Practicing Non-Attachment

Are Your Beliefs TRUE?

Take a moment to think about all the things you are attached to in your life. We all have our preferences when it comes to fashion, beauty products, movies, TV shows, music genres, vacation spots, foods, and leisure activities. We are also attached to our favorite material objects, such as our cars, our homes, the technology we own, our clothing, our kitchen appliances, and so on. Then, we have attachments to our communities, our religious affiliations, our families (well, maybe not all of our family members), our pets, and our friends.

But if we dig deeper, we can acknowledge our attachments to our beliefs about right and wrong, how people should behave toward one another, how politicians should conduct themselves, and how our government should be run. Most certainly, these beliefs stem from earlier experiences in our lives, our upbringing, how we were educated, and our interactions with others.

Peel back the layers a little more, and we find that we also attach to beliefs about ourselves. This is the ego in action. We tend to believe certain things about ourselves, and, like a broken record, these beliefs have been playing in our heads for probably as long as we can remember.

The problem is that we tend to assume our beliefs are true. But this is disillusionment.

When we form attachments to people, material things, our own beliefs, and so on, we cause ourselves suffering because we are grasping at illusions. In other words, when our preferences or expectations, which are based on our attachments, are not met, suffering ensues. Our attachments stem from our beliefs, so we become disillusioned when we expect or assume people will act a certain way or that events will have a particular outcome.

Let me give you an example. You are at a coffee shop, and you order your favorite coffee: 8 espresso shots, 5 pumps of classic syrup, 4 pumps of vanilla, 4 pumps of hazelnut, heavy cream, vanilla sweet cream foam, extra caramel drizzle, extra mocha drizzle, cookie crumble topping, and light ice. The barista is only half-listening to your order, and, as a result, makes you a coffee that does not meet your expectations.

If you are attached to this particular coffee order, then you will be upset when you take a sip and discover it is not what you wanted. The suffering occurs when you become angry because your expectations were not met. But, in reality, what you have is still a really good cup of coffee—it’s just not what you expected. By practicing non-attachment, you can go about your day happy with the coffee you received, despite it not being what you ordered.

Because, in all honesty, is it really worth getting upset over something like a cup of coffee? And if we can practice non-attachment with something as simple as our coffee order, think about all the suffering we can let go of when it comes to bigger things that are outside of our control.

The same can be said about our yoga practice. Remembering that everybody is different and that everyone is at a different place in their yoga journey, we cause ourselves suffering when we become attached to our preferences. Notice the next time you start attaching to your beliefs about how a yoga class should go. Take note of when you start thinking things like: the room is too hot, too cold, too crowded, too empty; the teacher is too young, too old, too new, too experienced; they teach too fast or too slow; you did not get to stay in savasana as long as you wanted; and so forth.



Remember that the ego is speaking when you attach to certain beliefs about how your practice should be on any given day, especially when you start comparing yourself to others (please don’t do that!).

If we can simply begin to notice when we are creating attachments, then we can remind ourselves to take a breath, return to the present moment, step out of our heads, and experience freedom from suffering.