Maria the Muse

I’ve been thinking about attachment this week.  Some people think of attachment as fear based and a way of hold on to things rather than letting go.  This doesn’t jive with me so I did some introspection, turning the word “attachment” over in my mind and trying to come to come kind of conclusion about it.  Here are my latest thoughts…feel free to add your own :)

My take on attachment is that is can be either love or fear based depending on the emotion surrounding it.

For instance, I love, appreciate, am completely grateful for my daughter and I’m very attached to her but at the same time I completely understand and even encourage her  independence and need to make her own decisions, create her own life and yes – even leave me in time.  I see this attachment as based in love.

If it were fear based attachment I might be inclined to undermine her dreams, maybe encouraging her to go to college close to home, choose a career that is “mom approved,”  shelter her, or tell her no more often than is reasonable.  This I see is fear based attachment.  It says “I am afraid of losing that which I love so I’m going to hold on to it as tightly as possible,” and it’s stifling.

A basic human need is to feel connected.  I think this is very natural to feel attached to people and things we love…it’s the hanging on for dear life that turns an attachment based on love to one based on fear.

What do you think?