Let Go Now: Embrace Detachment as a Path to Freedom (Codependency, Al-Anon, Meditations) - Softcover

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Millions of fans around the world spend moments of quiet contemplation with Karen Casey daily. Karen is a writer and 12-step recovery workshop facilitator with over forty published titles in over ten different languages. She travels throughout the United States and internationally carrying her message of hope for others in recovery. She is the best-selling author of Each Day a New Beginning, the first daily meditation book written for women recovering from addiction. Oher titles include Let Go Now, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, 20 Things I Know For Sure, It’s Up to You, Codependence and the Power of Detachment, and Peace a Day at a Time. Karen lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Naples, Florida.

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Detachment is letting others have their own opinions.

MY FAMILY OF ORIGIN DIDN’T ALLOW FOR DIFFERING opinions. My father insisted that we agree with him, or all hell broke loose. Whether the topic was politics or music, his opinion was the only right one and having one that ran counter to it was evidence of insubordination. I locked horns with him for years. I felt compelled to disagree, on my own behalf and on behalf of my mom and younger brother, too. My older sisters seldom got involved in “the dance” he and I did, a dance that continued long after I left home.

I grew into adulthood steeped in this pattern of behavior, a pattern that didn’t allow much room for discussion with anyone. I had to be right, just as my dad had had to be right. It wasn’t until my own recovery from drugs and alcohol that I understood what the need to be right was about. Fear was the root cause for my dad’s attempts to control how others thought. Fear prompted my own, too. Now I know there is nothing to fear. We come together by design. We learn by design. We let go, we detach, by design too, and peace blossoms within.

Letting go of someone else’s journey is the most freeing experience we can have today. And it’s by far the best gift we can offer someone, too.

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Detachment is being able to let others journey whever they need to go.

IT’S NOT UNCOMMON TO ASSUME THAT SINCE WE ARE generally in the company of family and friends, that our journeys must be similar. And there always will be some aspects that are similar. But what any one of us is here to learn is quite specific. The reason we are journeying side by side is that we need each other for support and suggestions; there is a difference, however, between sharing what has worked for us and trying to control how someone else should live his or her life.

Being able to detach from our loved ones is seldom easy. It doesn’t feel natural. In fact, it more commonly feels unsympathetic and self-centered. But that’s the value of practice. We learned our math tables by practicing them. We learn how to be skillful at golf or tennis or bridge through many hours of practice. In fact, Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers: The Story of Success, says that the key to success in any field requires practicing for it for ten thousand hours. Detaching is a skill too, and we can hone it if we are willing to work at it. The payoff is that our companions learn how to take responsibility for themselves and then rely on their Higher Power, and we learn how to focus on the only journey over which we have any real control: our own.

Watching our loved ones move through their experiences, and praying for them if the need arises, is our assignment, little else.