Looking at Our Attachments

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with a good friend, and we ended up going for a walk at Land’s End, where we walked a labyrinth built with stones and rocks, perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. The winding path was narrow and rocky at points so we really had to be present to each step. The crashing ocean waves accompanied our walk, with cool mist lightly touching our cheeks.

I paused as I began the walk, asking the Spirit to show me what I needed at this point in my journey. Within the few steps, I was invited to release my attachment to the fantasy that I would be happier in another job, or even another life. (I will say that outgrowing a job is completely valid, and wanting a change feels completely valid.)

But I am being asked to examine what is happening below the surface, where a  voice is saying, “if I was doing a different job, if my day to day work life were different, I would be more content, more fulfilled, even happier.”

This dissatisfaction is an invitation to honestly look at where my mind is creating illusions of a better life, another life, a more fulfilled life. I trust this is an honest place of  discernment, and  looking below the surface at my attachments at false thinking seems like a valuable part of this  process.

As I walked the labyrinth, I could see that I was holding on to a whole story, an entire narrative and way of thinking that was negating my actual life, and any happiness or contentment I was experiencing.

I was giving so much power to work and defining myself through work as a major source of fulfillment and self worth. I acknowledge that my livelihood is important to me; I have been able to make a contribution as a teacher, a librarian, a community organizer, a writer, and a spiritual director, but in my mind it wasn’t adding up. I was falling into a trap.

When I reached the center of the labyrinth, there was a beautiful pile of offerings held in the circle: photos of loved ones, prayer beads, even a twenty dollar bill. I reached in my pocket only to find a rubber band, which I placed in the pile. A rubber band. It felt symbolic. What was I binding in my life; what was I was too attached to?

Walking out of the labyrinth, I felt a tightness in my throat. In the chakra system the throat is the place of “expression.” It’s the voice. And it was tight. What was I constricting? What wasn’t I allowing to be expressed? How were my attachments and my constricted voice related?

I truly believe that our desires are important and that God hears our desires; but as I learned through my journey of seeking surrender, it is by letting go of my specific attachments that I touch the deeper place where God is truly acting in my life. Then, I can soar, discover more love, and find liberty in my life.

Yes, I want to be spending my time engaged in more sacred and creative expression, but not with false attachments, but rather with yearning, and curiosity, and desire for FRUITFULNESS.

What are you overly attached to? Can you dig underneath to discover what are your deepest desires and hold those desires with God?

Here’s a great video on the rebuilding of the labyrinth at Land’s end.