This weekend I did Naka Ima. I really enjoyed it. I got a clarity about attachments and the mechanics of releasing them that I didn’t have before.

It basically goes like this:

1. If you feel tension or nervousness or anger or other strong and persistent emotions, this often indicates an attachment.
2. Identify the attachment. What are you wanting or not wanting? Get a clear sense of that and say it out loud. For instance one of mine was “I want my father to be happy”. Note: when I said this I felt a charge, an emotional attachment to this, not just a preference for it. This is what indicates an attachment. I felt a tension in my gut and I also had a story that went “If my father is happy, then I will get the love I want from him”.
3. Ask yourself if you are willing to let go of the attachment in this moment.
4. Breathe. Focus on pushing your exhale out while you mentally relax your grip on the outcome you want. Breathe through any emotions that come up around it.

In Naka-Ima, you do this while being witnessed by others, maintaining eye contact with them. I’m not sure if this is essential, but it helps. It especially helps break denial, because you are being seen. It brings emotions to the surface so you can breathe through them.

Letting go itself is a non-linear process. You can’t predict exactly when it will happen or how. The breathing is an essential part of it, which indicates to me that letting go is a decision that arises from a deeper place than the conscious mind. The mind can influence it, but not force it to happen.

Letting Go is a Muscle You Can Develop

You will know you have let go because you will feel as if you have stepped through a veil and are in another place. Then, once you have experienced that the first time, you will know what it feels like and when the attachment comes up again, you will be able to choose to release it again. The more times you release it, the easier it gets, and the more used to letting go you will become. It’s like a muscle that you learn to exercise.

Surrender vs. Letting Go

I’d experienced surrender before around attachments, but still remained attached. That was more a sense of “Ok, I let go of trying to fight or get rid of the attachment.”. I resigned myself to the attachment being there and gave up trying to change it. This did provide a great sense of relief, and gave me space from the obsession, but it did not release the attachment itself. Perhaps surrender is a stage of coming out of denial and being willing to be with what is. With big hairy core attachments, perhaps this is a necessary stage?

Related Skills

These are things I am guessing make it easier to learn how to let go:

• An intellectual understanding and that letting go does indeed make life more wonderful. If your mind does not agree that letting go is a strategy worth pursuing, you won’t do it. For instance, if you really believe that “I need you to survive”, then you won’t let go of your attachment to that person. Thus sometimes what helps is correcting distorted thinking and getting clarity that letting go is actually a worthwhile strategy. What helps with this? Byron Katie’s work.
• Clarity between “attachments” and “preferences”. There are things we like better than other things, and this is fine. We are only attached when we suffer in conjunction with the things we want or don’t want. Letting go does not remove the preference, only the attachment–which in most cases makes it much easier to meet the preference! For instance if your preference is to be loved, an attachment to being loved makes it harder to feel the love that you are already receiving.
• An awareness of the sensations in your body and being able to name what is alive in you in the moment. What helps with this? Hakomi (body-centered psychotherapy), any kind of body conscicousness practice like Authentic Movement or Ecstatic Dance.

Better Living Through Letting Go

The most striking difference I feel is an inner sense of calm. Before this weekend, I was carrying a constant feeling of annoyance that lived just under the surface. There was so much about the world that bugged me. Now I feel an inner OKness with life that I just didn’t have before. I think I vacillated between excitement about a new strategy that I thought would change everything and make my world better, and annoyance that the strategy didn’t actually transform everything. I was missing a sense of calmness and acceptance of the world as it is.

I’m curious how this transformation will affect me in the days and weeks to come. Will my warrior-ness dissipate? Who would I be without my ninja conviction? I got a glimpse this weekend: curious, friendly, relaxed, calm, present, but most of all: open.

I noticed this weekend I felt happiest not when I got a great insight, but when I was present with someone and felt wide open and inviting. I felt like I was providing a big warm space for them to exist in, and I loved that. I felt delighted to offer that.