Lucy, Lately

Learning to care deeply without gripping the outcome.

At first, these two things sounded completely contradictory to me.

Fully committed. Totally unattached.

How can you be completely committed to something while also being completely unattached to it? Doesn’t being unattached basically mean you don’t care?

But the more I’ve thought about it, and especially the more I’ve tried actually in practicing it in my own life, the more I’ve realized they’re really talking about two different things. Being fully committed is about how I show up, while being totally unattached is about not trying to control what happens after that.

And as someone whose brain would very much like to analyze every possible outcome until I have somehow achieved certainty about the future… this has been a bit of a learning process for me.

High engagement, low attachment

Another version of this idea that I love is “high engagement, low attachment.” Basically… be here, participate in your own life, care about things, say the thing, make the thing, love the person, take the chance, have the conversation, make the plan… whatever it is, actually show up for it.

But then comes the much harder part (at least for me) and that is letting go of the idea that just because I showed up in a certain way, life now needs to respond in the way I hoped it would.

This whole idea actually inspired a visual I made a little while back.

I pictured a pretty ordinary doorway in a sunny, familiar-looking place, except there wasn’t actually a door. Instead, you could see this huge expanse of space and stars on the other side. On the ground in front of it were the words FULLY COMMITTED, solid and grounded right where your feet would be. And then inside the doorway, floating out there in the unknown… TOTALLY UNATTACHED.

I loved the way it turned out because it made the whole idea make sense to me visually. This side of the doorway is where I actually have some control: what I do, what I say, how honestly I show up, how much effort I give, and whether my choices line up with who I want to be.

What’s on the other side? I don’t really get to decide that.

Caring isn’t the same thing as clinging

I think part of the reason I’ve struggled with the idea of non-attachment before is that it can sound a lot like indifference. Don’t expect anything, don’t get your hopes up, don’t care too much and then you can’t be disappointed.

No, thank you. 😂

I want to care deeply about things. I want to get ridiculously excited about something I’m making. I want to love people. I want to hope for things and make plans and imagine possibilities. I don’t think becoming less invested in my own life is the answer.

What I’m trying to learn instead is how to care deeply without making a particular outcome responsible for my peace. Because there really is a difference between “I really, really want this” and “I need this to happen in order for me to be okay.”

And I don’t always notice right away when I’ve crossed from one into the other.

Disappointment is information

Something else I’ve realized is that being unattached doesn’t mean I’m suddenly not allowed to have expectations or feel disappointed.

If I expected something from someone and they didn’t follow through, of course I might be disappointed. If I really hoped something would happen and it doesn’t, I might be sad about it. And if reality repeatedly doesn’t match what someone is telling me, I don’t think the answer is to tell myself I shouldn’t care because I’m supposed to be “unattached.”

The part I’m trying to change is what I do with that disappointment.

I wrote this out at one point and it made SO much sense to me to see visually:

Expectation → reality → feeling → information → choice

Instead of how I had been operating:

Expectation → reality → feeling → story about me → suffering

That little difference at the end is pretty huge.

Instead of immediately making whatever happened mean something about me, I can look at it as information. Maybe I need to communicate something. Maybe I need to change an expectation, set a boundary or reconsider how much energy I’m putting into something. Maybe there isn’t actually anything I need to do at all and I just need to admit that I’m disappointed, let myself feel it and then continue on with my life.

I keep coming back to this:

Your behavior can disappoint me without defining me.

I am definitely still learning that one.

The part that’s mine

I think this is probably the simplest way I’ve found to understand all of this. There are things that belong to me and things that just… don’t.

I can be honest. I can communicate. I can make an effort. I can make choices that line up with my values and with the person I want to be.

But I can’t control how somebody else receives any of that. I can’t control whether someone understands me, reciprocates, changes their mind, stays, leaves, responds the way I hoped they would or does something completely unexpected. I can’t make every opportunity work out. I definitely can’t control what happens tomorrow.

Apparently my brain did not receive this memo for 43 years, because when something matters to me, I have a tendency to start mentally moving into the future and trying to solve it before I actually get there. What does this mean? What’s going to happen next? What if this happens? What if it doesn’t? Why did they do that? Does this mean something? Does it mean something about me?

