The two faces of attachment

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As human beings we tend to attach ourselves to people and things. This has a purpose and a positive side. But there is also negative aspect which may tie us to improvable situations to say the least.

The positive side of attachment

The positive aspects of attachment are love, affection and sympathy. Social animals as human beings are, we look for affinity with other people and to belong to a group. It is a part of our species’ survival strategy to recognise who is a potential enemy and who a potential friend, to look for a “tribe” to belong to in order to be safe from danger.

Think of our predecessors. It was a matter of life and death to know how to assess if a person turning up at our cave or settlement had good intentions. Moreover, winning the affection of other tribe members could ensure protection and food. These same principles underlie our personal and professional relations nowadays. Besides loving our family, we make friends with people we like and create circles of trust at work.

Positive #attachment is expressed as #love, #affection and sense of #belonging Share on X

The less positive side of attachment

However, the desire for safety and comfort can also lead us to stay attached to behaviours and situations which may prevent us from improving our life and hold back our personal development.

Attachment in the shape of fear of change

Attachment to safety and the familiar makes us comfortable and even lazy. We settle in our routine and in doing things in the same way, facing news with our background of experience and knowledge. This attachment is given away by expressions like “it has always been done that way” or “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.

However, life is evolution and change. Therefore, we need to become aware of when we resist to accept changes and learn to adapt to them. We need to learn new things and new ways of doing things. Having an open mind, being flexible and resilient will help us not fear change but look for the opportunities that might hide behind.

Although nothing changes, if I #change, everything changes. #HonorédeBalzac #attachment Share on X

Attachment in the shape of fear of the unknown

Closely related to being afraid of change is the fear of the unknown. Remember sayings like “better the devil you know than the one you do not”. The attachment to the known actually turns us fearful of what we do not know. But it is impossible to be prepared for every situation.

It is normal for unknown situations to arise. If we did not face them, we simply would not live. Remember the first day at school, confessing your love for the first time to somebody, going to the first job interview, having a child. Although we know that other people have done it before, it is something new and unknown for us. But you dealt with the novelty and grew as a person.

Beyond our comfort zone lies learning and personal development. Therefore, accept that you neither can know nor be one hundred percent prepared for everything new. Besides, the more you expand your comfort zone, the less you will fear changes and the unknown. In the post on self-esteem I suggest some ideas to broaden your comfort zone.

The more we do, the more we can do. #WilliamHazlitt #attachment #comfortzone Share on X

Attachment in the shape of fear of failure

The attachment to safety can lead us to fearing failure in our work and in our relations. But if we are afraid of failure, we might never try to do anything new. As Franklin D. Roosevelt put it:

“In life, there is something worse than failure: not having tried anything.”

Failures are opportunities for learning, opportunities for thinking about what we can do different so the result is better next time.

Although internet is full of success stories, the probabilities to succeed first time are low. Thomas A. Edison took a while to invent the lightbulb. The post-it resulted from a failed invention of a new type of adhesive. Usually a lot of trial and error, a lot of learning, imagination and a lot of perseverance are required.

How many times did you fall before you learnt to walk? How long did it take you to learn to talk? We are not born with fear of failure. Actually, as kids, we do not consider a failure to fall once and again before we learn to walk. That is why  I also suggest you scratch the word “failure” from your vocabulary and replace it with something less severe like “mistake” or “opportunity for learning”.

#Failure is #success if we learn from it. #MalcolmForbes #attachment Share on X

Attachment in the shape of fear of rejection

The attachment to feeling loved and accepted by other people can lead to the fear of being rejected. The writer and philosopher Alain de Botton phrased it this way:

“Rejection hurts so much because we take it as a damning judgement passed not merely on our physical appeal but on our entire selves, and by extension on our very right to exist.”

Fear of rejection can prevent us from even trying to ask somebody for something we want. This could be asking someone out, asking for a pay rise, applying for a job etc. Throughout life we face many situations where we fear to be told no. But if we do not try we will ignore the result and can miss an opportunity.

Therefore, accept the possibility of rejection but do not take if as a personal attack. Consider that there may be a series of reasons why you are told no: that it is not the right moment, that the proposal does not fit in, that the other person does not feel like it…

May each No you receive turn into an impulse to carry on. #AlexiaMars #attachment #rejection Share on X

Attachment in the shape of fear of uncertainty

Mark Manson, author of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”, suggests that attachment to certainty is worse than fear of failure or rejection. According to him, nothing is certain until it has happened and even then it is debatable. Therefore he suggest that, instead of searching certainty, we should look for doubt, that is doubt our beliefs, feelings and what future may have in store for us. That is where the opportunity for learning and growing as a person lies.

We actually spend our lives being wrong. Taking into account our knowledge and experience at a certain time, we have beliefs and make decisions. But later on, with more experience gathered, we we might realise that what we believed certain was not that much.

As a child you believed in Santa Claus, didn’t you? Or remember your first love. You probably thought it would last forever. Maybe you believe you deserve a promotion but that your boss does not value you and thus not offer it to you. Maybe you are afraid of possible rejection if you asked for that promotion. But it also can be that you actually fear facing whether you really feel capable of doing the job you aspire to.

There are things in life that make us question how we see ourselves. The certainty of knowing who we are is a comfort. That is why it can be more comfortable to stay in the, even painful, certainty of our belief that, for example, we are not valued enough.

The more something threatens your #identity, the more you will avoid it. #Lawofavoidance #MarkManson #attachment #certainty Share on X

Recap

Attachment has a positive side while we express it in the shape of love and affection. But if we get attached to people and situations out of fear, we feed insecurities and do not allow ourselves to live fully. Consider that fears are not innate but something we acquire in life. Same as we have learned to be afraid of something, it is in our power to neutralise that fear.

Do you attach yourself too much to certain things? Are you afraid of change, the unknown, failure, rejection or uncertainty?

The only thing we have to fear is #fear itself. #FranklinDRoosevelt #attachment Share on X

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