Detached Family Quotes

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All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.
Mahatma Gandhi
I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude — a feeling which increases with the years.
Albert Einstein (The World As I See It)
She felt detached from her family, and thought it strange how they had lavished so much attention on her, as a child, and then at some appointed, prearranged time they seemed to stop the flow of affection and being the expectations - as if, for a brief phrase, you were expected to absorb love (and get enough), and then, for a much longer and more serious phase, you were expected to fulfill certain obligations.
John Irving (The World According to Garp)
For a long while I have believed – this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsideness – that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as “natural” a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity. And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainly, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or a movie theater, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.
Salman Rushdie (The Ground Beneath Her Feet)
We co-existed in peaceful detachment
Tsitsi Dangarembga (Nervous Conditions)
The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk grow away from it.
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
Such were the factors that detached Ormus Cama from the ordinary ties of family life. The ties that strangle us, which we call love. Because of the loosening of these ties he became, with all the attendant pain of such becoming, free. But love is what we want, not freedom. Who then is the unluckier man? The beloved, who is given his heart's desire and must forever after fear its loss, or the free man, with his unlooked-for liberty, naked and alone between the captive armies of the earth?
Salman Rushdie
There is a world of difference between the experience of 'care' – the wiping of a bottom, the bathing of a body: basic biological obligations – and the intimacy that makes us want to live.
Antonella Gambotto-Burke (Mama: Love, Motherhood and Revolution)
After a while, meaning and implication detach themselves from everything. One can be a father and assume no obligations, it follows that one can be a boyfriend and do nothing at all. Pretty soon you can add friend, acquaintance, co-worker, and just about anyone else to the long list of people who seem to be part of your life, though there is no code of conduct that they must adhere to. Pretty soon, it seems unreasonable to be bothered or outraged by much of anything because, well, what did you expect? In a world where the core social unit - the family - is so dispensable, how much can anything else mean?
Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation)
I would walk along the fence and frequently I cried so hard that I lost my breath. When this happened, I became detached from myself. I walked and gasped and, as I did, I could feel my unhappiness walking beside me, waiting for my breath to return so that it could climb back inside me. T
Akhil Sharma (Family Life)
As the transition becomes more difficult to manage, the family unit must be carefully disintegrated, and state-controlled public education and state-operated child-care centers must become more common and legally enforced so as to begin the detachment of the child from the mother and father at an earlier age.
Milton William Cooper (Behold a Pale Horse)
The emptiness of the narcissist often means that they are only focused on whatever is useful or interesting to them at the moment. If at that moment it is interesting for them to tell you they love you, they do. It’s not really a long game to them, and when the next interesting issue comes up, they attend to that. The objectification of others—viewing other people as objects useful to his needs—can also play a role. When you are the only thing in the room, or the most interesting thing in the room, then the narcissist’s charisma and charm can leave you convinced that you are his everything. The problem is that this is typically superficial regard, and that superficiality results in inconsistency, and emotions for the narcissistic person range from intense to detached on a regular basis. This vacillation between intensity and detachment can be observed in the narcissist’s relationships with people (acquaintances, friends, family, and partners), work, and experiences. A healthy relationship should feel like a safe harbor in your life. Life throws us enough curve balls in the shape of money problems, work issues, medical issues, household issues, and even the weather. Sadly, a relationship with a narcissist can be one more source of chaos in your life, rather than a place of comfort and consistency.
Ramani Durvasula (Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist)
I release my parents from the feeling that they have already failed me. I release my children from the need to bring pride to me; that they may write their own ways according to their hearts, that whisper all the time in their ears. I release my partner from the obligation to complete myself. I do not lack anything, I learn with all beings all the time. I thank my grandparents and forefathers who have gathered so that I can breathe life today. I release them from past failures and unfulfilled desires, aware that they have done their best to resolve their situations within the consciousness they had at that moment. I honor you, I love you and I recognize you as innocent. I am transparent before your eyes, so they know that I do not hide or owe anything other than being true to myself and to my very existence, that walking with the wisdom of the heart, I am aware that I fulfill my life project, free from invisible and visible family loyalties that might disturb my Peace and Happiness, which are my only responsibilities. I renounce the role of savior, of being one who unites or fulfills the expectations of others. Learning through, and only through, love, I bless my essence, my way of expressing, even though somebody may not understand me. I understand myself, because I alone have lived and experienced my history; because I know myself, I know who I am, what I feel, what I do and why I do it. I respect and approve myself. I honor the Divinity in me and in you. We are free.
Anonymous
I was occupied so entirely by each day, I felt detached from anything so large as a month or a year. History didn't cross my mind. Now it does. Now I know, whatever your burdens, to hold yourself apart from the lot of more powerful men is an illusion. On that awful day in January 1961, Lumumba paid with a life and so did I. On the wings of an owl the fallen Congo came to haunt even our little family, we messengers of goodwill adrift on a sea of mistaken intentions.
Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
Every detective has a certain kind of case that he or she finds almost unbearable, against which the usual shield of practiced professional detachment turns brittle and untrustworthy. Cassie, though nobody else knows this, has nightmares when she works rape-murders; I, displaying a singular lack of originality, have serious trouble with murdered children; and, apparently, family killings gave Sam the heebie-jeebies. This case could turn out to be perfect for all three of us.
Tana French (In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1))
If there is a diamond hidden in some drawer at your home, perhaps you won’t notice until next festive cleaning. If it’s in a hotel room. you will find it immediately after check-in. You are in the illusion that your body, family. home, office etc. are yours. Because of this illusion of ownership, you are missing so many diamonds that God has given you. See everything from the eyes of a guest, not owner.
Shunya
The old gods of revenge, the Furies, who are all women, put the family ahead of all other values; the new gods, mostly men, are for detached universal law that makes no exception for particular individuals, families, or cities.
Hubert L. Dreyfus
This universe is like a company. Being detached doesn’t mean quitting the job. It means being at a position where you do your job and the entire universe seems to be helping you in your job. It doesn’t mean being the CEO or a king. You can have any role and still be in that position. A detached farmer does his job and the entire universe, including the king and the clouds, seem to be working for him and helping him in his job. On the other hand, for an attached king, even his family members work against him.
Shunya
Here is where the rhetoric of modern conservatives (and I say this as one of them) fails to meet the real challenges of their biggest constituents. Instead of encouraging engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers. I have watched some friends blossom into successful adults and others fall victim to the worst of Middletown’s temptations—premature parenthood, drugs, incarceration. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault. My
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
By seeing the person as separate from the disease, by detaching, we can stop being hurt by groundless insults or angered by outrageous lies.
Al-Anon Family Groups (How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics by Al-Anon Family Groups (2008))
Indeed, one of the gifts of genderqueer family making—and animal loving—is the revelation of caretaking as detachable from—and attachable to—any gender, any sentient being.
Maggie Nelson (The Argonauts)
People who have nothing to prove offer practical baby gifts: sturdy cotton rompers made to withstand the cycle of vomit and regular washing. People who are competing for the titles of best-loved aunts and uncles - people like my sisters and me - send satin pants and delicate hand-crafted sweaters accompanied by notes reading "P.S. The fur collar is detachable.
David Sedaris (Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim)
That estrangement, that detachment, that distance allow me to buy, without any qualms and with full awareness of what I'm doing, a pair of shoes whose price in my native land would be enough to feed a family of five for one whole year. The salesperson just has to promise me, You'll walk on air, and I but them. When we're able to float in the air, to separate ourselves from our roots -not only by crossing an ocean and two continents but by distancing ourselves from our condition as stateless refugees, from the empty space of an identity crisis- we can also laugh at whatever might have happened to my acrylic bracelet ...
Kim Thúy (Ru)
She’s wondered with the sort of detached fascination of the comfortable elite how dire the conditions of their lives must be wherever they come from, that this is the better option. That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn’t even want them.
Jeanine Cummins (American Dirt)
She’s donated money. She’s wondered with the sort of detached fascination of the comfortable elite how dire the conditions of their lives must be wherever they come from, that this is the better option. That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn’t even want them.
