A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

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I am writing this article as the plane I’m on rises to join a sky that clamors to support and embrace it. And as I struggle to wrestle my unruly, petulant judgments about air travel, I find myself reflecting on the actual journey that I have taken. Not a vacation, but my return to from where I lived most of my years as a young adult. I had returned to Virginia to help my mother, and all of her memories packed in unassuming boxes, as they travel to their new home in Arizona.

The process of moving my mother, and our history in Virginia also comes on the heels of a dear friend’s request to write a letter for his parents as part of a scrapbook in celebration of their anniversary. And as both of these experiences ask for my reflection upon “the past,” I find that they also make me consider the idea of “attachment” and “impermanence.” Maybe you can relate.

The classic saying about change is that change is the only thing that is truly predictable; nevertheless, and as my trip to Virginia serves to remind me, no matter what one is attached to, it is not “permanent.” Thought it may be uncomfortable, and illicit strong reactions as you consider it, impermanence is what is permanent. Everything, and anything in life, is temporary, even this very moment. For while we may seek to get attached to things, people, events, substances, emotions, money, objects, beliefs, perceptions of others, even memories of the past, and ourselves, it is predictable that things do end. We just do all that we can to avoid it.

The Attachment

You see, it is our attachment to having that experience, that relationship, that purchase “we just can’t live without” that causes pain, because we are constantly seeking something. Then, as if in a karmic house of cards tumbling down, someone or something else becomes that next thing we want. It is never-ending, for the something just changes form, all to maintain the idea that we are not enough, in and of ourselves, without it, whatever it is.

But we can live without it, for our relationship with what we seek will have to change for us to reduce our pain. It is, ironically, when we release the want for something that we remember how to live, and enjoy knowing that we already have enough. By not hoarding and accumulating that which, truly, does not serve our highest good and that which is our true nature, we obtain freedom.

Furthermore, even our attachment to things “staying as they are” causes us great pain, for it is in the attachment, the desire, the focus on that which we seek to possess, that creates the struggle. Our true self is not found in that item, relationship, next experience, substance, nor were they found in the boxes of memories at my mother’s house.

Memories

As I went through the boxes, I noticed a subtle but overt reaction in me, some kind of yearning, a pang of something that sought my attention, that wanted me to explore and dive into it, feet first and without reservation. And what I found was somewhat disquieting. For it wasn’t the memories themselves tugging at my heartstrings, like a mad puppeteer, it was my attachment to their meaning.

As I allowed myself to dive into the experience, I became conscious of my attachment to the idea of how many of those relationships reflected in those boxes of memories, used to be. Of course, also forgetting the impermanence of the relationships and the transitory nature of every one we have. And, by attaching to the images of those relationships, back then, I missed the value of accepting those relationships, in the now. My true self wanted me to look at those relationships today. See them in the purest form, and be accepting of their appearance in the present.

From those boxes of childhood photographs and memorabilia I also could revisit the relationships and their reminder that now, is not then. In my life, for example, the dear friend whose relationship was that of the brother I never had, I can learn to let go of how it “used to be,” and meet his struggle with addiction and anxiety with compassion. For it is in any attachment to “back then” that we can be seduced to ignore the present. Instead, I have to consciously witness his behavior from the now, as opposed to denying it, just to maintain an attachment to the idea of who he “used to be.”

Not only did my true self ask me to drop my attachment to solely seeing many of my relationships as they used be, I was also reminded to cherish their evolution. For example, even staying in contact with a first love, cherishing his friendship, but from a place of acknowledging the man he has become, and his life now, rather than identifying solely with memories of “back then.”

For it is in the avoidance of impermanence that we reaffirm an attachment to the past. Instead, we must see the cast of characters in our memories, and ourselves, as they are now, not just as they were. Reminding us that impermanence is the only permanent thing.

©Copyright 2009 by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry.
Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile