How Detachment Can Be Loving For All
Wayland Myers March 7, 2024
Many years ago, I heard a drug rehab counselor say, "Detachment is a means whereby we allow others the opportunity to learn how to care for themselves better.” I felt confused and disturbed. I was a parent. My teenage child’s life and our family were being ravaged by their struggle with drug and alcohol use. Was I being told I shouldn’t try to stop them from using drugs and alcohol? That I shouldn’t try to protect them from themselves or try to control their recovery? I had heard about this “loving detachment” before, and it sounded like a self protective form of abandonment. But this counselor made it sound like a gift. How could that be?
Petit Livre d’Amour, Pierre Salas. ca. 1500
Over time, I began to understand what the counselor meant. I slowly discovered several mutual benefits that derived from practicing loving detachment when trying to support someone struggling with addiction. Then, I saw that these benefits could be realized in other situations I found challenging. Like when I was relating to someone who had a chronic illness that required wise self-care to be practiced over long periods of time and I worried they were failing to do that. Depression, diabetes, attention deficit disorder, and schizophrenia came to mind. Then I thought, what about people struggling to learn complex life skills like effective study habits, finding a job, managing their personal finances, handling friendships and love affairs? My interventions in those learning processes sometimes caused more troubles than they solved. Maybe loving detachment would be helpful there as well. With these expanded visions, I became very excited about the value of learning to be supportive and lovingly detached at the same time.
I developed my first understandings of loving detachment at the same time I was developing my first understandings and skills of a communication practice developed by psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, PhD., which is called Nonviolent Communication. I found them to share core values and to be mutually complementary. For instance, Nonviolent Communication suggests using compassionate inspiration as a way for people to get their needs met rather than coercion, manipulation, or demands. Nonviolent Communication highly values interpersonal respect – all parties granting each other the right to be who and how they are. And Nonviolent Communication encourages everyone to engage in good self-care. These are all parts of loving detachment. The insights and values of Nonviolent Communication have greatly enriched my understanding of how detachment can be loving for all. So, let's take a look at loving detachment.
“I had heard about this “loving detachment” before, and it sounded like a self protective form of abandonment. But this counselor made it sound like a gift. How could that be?”
First, a definition: Currently, I consider myself lovingly detached when: I am willing and able to compassionately and without judgment:
• allow others to be different from me,
• grant them the dignity of allowing them to be self-directed,
• sustain an attitude of hopeful, loving-kindness with them.
When I can do this, what benefits have I discovered? Here are four ways that I believe detachment is loving for my loved ones and four ways I have found it loving for me.
Petit Livre d’Amour, Pierre Salas. ca. 1500
I. How detachment is loving for others:
I. Those I care for might learn to look within and trust themselves for self-direction, including when and how to ask for help.
If I refrain from trying to manage their problematic situation, the people I care about may learn something about thinking for themselves, problem-solving, and when and how to ask for help. They might learn to listen to their feelings and intuitions better, to heed those little voices we all wish we listened to more often. They might learn to better recognize when they want help and how to request it in ways that leave them feeling good rather than embarrassed or ashamed. In short, letting them manage their affairs allows them to draw on their own inner resources instead of mine, and from this direct experience of their abilities, no matter how groping or uncertain, they can build a measure of competence and the experience of one’s competence is the most powerful and natural avenue for building self-confidence, increased self-trust, and self-esteem.
II. They might learn more about cause and effect.
My not intervening allows others to have an uninterrupted experience of the cause-and-effect relationship between their actions and the natural consequences of those actions. My uninvited involvement might trigger an unhappy reaction and create a conflict of its own. The risk here is that this generated conflict can become the sole focus of their attention, and the opportunities for them to learn as much as they might from the full and uninterrupted encounter with their natural consequences becomes diminished or lost by the dust produced by fighting me.
III. They might experience the motivation to continue on or change.
Pleasurable and painful experiences often motivate us to repeat what brought satisfaction and change what didn't. We all use this kind of emotional energy to help us move forward and improve the experience of our lives. These motivating energies arise naturally within and feel much better to respond to than the attempts by others to motivate us through guilt, fear, manipulation, or some form of coercion.
IV. Self-discovery and self-enjoyment might increase.
If I grant others the freedom to think, feel, value, perceive, etc., as they wish, and they relax because they feel respected and safe, they might discover many new things about themselves. They might discover what they really like, feel, or think. They might have moments of creative insight that inspire, excite, and encourage them. They might invent new, more satisfying dreams for their lives than ever would have appeared under the constraints of my controlling presence.
Now, how about the ways loving detachment benefits me?