Jeanine Cummins (American Dirt)
The advantages of a hereditary Monarchy are self-evident. Without some such method of prescriptive, immediate and automatic succession, an interregnum intervenes, rival claimants arise, continuity is interrupted and the magic lost. Even when Parliament had secured control of taxation and therefore of government; even when the menace of dynastic conflicts had receded in to the coloured past; even when kingship had ceased to be transcendental and had become one of many alternative institutional forms; the principle of hereditary Monarchy continued to furnish the State with certain specific and inimitable advantages. Apart from the imponderable, but deeply important, sentiments and affections which congregate around an ancient and legitimate Royal Family, a hereditary Monarch acquires sovereignty by processes which are wholly different from those by which a dictator seizes, or a President is granted, the headship of the State. The King personifies both the past history and the present identity of the Nation as a whole. Consecrated as he is to the service of his peoples, he possesses a religious sanction and is regarded as someone set apart from ordinary mortals. In an epoch of change, he remains the symbol of continuity; in a phase of disintegration, the element of cohesion; in times of mutability, the emblem of permanence. Governments come and go, politicians rise and fall: the Crown is always there. A legitimate Monarch moreover has no need to justify his existence, since he is there by natural right. He is not impelled as usurpers and dictators are impelled, either to mesmerise his people by a succession of dramatic triumphs, or to secure their acquiescence by internal terrorism or by the invention of external dangers. The appeal of hereditary Monarchy is to stability rather than to change, to continuity rather than to experiment, to custom rather than to novelty, to safety rather than to adventure. The Monarch, above all, is neutral. Whatever may be his personal prejudices or affections, he is bound to remain detached from all political parties and to preserve in his own person the equilibrium of the realm. An elected President – whether, as under some constitutions, he be no more than a representative functionary, or whether, as under other constitutions, he be the chief executive – can never inspire the same sense of absolute neutrality. However impartial he may strive to become, he must always remain the prisoner of his own partisan past; he is accompanied by friends and supporters whom he may seek to reward, or faced by former antagonists who will regard him with distrust. He cannot, to an equal extent, serve as the fly-wheel of the State.
Harold Nicholson
If this pattern continues, the child might “toughen up” or detach, ignoring their authentic Self and presenting a false self, which emerges from a core belief that parts of their identity are unacceptable. I see this a lot with my male clients and friends. For some who grew up with the model of toxic hypermasculinity, where men are discouraged or shamed for expressing emotion, even acknowledging that they have an emotional world may be challenging. In cases like these, we’re fighting not just the conditioning of our parent-figures and family unit but society at large.
Nicole LePera (How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self)
You may be attached only to your family members but what's the guarantee that they are not attached to people outside the family? And those outsiders are attached to even more outsiders. This chain of Karmic infection goes on and on. So your fate is linked with an entire beehive. Detach!
Shunya
As with everything, the Old Soul approaches family with a casual, if not detached, attitude. “They can do their thing while I do mine,” is the attitude usually held towards family drama, which the Old Soul is not usually one to take part in. Somehow always on the outskirts quietly looking in, the Old Soul cares about his or her family but does so without becoming too attached to them or their problems. This is not to say that the Old Soul doesn't try to help at all. If anything, they gladly play the part of counselor or adviser to their family members in times of strife.
Aletheia Luna (Old Souls: The Sages and Mystics of Our World.)
Here is where the rhetoric of modern conservatives (and I say this as one of them) fails to meet the real challenges of their biggest constituents. Instead of encouraging engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers.
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
If the boy did have a good and loving mother somewhere, surely they would find her. God only knew how she wanted to believe it. Every single day, she practiced her detachment skills, trying not to care about everything that was wrong with the world. Or rather...to care, but in a suitably civilized manner, with an admirable commitment that might still be set aside when she came home to Morten and her family, complete with well-reasoned and coherent opinions of the humanist persuasion. Right now she felt more like one of those manic women from the animal protection societies, with wild hair and ever wilder eyes. Desperate.
Lene Kaaberbøl (The Boy in the Suitcase (Nina Borg, #1))
To generate an enduring peace, we will each have to continue to make progress as Christ conscious leaders, becoming increasingly aware of our unity with others and expanding our ability to receive Divine Love and be a vehicle for Divine Love. We will each have to detach from any impediments in our tribes, our families, and our own self-will that deter us from a commitment to fulfill God’s purpose in our lives, to do our work, and to continue our lifelong transformation as Christ conscious leaders. And we will have to come to realize that, in partnership with the Eternal Absolute, we each have the power – and the calling – to build the kingdom of God on earth.
Barbara Benjamin (Christ Conscious Leadership)
Separating from Family Issues: January 4 We can draw a healthy line, a healthy boundary, between ourselves and our nuclear family. We can separate ourselves from their issues. Some of us may have family members who are addicted to alcohol and other drugs and who are not in recovery from their addiction. Some of us may have family members who have unresolved codependency issues. Family members may be addicted to misery, pain, suffering, martyrdom, and victimization. We may have family members who have unresolved abuse issues or unresolved family of origin issues. We may have family members who are addicted to work, eating, or sex. Our family may be completely enmeshed, or we may have a disconnected family in which the members have little contact. We may be like our family. We may love our family. But we are separate human beings with individual rights and issues. One of our primary rights is to begin feeling better and recovering, whether or not others in the family choose to do the same. We do not have to feel guilty about finding happiness and a life that works. And we do not have to take on our family’s issues as our own to be loyal and to show we love them. Often when we begin taking care of ourselves, family members will reverberate with overt and covert attempts to pull us back into the old system and roles. We do not have to go. Their attempts to pull us back are their issues. Taking care of ourselves and becoming healthy and happy does not mean we do not love them. It means we’re addressing our issues. We do not have to judge them because they have issues; nor do we have to allow them to do anything they would like to us just because they are family. We are free now, free to take care of ourselves with family members. Our freedom starts when we stop denying their issues, and politely, but assertively, hand their stuff back to them—where it belongs—and deal with our own issues. Today, I will separate myself from family members. I am a separate human being, even though I belong to a unit called a family. I have a right to my own issues and growth; my family members have a right to their issues and a right to choose where and when they will deal with these issues. I can learn to detach in love from my family members and their issues. I am willing to work through all necessary feelings in order to accomplish this.
Melody Beattie (The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency (Hazelden Meditation Series))
It was a very big moment that’s burned into my mind. When I realized that I was smarter than my parents, I felt tremendous shame for having thought that. I will never forget that moment.” This discovery, he later told friends, along with the fact that he was adopted, made him feel apart—detached and separate—from both his family and the world.
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
They made but a single statement and delivered it without emotion, detached from the cruelty their words conveyed. They were ambivalent to his disintegration as a human being. What they said, the only words they uttered, were simple, unambiguous and not open to negotiation. If Kadin wanted to see his family alive again, he had to get out of the car.
Stephen Franks (The Milan Contract)
All three of the English types I have mentioned can, I think, be accounted for as the results of the presence of different cultures, existing side by side in the country, and who were the creation of the folk in ages distantly removed one from another. In a word, they represent specific " strata" of folk-imagination. The most diminutive of all are very probably to be associated with a New Stone Age conception of spirits which haunted burial-mounds and rude stone monuments. We find such tiny spirits haunting the great stone circles of Brittany. The "Small People," or diminutive fairies of Cornwall, says Hunt, are believed to be "the spirits of people who inhabited Cornwall many thousands of years ago. "The spriggans, of the same area, are a minute and hirsute family of fairies" found only about the cairns, cromlechs, barrows, or detached stones, with which it is unlucky to meddle." Of these, the tiny fairies of Shakespeare, Drayton, and the Elizabethans appear to me to be the later representatives. The latter are certainly not the creation of seventeenth-century poets, as has been stated, but of the aboriginal folk of Britain.
Lewis Spence (British Fairy Origins)
Often children who survive extremely adverse childhoods have learned a particular survival strategy. I call it ‘strategic detachment.’ This is not the withdrawal from reality that leads to psychological disturbance, but an intuitively calibrated disengagement from noxious aspects of their family life or other aspects of their world. They some how know, This is not all there is. They hold the belief that a better alternative exists somewhere and that someday they will find their way to it. They persevere in that idea. They somehow know Mother is not all women, Father is not all men, this family does not exhaust the possibilities of human relationships-there is life beyond this neighborhood. This does not spare them suffering in the present, but it allows them not to be destroyed by it. Their strategic detachment does not guarantee that they will never know feelings of powerlessness, but it helps them not to be stuck there.
