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Attachment Quotes

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Attachment Quotes

“Un-attachment (as opposed to detachment) is the acceptance that each and every person is responsible for his or her own reality, and that our joy, peace, security, and sense of love is not dependent on any other person or situation. We are each responsible for our own emotional well being.”

LoveInspirationalWisdomSpiritualJoyPeaceGrowthConsciousnessPsychologySecurityEmotionsInner PeaceZenAttachmentDetachmentAttached
Book:Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life
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“If we can remember the difference between the temporary ups and downs of life and the authentic joy that comes from a meaningful life, we can have less attachment to having things go our way and be able to respond to life in ways that truly bring about genuine happiness in our lives.”

JoyAttachmentMeaningful LifeResiliencyGenuine Happiness
Book:The Essential Guidebook to Mindfulness in Recovery: The Essence of Mindfulness
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“We don't need non-attachment, we need more attachment, attachment with the suffering of others - attachment with the miseries of others - attachment with the sweat and tears of others - attachment with the smile of others - we need attachment with each and every depraved soul on this earth. When you've fostered such attachment, that day I'll call you human - that day I'll call you alive.”

EmpathyHumanismHumanitarianService Of HumanityAttachmentAltruismSocial WorkSelfless ServiceServing SocietyHelping The Needy
Book:Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers
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“A coorie home is one that both looks and feels good. A squishy couch and a favourite mug filled with a steaming cup of tea can brighten the edges of even the most miserable day. There must be a psychological reason behind why we get attached to certain items in our homes, whether it's dad's armchair with its alarmingly permanent bum groove or a wooden spoon with just the right shaped handle. Answers on a postcard, please.”

LoveHomeComfortGoodMoodAttachmentWordScottishConceptCoorie
Book:The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way
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“…believing that your town offers opportunities for enjoyable social interactions beyond your living room is key to how much you feel attached to it, and a good way to pinpoint your own perceptions about the stuff there is to do in your town is by asking yourself, ‘What would I show off to visitors?”

HomeAttitudePerspectiveAttachmentPlace Attachment
Book:This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live
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“You need to belong to yourself, and let others belong to themselves too. You need to be free and detached from things and your surroundings. You need to build your home in your own simple existence, not in friends, lovers, your career or material belongings, because these are things you will lose one day.”

LoveLifePhilosophyHomeMeditationAttachmentFreeDetachmentMinimalismBelongings
Book:Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps
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“She tried to remember all the times she had spoken to him. She replayed every moment she could remember at the beach last week. Not once had she led him to believe that she liked him improperly. And yet, last night, he had appeared as if she had invited him. She had given herself so willingly, so lasciviously, that he must have thought she had desired him all along. Perhaps she had, or perhaps she had not realised how pleasurable intimacy could be.”

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Book:Rain Tree
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“Sticking to one person for a lifetime is not a waste of time or lack of better ones, it means you've found your place of eternity.”

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Author:Michael Bassey Johnson
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“An attachment grew up. What is an attachment? It is the most difficult of all the human interrelationships to explain, because it is the vaguest, the most impalpable. It has all the good points of love, and none of its drawbacks. No jealousy, no quarrels, no greed to possess, no fear of losing possession, no hatred (which is very much a part of love), no surge of passion and no hangover afterward. It never reaches the heights, and it never reaches the depths. As a rule it comes on subtly. As theirs did. As a rule the two involved are not even aware of it at first. As they were not. As a rule it only becomes noticeable when it is interrupted in some way, or broken off by circumstances. As theirs was. In other words, its presence only becomes known in its absence. It is only missed after it stops. While it is still going on, little thought is given to it, because little thought needs to be. It is pleasant to meet, it is pleasant to be together. To put your shopping packages down on a little wire-backed chair at a little table at a sidewalk cafe, and sit down and have a vermouth with someone who has been waiting there for you. And will be waiting there again tomorrow afternoon. Same time, same table, same sidewalk cafe. Or to watch Italian youth going through the gyrations of the latest dance craze in some inexpensive indigenous night-place-while you, who come from the country where the dance originated, only get up to do a sedate fox trot. It is even pleasant to part, because this simply means preparing the way for the next meeting. One long continuous being-together, even in a love affair, might make the thing wilt. In an attachment it would surely kill the thing off altogether. But to meet, to part, then to meet again in a few days, keeps the thing going, encourages it to flower. And yet it requires a certain amount of vanity, as love does; a desire to please, to look one's best, to elicit compliments. It inspires a certain amount of flirtation, for the two are of opposite sex. A wink of understanding over the rim of a raised glass, a low-voiced confidential aside about something and the smile of intimacy that answers it, a small impromptu gift - a necktie on the one part because of an accidental spill on the one he was wearing, or of a small bunch of flowers on the other part because of the color of the dress she has on. So it goes. And suddenly they part, and suddenly there's a void, and suddenly they discover they have had an attachment. Rome passed into the past, and became New York. Now, if they had never come together again, or only after a long time and in different circumstances, then the attachment would have faded and died. But if they suddenly do come together again - while the sharp sting of missing one another is still smarting - then the attachment will revive full force, full strength. But never again as merely an attachment. It has to go on from there, it has to build, to pick up speed. And sometimes it is so glad to be brought back again that it makes the mistake of thinking it is love. ("For The Rest Of Her Life")”

LoveRelationshipAffairAttachmentAttachments
Book:Angels of Darkness
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“In any attachment encounter, there is both what we perceive being offered and our embodied response to it. If we call to mind, heart and body three or four people with whom we've had particularly close relationships, how do our bodies respond to their offers of connection? We can begin by being with muscles, belly, heart and breath. How does our body want to move?”

