Emotional Attachment to Objects vs. Healthy Relationships

What is Emotional Attachment?

As promised here's the second installment of the article on letting go of attachments. Click here to the link to the previous one. 

Emotional Attachment

The web dictionary defines emotional attachment as,

“physical desire for something or someone, and the inability to release or do without that thing or person.”

Do you have unhealthy emotional attachment to objects?

How you might become emotionally attached to a brand or object. 

The above graphic shows how one might be emotionally attached to a certain brand or object. If your happiness rests upon having a certain object or thing, then your emotions are attached to that object or thing. The attachment causes you to forego your personal development and growth, at the expense of having that thing. Ask yourself the following:

1. Is it possible to have/love this thing/person/situation without being completely attached to it?
2. Why do I believe my life will fall apart without __________?
3. Why do I believe I can only be happy if ________?

Stages of Emotional Attachment

A mother and child form an emotional attachment. 

We're all attached to things in our lives. It all starts from a very young age where, when we feel hungry, we cry out for our mother's comfort and milk. Unless she cuddles us, we cry out until the comfort we require arrives. As we become toddlers we start to have emotional attachment to specific toys that we 'cannot' do without or a certain favourite meal, prepared in a certain way, and if we don't get these things, exactly the way we want them, when we want them, then we complain.

Some toddlers cannot sleep without their favourite teddy.

As we get into our teens we will have attachments in the form of friends or cliques, favourite places to sit in class or on a school bus, cellphones and gadgets. The words "MY" and "MINE" tend to come out of our mouths more often and if anybody else takes OUR object or starts to hang out with OUR friends then war breaks out.

Keep away from MY things.

In fact we can end up having signs on our bedroom doors that warn others to KEEP OUT, just so that we can protect our space and our things. At school we can get very upset if someone sits in our place in the classroom, cafeteria or school bus. Seniors start to demarcate certain areas for seniors only, such as special lawns or common rooms and if a junior infringes upon this territory then it's a huge issue.

A Possibly Unrelated Story

The topic of seniority reminds me of a funny story that happened when I was a senior at school. A new kid arrived at the school who had been exposed to schooling in the UK. Although he is African, he had a strong pommie accent.

As seniors we could always get someone else to do the queuing. 

One of the privileges we had as seniors was that we could send juniors to the tuck-shop to buy things for us. We were not harsh about it like I had heard was happening in certain other schools. Apparently in these other schools as a junior, a senior could actually send you to buy something at the tuck-shop with your own 'hard earned' bucks and you could not make any objections about it to anyone. You would just have to go to the tuck-shop, purchase whatever was requested and then hand it over, no questions asked.

Anyway this young African pommie seemed a pleasant fella and a fellow senior and I spent some time chatting to him during one break time, finding out a little more about him. We were especially entertained by his pommie accent because it was very different from the colonial English that we were used to.

Towards the end of the break my friend decided to send this young fella to the tuck-shop to buy us two cream sodas (we totally adored cream sodas then, but I can't think why). He seemed quite a sensible fella and he seemed to be of the understanding that we were the 'big shots' in the pond, so it was to his advantage to stay on our right side. My friend searched in his pocket for a note which would cover the purchase and although he did not mention it, he fully expected to get some change from the purchase. The young African pommie gladly accepted the note and scurried off to the tuck-shop without a second thought.

Meanwhile we laughed to ourselves about how enthusiastic the young man was and we carried on with our break time duties. Just then the bell for the end of break rang and we turned around to see our new student walking towards us with two cream sodas in hand. He gladly handed them over to us with a smile and we thanked him. My friend waited patiently for his change which was not forthcoming. He eventually asked about the cash and then a very perplexing reply came from the young man and I will never forget it so long as I live.

"I bought me'self a croonchie ". 

"I bought me'self a croonchie", said the rookie.

We paused a moment because we were not used to the accent and thought that we'd misheard the reply.

"What did you say?", my friend asked.

"I sed I bought me'self a croonchie."

"What's that?"

"A croonchie."

"Oooh... a Crunchie!"

By this time we were very weak at the knees and seething. The fact that this young man had had the cheek to use the change for his own purchase caught us off guard. We felt powerless to ask why he had thought that he could buy himself a "croonchie". We just stared at him and eventually told him to go to his next lesson.

We looked at each other in disbelief. All the things we could have possibly imposed on this fella as punishment for having done such an atrocious act were forgotten. It was just unbelievable and in anger or shock, I can't remember which now, we hurried on to our next class.

Much later we recalled the whole event and laughed at it and in the midst of repeating that fateful statement, "I BOUGHT ME'SELF A CROONCHIE", over and over again, the young man became known as CRUNCHIE, even to those that did not know anything about that event. I think even to this day he is still known by that name even though the event happened a long time ago.

Now, why did I recall that event again? Oh yes, it was this idea about attachment to objects and things. We were attached to our seniority and when someone did not see us that way we were offended to the point where we could not believe it. We were also attached to the money. We expected that the young man would go and carry out the task requested of him and return our money, without expectation of anything in return.