I can spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of mental energy trying to answer questions that don’t actually have answers yet.

And thinking about something harder doesn’t give me any more control over it. Usually it just means I’m spending a whole lot of time somewhere other than where I actually am.

Sometimes putting this into practice looks very small and simple. Like maybe I’ll notice that I’m checking my phone more than usual because I’m waiting to hear from someone, or I’ll catch myself replaying a conversation and trying to figure out what someone meant. Or maybe I’m mentally preparing myself and am 11 steps ahead of something that hasn’t even happened yet (and may never happen), imagining all the different ways it could play out and how I might respond to each one.

Thankfully, I am starting to catch myself doing it sooner. Not always, but sometimes. 😄

That’s when I try to stop and ask myself… is there anything I can actually do right now? Is there something I need to say? A decision I need to make? A boundary I need to set? Some piece of information I actually have in front of me that requires a response?

Sometimes the answer is yes, and that’s the fully committed part. Obviously, I don’t want to use “non-attachment” as an excuse to avoid something uncomfortable that really does need my attention, as that would be unhealthy.

But a lot of the time, the answer is no and I’m just waiting, wondering, or trying to solve something that hasn’t happened yet.

It’s in those moments that the practice is surprisingly simple… put my phone down, go make myself a matcha, play with my kids, work on something that lights me up, go get some fresh air, put on my favorite playlist, move my body, and come back to the life that’s actually happening around me instead of sitting around mentally trying to live in or figure out a future that doesn’t exist yet.

The uncertainty is still there… I just don’t have to sit inside of it all day.

Fully committed

Which is why I think the fully committed part matters just as much as being unattached.

I’m not trying to become someone who just shrugs and says, “Whatever happens, happens.” That’s not really me anyway. I want to participate in my life. I want to take risks and tell people how I feel and create things I’m excited about and have difficult conversations when I need to have them.

Maybe I can actually do those things more freely when I’m not trying to control the outcome.

I can tell someone I love them because I love them, without deciding what they’re supposed to do with that. I can make something because I really want it to exist, even if hardly anyone ends up seeing it. I can say something that needs to be said without knowing exactly what the conversation will look like afterward.

I don’t need to know what step ten looks like before I’m willing to take step one.

That’s the commitment part… everything after that gets a little more mysterious.

We’ll see…

This is also why this idea has become so connected in my mind to two tiny words that I’ve been carrying around with me lately.

We’ll see…

I loved them enough to have them tattooed on my hand.

I actually wrote about the story behind my “we’ll see…” tattoo and why those two little words have become such an important reminder for me.

And it’s definitely not because I don’t care what happens. If anything, caring too much about what happens is actually why I needed the reminder in the first place.

“We’ll see” reminds me that uncertainty doesn’t have to immediately become a prediction. I don’t have to take something I don’t know and fill in the blank with the worst-case scenario. I also don’t need to fill it with some beautiful imaginary future and then get attached to that either.

Sometimes I genuinely just don’t know yet.

We’ll see…

And there is something surprisingly freeing about allowing that to be a complete answer.

Still practicing

I would love to wrap this up by telling you that I’ve now mastered non-attachment and float peacefully through uncertainty like some kind of enlightened being.

I absolutely have not. 😆

My brain still wants answers. It still wants to analyze things from seventeen different angles and occasionally seems convinced that if we just think about this ONE MORE TIME, perhaps some new piece of information will magically appear!

But I am getting better at noticing when I’m doing it.

Now I can sometimes catch myself and think… Oh! I’m trying to control the other side of the doorway again.

I really love that image because then I can mentally come back to this side… back to where my feet actually are, to whatever is happening right now and whatever choices are actually mine to make.

Maybe that’s what being fully committed and totally unattached looks like for me right now. Not caring less or loving less or never hoping for anything… just loosening my grip on the ending a little bit. And showing up for the life that’s actually happening right now while letting the rest unfold.

Fully committed. Totally unattached.

We’ll see…