Dissociating means escaping the present moment.
The only way to avoid dissociation is being aware of the present moment:
- Inner reality → thoughts & emotions → bodily sensations
- Outer reality → sensory input → bodily sensations
There are different reasons to dissociate:
- Discomfort/pain
- Boredom
- Inability or unwillingness to deal with a particular situation
Dissociation is addictive. It is a short-term measure that brings long-term negative consequences.
Detachment, on the other hand, requires awareness and equanimity. You need to be aware of the bodily sensations and to remain equanimous so as not to react to those sensations.
Detachment doesn’t mean ignoring or obviating. On the contrary, detachment requires objective observation, calmness and strength, so that a step can be taken back. Looking the other way is not detachment, but dissociation, since the newly acquired perspective is utilized to escape the present moment.
Dissociation is the unhealthy alternative to detachment. Those of us who haven’t learned detachment from an early age tend to misuse dissociation as a tool to escape reality when it becomes unbearable.
“I miss you” means my mind is craving the bodily sensations generated by the biochemical substances that my body produces when my senses get in touch with you as an external object.
Do not dissociate, learn to detach.
One of the disadvantages of not facing death as a part of life is that we tend to treat life as if it was eternal and we forget that the people around us and the time we spend with them are limited, that one day it will all be over and that if we don’t make the best out those moments, we will never have a chance to get them back. Live your life as if you were mortal, because only then will you really live.
From now on, the task at hand is to transform dissociation into detachment. Many years of counterwork need to be corrected and new conditioning needs to get settled, in order to make up for all the dissociation habits collected over a lifetime. Put yourself to work, train yourself properly.
USEFUL PIECE OF ADVICE
Treat yourself as if you were your child: kindly, but firmly, with as much compassion as discipline. Accept that due to life’s circumstances (no need to search for culprits here), some parts of your psyche have remained uneducated or have been miseducated. In any case, some aspects of your inner realm are those of an infant who has overtime become a wildling. You need to take care of those undeveloped parts with enough love to be able to say to yourself:
It is ok that you still fail, you haven’t learned better yet,
but now that we are at it, keep on trying until you succeed.
You sometimes need a break?
Just take it, but know that I will not allow you to confuse rest with laziness,
so catch your breath and go again.