Nathaniel Branden
Being a Sponsor is as much a commitment to myself as it is to someone else. It is not a favor. Sponsorship gives me a chance to share intimately, to care, to practice detaching with love, and to apply the Al-Anon principles more consciously than ever. And, if I listen to my own words, I find that I usually tell those whom I sponsor exactly what I myself need to hear. “Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Al-Anon Family Groups (Courage to Change—One Day at a Time in Al‑Anon II)
When the idea first occurred to her as she squatted in the shade of the Oficina Central del Registro Civil, it occurred as camouflage: they could disguise themselves as migrants. But now that she’s sitting in this quiet library with her son and their stuffed backpacks, like a thunderclap, Lydia understands that it’s not a disguise at all. She and Luca are actual migrants. That is what they are. And that simple fact, among all the other severe new realities of her life, knocks the breath clean out of her lungs. All her life she’s pitied those poor people. She’s donated money. She’s wondered with the sort of detached fascination of the comfortable elite how dire the conditions of their lives must be wherever they come from, that this is the better option. That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn’t even want them.
Jeanine Cummins (American Dirt)
Communal narcissists may seem like they care very much about people facing challenges around the world—and be the first to jump on a flight to dig a well or help hurricane victims—but, in their own life, they can have all of the usual narcissistic relationship patterns, including detachment, lack of empathy, entitlement, and anger. This juxtaposition can be very confusing for partners, family, and friends, who see these people being viewed by the world as the great givers, yet, at home, they are anything but.
Ramani S. Durvasula ("Don't You Know Who I Am?": How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility)
Mother's intentions were always sound, never muddy; I don't imagine that she troubled herself to feel very guilty. But the Rev. Mr. Merrill was a man who took to wallowing in guilt; his remorse, after all, was all he had to cling to-especially after his scant courage left him, and he was forced to acknowledge that he would never be brave enough to abandon his miserable wife and children for my mother. He would continue to torture himself, of course, with the insistent and self-destructive notion that he loved my mother. I suppose that his "love" of my mother was as intellectually detached from feeling and action as his "belief" was also subject to his immense capacity for remote and unrealistic interpretation. My mother was a healthier animal; when he said he wouldn't leave his family for her, she simply put him out of her mind and went on singing. But as incapable as he was of a heartfelt response to a real situation, the Rev. Mr. Merrill was tirelessly capable of thinking; he pondered and brooded and surmised and second-guessed my mother to death.
John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany)
My dear nephew was only in his sixth year when I came to be detached from the family circle. But this did not hinder John and I from remaining the most affectionate friends, and many a half or whole holiday he was allowed to spend with me, was dedicated to making experiments in chemistry, where generally all boxes, tops of tea-canisters, pepper-boxes, teacups, &c., served for the necessary vessels, and the sand-tub furnished the matter to be analysed. I only had to take care to exclude water, which would have produced havoc on my carpet.
Caroline Herschel (Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel)
This mix of coldness and warmth produced in Einstein a wry detachment as he floated through the human aspects of his world. “My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and communities,” he reflected. “I am truly a ‘lone traveler’ and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude.
Walter Isaacson (Einstein: His Life and Universe)
The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by a manoeuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene. Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of "Lord, how tired I am!" accompanied by a violent yawn.
Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
This isn’t some libertarian mistrust of government policy, which is healthy in any democracy. This is deep skepticism of the very institutions of our society. And it’s becoming more and more mainstream. We can’t trust the evening news. We can’t trust our politicians. Our universities, the gateway to a better life, are rigged against us. We can’t get jobs. You can’t believe these things and participate meaningfully in society. Social psychologists have shown that group belief is a powerful motivator in performance. When groups perceive that it’s in their interest to work hard and achieve things, members of that group outperform other similarly situated individuals. It’s obvious why: If you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all? Similarly, when people do fail, this mind-set allows them to look outward. I once ran into an old acquaintance at a Middletown bar who told me that he had recently quit his job because he was sick of waking up early. I later saw him complaining on Facebook about the “Obama economy” and how it had affected his life. I don’t doubt that the Obama economy has affected many, but this man is assuredly not among them. His status in life is directly attributable to the choices he’s made, and his life will improve only through better decisions. But for him to make better choices, he needs to live in an environment that forces him to ask tough questions about himself. There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day. Here is where the rhetoric of modern conservatives (and I say this as one of them) fails to meet the real challenges of their biggest constituents. Instead of encouraging engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers. I have watched some friends blossom into successful adults and others fall victim to the worst of Middletown’s temptations—premature parenthood, drugs, incarceration. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault. My dad, for example, has never disparaged hard work, but he mistrusts some of the most obvious paths to upward mobility. When
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
another hospice worker—another of the amazing women that Charlie had seen in the homes of the dying, helping to deliver them into the next world with as much comfort and dignity and even joy as they could gather—benevolent Valkyries, midwives of the final light, they were—and as Charlie watched them at work, he saw that rather than become detached from, or callous to their job, they became involved with every patient and every family. They were present. He’d seen them grieve with a hundred different families, taking part in an intensity of emotion that most people would feel only a few times in their lives.
Christopher Moore (A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1))
Many years ago I developed a theory of mutual exclusivity. I had observed in my own life that either God solved a problem or I solved the problem but both God and I did not work on the same problem at the same time. If I decided to solve it then God had better things to do than to help me. If I decided to turn the problem over to God then God would resolve the issue. When I refer to my solving the problem, I am referring to taking wilful action and deciding what the correct resolution is. If my family needs food, go out and work to earn money and feed them. There is a great difference between detachment and doing nothing.
Heather Cardin (The Bright Glass of the Heart: Elder Voices on Faith)
I couldn’t hide my sadness in Waco. Partly because the holidays always made me miss Sarah, especially when I was with her brother and parents. But I was also starting to feel detached from my real life, and seeing my extended family perform for the cameras made me realize how much I was playing a part. Nowadays, I see so many people performing their identities on social media, but I feel like I was a guinea pig for that. How was I supposed to live a real, healthy life filtered through the lens of a reality show? If my personal life was my work, and my work required me to play a certain role, who even was I anymore? I had no idea who I really was.
Jessica Simpson (Open Book)
Self-acceptance becomes the way to God. Not that an inner voice coos reassuring words, or that a new spiritual family is sought out. When Jesus says to his followers that they must die, he is referring to a state of inner detachment. It isn’t a cold, heartless detachment but a kind of expansion that no longer needs to distinguish between me and you, yours and mine, what I want and what you want. Such dualities make perfect sense to the ego, yet in stage four the goal is to get beyond boundaries. If that involves giving up the old support systems, the person willingly pays the price. The soul journey is guided by an inner passion that demands its own fulfillment.
Deepak Chopra (How to Know God: The Soul's Journey Into the Mystery of Mysteries)
She and Luca are actual migrants. That is what they are. And that simple fact, among all the other severe new realities of her life, knocks the breath clean out of her lungs. All her life she’s pitied those poor people. She’s donated money. She’s wondered with the sort of detached fascination of the comfortable elite how dire the conditions of their lives must be wherever they come from, that this is the better option. That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn’t even want them.
Jeanine Cummins (American Dirt)
the soul has also to relinquish not only its tie and its gain through contact with the personal self, but it has [105] most definitely to relinquish its tie with other personal selves. It must learn to know and to meet other people only on the plane of the soul. In this lies for many a disciple a hard lesson. They may care little for themselves and may have learnt much personal detachment. Little may they cherish the gain of contact with the lower personal self. They are learning to transcend all that, and may have transcended to a great degree, but their love for their children, their family, their friends and intimates is for them of supreme importance and that love holds them prisoners in the lower worlds.
