When you feel in the grips of something, in the grips of pain, perhaps, or in the grips of fear, or even in the grips of love, you have propelled yourself there and gripped that place, that occasion, that person. You attached yourself there. How crass of Me to say you are attached to even your pain, but attachment is its own pain. Attachment is false. Attachment is a conception you have, and — listen to this — it is never based on truth.
Attaching is its own art. You are skilled. You insert yourself. You embed yourself. You hold on for dear life.
I will not list all the things you are seemingly attached to, for the list would be long. I will mention just a few:
You are attached to being right, as though it were a mortal sin to be incorrect. When you are attached to being right, it indicates that your picture of yourself needs to be kinder. When you are mistaken, what could be at stake except your image? Make your picture of yourself concur more with Mine, and then you will not have to be right. You are too hard a taskmaster. Obliterate your concern with what other people may think, as if what they think matters more than true life. That is all image.
You are attached to perfection or propriety or order or some prescription you have made. You are attached to your expectations, as if you are a hunting hound sent to catch a certain scent. Expectations are nothing more than projected thoughts. They are not binding contracts. They are a contracted thinking. Expectations are limits you set for yourself. Why limit yourself? Limited, you become like a greyhound chasing an artificial hare.
You are attached to control. All of this is another way of saying the same thing. You yearn to be in charge of how the game is played and who plays what part and who wins what share.
You yearn to be the winning chess player in life.
You yearn to be the ultimate player.
You yearn to beat a record.
You yearn for victory.
You yearn for triumph.
You yearn to be the fairest of all or to win the fairest of all.
How limiting! The joys of such winnings are short-lived. What do you have when you have them? What do you have less of when you don't?
We are finding out now what lies you have pretended to believe in. Beneath your attachments are lies you have told yourself. Your premises have been skewed. You have kept your eye on a small measure and told yourself that was worthy.
I tell you that attachment is not worthy. Attachment keeps you from being fluid.
Attachment sticks your heart somewhere, and leaves it there. It is a self-torture. Attachment doesn't know the difference between pain and joy. Attachment is a tack pushed in where no tack is needed.
Attachments don't hold you up. They keep you down. You mean them to keep you in place.
Attachments are having your foot stuck in an anchor. How far can you go so long as your foot is stuck? How far can you see from the one place you are stuck in?
Attachments are a mental exercise. Exercise your vision instead.
I do not tell you to toss your life aside. I do not tell you to sell your house, leave your wife, abandon your job. I tell you to free yourself from attachment. You can be where you are without attachment to where you are. You can be more at ease. You can be more freely where you are.
Love your surroundings. Love your place in the world. Love is not attachment. Attachment is attachment. What you have done is attach your self-worth to what is dear to you. You have attached yourself to your expectations.
Expectations are petulant things. They are in the category of whim, yet you uphold them. Expectations whimper, and you think they roar.
Or let Me say it this way: Expect more. Be boundless. Set yourself free from expectations. Set yourself free from control. Set yourself free from the idea of loss and gain. Set yourself free.
Choose rather than expect.
Will yourself free rather than bound.
Free your mind. Give it a chance to explore greater horizons.
Attachments are traps. You may have set them there, but they are traps nevertheless. You may have thought you were trapping someone or something else, but it is yourself you caught.
Exchange hearts freely. No conditions. No predictions. All freewheeling. It is the nature of the heart to be free.
As for Me, you do not need to attach to that which is already yours. I am a part of you. I am the greater part of you. We are inseparable, but not attached. We are free together. We are One viable Whole. To what can wholeness attach?