Are you clinging to negative thoughts, emotions, worries? If you think you’re not, you should take a closer look. Are your shoulders down where they should be? Is your jaw relaxed? These are just some signs that you’re clinging. What would happen if we let everything that happened pass through us without clinging? Your car broke down, you can’t pay that credit card bill, you said the wrong thing. Whatever the “problem” you’re facing is, does it help when you ponder it?
What is clinging?
As humans we cling to a lot of different things. We cling to happy experiences, sensory stimuli, material possessions, bad experiences, anything that we see or experience really, we can cling to. For the most part, we cling to things that worry us. By clinging, you hold the thought in your mind, you ponder, you worry, you play with different scenarios. You may think you let it go, but it keeps popping up invading other thoughts and things you’re doing. You’re either clinging to something that has already happened or something you think will happen or don’t want to happen. Whether you’re aware of it or not, thoughts have energy. Yes, energy. Any physicist knows that our bodies and all the matter you see around you, are all just waves of energy moving at different speeds. Your thoughts are no different. When you use energy to cling to the elusive energy of a thought, you are attempting to hold onto thin air. It’s kind of hard to grasp! Think of the characters in a comic strip. Ya know, the speech bubbles. That’s what it’s like when we have thoughts. Now try and hold that bubble and imagine creating more bubbles shooting off that initial bubble. These are the what ifs of the first thought you had, then you create more what ifs that extend from that new bubble. You are using a lot of energy to do this! Do you ever notice that when you’re stressed you feel tired? Well, that’s why! You are using all of your energy to hold onto the multitude of bubbles floating around in your mind. It is futile and burns through a lot of your energy. Think about what life would be like if you didn’t do that anymore.
How can I get anything done or live my life if I don’t worry about things?
Much more easily in fact. If you’re not using your energy to worry then you can use it on coming up with a solution if there needs to be, or being in the moment that’s actually happening around you. Worry-free energy is limitless. It recharges your battery to use your thoughts in a way that is non-clinging or not thinking at all! We don’t need to think the entire day long. If you pay attention, a lot of that “thinking” is clinging. Clinging depletes your battery. Remember how tired you felt from being stressed? Worry some more and you’ll feel more tired, and then tired from being tired! All that can lead to dis-ease, like when people say they are “sick AND tired,” they actually mean it! If you’re working from a place of worry all it will breed is more worry. Wasted, wasted energy. Come from a place of detachment and non-clinging, and you will breed more positive, and uplifting energy, and you will be much more productive with your thoughts when you need them. Positive energy creates more positive energy and it is limitless! Sounds easy enough right?
How do I tap into this unlimited energy?
You just do it! Like that sneaker company tells you to do! Will you fall back into your old ways? Yes. Should you “do it” again? Yes! Don’t ever stop “doing it.” And guess what? The more you operate from this place of detachment, of non-clinging, the more effortless it will become. Like anything else you practice everyday. Imagine how much more of life you could enjoy if you weren’t clinging to things beyond your control, things that already happened or haven’t happened. The more you let go, the more you can live! This is not to say we lay around and don’t do anything. Life goes on and we work and problem solve, but we do it with clarity because we are not bogged down with the incessant background noise like “I wish I had ______,” “why do I bother?” “that’s not going to work” “why did I do that?” “why can’t he/she_____” and any other energy depleting thought that enters our minds. We are living each moment out individually without bringing any thoughts or emotions that we’re clinging unnecessarily to.
How do I detach from my emotions?
There is nothing easy about detaching, but it is done one tiny step at a time. Like any difficult thing, if the outcome is worth it, you’ll put the work in. The outcome here is freedom, and I don’t think there’s a person who ever lived who doesn’t want freedom. Start by letting go with small events that happen through your day. Maybe someone cut you off on the way to work. Take a deep breath and visualize breathing out the negative thoughts you have about the person driving that car. The first breath might not work, but do it again, and then again, until there are no more thoughts about it. That’s how you detach. Little by little, keep chipping away the small bothersome things in your life. Try to catch the agitation rising in you right away, because if you think about it and create more thoughts from it and/or tell your friend about what happened, you will just be making it harder and harder to detach later. You made a mountain out of a molehill. It’s a lot easier to detach from the molehill than the mountain! You will see how good it feels to not carry those annoyances with you and you will want to detach some more. That’s good because there will always be something to detach from! Sometimes it’s much bigger than being cut off in traffic, but it’s still not worth clinging to. Detach every time because nothing is worth losing your freedom over.
Also know that detaching is not the same as resisting. It’s important to never fight with yourself in your mind, but sit from the seat of your higher self, noticing the event followed by the feelings or opinions your brain conjures up, but you do not have to attach or act on these thoughts. Let pass what will pass and act on the event if you should, but come at it from a detached perspective. Let those emotions flow through you, breathe it out, but whatever you do, do not attach to them it will not help you!
The thing to remember most of all is that we don’t get another shot at THIS moment. This is the only moment you ever have, you will not get another of this exact moment. How many more moments do you have? Why wait to feel your best? Do you really want to “just get through your day” or do you want to live with the life you were blessed with? Why do we spend so much time thinking about and worrying about things we cannot change or have no control over? Don’t do it. Live as if you don’t have anymore chances or anything else to lose because you don’t. It doesn’t cost you anything to stop those useless thoughts right in their track, take a deep breath, and let it go! Move on because there will be another thing you could worry about in no time and you should let that go too!
As always, thank you for reading, and I say these things with as much reverence to myself as to you!
Peace, love, and detachment to all!
Lauren Martino 
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