I want to talk about attachment. Specifically, we’ll look at four types of attachment and how each lowers your point of attraction.
Many of us, myself included at times, are very attached to our attachment! Which is kind of funny when you think about it.
Let’s begin with the first type of attachment.
Attachment to an outcome.
You are attached to achieving the goal. You are attached to acquiring the shiny penny. Now, you might be thinking, Well, sure, I want the to achieve the goal. How can I want that and not be attached?
Desire and attachment are very different. Wanting something versus being attached to the outcome are very different energies.
“Fixating on a specific outcome that we think we want causes us to struggle and suffer as we attempt to force it. We don’t let ourselves feel happy, satisfied, or relaxed until we can check that goal off the list.” —Gabby Bernstein
Gabby is describing a classic case of attachment to the outcome—as in not being happy until we get the outcome we want.
- When I lose ten pounds—that’s the outcome—then I’ll be happy.
- When I get the new job—that’s the outcome—then I’ll be satisfied.
- When I find the partner—that’s the outcome—then I’ll be relaxed.
When you are attached to the outcome, you often are not enjoying the journey to what you want. You are postponing feeling good until you get the manifestation.
This energy of attachment to outcome gunks up your manifesting. It gunks up getting what you want and it gunks up getting what you want with ease.
You can want without needing. The vibration of pure desire is great for manifesting. The vibration of needing, of being thirsty for what you want, of being fixated on the outcome, is not great at all for manifesting.
Detaching from the outcome isn’t about not wanting what you want. Not at all!
You’ve asked and what you want has been vibrationally created. That is step one and two of manifesting. Your order has been placed. The Universe is working on it.
Your work is not to be fixated on what you want, impatient for what you want, worried about what you want, desperate for what you want. Your work is to be in receiving mode and allow in what you want.
Attachment to the outcome cuts you off from the support of the Universe.
“In order to get anything in the physical world, you have to detach from the outcome, and be in the process.” —Deepak Chopra
What is “the process” that Deepak refers to? It’s getting in receiving mode for what you want, which is very different energetically than attachment to the outcome.
“Set a goal and as long as it feels good, focus on the goal. But if you start noticing you’re worried about the goal then don’t think about the goal. Think about something else and trust that the goal has already been established, the Universal forces are working on it, and you work to get into receiving mode.”—Abraham
You have a desire, and that’s a beautiful thing. The Universal forces are working on it. Isn’t that wonderful to know?
“The moment I embrace my peace within and surrender the outcome is the moment that the Universe can truly get to work.” —Gabby Bernstein
That, my friends, is what you want. You want to allow the Universe to truly get to work on your desire. Detachment from the outcome is the energy you can offer to allow just that.
Let’s move on to the second type of attachment I want to highlight.
Attachment to what-is.
Many of us are not happy with our what-is. So why would we be attached to it?
This one might initially seem a little counterintuitive. Here’s what’s happening:
You don’t like the current state of your bank account or your relationship or your job. You don’t like your what-is. However, despite not liking what-is and wanting things to be different, you are attached to your current beliefs.
Well, your beliefs are what created your what-is. Your beliefs attracted a reality that matches up. The thoughts you think on a regular basis have created your what-is.
If you want what-is to change—to be different, to improve—then attachment to your current beliefs is not going to work. Attachment to your current beliefs is not going to create what you are wanting.
I’ll say that another way: Attachment to your current beliefs means you will continue to create more of what-is.
Now, if you are delighted with what-is, then attachment to your current beliefs will serve you very well. On the other hand, if you are not so thrilled with what-is, it’s time to detach from some of your current beliefs.
Attachment to a current belief can happen even when we know the belief doesn’t serve us—as in the belief doesn’t support what we are wanting to create. So even though the belief doesn’t serve us, we say something like: It’s hard to change my beliefs about this or I grew up with this belief so it won’t be easy to change it.
In other words, we dig into the current belief. Right away we create a story of struggle. It’s going to be so hard to change this belief.
When you say it’s going to be hard, you are pre-paving hard. There is another way.
What if you look at your current belief with curiosity and awareness, realize it doesn’t support what you are wanting to create, and embrace the mindset, It will be easy to change this belief to one that better serves me. I’m excited to do just that!
“Change the belief and the outcome will change, but you have to find some way of detaching yourself from the evidence that won’t let you change the belief. How are you going to detach from the evidence? You have to accept that what-is doesn’t matter, that what-is is old news, that what-is is the result of past Energy that has flowed and today you’re flowing different Energy. That was then, this is now.” —Abraham
What-is doesn’t matter. What-is is old news. Don’t you just love the freedom and possibility of that? You can release your attachment to what-is by releasing the beliefs that created it. You can flow new Energy with a new belief.
I love connecting the dots from what’s manifesting in my life to the beliefs I hold.
- When I’m manifesting stuff I want, my beliefs are at the root.
- When I’m manifesting stuff I don’t want, my beliefs are at the root.
And it’s all good. Because I can only start from where I am. You can only start from where you are. And when you release your attachment to beliefs that don’t serve you, then you release your attachment to what-is.