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Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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“For me, hearing a relational history at the beginning of our work helps me form pictures of some encounters that bought pain and others that offered empathic support. Early in life, who comforted this person? Who kept her safe? Who was distant? Who needed her to regulate them? Who felt dangerous? Who bought confusion or chaos? Who criticized and who was accepting? We might quickly discover that one person brought contradictory experiences - the confusing one also comforted, or the dangerous one at home was a primary support of safety in the outside world. All this helps us begin to feel into the qualities of relatedness our person has taken in.”

HopeHealingRelationshipTraumaAttachmentImplicit Memory
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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“One form of insecurity of attachment, called "disorganized/disoriented", has been associated with marked impairments in the emotional, social, and cognitive domains, and a predisposition toward a clinical condition known as dissociation in which the capacity to function in an organized, coherent manner is at times impaired. Studies have also found that youths with a history of disorganized attachments are at great risk of expressing hostility with their peers and have the potential for interpersonal violence as they mature (Lyons-Ruth & Jacobwitz, 1999; Carlson, 1998). This disorganized form of attachment has been proposed to be associated with the caregiver's frightened, frightening, or disoriented behavior with the child. Such experiences create a state of alarm in the child. The parents of these children often have an autobiographical narrative finding, as revealed in the Adult Attachment Interview, of unresolved trauma or grief that appears as a disorientation in their narrative account of their childhoods. Such linguistic disorientation occurs during the discussion of loss or threat from childhood experiences. Lack of resolution appears to be associated with parental behaviors that are incompatible with an organized adaptation on the part of the child. Lack of resolution of trauma or grief in a parent can lead to parental behaviors that create "paradoxical", unsolvable, and problematic situations for the child. The attachment figure is intended to be the source of protection, soothing, connections, and joy. Instead, the experience of the child who develops a disorganized attachment is such that the caregiver is actually the source of terror and fear, of "fright without solution", and so the child cannot turn to the attachment figure to be soothed (Main & Hesse, 1990). There is not organized adaptation and the child's response to this unsolvable problem is disorganization (see Hesse et al., this volume).”

RelationshipYouthAttachmentMatureChildDisorganizedCaregiver
Book:Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain
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“Tully starts in again. 'See, the hidden value can go way deeper than sentimental attachment. Sometimes you feel it down to your soul. Like maybe you're the one person who appreciates a work of art that everybody else hates. [...] This thing you treasure, this thing nobody else wants, could also be what you'd call organic. It could be alive. [...] That's what falling in love is, isn't it? Discovering the hidden value in someone.”

LoveValueTreasureAttachmentSentiment
Book:The Bette Davis Club
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“I don't understand,' Gamache said finally, bringing his eyes back to Myrna. 'Can you explain?' Myrna nodded. 'Pity and compassion are the easiest to understand. Compassion involves empathy. You see the stricken person as an equal. Pity doesn't. If you pity someone you feel superior.' 'But it's hard to tell one from the other,' Gamache nodded. 'Exactly. Even for the person feeling it. Almost everyone would claim to be full of compassion. It's one of the noble emotions. But really, it's pity they feel.' 'So pity is the near enemy of compassion,' said Gamache slowly, mulling it over. 'That's right. It looks like compassion, acts like compassion, but is actually the opposite of it. And as long as pity's in place there's not room for compassion. It destroys, squeezes out, the nobler emotion.' 'Because we fool ourselves into believing we're feeling one, when we're actually feeling the other.' 'Fool ourselves, and fool others,' said Myrna. 'And love and attachment?' asked Gamache. 'Mothers and children are classic examples. Some mothers see their job as preparing their kids to live in the big old world. To be independent, to marry and have children of their own. To live wherever they choose and do what makes them happy. That's love. Others, and we all see them, cling to their children. Move to the same city, the same neighborhood. Live through them. Stifle them. Manipulate, use guilt-trips, cripple them.' 'Cripple them? How?' 'By not teaching them to be independent.' 'But it's not just mothers and children,' said Gamache. 'No. It's friendships, marriages. Any intimate relationship. Love wants the best for others. Attachment takes hostages.' Gamache nodded. He'd seen his share of those. Hostages weren't allowed to escape, and when they tried tragedy followed.”