Mobile phones,  cars you name it, are gadgets close to a man's heart. 

Moving into adulthood we also get attached to many things. We buy a lot of possessions because we now have the earning power that we've always wanted and we stock up our living environments with lots of goods, some of which we don't really need. Some of the goods are for comfort or to make our environment look lived in or for so called ambiance. We keep some of the things from our younger days because they hold a special place in our hearts, even though we don't need them anymore.

Click here to read about Kaitlin's story.

Sometimes we wait/hunt for specials on 'perfect' goods that we've always wanted or of a certain type or quality. We think that these goods will serve us for a lifetime. But life changes though and what could have been good for us to have, might not serve us best in another part of our lives. There's a saying that suggests that holding onto things in our lives so tightly prevents our fists from opening up to receive more and better things.

My battle of the Mind & Belief System

The antidote for emotional attachment is to start practising the art of non-attachment. It sounds easy, but it can be quite difficult, as I am experiencing, but it is a step in the right direction.

I've come to the crossroads as it were, about some of the objects in my life. I've started to get rid of some of them and there seems to be resistance from the family about getting rid of them, probably because at this moment there're no immediate plans to replace any of them. Some other reasons might be that when we acquired certain objects they were 'high quality objects' at an unbelievably low price, so they said.

I myself had an inexplicably negative reaction when one of the objects was wheeled away. Even though I am the one who initiated the 'cleaning up' exercise, and I thought I would be fine with this 'cleansing', I was quite visibly distraught. I took a shower and played some jazz to get over it. I was fine after that but perhaps it would be a good idea to prepare members of the family before the next object makes its way out. My wife is particularly attached to ‘her' microwave oven, so perhaps that will be one of the last objects to go.

I've also started to go through every room in the house, looking for anything that I can throw away, every scrap of paper I've ever kept. I'm a stationery-keeper. I keep pens, sometimes even when the ink has dried out. I don't like to throw away paper, perhaps because I was taught about tree conservation from a very early age. I have many out-dated gadgets and accessories that have long ceased to be useful. During my childhood we did not have many store-bought toys and so we always had to make do with what other people had no use for, which we used to make our own toys. We kept most things just in case we could find a use for them later. Clothes were sometimes handed down to siblings and so I have a lot of clothes that I no longer use but keep, just in case I can find some relative to give them to.

I am re-examining my belief system to see exactly why I have these emotional attachments to certain objects. It even goes to the extend that if I see someone else getting rid of something, I immediately consider whether I can make use of it or not. This sometimes results in my space being crowded with things that I never find another use for. For me, this is an emotional battle and cleansing, which if I keep at it, will be greatly beneficial. Physically clearing my living space of unnecessary objects has several advantages:

• The house is a lot cleaner, obviously
• It is easier to clean the house and to keep it clean
• The physical clearing of the mess is symbolic to clearing the mess in our lives
• It clears our minds and living space for simplicity and more creativity
• The process of letting go of objects which we might be emotionally attached to is therapeutic
• Very often the process of looking for things to clear away objects enables you to brainstorm while at it
• Letting go allows new things to come into our lives, both spiritually and materially

Creating Healthy Relationships vs. Emotional Attachment

When we look at objects, they are just that - inanimate objects. What is it that makes objects so 'precious' in human minds? What is it that makes humans so unwilling to part with their possessions, sometimes sacrificing connections or relationships with others?

Relationships last a lifetime. 

Sometimes when I get 'stuck' in a philosophical whirlpool I think about how the person who invented money really ruined the fate of humanity. Yes I agree, we have to have some sort of method to barter goods and services, but when you actually think about it, money is just glorified paper and therefore could be used to do any of the things 'normal' paper is used for.

Need change to buy bread?

Just listen to the jokes that fly around about when the currencies of certain states decrease drastically in value. In Italy for example, one had to go to the bakers to buy a loaf of bread with a wheelbarrow-full of money.

You needed a bundle of these to buy toilet paper.

The currencies in Zimbabwe and Argentina also fell so drastically that the prices changed by the time you got to the till to pay for the goods. The Zimbabwe dollar got to such a low that it was supposedly cheaper to use the notes as toilet paper than to actually buy it (at least that was one of the jokes flying around).

The value of any commodity, stock or currency on the market depends quite heavily on sentiment and I propose that this is exactly why humans find it difficult to let go of objects - the sentimental attachment. Is it not more fulfilling to attach oneself to building relationships with people and helping build people, rather than to build up a pile of possessions? Is it not better to ensure that your emotional relationships, whether with objects or with people, are healthy relationships?

Always keep in mind that the value of objects depends on sentiment and like currencies, the value could be different overnight. The value of relationships, if they are kept healthy, lasts a lifetime so rather invest your time, energy and effort in maintaining meaningful relationships with your loved ones.

Tell us what you think in the comments section.

Be blessed.