Attachment and How to Overcome it

There comes a situation in life where we might be stuck and however much we intend to provide, we tend not to acquire anything equivalent to that.

This usually applies to human relationships, but it isn't necessarily limited to them.

A certain way to end up in this kind of situation is by getting attached to the subject at hand, be it a relationship with another human or a job, even though it might give us negative feelings in our lives.

But still, how do we escape from the clutches of an attachment towards someone?

How Do We Get Emotionally Attached To Someone

As per every psychological issue, before trying to work it out, we have to comprehend its whole process in our minds.

To become truly attached to anything, we need first to have an absolute desire for something, create an exact mental image of that which we want, and then link that image directly to the thing that seemingly provides it to us.

For example, to get attached to a certain person we like, we fabricate at first in our minds the mental image of a loving relationship exactly how we yearn for it and then link that image with the specific person we like, regardless of the circumstances or if that person provides us with everything we might ask for.

This happens especially if we haven't established our wants and needs for ourselves, making it that way hard for us to see our attachment to the other person and try to get away from it.

The Negatives of Attachment

Before we cover the actions we can take to face an attachment we have, it is important to comprehend what does the attachment to someone entails.

1. Looking through rose-colored glasses

First and foremost, we will be more willing to forgive an action that discomforts or brings us negative feelings.

For example, if we are attached to our partners, it will be more likely that we forgive them when they are late for an appointment rather than speak our minds and get them to understand our issue with that.

2. Not seeing the red flags

Something that is also originating from the rose-colored glasses, is that we won't be able to assess the situation correctly and correspond accordingly to any problem that comes our way.

This means that if we value the person we have a relationship with a lot, we might disregard some of the negatives they might have and focus more on the positive side.

Thus we won’t be able to balance things out or get away from a relationship that is more likely to induce pain to us than happiness.

3. Being taken for granted

This is the icing on the cake; when we get attached to someone we will try to always listen to them and act so that they won't be “disappointed” in us or the relationship as a whole.

At a certain point onwards, after we have established with certainty the position of “always be there for you no matter what” in their minds, we won’t be able to draw their full attention to us anymore.

This means that in their minds, no matter what they do or how they do it, they won't face any consequences since they tested the waters enough to be certain that there is nothing to lose through any action or inaction of theirs.

Moreover, this lessens the value our person of interest has in their minds about us; every human appreciates anything more when it is seemingly fleeting because that’s when their mind will inform them that it is limited and hence an opportunity for something of value to have.

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

What to Do When We Feel Attached To Someone

After comprehending the attachment process in case we happened to stumble upon one, the last part is acting in terms of solving the issue or getting away from it.

1. Try to see the reality for what it is

The first step to take is evaluating the situation as much as objectively as we can, by establishing our wants and needs with ourselves and noticing if we are currently obtaining them from the other person in question.

To achieve this we can write on a piece of paper the things that we desire from the other person, how important are they to us, and how much we take from this relationship with them in all actuality.

In this way, we will be able to understand more clearly our wants and needs and watch more objectively how much and how many of them are taken into account.

2. Make your thoughts clear

A vital step when addressing an attachment is that of making our mind and thoughts clear to the person we feel attached to.

On the one hand, doing this assists us in making us feel more liberated and more in control since we have taken action against this negative feeling, and on the other hand, we can help our partner understand us, our emotions, and the whole situation better.

To make this happen consistently we need to form some powerful limitations as to when and how much we provide some things to the other person and the consequences of them not reciprocating.

This means that if we seem to be attached to someone, we should try to reaffirm to ourselves the signal or sign when we feel that our wants aren’t met and try to make it clear to the other person that the balance of the scales has shifted.

Let’s use as an example the fact that we like to share the household works evenly in a relationship.

We need to establish a definite limit as to when we feel that our partner doesn’t fulfill his/her part (say after 3 times), and make it clear to them how we feel about that and inform them about the consequences of them not heeding our needs.

Always remember though, it is of extreme importance when setting boundaries and talking to the other person about our wants to actually give first and then establish what we desire in equivalent terms for that which we provided.

Otherwise, not only we will not be fair, but we won’t be taken as seriously too.

3. Act against the feeling

A final tip on handling a feeling of attachment towards someone is by acting against this emotion on purpose to train our minds to deal with it more favorably.

We can only do this by manually doing actions that go against the fear (of not speaking our minds up) that we have adduced from our attachment.

For instance, our attachment towards someone might make us feel the urge to answer a message of them instantly and desire to get answered by them instantly as well.

To oppose this urge, it might be beneficial to us to occupy our minds with things that we would like to do in our daily life and try not looking at our phone/social media for a specific amount of time, mainly as much as we can for starters.

Final Thoughts

To sum up, attachment, in general, is a process that is connected a lot with how much we understand ourselves, our wants and needs, and how we interpret them and see them becoming actualized in our lives.

By comprehending our pure value as a person and trying to build our finest self, we might find ourselves more in situations that make us truly happy and less in circumstances that we feel trapped.

Give everything you can and want to give, but don't forget that you need to be given back as well to feel satisfied and fulfilled in life.

“Attention, which is often equivalent to the direction of focus, is the currency of relationships”

― Dr. David Snyder

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This article was originally published on Medium at Harrys Stratigakis