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Book:The Cruelest Month
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“Listen Bhikkhus, just as a buffalo boy recognizes each of his own buffaloes, a bhikkhu recognizes each of the essential elements of his own body. Just as a buffalo boy knows the characteristics and tendencies of each buffalo, a bhikkhu knows which actions of body, speech, and mind are worthy and which are not. Just as a buffalo boy scrubs his animals clean, a bhikkhu must cleanse his mind and body of desires, attachments, anger, and aversions.”

MindBodySpeechAngerAttachmentBuddhaAversionCleanse
Author:Thich Nhat Hanh
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“xThe cause of most stress can be summed up by the word attachment. Self 1 gets so dependent upon things, situations, people and concepts within its experience that when change occurs or seems about to occur, it feels threatened. Freedom from stress does not necessarily involve giving up anything, but rather being able to let go of anything, when necessary, and know that one will still be all right. It comes from being more independent—not necessarily more solitary, but more reliant on one’s own inner resources for stability.”

StressIndependentDependentAttachmentFreeLet GoInner
Book:The Inner Game of Tennis: The classic guide to the mental side of peak performance
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“Chemistry is not destiny, certainly. But these scientists have demonstrated that the most reliable way to produce an adult who is brave and curious and kind and prudent is to ensure that when he is an infant, his hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functions well. And how do you do that? It is not magic. First, as much as possible, you protect him from serious trauma and chronic stress; then, even more important, you provide him with a secure, nurturing relationship with at least one parent and ideally two. That's not the whole secret of success, but it is a big, big part of it.”

StressTraumaAttachmentAceBrain Chemistry
Book:How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
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“Our minds are like bustling train stations. Thoughts constantly arrive and depart, some fleeting whispers, others insistent shouts. But just like a passerby isn't rattled by every announcement, we needn't be swayed by every thought. It's the latching on, the belief that a random thought holds absolute truth, that burdens us. True suffering stems from clinging to these mental trains, mistaking them for our final destination.”

SufferingBeliefAttachmentThoughts Of The MindLatching On
Author:Monika Ajay Kaul
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“There is nothing so imperfect, so helpless, so naked, so shapeless, so foul, as man observed at birth, to whom alone, one might almost say, Nature has given not a clean passage to the light; but, defiled with blood and covered with filth, and resembling more one just slain than one just born, he is an object for none to touch or lift up or kiss or embrace except for someone who loves with a natural affection.”

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Author:Plutarch
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“In unfavorable circumstances, kashays (anger-pride-deceit-greed) occur, and in favorable circumstances, more kashays occur. However, the kashays of favorable circumstances are cold. Those are raag kashays (attachment kashays) and they include greed and deceit. Whereas, in unfavorable circumstances, there are dwesh kashays (abhorrence kashays) such as anger and pride.”

SpiritualSufferingPrideSpiritual QuotesAngerGreedAttachmentAbhorrenceBalance In Life
Book:Simple & Effective Science for Self Realization
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“I displayed from my earliest years the greatest sensibility of disposition. I cannot say with what passion I loved every thing even the inanimate objects that surrounded me. I believe that I bore an individual attachment to every tree in our park; every animal that inhabited it knew me and I loved them. Their occasional deaths filled my infant heart with anguish. I cannot number the birds that I have saved during the long and severe winters of that climate; or the hares and rabbits that I have defended from the attacks of our dogs, or have nursed when accidentally wounded.”

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Author:Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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“Research on organised abuse emphasises the diversity of organised abuse cases, and the ways in which serious forms of child maltreatment cluster in the lives of children subject to organised victimisation (eg Bibby 1996b, Itziti 1997, Kelly and Regan 2000). Most attempts to examine organised abuse have been undertaken by therapists and social workers who have focused primarily on the role of psychological processes in the organised victimisation of children and adults. Dissociation, amnesia and attachment, in particular, have been identified as important factors that compel victims to obey their abusers whilst inhibiting them from disclosing their abuse or seeking help (see Epstein et al. 2011, Sachs and Galton 2008). Therapists and social workers have surmised that these psychological effects are purposively induced by perpetrators of organised abuse through the use of sadistic and ritualistic abuse. In this literature, perpetrators are characterised either as dissociated automatons mindlessly perpetuating the abuse that they, too, were subjected to as children, or else as cruel and manipulative criminals with expert foreknowledge of the psychological consequences of their abuses. The therapist is positioned in this discourse at the very heart of the solution to organised abuse, wielding their expertise in a struggle against the coercive strategies of the perpetrators. Whilst it cannot be denied that abusive groups undertake calculated strategies designed to terrorise children into silence and obedience, the emphasis of this literature on psychological factors in explaining organised abuse has overlooked the social contexts of such abuse and the significance of abuse and violence as social practices.”

SilencePsychologyViolenceDiversityResearchMemoryPsychologicalDenialAttachmentSecretsTherapistsDissociationAmnesiaSurvivorsRitual AbuseVictimsOrganized AbusePsychotherapistsOrganised AbuseRitualistic AbuseSocial WorkersEpsteinVictimisationAbusive GroupsDisclosingGaltonSachsSocial Contexts
Book:Organised Sexual Abuse
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