Alice A. Bailey (Esoteric Psychology, Volume II (A Treatise on the Seven Rays Book 2))
Later in the ceremony, Churchill rose and gave an impromptu speech. “Many of those here today have been all night at their posts,” he said, “and all have been under the fire of the enemy in heavy and protracted bombardment. That you should gather in this way is a mark of fortitude and phlegm, of a courage and detachment from material affairs worthy of all that we have learned to believe of Ancient Rome or of modern Greece.” He told the audience that he tried to get away from “headquarters” as much as possible to visit bombed areas, “and I see the damage done by the enemy attacks; but I also see side by side with the devastation and amid the ruins quiet, confident, bright and smiling eyes, beaming with a consciousness of being associated with a cause
Erik Larson (The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz)
Under those conditions, chronic stress becomes so common that it seems normal. Individuals use denial and repression to protect the ego from disintegration. Living with both the constant unpredictability of the alcoholic parent and the detachment and/or anxiety of the codependent parent is difficult enough for an adult who has a fully developed defense system. For a child, surviving the regular assault of trauma requires massive amounts of energy. This puts the normal developmental process on hold; there is no energy left to invest in development. While other children are learning to play, to trust, to self-soothe, and to make decisions, children in addicted families are learning to survive. The end result is a child who often feels thirty years old at five and five years old at thirty.
Jane Middelton-Moz (After the Tears: Helping Adult Children of Alcoholics Heal Their Childhood Trauma)
operative risk, it was the best kind of tumor to have, and the best place to have it; surgery would almost certainly eliminate her seizures. The alternative was a lifetime on toxic antiseizure medications. But I could see that the idea of brain surgery terrified her, more than most. She was lonesome and in a strange place, having been swept out of the familiar hubbub of a shopping mall and into the alien beeps and alarms and antiseptic smells of an ICU. She would likely refuse surgery if I launched into a detached spiel detailing all the risks and possible complications. I could do so, document her refusal in the chart, consider my duty discharged, and move on to the next task. Instead, with her permission, I gathered her family with her, and together we calmly talked through the options. As we talked, I could see the enormousness of the choice she faced dwindle into a difficult but understandable decision. I had met her in a space where she was a person, instead of a problem to be solved. She chose surgery.
Paul Kalanithi (When Breath Becomes Air)
He lavished on me a friendliness which was as far above that of Saint-Loup as that was above the affability of a mere tradesman. Compared with that of a great artist, the friendliness of a great gentleman, charming as it may be, has the effect of an actor’s playing a part, of being feigned. Saint-Loup sought to please; Elstir loved to give, to give himself. Everything that he possessed, ideas, work, and the rest which he counted for far less, he would have given gladly to anyone who could understand him. But, failing society that was endurable, he lived in an isolation, with a savagery which fashionable people called pose and ill-breeding, public authorities a recalcitrant spirit, his neighbours madness, his family selfishness and pride. And no doubt at first he had thought, even in his solitude, with enjoyment that, thanks to his work, he was addressing, in spite of distance, he was giving a loftier idea of himself, to those who had misunderstood or hurt him. Perhaps, in those days, he lived alone not from indifference but from love of his fellows, and, just as I had renounced Gilberte to appear to her again one day in more attractive colours, dedicated his work to certain people as a way of approaching them again, by which without actually seeing him they would be made to love him, admire him, talk about him; a renunciation is not always complete from the start, when we decide upon it in our original frame of mind and before it has reacted upon us, whether it be the renunciation of an invalid, a monk, an artist or a hero. But if he had wished to produce with certain people in his mind, in producing he had lived for himself, remote from the society to which he had become indifferent; the practice of solitude had given him a love for it, as happens with every big thing which we have begun by fearing, because we knew it to be incompatible with smaller things to which we clung, and of which it does not so much deprive us as it detaches us from them. Before we experience it, our whole preoccupation is to know to what extent we can reconcile it with certain pleasures which cease to be pleasures as soon as we have experienced it.
Marcel Proust (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)
point. We work on the principle that behavior reflects personality and generally divide the profiling process into seven steps: 1. Evaluation of the criminal act itself. 2. Comprehensive evaluation of the specifics of the crime scene or scenes. 3. Comprehensive analysis of the victim or victims. 4. Evaluation of preliminary police reports. 5. Evaluation of the medical examiner’s autopsy protocol. 6. Development of a profile with critical offender characteristics. 7. Investigative suggestions predicated on construction of the profile. As the final step indicates, offering a profile of an offender is often only the beginning of the service we offer. The next level is to consult with local investigators and suggest proactive strategies they might use to force the UNSUB’s hand— to get him to make a move. In cases of this nature we try to stand off at a distance and detach ourselves, but we still may be thrust right into the middle of the investigation. This may involve meeting with the family of a murdered child, coaching family members how to handle taunting phone calls from the killer describing how the child died, even trying to use a sibling as bait in an effort to lure the killer to a particular place.
John E. Douglas (Journey Into Darkness (Mindhunter #2))
The Savior came and is coming again, but our healing is in his hands, not our own. If our Savior chose to enter the human story in a human body, then we should enter one another’s places of suffering remembering we carry and extend the presence of Christ. Sin is any Christian’s response to pain, poverty, and weakness that assumes they are individual problems to solve rather than places to patiently embody the solidarity of Jesus. When we reduce pain to an individual problem, we don’t know what to do with ourselves and our stories. In an increasingly individualistic society, where the space between self, tradition, and our embodied connection to each other feels wide, suffering can be a massive assault to our sense of self and our ability to hope. We become lost in a chasm of overspiritualized pain and undervalued physicality, not knowing where our lives fit alongside a Christianity glittering with the veneer of abundance. Already exhausted, we sink under the weight of existing as an aberration of the abundant life our Christian friends and families want us to project. Defeated and lonely, many of us subconsciously attempt to detach from the grief in our bodies, excising it from our minds to feel accepted in the community of the able and successful. We push pain away with effort, pretending to be okay among the shiny, smiling faces at church or work. For if we were honest about how sad or sick or hopeless we really feel, would we be accepted at all?
K.J. Ramsey (This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers)
Happy Shree Krishna Janmastami. Shree Krishna has 16 kalas and Ram has 12 Kalas, Ram hide 2 kalas because he killed Ravan. Buddha has 9 Kalas and Shreeom Surye Shiva has 25 Kalas. We all are one world human family even though we must tell the truth knowledge for the peaceful and better world. Name of the Kalas of Shreeom Surye Shiva 1. Kirpa – Compassion 2. Dhriti – Spiritual patience 3. Kshama – Forgiveness 4. Dandaneethi – Justice 5. Samatwa – Impartiality 6. Bhagamalini Dharma – Detachment, lordliness , righteousness , glory , beauty , omniscience. 7. Tapasya – Meditation and piritual powers 8. Jvalita – Invincibility possible 9. Samaah – Beneficience, bestower of all wealth in the world and nature. 10. Saundarjyamaya Aatma – Very beautiful soul 11. Kumaarii Sansaara – Best of miss world and Mr. world 12. Sangitajna – Best of singers 13. Neetibadi – Embodiment of honesty 14. Satyabadi – Truth itself 15. Sarvagnata – Perfect master of all intellengence. 16. Sarvaniyanta – Controller of all 17. Duhkhajihasa- Wish to avoid pain and sarrow as well as stress and axiety 18. Svasanvedana Gyaana- Understanding the noble knowledge 19. Gyaana and Achara- Knowledge and conduct 20. Nyaayyam Padani- Choosing the right and good words 21. Budhdhvaa Srishhtii - Knowing about the world 22. Guruha Samadhi- Best Guru who can lead in to the enlightenment 23. Guruha-deva-manussanam, Gurus of Devis and Devtas and existence of the world. 24. Siddhanta, Arambha-vada - The perfect for every existence, subject and object. 25. Bhaagadheya- the best fortune
Shreeom Surye shiva devkota
In Separation, the second volume of his great trilogy on attachment, John Bowlby described what had been observed when ten small children in residential nurseries were reunited with their mothers after separations lasting from twelve days to twenty-one weeks. The separations were in every case due to family emergencies and the absence of other caregivers, and in no case due to any intent on the parents’ part to abandon the child. In the first few days following the mother's departure the children were anxious, looking everywhere for the missing parent. That phase was followed by apparent resignation, even depression on the part of the child, to be replaced by what seemed like the return of normalcy. The children would begin to play, react to caregivers, accept food and other nurturing. The true emotional cost of the trauma of loss became evident only when the mothers returned. On meeting the mother for the first time after the days or weeks away, every one of the ten children showed significant alienation. Two seemed not to recognize their mothers. The other eight turned away or even walked away from her. Most of them either cried or came close to tears; a number alternated between a tearful and an expressionless face. The withdrawal dynamic has been called “detachment” by John Bowlby. Such detachment has a defensive purpose. It has one meaning: so hurtful was it for me to experience your absence that to avoid such pain again, I will encase myself in a shell of hardened emotion, impervious to love — and therefore to pain. I never want to feel that hurt again. Bowlby also pointed out that the parent may be physically present but emotionally absent owing to stress, anxiety, depression, or preoccupation with other matters. From the point of view of the child, it hardly matters. His encoded reactions will be the same, because for him the real issue is not merely the parent's physical presence but her or his emotional accessibility. A child who suffers much insecurity in his relationship with his parents will adopt the invulnerability of defensive detachment as his primary way of being. When parents are the child's working attachment, their love and sense of responsibility will usually ensure that they do not force the child into adopting such desperate measures. Peers have no such awareness, no such compunctions, and no such responsibility. The threat of abandonment is ever present in peer-oriented interactions, and it is with emotional detachment that children automatically respond. No wonder, then, that cool is the governing ethic in peer culture, the ultimate virtue. Although the word cool has many meanings, it predominately connotes an air of invulnerability. Where peer orientation is intense, there is no sign of vulnerability in the talk, in the walk, in the dress, or in the attitudes.
Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
Another common form of mental illness is bipolar disorder, in which a person suffers from extreme bouts of wild, delusional optimism, followed by a crash and then periods of deep depression. Bipolar disorder also seems to run in families and, curiously, strikes frequently in artists; perhaps their great works of art were created during bursts of creativity and optimism. A list of creative people who were afflicted by bipolar disorder reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood celebrities, musicians, artists, and writers. Although the drug lithium seems to control many of the symptoms of bipolar disorder, the causes are not entirely clear. One theory states that bipolar disorder may be caused by an imbalance between the left and right hemispheres. Dr. Michael Sweeney notes, “Brain scans have led researchers to generally assign negative emotions such as sadness to the right hemisphere and positive emotions such as joy to the left hemisphere. For at least a century, neuroscientists have noticed a link between damage to the brain’s left hemisphere and negative moods, including depression and uncontrollable crying. Damage to the right, however, has been associated with a broad array of positive emotions.” So the left hemisphere, which is analytical and controls language, tends to become manic if left to itself. The right hemisphere, on the contrary, is holistic and tends to check this mania. Dr. V. S. Ramachandran writes, “If left unchecked, the left hemisphere would likely render a person delusional or manic.… So it seems reasonable to postulate a ‘devil’s advocate’ in the right hemisphere that allows ‘you’ to adopt a detached, objective (allocentric) view of yourself.” If human consciousness involves simulating the future, it has to compute the outcomes of future events with certain probabilities. It needs, therefore, a delicate balance between optimism and pessimism to estimate the chances of success or failures for certain courses of action. But in some sense, depression is the price we pay for being able to simulate the future. Our consciousness has the ability to conjure up all sorts of horrific outcomes for the future, and is therefore aware of all the bad things that could happen, even if they are not realistic. It is hard to verify many of these theories, since brain scans of people who are clinically depressed indicate that many brain areas are affected. It is difficult to pinpoint the source of the problem, but among the clinically depressed, activity in the parietal and temporal lobes seems to be suppressed, perhaps indicating that the person is withdrawn from the outside world and living in their own internal world. In particular, the ventromedial cortex seems to play an important role. This area apparently creates the feeling that there is a sense of meaning and wholeness to the world, so that everything seems to have a purpose. Overactivity in this area can cause mania, in which people think they are omnipotent. Underactivity in this area is associated with depression and the feeling that life is pointless. So it is possible that a defect in this area may be responsible for some mood swings.
Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)
A knock at the enameled door of the carriage altered them to the presence of a porter and a platform inspector just outside. Sebastian looked up and handed the baby back to Evie. He went to speak to the men. After a minute or two, he came back from the threshold with a basket. Looking both perturbed and amused, he brought it to Phoebe. “This was delivered to the station for you.” “Just now?” Phoebe asked with a nonplussed laugh. “Why, I believe it’s Ernestine’s mending basket! Don’t say the Ravenels went to the trouble of sending someone all the way to Alton to return it?” “It’s not empty,” her father said. As he set the basket in her lap, it quivered and rustled, and a blood-curdling yowl emerged. Astonished, Phoebe fumbled with the latch on the lid and opened it. The black cat sprang out and crawled frantically up her front, clinging to her shoulder with such ferocity that nothing could have detached her claws. “Galoshes!” Justin exclaimed, hurrying over to her. “Gosh-gosh!” Stephen cried in excitement. Phoebe stroked the frantic cat and tried to calm her. “Galoshes, how . . . why are you . . . oh, this is Mr. Ravenel’s doing! I’m going to murder him. You poor little thing.” Justin came to stand beside her, running his hands over the dusty, bedraggled feline. “Are we going to keep her now, Mama?” “I don’t think we have a choice,” Phoebe said distractedly. “Ivo, will you go with Justin to the dining compartment, and fetch her some food and water?” The two boys dashed off immediately. “Why has he done this?” Phoebe fretted. “He probably couldn’t make her stay at the barn, either. But she’s not meant to be a pet. She’s sure to run off as soon as we reach home.” Resuming his seat next to Evie, Sebastian said dryly, “Redbird, I doubt that creature will stray more than an arm’s length from you.” Discovering a note in the mending basket, Phoebe plucked it out and unfolded it. She instantly recognized West’s handwriting. Unemployed Feline Seeking Household Position To Whom It May Concern, I hereby offer my services as an experienced mouser and personal companion. References from a reputable family to be provided upon request. Willing to accept room and board in lieu of pay. Indoor lodgings preferred. Your servant, Galoshes the Cat Glancing up from the note, Phoebe found her parents’ questioning gazes on her. “Job application,” she explained sourly. “From the cat.” “How charming,” Seraphina exclaimed, reading over her shoulder. “‘Personal companion,’ my foot,” Phoebe muttered. “This is a semi-feral animal who has lived in outbuildings and fed on vermin.” “I wonder,” Seraphina said thoughtfully. “If she were truly feral, she wouldn’t want any contact with humans. With time and patience, she might become domesticated.” Phoebe rolled her eyes. “It seems we’ll find out.” The boys returned from the dining car with a bowl of water and a tray of refreshments. Galoshes descended to the floor long enough to devour a boiled egg, an anchovy canapé, and a spoonful of black caviar from a silver dish on ice. Licking her lips and purring, the cat jumped back into Phoebe’s lap and curled up with a sigh.
Lisa Kleypas (Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels, #5))
forward, gathering speed. As they reached the barrier, Albus winced, but no collision came. Instead, the family emerged onto platform nine and three-quarters, which was obscured by thick white steam that was pouring from the scarlet Hogwarts Express. Indistinct figures were swarming through the mist, into which James had already disappeared. “Where are they?” asked Albus anxiously, peering at the hazy forms they passed as they made their way down the platform. “We’ll find them,” said Ginny reassuringly. But the vapor was dense, and it was difficult to make out anybody’s faces. Detached from their owners, voices sounded unnaturally loud. Harry thought he heard Percy discoursing loudly on broomstick regulations, and was quite glad of the excuse not to stop and say hello. …
Anonymous
Monastic spirituality concentrated on private disciplines, as if detaching oneself from "the world" (i.e. society) might make one holier. Anabaptist piety was similar in that regard. However, Calvin thought of sanctification as a family affair. How could one learn loving humility, patience, wisdom, and forgiveness in isolation from others?
