batsose

I was just tossing some thoughts around about attachment and thought I would share.

Attachment

Everyone experiences emotional attachment. It is the first thing a baby does when it comes out of the womb: it cries and then attaches to the mother (hopefully). In psychological terms one view of the attachment process is as a means of affect regulation. A person experiences anxiety, which drives or motivates that person toward a goal upon achievement of that goal one feels a sense of success or reward wherein a flood of endorphins (aka human made heroin) releases in the brain giving us that warm, excited feeling. Very similar to the experience a baby has when it attaches to the mother or when we attach to another human being. It is the psychological term of the feeling of love: that warm comfortable feeling of being held or being safe and is also related to accomplishing goals.

The reward system located at the center of the brain, which is identified with the process of addiction, is part of attachment. The two process are interlinked in this way in that attachment emotions are used by the brain to reinforce behavior that is deemed useful and thus should be repeated. Like when an animal finds a food source or when we find a suitable mate or build or find shelter. We attach to the event to the doing of something.

In a more developed mind, attachment helps us shape our identity. We strive and accomplish things, which in our mind give us meaning and thus we identifying with being through our actions of achievement. I am a psychologist, which is born out of the achievement of a doctorate degree which was motivated by the goal of wanting to help others and get paid for it. When I got my degree I felt a rush of achievement that then reinforced in my mind the idea that I AM a psychologist. My life thus has meaning and I feel attached to that idea.

Attachment is necessary, but as the Buddhist point out it also the cause of suffering, because the nature of the universe is temporary. Nothing lasts and so when we are separated from the things we are attached to whether that is people or what we identify with we feel grief. Losing my father, I felt feelings of not only missing the person that was my father, but also the identity of being his son. I no longer had that figure in my life to make proud of my actions. I grief him and the role of being his son.

From the Buddhist perspective is not to say attachment is bad, but it is too realize that it causes suffering. I don't believe that Buddhism is actually wanting to separate these feelings, but being with this feeling fully and completely make us human and it is the pushing away or deflecting from these feelings that make the suffering worse. Attachment is an illusion created by the mind to achieve things in life and make meaningful relationship, but it is also the source of great suffering. It is how we not only embody the process of attachment, but the process of grieving the loss of those things we attach to that make the human experience potent and powerful. If we can learn to embrace this process life is enriched and more powerful.