Attachment ≠ Security

I forgot my phone when I went on my dog walk.

Sometimes it’s the simplest things that can trigger an insight.

My hand went to my pocket, not five minutes into the walk, just to jot down a thought I didn’t want to forget in my notes app. I realised my pocket was empty.

I watched my mind panic a little at the thought of losing the idea, whatever it was. I can’t remember now but it seemed soooo very important at the time. It happened again a few minutes later and a few minutes after that.

No wonder I’m so busy all the time, I realised. I’m in the habit of capturing every little brain-fart I have as if they are ALL worthy of my consideration and action.

I watched as each idea came to mind, was desperately clung to and then disappeared just moments later, un-captured and therefore never to be actioned.

It was the weirdest sensation. Like an addictive urge rising and disappearing but each lasting a matter of seconds, not the hours you might experience if you’re trying to give up the fags.

It wasn’t until I didn’t have it, that I realised, like REALLY realised how attached I am to my phone. Sometimes it’s only in the removal of something that you get to see what it really means to you.

Now, I fancy myself as a bit of a free spirit and I don’t like the feeling of my peace of mind being linked to anything in the outside world. It was why I refused to take medication in my many years of suffering with anxiety.

It was on that walk I realised I had equated my phone with security. My mind could relax knowing that everything it came up with could be captured. And obviously if a murderer ran up to me I could also call my husband.

So I left it behind again today. It’s such a tiny step - leave your phone at home for an hour.

And yet all over the place I see my attachment to things outside of myself and the way the world must be in order for me to be OK aka at peace.

Tomorrow morning at 5am I head out the door to a retreat at Hidden Paradise in Andalusia. I thought I was signing up to a lovely rest, a beautiful pool and views, a bit of mild life coaching, yoga and healthy food with a small group of other women, all post-50, all curious about the transition to becoming a wiser woman as we age.

Up a mountain, miles from anywhere, a little out of my comfort zone (mainly in case I need a wee on the 2 hour bus journey from the airport to the venue and I don’t know how to say that in Spanish).

Oh, if only that were the biggest discomfort I am about to face.

This week, I attended an introductory webinar for the retreat to meet the other women and read the small print.

This is not a glass of sangria and a good book by the pool kind of holiday. Oh no. Instead there is naked waterfall swimming, a cacao ceremony, a samhain ceremony, no alcohol and chanting.

And this morning, while packing my bag, I saw mention of yoni massage. I googled it. Don’t do that if you have a sensitive disposition. I was absolutely mortified. It is, obviously, an optional part of the retreat but still….

I will admit I actually cried. I’ve had a LOT of shit go down in the past four years, and this was the closest I have come to a panic attack in all that time.

I decided not to go and unpacked my bags.

I’m all up for exploring what it means to be a woman, and what it means to transition to the wiser woman, but I’d rather keep my bodily parts to myself.

As I stood by my unpacked clothes on the bed, I saw that the retreat starts here. Not when I get off the plane, or arrive at the resort, or even in first session.

In seeing how attached I am to my little rigid way of moving about the world. My patterns and knowing quite firmly what I do and don’t like and operating ALWAYS from that space. Like carrying my phone with me always.

Those routines and ways of being all put in place innocently to keep me safe. Correction, not my body safe, but my mind quiet and safe.

But when we hang safety on the world playing out in line with our preferences; keeping our ‘things’ near us like a comfort blankie, then we actually feel less safe than we ever did before. Because they can always be forgotten/taken away/accidentally signed up for a comfort-rattling retreat.

What if freedom were more appealing than apparent safety?

This retreat is what’s unfolding in front of me. This now is (apparently) my work.

What if leaving the phone behind, leaving ‘the way I do things around here’ behind and being with all the discomfort that holds, just BEING with it is the doorway to learning something new?

I’m about to find out.

I’m going.