Michael S. Horton (Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever)
In the early days of America’s democracy, education and literacy were the prerequisites for establishing a connection to the body politic. In a world where communication was dominated by the printed word, those who learned to read also learned to write. Gaining the ability to receive ideas was automatically accompanied by the ability to send ideas, expressing your own thoughts in the same medium through which you took in the thoughts of others. The connection, once established, was two-way. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The art of printing secures us against the retrogradation of reason and information.” In practice, the use of the printing press was mainly by the elites in America’s early decades, and the scurrilous, vitriolic attacks of that age certainly rivaled the worst of any modern political attacks. Nevertheless, the easy accessibility to the printed word opened up avenues of participation in the dialogue of democracy for people like Thomas Paine, who had neither family wealth nor political influence—other than what he gained with the eloquence of his writing. The age of printed pamphlets and political essays has long since been replaced by television—a distracting and absorbing medium that seems determined to entertain and sell more than it informs and educates. If the information and opinions made available in the marketplace of ideas come only from those with enough money to pay a steep price of admission, then all of those citizens whose opinions cannot be expressed in a meaningful way are in danger of learning that they are powerless as citizens and have no influence over the course of events in our democracy—and that their only appropriate posture is detachment, frustration, or anger.
Al Gore (The Assault on Reason)
Because you have done all that skill could devise to present a detached case, and failed. Because you are asking for help, and you hate asking for help. [...] This may be,’ said Richard with unexpected wry humour, ‘a crusade conducted by the Culter family solo in a band of dissentients, but I am with you.
Dorothy Dunnett (The Disorderly Knights (The Lymond Chronicles, #3))
Her head swung around as if it had become detached from her spine. “My God! Your brother is HOT!” Calista shook her head and looped an arm around the woman’s waist. “Yes, he is. I’ll be sure to tell my family you thought so.” “It doesn’t count when they’re drunk. House rule,” I complained.
Ashlan Thomas (To Fall (The To Fall Trilogy #1))
I wanted to be a doctor because my grandfather was a doctor. But the deal was sealed while he was dying of a rare form of bone cancer. He was in unbearable pain. The only thing that we could do was to try to make him as comfortable as possible and wait until it was time for him to go. During his battle, he was treated by one of the best oncologists in the nation. He was very good at what he did, but he was so desensitized and dehumanized. He spoke to us like he was a robot, just there to deliver news. He was so cold. I know he was there to do his job and treat his patients, but I would never want anyone to have to deal with a doctor like that if I could help it. To be that detached from my patients and their families is foreign to me. Sometimes, you have to let them see that you sympathize and empathize to really show that you care and did all that you could do to help their loved one.” We
Shakara Cannon (This Can't be Life)
Detachment allows us to let go of our obsession with another’s behavior and begin to lead happier and more manageable lives, lives with dignity and rights, lives guided by a Power greater than ourselves.
Al-Anon Family Groups (Courage to Change—One Day at a Time in Al‑Anon II)
It has been my hope that now, without more war, we can learn from history that we are more than one side or the other. The unresolved suffering caused by hurt and its result, unrelenting retaliation, can only dissolve by detachment from one role or the other. Perennial spiritual wisdom teaches the same principle: detach from this world, this person, her successes, and failures. Until now, such detachment meant nonviolence and the transcendence of the material plane. Now detachment can have another meaning. Detachment must no longer lead to disinterest in and disconnection from the world, but to a new kind of immersion in the Dreaming. This kind of immersion in conflicts, coupled with appreciation of all sides, can replace transcendence as a goal.
Arnold Mindell (The Deep Democracy of Open Forums: Practical Steps to Conflict Prevention and Resolution for the Family, Workplace, and World)
In the last 15 years, German cities including Freiburg, Tübingen, Hamburg, and Berlin have developed cooperative building programs called “Baugemeinschaft” or “Baugruppen.” This is a development model that allows the future owners to become the developers. By developing buildings individually, plot by plot, a diverse, high-quality, and more affordable building stock is possible. The Baugemeinschaft approach bridges the individual and private needs of residents and their common and social needs. Seldom do urban dwellings respond to the needs of an active and growing family. Often, the only way to have a home designed to your own specification, is to find a site outside of the city and build a detached house. Designing your own home in an urban setting is often only an option for the wealthy. New apartments offer some choices, but they are limited to things such as bathroom tiles and kitchen cabinets. The idea of being able to influence the design of your own urban home, including the dimensions, layout, heating system, and insulation is extremely interesting.
David Sim (Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life)
I'm a part of a package and in every way this makes me a better person and it makes what I bring to the table in a relationship whether in business, ministry, or my personal life far more extensive than if you only got detached little me.
Jeremy Pryor (Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family)
detach with love Some family members practice detaching with love, a concept promoted by Al-Anon,
Paul T. Mason (Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder)
Adopting Compensatory Cheerfulness Especially when their parents are depressed or emotionally flat, internalizing children may take on a cheerful, lighthearted role, trying to bring happiness and liveliness into an otherwise somber family climate. With their liveliness and good sense of humor, they help others feel that things aren’t so bad. One woman described playing such a role this way: “I was always the happy one. For example, during the holidays I’d be the one saying, ‘Let’s put the decorations up!’ I did it because people in my family were so detached and unenthusiastic. I now realize I was looking for a connection.” She was doing a lot of emotional work to get her family to be excited with her, even if
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
Food, sex, drug, or alcohol addictions • Relationship failures • Abuse of any kind • Religious frustration and/or anger • Emotional detachment
Rebecca Linder Hintze (Healing Your Family History: 5 Steps to Break Free of Destructive Patterns)
Bouncing from one family to the next during her formative years, she sometimes felt detached from her heritage.
Isabella Maldonado (The Cipher (Nina Guerrera, #1))
We live in a time when everyone must bear arms on behalf of something on the outside of them that moves on the inside of their hearts. We no longer live in an era where peace was equivalent to detachment. Peace thanks to detachment is just an unwillingness to commit to being alive. That era is over. Peace by means of invalidation is over. Peace through the validation of what is essential to others, is the only way through this now. I validate you, you validate me, we validate each other, we are attached to each other. Peace through the acknowledgement of what is human. This is the way forward. "Invalidation" is an act of tyranny that is carried out daily at the personal level, between friends, family, lovers, co-workers, etc. It is the easiest and most prevalent form of "little tyrannies" that are enacted upon, and are carried out every day. Invalidating another's experience, feeling, thought, action, by making it seem irrelevant or small, is cowardice, and at the root of it is a fear of living life beyond your own borders. We talk about national borders all the time, when in reality, it's the borders that we place between ourselves and the people close to us, that take profound effect in human lives, on the daily. There is even a spiritual movement in the New Age group that focuses so much on putting up borders, that these borders are simply passive aggressive behaviours designed to pamper a person in their own preconceived or misconceived bubbles. The borders are old and that era is over. Peace in this new era is not about sitting on top of a rock in alienation to gain a selfish version of peace. Peace, in our new era now, is about the realisation that peace for all is peace for one! We now bear arms for battles happening beyond our own little worlds because this is what it means to be the new human.
C. JoyBell C.
The culture of true-crime fandom felt like it flattened crime into entertainment, using other people’s fear and trauma to deal with a sense of bodily vulnerability. I understood the power that comes from bringing yourself to the edge of what you’re most afraid of, but I worried that inhaling stories about death at that clip required a detachment from the people who were killed and the families that were grieving. There’s a responsibility to the dead as well as the living.
Becky Cooper (We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence)
God created us as social, relational persons. Yet the current way of life in developed countries is greatly reducing the quantity and quality of our relationships. When you add the high degree of mobility, the strong sense of individualism, and the decreased opportunities for informal public life, isolation and loneliness become increasingly common. According to one recent study, 40% of adults between the ages of 45 and 49 said they were lonely, a rate of loneliness that has doubled since the 1980s. Based on a 2004 study, one in four Americans said they had no one whom they could talk to about personal troubles. If family members were not counted, that number doubled. More than half of those surveyed had no one outside their immediate family with whom they could share important issues. In short, we have fewer people to lean on. In nearly every American setting, people are living relationally impoverished lives marked by a sense of isolation. Far too many people are lonely and alone. This issue of isolation is compounded by a sense of detachment from place. In a highly mobile society, people rarely feel rooted geographically. We live as nomads, both figuratively and literally.
