Healthy Detachment: Tips on Incorporating it Into Your Relationships

Alright friends, we’re talking about healthy detachment which is the best thing that could happen for your relationships. This is when you don’t obsess over texts or get discombobulated when you are apart from certain people, you just let it flow and honor the connection in a way that respects you and your boundaries in a self-loving practice.

But, before you go any further, read my post on codependency and then come back.

You no longer give all you have to other people. When you have healthy detachment, you make yourself a priority and you allow people to come and go, not closing yourself off from the connection but not letting that connection consume all of you.

Here are some tips on how you can incorporate healthy detachment in your relationships:

1. Breathe

Let go of all of your fears and anxieties in this situation. Understand and accept that everything will happen the way it needs to happen.

2. Focus on You

Most of the time, when we get so caught up in another person, it’s because we become hyper-focused on the situation, letting everything else, including yourself, fall to the wayside. Instead of being focused on what they’re doing all the time. Focus on you.

3. Don’t Turn Anyone Into a Project

Everyone has their lives to live and you either rock with them or you don’t. You are not Bob the Builder for anyone. You can be a friend, partner, sibling, etc… but you are not responsible for fixing anyone but yourself.

4. Allow Space to Miss Each Other

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hit them up if they cross your mind and you want to check in but you shouldn’t feel incredibly compelled to constantly text them. There’s a difference between obsessing over someone and just missing them.

5. Learn How to Restrain Your Impulsive Behavior

It’s easy to want to dive full speed ahead (I understand friend) but you got to let things progress naturally. Maybe you need to work on some abandonment issues here but I guarantee you the people meant to be in your life will stay. Have faith in that and work towards letting go of the desire to control everything.

7. When You Get Anxious, Ground Yourself with Affirmations

Don’t run from the feeling, confront it, understand it and overcome it so you won’t be ruled by it in the future. A fun technique I use is talking in the third person about how I feel in that moment:

Ex) “Solange is feeling anxious right now. Solange is upset they’re not texting back. Solange wants them to text back. Solange misses them. Solange wants to cuddle with them, probably because it is week 3 of Solange’s cycle. Solange needs a hug.”

It’s strange but it gets the job done. You feel silly doing it so you laugh at yourself in the moment and for me, it’s easier to let the immediate feeling go and then dive into something that will calm me like calligraphy or coloring while listening to music or watching Charmed (love that show lmao. Am I not Phoebe?? Anyways…). Find what works for you.

It could be dancing. More sensual/sexual types of dancing (i.e. twerking) actually can help you center yourself by opening and balancing your root and sacral chakras. There are many techniques. Find what you like but most importantly, DO NOT run from that feeling or fight it, allow yourself to sit in it and address it in a healthy way.

8. Say No the Things That Are Not For You

Do not bend over backwards to match the needs of other people. This goes back to focusing on yourself. Entertain and nurture connections that fulfill you, not the ones that drain you. Be comfortable saying no and creating distance.

9. Get Comfortable in Your Solitude

I will never stop saying this because it is crucial. You may not fully love yourself yet, I also struggle with that from time to time, but you have to be okay with being with yourself. Do not use people to fill voids in your life. Understand why you have voids and then focus on what you need to do to address them and become more content with yourself and your life

10. Let Go of Your Desire to Control Everything and Just Be

Learning how to incorporate healthy detachment into all of my relationships has been so helpful for me. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about people or that I don’t give my friends support when they need it. I just don’t rely on external relationships for my personal happiness. People who need to be in your life will be. I will never have to be anything but my authentic self for the people who truly care about me. That is enough.