Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:07 — 8.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

What does it mean to emotionally detach yourself? What are the benefits to doing this, how can doing this help to build relationships based on respect, and how can doing this increase your personal support system?

MM546- Emotionally Detach Yourself

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week’s episode of Motivate Me!

It’s Me! Time here on Motivate Me! and we are working on coming back from flat.

Before we start, let’s get into the right headspace. Let’s engage in the idea that this is time where YOU are the priority. Let’s take two slow, deep breaths to get us centered. Just follow me.

Today’s focus is: Emotionally Detach Yourself

Where did we start believing that if we don’t care with every fiber of our being, or become consumed with the lives of our loved ones, that we don’t care?

How many times have we allowed what our spouse or children are going through to consume us? I can think of many times I’ve done this. One example would be speaking to my husband during the work day and hearing about how he got ripped to shreds during a big meeting because he didn’t have something prepared. This will weigh on me all day, and at dinner I’ll empathize with him and how embarrassing this experience must have been – only for him to tell me that his boss realized that he’d never passed along the material and let everyone else know it.

Similarly, say I was concerned about a situation where my daughter called for a freak out session about a fight she got into with her college roommate. She’d get me all spun up, and I’d be concerned about her and the situation. But later, when I’d ask how things were going, she’d say that the issue had been resolved for hours or sometimes even days.

In both of these situations, I’m sitting over here with a knot in my stomach over things I have absolutely no control over. I’m distracted and less productive in my own life because I’m worried about my family – when their situations have been resolved and I don’t even know it.

Does this happen to you? I know I’m not the only one!

This is why I want to talk to you about the importance of detaching emotionally from friends and family. I want you to think of emotionally detaching as just taking a small step back from the details of their everyday lives. Think of this more as creating just a little bit of emotional distance, where you are just not quite so invested in the outcomes of their situations.

Why do this? Because it’s not your job to solve their problems. Why else? Because you need to be focused on what you’re here to accomplish.

I’ve learned a lot about emotional detachment, and I practiced it a lot until it became my natural behavior. I’ve learned that if it’s not in my control, I can give it less weight in my heart and my head. I have whole-heartedly accepted the idea that 99% of what we worry about never occurs, and that whatever my family experiences in their journey that is out of my control is meant for them and has nothing to do with me.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t care, I care a ton. And it does not mean that I love them less or am here for them less. I always want to hear about their jobs, their friends, their lives. These are my favorite people! I just don’t wear their challenges. I don’t own them. I don’t feel like I need to fix them. I focus more on asking questions that help them make their own decisions than giving advice.

So Motivate Me! Friends, the reality is that our focus should be on our own paths, and we should allow our loved one’s focus to be on their own paths.  Our lives will naturally and lovingly intertwine. We are all teachers and all students in each other’s lives, and I have learned so much about my family and myself from creating some emotional distance.

On one hand, it’s freeing to let go of feeling responsible for everyone else’s happiness. We think we do, but we really don’t have control over other people’s happiness. This is a personal journey based on a person’s perspective on life and their decision to be happy.

And on the other hand, it’s empowering to take control of our own happiness, and to allow ourselves the time and space to do that.

Something else that you may not expect from taking an emotional step back from your loved ones is how this will make them feel. At first, they may buck because they are used to you jumping in and solving everything, or caring to the point of worrying. But once they adjust, they may begin to feel more capable in making their own decisions, they may feel more respected by you because you are showing confidence in them. And here’s the best part, they may begin to mirror your modeling and start to show and give you and your desires more respect and support. And isn’t that a beautiful thing?

We would love to hear your thoughts. Join us in our Private Facebook group: Motivate Me! Support System and checkout MotivateMePodcast.com for anything else.

I am going to leave you with some truth talk from me to you: We cannot take ownership of the life path of others. When we raise our children, our goal is to make them healthy, happy, independent humans who are capable and confident. They cannot become this if we don’t give them the space. So as they mature, become the guide on the side, reveal to them that you are a human, too, who is just learning and growing. Create the distance between you that inspires confidence in them, and show them the kind of respect that will encourage them to become your greatest fan and source of support.

This is a gift you will give them, yourself, and the families they create.

Remember, you Motivate Me!