non-attachment : mackenzian

The hardest thing to do in moments of deep distress is to stay fully present.

It’s hard because the human brain and body learn quickly how to answer attacks they can’t escape: they help us survive by taking us somewhere else, anywhere else but here.

As I’ve mentioned, my brain recently took me away from the current administration by reminding me about The West Wing‘s Jed Barlet. This is a great thing. It’s just not the only thing.

When navigating difficult relationships, what's the difference between neutrality and numbness? It's easy to confuse neutrality with non-variability. Non-variability is often achieved by developing a thick skin—becoming less reactive by keeping more out. And we may become increasingly numb in our quest to never let anything that anyone says get to us. But a higher expression of neutrality connects us more, not less, with the difficult situation. And we may experience intense emotions, or even abrupt and wild swings. But we always return fully to the moment, releasing any hooks to our recent experience. From this position of neutrality, we are able to write the best next chapter. We are fully alive! Fully feeling. And able to fully experience what's happening right now. — From the Execudeck series, on the difference between neutrality and numbness.

“When navigating difficult relationships, what’s the difference between neutrality and numbness?

“It’s easy to confuse neutrality with non-variability. Non-variability is often achieved by developing a thick skin—becoming less reactive by keeping more out. And we may become increasingly numb in our quest to never let anything that anyone says get to us. But a higher expression of neutrality connects us more, not less, with the difficult situation. And we may experience intense emotions, or even abrupt and wild swings. But we always return fully to the moment, releasing any hooks to our recent experience. From this position of neutrality, we are able to write the best next chapter. We are fully alive! Fully feeling. And able to fully experience what’s happening right now.”

We won’t lack opportunities to practice this insight over the next four years. Tomorrow, for instance, I’ll wake up, get on the train to the office, and parse how the administration’s latest orders on crime affect my communities.

I can respond to this challenging now by taking a breath before I begin, interrupting the reflex to tighten up and lock down, insisting on a pause to feel, and disrupting the bio-neurological default to flee the present.

I don’t want to do my work numb, and I don’t want to get to 2020 carrying a hard heart.

Full presence is the hardest thing, and it’s also a gift. As we work to build solutions for the world, I hope more of us will give this gift to ourselves.

A touching moment as a tiny Piping Plover chick snuggles into its parent on a sandy beach in the early morning sunlight. — Photo credit: Ray Hennessy

Recently I talked with a former colleague about the gracious way our community had held space for both of us to outgrow and leave it.

“It’s been like an incubator,” she said.
“Like an eggshell,” I said.

If you’re a growing chick, there’s no point in getting attached to your shell. It nourishes you, makes you strong, and then you have to break through it to live a mature life. If you never push against your shell, you don’t become strong. If you never break your shell, you actually die.

And if you’re the person who’s called to care for growing chicks, there’s no point in getting attached to any of them. They eat your food, soak up your heat, break their first boundary, and will fly away if unhindered. It’s not that they’re flying away from you; it’s that when they do what they’re designed to do, they will fly.

Non-attachment, then, is a gift. It isn’t indifference but rather full and non-grasping presence. It keeps disciplining tools like rules, forms, and organizational structures in their place—secondary to people. And it also applies these tools as much as they’re needed to hone and amplify people’s contributions for wider benefits.

A shell serves its chick, and not the chick, the shell.

It’s non-attachment that allows a grounded, healthy mentor to teach, guide, and counsel mentees without becoming bruised by mentees’ choices or learning process. We learn to invest in our groups and peers without being overly bonded to their outcomes; we practice giving our best without trying to wrest others’ stories away from them.

“Non-attachment” can be deeply challenging to live when all our brains want to say is “Please don’t change anything!”

But as I talked with my colleague, I realized that this was the leadership mode that has had the best consequences for me and other real people who still have growing to do.

How does non-attachment show up in your work? Send me a note to tell me about how you’ve seen it in action.