Enlightenment, attachment and entanglement
 

I think it's so tricky to deal with attachment. I'm very lonely romantically speaking. This is a painful attachment, a painful identification, a process of desire and yearning that is happening inside me. Happiness on the other hand feels more unattached. It's connected to positive things happening in my life, e.g. friendships, inspiration, things going well, but the feeling of happiness is a feeling of expansion and freedom that seems (at least, potentially) to go beyond these positive experiences.
The feeling of attachment is often even there for trivial reasons, such as desiring some material thing, or not achieving something, or losing a game of chess. I feel like I need to engage with these negative experiences, but in the right way. Give them attention, but not wallow in them. Especially when it comes to romantic loneliness. If I try to ignore it, then I start to feel numb and depressed. On the other hand, I think that it would be a mistake to completely give in to the idea that I need romance, or this material thing, or winning this chess game. Maybe the word entanglement describes it better than attachment for me. Instead of disentangling or severing, I can try to dissolve, which is more akin to healing it. When you are burning with disappointment, maybe over some material thing, it almost feels too late to disentangle, but you can still heal (that sounds a like a too dramatic word, especially when it comes to material things, but I think it still applies, because this is just one of the many ways in which we get attached, both to trivial things and more substantial ones). And maybe this healing comes from recognizing that you are burning with a certain pain, and recognizing that this pain should be taken seriously, even if the cause (the lack of something you are attached to) should perhaps not be taken completely seriously (since it's probably rooted in some kind of delusion or misunderstanding).

i found that sometimes the easiest way for me to 'dissolve' attachment was to let myself be 'more' attached until I got tired of it... otherwise I was just fighting with it....

as far as being romantically lonely, I don't know how I'd like to relate but I do know there are certain things I feel compelled to do that I don't like even a little bit, unfortunately since I'm the male they are pretty much mandatory in our society, but since it is a non-starter for me I just get to accept I will always be alone... So I'm mostly not expecting anything on that front any more which is just as well...

All pain, including lonlieness informs the body of trauma which is calling for attention. The practice of non attachment will not heal certain pain and trauma. In fact, there are times when it will only cause the pain to get louder. It can seem like, ignoring a broken leg which is calling out for attention.
Acceptance is a great first step to healing trauma. There is a therapy called "acceptance and commitment" therapy which is easy to find on the internet and could be a good place to begin.

There is always a basic human need at the core of every "unhealthy" attachment. Often, created by unhealed attachment traumas, often from childhood, not always. Sometimes just some unconscious belief system we have adopted.
Provide that deeper need for self and the attachment goes away. I have experienced many healing miracles by accepting everything, all of the lonlieness, pain and grief and suffering and then providing for my unmet needs.
Providing from these unmet needs begins by aligning to the feeling of this need, find whatever you can, even the tiniest of anchors to this feeling and then focus on it and grow it from within.

I lost 15 kg 2 years ago by eating more food, whatever I wanted to eat, whenever I wanted to eat. The dieting industry certainly did not inform me on how to loose weight, my own bodies wisdom did.

I was overweight because my own personal unmet need was trauma about recieving loving nourishment, the difficulty and fear I had around recieving nourishment was intense. This healing around my weight issue, also improved my relationship, not only with food but also with others.

I lost 15kg by healing my unmet need of recieving nourishment and I haven't put the weight back on. My unmet need was that I needed to feel safe to begin feeling nourishment, once I healed this, I let go of my attachment to the weight I was carrying and my body dropped the weight easily. This healing required nothing else from me, other then acceptance of my pain and willingness to allow my bodies wisdom to show me how to heal.

I hope this might help.

I personally don't feel that it is a path to enlightenment to avoid an entire aspect of our very HUMAN experience here.
There is another word in psychology, called "disassociation", which can sometimes feel like and be confused with non attachment. However it is more a trauma response to leave the body to protect an aspect of the self.
Anything which has caused fear in the human body can be recognised as a trauma and a common response to trauma is fight, flight, faint or flee.

I will let someone more knowledgeable on the true terminology of non attachment to explain it if they want to, I just wanted to point out the psychology term "disassociation" for those who might be needing healing from trauma and confusing a trauma response from the concept known as non attachment.

I'd be inclined to think that acceptance is as close as I have ever experienced to non attachment... but my own path is not one of non attachment, it is in fact one of developing healthy connections.

>> The practice of non attachment will not heal certain pain and trauma.

I think it's a potential "mistake" though (sorry, I can't think of a better word) when we think of non-attachment as only a certain practice in which we deny ourselves something. For example, a more enlightened person will probably not feel very attached to material things, or to winning or losing a game, or to winning or losing reputation, and probably various other things that I could only speculate about. You could say they are in a state of non-attachment concerning these things. Maybe a practice of non-attachment (if done in a sensible way) is useful to be more often in this state of non-attachment. And less sensible practices of non-attachment could just make things worse, like you mentioned. But in any case, I think it makes sense to reflect on this *state* of non-attachment, which doesn't necessarily translate to a particular *practice* of non-attachment.
Thinking again about the idea of dissolving entanglement: meditation plays a big part in this for me. I enjoy the state of mind that meditation usually brings me to. So it's both a healing practice, and a non-attachment practice (where the non-attachment comes from receiving the benefits of the meditation, which makes the other things I desire temporarily less important).
I'm not saying these things because I disagree with you (I basically agree with what you wrote), I'm just reflecting some more on these concepts and words :-).

>> I do know there are certain things I feel compelled to do that I don't like even a little bit, unfortunately since I'm the male they are pretty much mandatory in our society

Can you say what those things are? There are so many differences between people, that the thing that is attractive to one person will be unattractive to another person. Of course, there are also many things that are generally considered attractive or unattractive, but there is a lot of variability. I'm saying this because maybe the things you feel like *not* doing are totally okay to not do (and some women may appreciate you for not doing them).

a lot of it is i feel gender dysphoria... I sorta tried anyway... but along the way I've learned things like I don't like making the first move... i also don't much feel like piling compliments, roses, and chocolates on females... or opening doors and doing all the correct chivalrous stuff... wouldn't like being a handyman around the house... and I'd probably have a long laundry list of other things that would make me sick to do if I could have gotten past any of that lol...

i think you are correct... if you are denying yourself something you are attached to not having it. :smile:

Trying to find and obtain the 'one true feeling' and throw out everything else didn't seem to wise to me either (lol)...

I honestly think you don't need to do any of that. Some women will appreciate compliments, roses, etc but other women will love it that you don't try to make them any compliments at all. I'm a fool when it comes to romance, but this I've learned: the reason why some women may not be interested (for example, that you are not showering them with attention and making them feel special) can be the reason why other women find you attractive. I do think making the first move is often necessary, but you can wait until you get the feeling that someone wants you to make the first move ("first move" is a bit of a misleading word, because some non-verbal communication already happens before a first move). And also here, there are probably women who will find you more attractive for not making a first move when they have not signalled in any way that they might want you to make a first move.