Compassionate Detachment
Compassionate detachment. This is a phrase I've gained from author Anne Lamott. She uses it in her book "Bird by Bird." I love this book.
Compassionate detachment is a loving, simple way to remove the judgmental over-analyzing layer of thinking that prohibits writers from seeing the true nature of their characters. Likewise, Lamott encourages writers to use compassionate detachment on themselves and be a little kinder and gentler as we accept ourselves and the real characters in our lives for who they are.
Lamott shares the challenge:
"Obviously it's harder by far to look at yourself with this same sense of compassionate detachment. Practice helps. As with exercise, you may be sore the first few days, but then you will get a little bit better at it every day. I am learning slowly to bring my crazy pinball machine mind back to this place of friendly detachment toward myself so I can look at the world and see all those other things with respect."
Lamott cautions to be gentle with yourself in this new practice...It's a difficult task sometimes.
I know, and I'm trying to be gentle with myself.
I'm trying to detach from my over-thinking, analyzing and wicked-self that exaggerates and over-reacts.
I'm trying to relax and find the true essence of myself and my feelings in relationships.
What a challenge when it's so easy for my head to start thinking and tearing a situation apart...Trying to understand. Sometimes you just can't understand a situation or a relationship or a conversation. And maybe we're not supposed to. Correction: we don't always need to understand. We need to find the essence of a situation or a relationship or a conversation.
Lamott also says, "You can see the underlying essence only when you strip away the busyness, and then some surprising connections appear."
One more thought, another quote, actually: " The important thing is this, to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become," Charles DuBois
Well...I'm ready to give up the busyness. I'm ready to sacrifice the ease with which I sometimes think and take on the challenge of feeling, really feeling the essence of life. I'm ready to be what I can become.
Compassionate detachment is a loving, simple way to remove the judgmental over-analyzing layer of thinking that prohibits writers from seeing the true nature of their characters. Likewise, Lamott encourages writers to use compassionate detachment on themselves and be a little kinder and gentler as we accept ourselves and the real characters in our lives for who they are.
Lamott shares the challenge:
"Obviously it's harder by far to look at yourself with this same sense of compassionate detachment. Practice helps. As with exercise, you may be sore the first few days, but then you will get a little bit better at it every day. I am learning slowly to bring my crazy pinball machine mind back to this place of friendly detachment toward myself so I can look at the world and see all those other things with respect."
Lamott cautions to be gentle with yourself in this new practice...It's a difficult task sometimes.
I know, and I'm trying to be gentle with myself.
I'm trying to detach from my over-thinking, analyzing and wicked-self that exaggerates and over-reacts.
I'm trying to relax and find the true essence of myself and my feelings in relationships.
What a challenge when it's so easy for my head to start thinking and tearing a situation apart...Trying to understand. Sometimes you just can't understand a situation or a relationship or a conversation. And maybe we're not supposed to. Correction: we don't always need to understand. We need to find the essence of a situation or a relationship or a conversation.
Lamott also says, "You can see the underlying essence only when you strip away the busyness, and then some surprising connections appear."
One more thought, another quote, actually: " The important thing is this, to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become," Charles DuBois
Well...I'm ready to give up the busyness. I'm ready to sacrifice the ease with which I sometimes think and take on the challenge of feeling, really feeling the essence of life. I'm ready to be what I can become.
posted by barbara at 10:49 PM
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