II. How detachment is loving for me:
I. I am relieved of the strain of attempting the impossible.
At this point in my life, I have concluded that the only thing I might ever be able to control is my attitude toward whatever’s going on. Other humans are free-range chickens, perhaps capable of being influenced but never controlled by me (unless I can physically constrain them, which only controls their location and perhaps limits their behaviour). If I accept my powerlessness to control the inner lives and wills of others, then I relieve myself of the stress and strain of attempting what cannot be done. This is a primary way for me to create more serenity in my life. In fact, if I practice this process deeply enough, I sometimes reach the point where I form no opinion about what another should do. This is a truly liberated and refreshing moment for us both.
II. What other people think of me can become none of my business.
If I am powerless to control the thoughts, perceptions, values, or emotions of another, then I can liberate myself from necessarily accepting or reacting to their opinions of me. I just listened to a podcast in which a research neuropsychologist shared an interesting and fun strategy her husband came up with for how to liberate oneself when hearing another share their opinion of you. He said, “Just remember that what they think of you is just a bio-electrical process happening in their brain.” I love the opportunity to remain detached from the product of that bio-electrical process which that understanding provides.
III. My attention and energy are freed to focus on improving my own life.
I have plenty of problem areas in my own life. Obsessing about another’s life is sometimes a way for me to avoid dealing with the pain in mine. If I spend too much time and energy obsessing about another's life, I don't spend enough time focusing on mine. If I do this, my life may stay at its current level of unmanageability or get worse. Loving detachment allows me to invest my energies in my life.
IV. I can express my love or caring in ways that bring joy and satisfaction to both.
When someone I care for is struggling with a problem or suffering emotionally, I usually want to be supportive or helpful. But I want to offer the type of help that would bring me joy to provide and them joy to receive. One of the ways that I have developed a picture of what this help could look like is to recall times when caring friends or others assisted me in ways that I enjoyed. What did they do? While showing no sign that they felt responsible for solving my problems, they offered me four things:
• their compassionate, empathic understanding of how I perceived and felt about my situation,
• their experiences and learning from similar situations for my consideration,
• their genuine optimism about my abilities to work through my struggles,
• their willingness to help, on my terms, in ways that were congruent with their needs.
To be offered understanding, companionship, encouragement, and assistance, but not interference, is the most satisfying help I have known. Offering this to others increases both the joy in my life and my self-esteem.
My practicing loving detachment provides an opportunity for both of our lives to be improved. The lives of those I love may be improved because I respect their powers of self care enough to allow them to reap the potential benefits of struggling, learning, and succeeding on their own. My life is improved because I avoid unnecessary distress, retain energy for my own use, and offer caring and support in ways that bring me joy. In these ways, loving detachment plays a powerful and rewarding role in helping me to both live and let live.
Petit Livre d’Amour, Pierre Salas. ca. 1500
III. Deciding if, when, and how:
How do I go about deciding how I’d like to proceed? Here are some of the things I consider:
1. Which action, helping or lovingly detaching, do I believe will strengthen my loved one the most in the long run? This is my primary question. I want to contribute toward strengthening their well-being in the long run.
2. Does the "help" I am thinking of providing involve me picking up a responsibility that would normally be theirs, but which they are not performing at the levels I deem best? Am I remembering for them, organizing for them, planning for them, making peace for them, apologizing for them, keeping track of something for them, anticipating consequences for them? It has been my frequent experience that as long as I continue to handle jobs like these for my loved ones, their level of job performance rarely improves, and they often resent my interventions. Oh, what fun we can have.
3. Is the crisis I am tempted to help them with one that has a natural consequence that might be more valuable for them to encounter and deal with than me engaging in an attempt to mitigate their pain? This decision is also informed by my estimate of the levels of emotional or physical harm they might be exposed to and the level of capability and recourses they might have at their disposal, should their choices result in the situation going seriously south.
In making decisions about if, when, or how to respond or get involved in another’s struggle, I have found that the best way for me to resolve any uncertainty I have is to ask myself this question:
“Which way of responding do I think I will be able to live with the best in the long run?”
I hope these thoughts and suggestions help you figure out when, how, and how much to help those you love and to feel more at ease when you lovingly choose to abstain.
I have not found loving detachment to be painless. I often feel guilt, worry, and doubt. But my suffering is tempered when I believe that by resisting my urge to help, I may be offering the person I love the highest form of love I can. I wish you compassion, clarity, and courage as you navigate your way through these complex waters.
Wayland Myers, Ph.D. is a psychologist who writes books and articles on Nonviolent Communication and other applications of compassion. He was introduced to the Nonviolent Communication process in 1986 by its creator Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, and has since used it extensively in his personal and professional lives with profound and deeply valued results.