Lance Ford (Next Door as It Is in Heaven: Living Out God's Kingdom in Your Neighborhood)
Beatrix kept pace easily with Christopher as they headed toward the forest. It nagged at him to have someone else holding Albert’s leash. Beatrix’s assertiveness was like a pebble lodged in the toe of his shoe. And yet when she was near, it was impossible to feel detached from his surroundings. She had a knack of keeping him anchored in the present. He couldn’t stop watching how her legs and hips moved in those breeches. What was her family thinking, to allow her to dress this way? Even in private it was unacceptable. A humorless smile curved his lips as he reflected that he had at least one thing in common with Beatrix Hathaway--neither of them was in step with the rest of the world. The difference was that he wanted to be. It had been so easy for him, before the war. He had always known the right thing to do or say. Now the prospect of reentering polite society seemed rather like playing a game in which he had forgotten the rules.
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
What do you know of Lord Lionel Honiton?” She lobbed the question at him in retaliation for his peremptory tone, also because he’d give her an honest answer. “I know he’s vain as a peacock, but other than that, probably no more given to vice than most of his confreres.” This was said with such studied detachment, Louisa’s curiosity was piqued. “Many young men are vain. Lionel is an attractive man.” “Perhaps, but you are equally attractive, Louisa Windham, more attractive because you neither drape yourself in jewels nor flaunt your attributes with cosmetics, and I don’t see you lording it over the ladies less endowed than you are.” He was presuming to scold her, and yet Louisa couldn’t help feeling a backhanded sort of pleasure at the implied compliment. “Beauty fades,” Louisa said. “All beauty. If Lord Lionel is vain, time will see him disabused of his beauty soon enough.” Unbidden, the memory of Sir Joseph reciting Shakespeare came to Louisa’s mind: “That time of year thou mayst in me behold, when yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang on boughs which shake against the cold…” “So it will.” Sir Joseph held back a branch for Louisa to pass. “While yours will never desert you.” “Are you attempting flattery before breakfast, Sir Joseph?” His lips quirked up at her question, a fleeting, blink-and-she’d-miss-it suggestion of humor. “I am constitutionally incapable of flattery. You are honest, Louisa Windham, loyal to your family, and possessed of sufficient courage to endure many more social Seasons than I’ve weathered. To a man who understands what matters most, those attributes grow not less attractive over time, but more.
Grace Burrowes (Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight (The Duke's Daughters, #3; Windham, #6))
Seriously protecting yourself calls for the annihilation of ties with society, ties that most people need the way they need oxygen. You give up friends, family, romance. You walk through the world like a ghost, detached from the living around you. If you were to die in, say, a bus accident, you’d wind up buried in an obscure municipal graveyard, just another John Doe, no flowers, no mourners, hell, no mourning. It’s natural, probably even desirable, to be afraid of all this.
Barry Eisler (A Lonely Resurrection (John Rain #2))
And it seems there is such a grand murder in the paper–you must find it and read it to me, girls; a whole family poisoned by the father–just think of John poisoning us at breakfast, or, indeed, of his meddling with my tea-pot; and Lord Chester and Dr. Ayscough said such clever things about poisons; I thought I would remember them for fear of accidents; but I am not quite certain whether I have not forgotten part. However, I know it is not wholesome to take strychnine in any great quantity, so mind that, girls; arsenic, which is very apt to get into puddings and gruel, should be avoided, and you should take something after it, if you do swallow any–but I forget what. It was really very interesting, and I like a good murder that can't be found out; that is, of course, it is very shocking, but I like to hear about it.
Emily Eden (The Semi-Detached House)
Well, if Helen were not one of that family, I should not dislike her. She is civil enough, and promised to show the girls her trousseau; but she is altered too. I think her looking dreadfully old, Mr. Douglas." "Old at eighteen, Anne! what wrinkled wretches we must be! Has Helen grown gray?" "No; but you know what I mean: she looks so set-up, so fashioned. In short, it does not signify, but she is altered." Mr. Douglas had his suspicions that Helen must have been looking beautiful, since even his wife could not detect, or at least specify, the faults that were to be found in her appearance. He had seldom seen her so much at fault for a criticism. Mrs. Douglas had never had the slightest pretensions to good looks; in fact, though it is wrong to say anything so ill-natured, she was excessively plain, always had been so, and had a soreness on the subject of beauty, that looked perhaps as like envy as any other quality.
Emily Eden (The Semi-Detached House)
They’ve gone, love. Stay a moment more. There’s nothing to be gained by haste at this point, and we need to sort this out before we face your family.” Love? Now he called her love? “Let me go. I can’t breathe…” She tried to wrestle free, but he had his hand on the back of her head, his arm around her back. Out in the hallway, the front door didn’t close; it banged shut with the impact of a rifle shot ricocheting through the house… and through the rest of Eve’s blighted, miserable life. “Mama slammed that door, Lucas Denning. Her Grace, the Duchess of Moreland, slammed a door, because of me, because of my stupid, selfish, useless, greedy, stupid, asinine…” There were not words to describe the depth of the betrayal she’d just handed her family. She collapsed against Deene’s chest, misery a dry, scraping ache in her throat. “Eve, many couples anticipate their vows, even a few couples closely associated with the Duchess of Moreland.” The reason in his voice had her hands balling to fists. “I will not marry you.” She could not, not him of all men. That signal fact gave her scattering wits a rallying point. Deene did not argue. When an argument was imperative, he did not argue. His hand stroked slowly over her hair, and as the fighting instinct coursing through Eve’s body struggled to stand against a swamping despair, some part of Eve’s brain made a curious observation: Deene was breathing in a slow, unhurried rhythm, and as a function of the intimacy of their posture, Eve was breathing in counterpoint to him. The same easy, almost restful tempo, but her exhale matched his inhale. “We cannot marry, Deene. I won’t have it. A white marriage was as far as I was willing to go, and then only to the right sort of man, a man who would never seek to… impose conjugal duties on me.” His arms fell away, when Eve would very much have liked them to stay around her. Better he not see her face, better she not have to see his lovely blue eyes going chill and distant. “We need to set you to rights.” His hands on her shirt were deft and impersonal, his fingers barely touching her skin. The detachment in his touch was probably meant to be a kindness, but it… hurt. “Lucas, I cannot think.” “We’ll think this through together. I can guarantee you not a soul will be coming through that door until we decide to pass through it ourselves.” “I hate that you can be so calm.” And—worst
Grace Burrowes (Lady Eve's Indiscretion (The Duke's Daughters, #4; Windham, #7))
And at almost the identical time two men were murdered. One of them was a Great Liberal Statesman who was actually a shoddy phony, and one was a Well-Beloved Conservative Leader whose own family couldn't stand him. There was a further distortion. The reports of both murders were out slightly before they happened, and partisans of both men had begun to gather. And just previous to the riots, an army detachment had crossed over from Virginia to put down the riots. The military could not find the reported corpses strewing the sidewalks. Wisely they waited. They were only a little bit early. In other sections, students attacked soldiers. The students always averaged about ten years older than the soldiers.
R.A. Lafferty (Fourth Mansions)
He was too detached from the family to start trying in one evening to check himself into a place where there was currently no vacancy.
Cecelia Ahern (The Gift)
Sometimes the Lord arranges an unfortunate wife for His devotee so that gradually, due to family circumstances, the devotee becomes detached from his wife and home and makes progress in devotional life.
A.C. Prabhupāda (Srimad-Bhagavatam, Fourth Canto)
Her family, my father's family, came from London. That's where she was brought up and lived her younger years. She never liked the city, though. Said that life there felt anonymous, detached. Villages are very different. You can't be detached in a village and somehow she felt more at home here
Merryn Allingham (Murder on the Pier (Flora Steele #2))
Be perfect, but don’t make a fuss about it and don’t take time away from anything, like your family or your partner or your work, to achieve your perfection. If you’re really good, perfection should be easy. Don’t upset anyone or hurt anyone’s feelings, but say what’s on your mind. Dial the sexuality way up (after the kids are down, the dog is walked, and the house is clean), but dial it way down at the PTO meeting. And, geez, whatever you do, don’t confuse the two—you know how we talk about those PTO sexpots. Just be yourself, but not if it means being shy or unsure. There’s nothing sexier than self-confidence (especially if you’re young and smokin’ hot). Don’t make people feel uncomfortable, but be honest. Don’t get too emotional, but don’t be too detached either. Too emotional and you’re hysterical. Too detached and you’re a coldhearted bitch.
