Detachment

With the one year anniversary of "Detach" passing, I think it would be a good time to revisit the term "detach".

Detaching does not mean we don't care. It means we learn to love, care, and be involved without going crazy. We stop creating all this chaos in our minds and environments. When we are not anxiously and compulsively thrashing about, we become able to make good decisions about how to love people, and how to solve our problems. We become free to care and to love in ways that help others and don't hurt ourselves.

The rewards from detachment are great: serenity; a deep sense of peace; the ability to give and receive love in self-enhancing, energizing ways; and the freedom to find real solutions to our problems. We find the freedom to live our own lives without excessive feelings of guilt about, or responsibility toward others. Sometimes detachment even motivates and frees people around us to begin to solve their problems. We stop worrying about them, and they pick up the slack and finally start worrying about themselves. What a grand plan! We each mind our own business.
-Melody Beattie
Codependent No More

I still have alot of anxiety sometimes. I still have irrational thoughts about things that make me crazy. But in the year since I started writing this journal I have come a long, long way in the way I interact with my husband. Much of the anxiety I have now is due to my job, and aside from Derby time, I worry much, much less about my husband's drinking. I'm doing much better about interrogating him and trying to predict, and ultimately control his behavior. In return, he truly has become more conscious of his own actions, and our marriage is in a pretty good place right now. I want to continue on this path. I don't want to make myself sick with worry when the neighbors are having a party or when we are invited to a wedding reception. What good does this do anyway? Ironically, I find the less I worry and obsess about things, the less I have to worry about. Detachment. It's a powerful word.