Practice non-attachment to outcome:
If I am unwilling to release attachment, especially to outcomes, I can become so focused on my own self-will that I miss the opportunities being presented by the universe. Attachment to outcome makes me prone to using the force of my will to create the outcomes I desire. When I release outcome attachment the universe can apply its creative paintbrush to my vision, expanding it beyond my small ego-driven vision to include a far more beautiful and fully developed reality.
The art of setting intention to manifest your vision requires this delicate balance between being very clear on your vision and what you want to manifest, taking appropriate action without forcing, and then allowing the universe to manifest.
My experience is that if I shift my perspective to ensure that highest-good for all is pivotal to the process and then trust the universe to do it’s manifestation, the rest of my job is just to notice the gifts as they fall into my lap.
But if I hold tightly onto my idea of what the manifestation looks like I can become deeply disappointed with the outcome. Disappointment that results from attachment to outcome can cause me to slip into my victimhood. In this place I feel powerless, sad, resigned, all sorts of paralyzing emotions. Sometimes from this place it is hard to see the bigger lesson, the grander plan, the opportunity that will present next now that this one has not gone as expected.
When I am aware of attachments to outcome, then I can look for ways of letting them go. I notice the pain I feel, the helplessness, the anger whatever emotion is driving me in the moment. I look a little deeper to see the disappointment, and who in me is disappointed. Then I acknowledge that I am in this place and let it run it’s course a bit. Then I work on changing my perspective and outlook.
Again I’ll give you an example, I really wanted my home to sell, so I could get to Bozeman as quickly as possible, before the winter set in. I really wanted to get free of my debts so I could begin to make the new investments to create the life I was envisioning – working full time with Martin on Body of 9. We experienced one complication after the other. The delays that postponed the close which were beyond my control were the hardest for me to deal with. The complications that I could do something about had much less affect, unless they threatened to delay the close of the transaction. My attachment to the timing of the end kept tripping me up, sending me spiraling downward into my own personal abyss. Rather than enjoy the closing process I allowed it to put me in a state of anxiety, or as my good friend Judy Katz always says, it put me back in my basement room where I play the victim.
While this was going on I suffered, until I was able to articulate where the pain was coming from and release it knowing that the universe was aligning things for the highest good of all. And now that I am through to the other side, I take the learning lessons and hope next time I am impatient for something to happen, I can release my attachment to outcome so that I may enjoy the moment in the fullest for what is actually happening, not what my will wants to happen.
This is “practice” is in our book Practices For Presence: Body-based Insight for Living a Life of Purpose.
