Is There a Difference Between Non-attachment and Detachment
In the early days of my grief, I acknowledged the need to change personal pronouns from we and us, to alight from that bus of a shared life and book a ticket on the solo journey of I and me.
The separation of past and present wasn’t easy.
What an understatement!
If I’d been writing this six months ago, my words would have been riddled with raw pain. But now isn’t then, and I can review and marvel at my tenacity in snagging the habitual pronouns of we and us and converting to the current reality of me.
For example, instead of saying, “When we moved here …” I rephrased to “when Mr H and I moved here…”.
It was a way of internalising our physical separation in a gentle way, affirming who I am now as an independent woman, no longer a partner in a living and loving relationship between two soulmates, now parted.
This gentle nudging also led to my questioning if I was practicing non-attachment or detachment.
My understanding of non-attachment aligns with what M.J. Ross writes in an article in Tiny Buddha:
“Non-attachment means that you are able to live your life outside of the other person; it ultimately takes pressure off and allows you to be without depending on anything…
