I've had to detach from a lot of things throughout my life. I've had to detach from people, situations, places.
I've also had to detach from jobs, including one that I thought was my identity. I have had to detach from a lot of stories—stories that I told myself about myself, stories that turned out not to be true but had a huge impact on my life.
Like the story that my parents didn't love me, perhaps the biggest story of all. I've had to detach from feelings in order to survive, to put aside my grief at times to care for my children.
I've had to detach from other feelings that threatened to drown me at times. I've learned how to detach from other people's feelings and ideas, and I've detached from people.
According to my friend Darlene Lancer, author of Conquering Shame and Codependency and Codependency for Dummies, sometimes it's about detaching from other people's "moods, actions, and words" so that we can "take our power back." I have taken my power back through detachment, and I'm keeping it. Detaching is sometimes just about minding our own business, but other times it's about surviving our feelings and our lives.