“Live today. Let go of your attachment to your past as an excuse for your life conditions today. You are the product of the choices you are making right now.” —Wayne Dyer
Let’s move on to the third type of attachment.
Attachment to your environment.
Your environment includes pretty much everything around you, outside of you. So it’s people and conditions, it’s what’s going on around you at work or in the world, what other people are doing or not doing, things at home, etc. In short: Your environment is the external world and all the things in it.
Many of us are attached to our environment: We think we need to take in and process and digest and react and respond and engage with everything around us. We think we need to pay attention and participate in all of it.
- Your brother-in-law ranting about something at work.
- The news headlines.
- The conversation your siblings are having about a relative.
- What your neighbors are doing.
- The off-topic political conversation going on at your book club.
Whatever is going on in your environment—the people, the conditions—whatever is going on in your environment is neutral. Then you make a choice to tune, you make a choice to think about, you make a choice to give meaning.
Sometimes, perhaps even often, you don’t recognize you are making a choice to pay attention, a choice to layer on meaning, a choice to react.
Know this: All that is a choice.
“See your environment as a buffet of many choices, and make more deliberate choices about what you think about.” —Abraham
- Do you have to react to everything going on around you?
- Do you have to engage in every conversation?
- Do you have to take in every news story?
- Do you have to have an opinion on every topic?
The answer for all these questions is no. You have a choice. You can be, as Abraham suggests, more deliberate about what you think about.
“There is something very aligning about not listening to all the chatter in the world.” —Abraham
Can you feel the freedom of that? How not listening to all the chatter in the world could be a straight line to alignment?
“…decide that you wanna feel good. And you wanna feel good so much that you’re willing to give up the opinions that don’t allow you to feel good, about everything.” —Abraham
Rather than attaching to everything going on in your environment, can you be more deliberate and detach?
Can you make the choice—at least at times—to detach from tuning in? To detach from thinking about? To detach from engaging with? Can you detach from the need to have an opinion? Can you detach from absorbing your environment and creating a running commentary of thoughts in your mind, many of which create negative emotion in you?
What I’m really asking is this: Can you improve your point of attraction by detaching from your environment? For most of us, the answer is a resounding, Yes!
This brings us to the last type of attachment I want to highlight.
Attachment to being right.
I am definitely raising my hand on this one.
What about you? Are you attached to being right? I’ve come a long way with this one since my obsession with all things Law of Attraction.
Before I got into LoA, I didn’t give much thought to wanting and needing to be right. I suppose I didn’t think it was the most attractive quality I possessed, but I really didn’t think it was that big a deal. Sure, maybe a character flaw, but I figured we all have them.
I didn’t know how much it was messing with my point of attraction.
These days I look attachment to being right in a very different light. Being attached to being right is asking for friction in my vibration.
Now I know if I’m intent on being right—whether I’m trying to convince another person or whether I’m having an internal dialogue in my head about how right I am—I know if I’m doing either of these that I am lowering my own point of attraction.
And when I lower my point of attraction, I gunk up manifesting.
“Attachment to being right creates suffering. When you have a choice to be right, or to be kind, choose kind and watch your suffering disappear.” —Wayne Dyer
Sometimes a client will describe a situation with a work colleague or a scenario with her spouse and say, But I am right. This and this happened and I absolutely am in the right.
Being right is not the point.
Law of Attraction doesn’t care if you are right. LoA only responds to the vibration you offer. And most times when we are convinced we are right, especially when we are invested in another party acknowledging how right we are, the vibration we are offering is full of friction.
Well, if your vibration is full of friction, you have compromised your point of attraction.
“Enjoy everything that happens in your life, but never make your happiness or success dependent on an attachment to any person, place, or thing.” —Wayne Dyer
When you are attached—to outcomes and what-is, to your environment and being right—when you are attached, you are not allowing.
Attachment lowers your point of attraction, which means it takes longer for what you want to manifest—or what you want doesn’t manifest at all.
Your point of attraction is super important. Allowing in what you want is super important.
A simple way to think about this and remember is: Detach from to allow in.
When you detach from, you allow in.
- When you detach from the outcome, you allow in.
- When you detach from evidence of what-is and old beliefs, you allow in.
- When you detach from paying attention indiscriminately to everything around you, you allow in.
- When you detach from needing to be right, you allow in.
Awareness alone about these four types of attachment may create an opportunity, an opening for you. You may experience a shift in your vibration as you start practicing detachment, as you turn toward detachment and gently but firmly away from attachment.
Here’s a straightforward tip for each of the four types of attachment:
- If attachment to an outcome has been lowering your point of attraction, focus on getting in receiving mode for what you want.
- If attachment to what-is has been lowering your point of attraction, create new beliefs that support what you want. If you need some help with this, listen to Love Your Life #116: But really—how do you create a new belief?
- If attachment to your environment has been lowering your point of attraction, be a more selective sifter, a more selective noticer, a more selective attractor.
- If attachment to being right has been lowering your point of attraction, choose nurturing your vibration over being right.
“I surrender this desire to the Universe, and I welcome what is of the highest good for all.” —Gabby Bernstein
