since I added HuffPost to my vision board, but it was less than a day from the time I read that Facebook post, took action on what I learned, submitted my article and got a positive response to it (seriously – it was less than twelve hours from the time I submitted my article to the time I got a response saying, “yes, we’ll publish it”!) It really was amazing how quickly it all came together.
(And just a little side note here: This does not mean that you should never have time frames for your dreams and goals. Deadlines are an extremely useful tool when used properly! But in this case, with this particular dream, my lack of a particular target date worked out really well.)
What if it’s a really big, long-term thing?
The next question, of course, is what to do if what you want is something really big that you have to work on over the long-term in order to achieve – like if you want to become President of the United States, or become the next J.K. Rowling and make a gazillion dollars selling fiction novels? How do you let go of attachment and stop focusing on it when you have to keep yourself working towards something like that?
When you’re dealing with big dreams like that, you definitely need a plan and some sort of structure for getting yourself there. You’ll have milestone goals, for example, that you’ll need to achieve on the ways to the big dream, and smaller goals on the way to your milestones. And that’s where the non-attachment stuff comes in. You’ve got that big dream in mind, and you’ve got your milestones in mind. But your focus is not on “I have to be the one to run the country” or “I’m gonna hit #1 on the bestsellers’ list or die trying!” This is not where your focus is.
Your focus should be on DOING all the little things that you know you need to do in order to get the point where those things that you want could happen. You’re focused on getting involved with your local political scene – volunteering in your local MP or congressman’s office, for example. Or your focus is on actually writing that book and building your writing platform. And on playing with your kids and taking your dog for walks or whatever. You’re busy living your life rather than desperately wishing you had what you don’t (yet) have. Yes, you’re focused on that long-term outcome, but it’s not your main focus. You’re focused on what you can do in the now, rather than fretting over things that will come later in your long-term plan.
Ease-y Street
What it all comes down to is that the whole letting go of attachment thing really is about working with this whole concept of ease. When you let go of attachment, you’re letting go of the stress, anxiety and worry about whether or not what you want will actually happen. If you can distract yourself from dwelling on such thoughts, or focusing yourself on how you expect things to happen, you clear the way for them to happen in the best way possible for you.
More importantly, there will also be a sense of calmness, of expectation surrounding you when things do start happening. With my HuffPost experience for example, there was such a feeling of ease about the whole thing. An “oh, of course… this is what should happen now” and there wasn’t a whole lot of anxiety about it, given my initial experiences with guest posting. There was a definite sense of flow to the whole experience.
Summing it up
So, to sum this up for you: realize that your happiness and worth are not dependent on this thing that you want happening. If you’ve got a big, long-term dream or goal, you will absolutely have to have a structure and macro-level focus on it, but that bigger dream shouldn’t be your main focus – you should be focused on what you can actually do right now, instead (basically, you’re keeping busy and not fretting over the big goal).
In either case – whether you’ve got a smaller goal or a bigger goal, what you want to do is put it on your vision board and use all the usual tools (visualization, affirmations, etc.). But then you want to distract yourself from thinking about what you want outside of those times. Set your intention and then let it go by distracting yourself with other things.
Finally, one last reminder – and this is especially useful for those of you who do have those bigger, long-term goals — don’t forget about the awesome $37 pricing for my “CRUSH it!” dream-building bootcamp program. Go grab it at TheCrushItChallenge.com before Tuesday to get that HuffPost celebration deal!
photo credit: pixabay.com cc (modified by me)
Such a powerful post and a wonderful way to end the week! For the long-terms goals, everything matters, like not being as gloomy as one was before going for it in earnest, things calming down with family and people around you, attitude being more hopeful and less fretful/doubtful, enjoying yourself more instead of focusing on what is not here yet and yes, actually living you life. I talked to women experiencing infertility issues, and they gave up their wonderful life for the baby to come and said they would give it all up for the baby, but this is not the way to go about it, I know. Even when talking about this with me, I got anxiety from them! Ease and flow is the way to go. So, you got in the knowing vibration, as Abe Hicks call it. That is what it is like. I call it the “not caring so much” stance, because I notice that in this mindset, I manifest stuff, while when actually focusing on something and saying I will die getting there just does not work (even though masters say that is the way to do it and what separates those who really want it from those who do not, but maybe they meant to not give up on it altogether). Easing up on the goal works, as if you do not smother it but let it breathe.
As far as the vision board is concerned, do we have to renew it each year if our goals are the same? Do we have to look at it periodically, or can we just create a coupe and have them saved on our computer. I think looking at mine will reinforce the fact that my goals are not here yet and won’t put me in a good place.
“Expert” manifesters get what they want quickly. They are not focused on the how in detail, but let us say, when they are thinking about having a baby, the right boyfriend shows up, a relationship ensues and the baby comes as well. These manifesters have certainty that it will all work out for them. So, going in certainly is the key, at least that is how I understand it. And just because there are obstacles in the way, that does not mean you are not on the right path. you are and it is an opportunity to get past them or go through them, which makes sense to me.
funny how life is an inside job. If everyone knew this, this planet would be totally different.
Ease and flow are definitely the way to go. And I have always believed that hope is a key component to being able to make things happen in life. When we lose hope, we lose everything. Hope is what keeps us going. It’s what galvanizes us to take action and find solutions to whatever problems crop up. When you give up on hope, you give up on your dreams.
And what you said about letting it breathe is exactly right — when you’re stressed and panicked and controlling about what you want, you’re smothering it. When you ease up and back off on the control freak bit, you let the energy flow — you let your dream breathe, and you let it grow.
For the vision board, you do what works best for you. If things are the same, then there’s no reason why you should change your boards if you don’t want to. Or, you might want to keep the main elements the same and freshen it up with new quotes or things that you’ve discovered that help re-energize you and keep you excited about what you’re working toward. If looking at the boards, doesn’t work for you, then don’t use them. The key is to find a focusing tool that helps you to feel GOOD about your dreams without making feel bad that they haven’t happened yet.