Brené Brown (Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead)
Ultimately, attachment theory helps one understand the ways in which people function on an individual level and while interacting with one another. Although attachment theory has a variety of applications, it tends to be especially useful in couples’ therapy. Since each attachment style has generalized trends, understanding your or your partner’s coping mechanisms, subconscious beliefs, and perceptions can relieve substantial communication issues. For example, in a relationship, the Dismissive-Avoidant may be withdrawn, autonomous, and seemingly independent. To the Dismissive-Avoidant, they are functioning as they always have—on their own. To an Anxious Attachment, however, it may feel as though their partner is on the verge of abandoning them and may cause serious emotional distress. However, the Dismissive-Avoidant’s coping mechanisms don’t necessarily mean they are detaching from the relationship—they are actually just detaching from their own emotions. Now, although none of these behaviors are necessarily healthy in a relationship, understanding why they occur is the first step. Once partners understand each other’s coping mechanisms and vulnerabilities, they can begin to supply their partner with the things that they do need. For example, the Dismissive-Avoidant needs continuous and unwavering emotional support and validation. Since they were emotionally neglected as a child, they need to slowly learn that they can consistently and predictably rely on others. The Anxious Attachment individual needs reassurance and affection to understand that they are good enough and that they won’t be rejected. The simple knowledge of the pain points of your partner and the pain points that lie within yourself opens up a whole stream of communication that you previously were unable to tap into—because your conscious mind didn’t even know it was there. Moreover, your attachment style also interacts with what Dr. Gary Chapman describes as your “Love Language.” Just as there are different spoken languages, and different dialects present within the spoken languages, Love Languages are different ways that people express and receive love or gratitude when they interact with others, whether with a romantic partner or with friends and family. According to Dr. Chapman’s book, they consist of five different kinds of expressions: 1. Words of affirmation 2. Acts of service 3. Giving and receiving gifts 4. Quality time 5. Physical touch Given the attachment style of each partner in a relationship, certain expressions may be better received. Attachment theory applies to a variety of circumstances and works well paired with other theories to make couples therapy a more holistic experience. The following chapters will dive into what your attachment style is, what it means, and how it functions in all aspects of your life—from your romantic relationships to your friendships with coworkers.
Thais Gibson (Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life)
A Pentagon investigation found that the team of mostly Green Berets was scheduled to meet with local leaders, but had to change their mission after a drone spotted an Islamic State potentate. Their captain, the target of blame from a Pentagon report that the soldiers’ relatives denounced as a whitewash, expressly warned his superior officer that the unit was neither equipped nor informed enough to execute the raid. More than a hundred militants opened fire on Operational Detachment-Alpha Team 3212. Air support and evacuation did not arrive for four hours, by which time Sergeant First Class Jeremiah W. Johnson, Staff Sergeant Bryan C. Black, and Staff Sergeant Dustin M. Wright were dead. Sergeant La David Johnson was missing, and his body would not be recovered for two days. Less than two weeks later Trump called Johnson’s grieving widow. Myeshia Johnson was with her mother and a family friend, Miami congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who paraphrased Trump as saying that Johnson—whose name Trump evidently didn’t remember—must have known what he had signed up for.
Spencer Ackerman (Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump)
Through the process of maturation, we drive toward a sense of independence and slowly detach ourselves from our families – paving our own path through individuality, friendships, romantic endeavors.
Jay D'Cee
If individuals are of primary social importance instead of families, then we become detached from each other—the state wants an atomistic society so that we can be easier to manage or manipulate. However, if these atoms join together in molecules as families, or complex molecules like neighborhoods, townships, and congregations, then they become formidable in the eyes of the state. Their bonds to each other are stronger than their bonds to a government agency that is thousands of miles away.
Douglas Wilson (The Covenant Household)
In the course of this account, partly because of the nature of the history and partly because of the great importance of these events, I have forgotten that it is my father whose successes I am writing of. Often, in my desire not to incur suspicion, in the composition of my history I hurry over affairs that concern him, neither exaggerating nor adding my personal observations. I wish I were detached and free from this feeling that I have for him, so that seizing on this vast material I might demonstrate how much my tongue, when release from all restraint, could delight in noble deeds. But the natural love I have for him overshadows my personal wishes: I would not like the public to imagine that I am inventing marvels in my eagerness to speak about my own family. On many occasions when I recalled the glorious deeds of my father, if I had written down and given a full account of all the troubles he endured, I would have wept away my very soul, and I could not have passed over the story without lamentation and mourning. But so far as that part of my history is concerned, I must avoid the subtleties of rhetoric, and like some unfeeling stone or marble pass quickly over his misfortunes. If I wanted to win a deserved reputation for loving him, I should have included his disasters in an oath, like the young man who swore: “No Agelaos, by Zeus and by my father’s woes”. For I am certainly no worse than that young man. But now we must leave my father’s sufferings; I alone must marvel at them and weep, but the reader must return to the narrative.
Anna Comnena (The Alexiad)
[F]orgetting takes multiple guises and sometimes infuses life in the most subtle and taken-for-granted ways. Therefore, forgetting consists not only of markers that indicate the erasure of knowledge, but also the habits, routines, and physical movements that lead one to present and practice detachment and hiding. It includes hiding the outward indicators of one’s religion. It is taking care when choosing one’s words in public, or even when speaking among family, so that the children will not learn what is supposed to be forgotten. Practicing these habits until they become ingrained and no longer require conscious attention makes forgetting a part of everyday life… In Ulaanbaatar (and the next-biggest city, Darkhan) the state built wedding palaces, thus making marriages and the establishment of families matters that came under state control. The alphabet, personal names, food, hairstyles, consumer goods, clothing, and fashions also changed due to the revolution. All this meant that the younger generations had little reference in everyday life from which to inquire about the past. When the memories of those belonging to an older generation contradicted the national narrative, there was little chance they would be heard by succeeding generations, whose ideological training and values conflicted with those of the past. “The erasure of socio-political context . . . allowed for the absorption of the particular (memories) into the general” (Steedly 1993:131), and furthered the homogenization of history and the nation. In a homogenizing society, to be a misfit, a reactionary, was not only a source of shame and public alienation, but also invited the threat of state intervention… Those of the next generation were born in the 1940s and 1950s, after most of the political massacres had been carried out. They grew up with socialist propaganda and were removed from the past, owing to the silencing of their parents’ memories and the dominance of the state’s narrative. The past seeped through to them accidentally, against the will of their parents… Often silences are a sign of powerlessness, not of the lack of a story to tell. As Tsing (1990:122) argues, power consists, at least in part, of the ability to convene an audience. According to Steedly (1993:198), this ability requires telling a compelling story that is strategically designed to meet the interests of the listeners.
Manduhai Buyandelger (Tragic Spirits: Shamanism, Memory, and Gender in Contemporary Mongolia)
Learning to detach often begins by learning to take a moment before reacting to alcoholic behavior. In that moment we can ask ourselves, “Is this behavior coming from the person or the disease
Al-Anon Family Groups (How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics by Al-Anon Family Groups (2008))
It takes time and practice to master detachment. Beginning the process is important, even if we do it badly at first and must later make amends.
Al-Anon Family Groups (How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics by Al-Anon Family Groups (2008))
Resentment will do nothing except tear us apart inside. No one ever found serenity through hatred. No one ever truly recovered from the effects of alcoholism by harboring anger or fear, or by holding on to grudges. Hostility keeps us tied to the abuses of the past. Even if the alcoholic is long gone from our lives or has refrained from drinking for many years, we, too, need to learn to detach. We need to step back from the memories of alcoholic behavior that continue to haunt us. We begin to detach when we identify the disease of alcoholism as the cause of the behavior and recognize that our ongoing struggle with unpleasant memories is an effect of that disease. We, too, must find within us compassion for the alcoholic who suffered from this terrible illness.
Al-Anon Family Groups (How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics by Al-Anon Family Groups (2008))
Feuerbach starts out from the fact of religious self-alienation, of the duplication of the world into a religious world and a secular one. His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis. But that the secular basis detaches itself from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the cleavages and self-contradictions within this secular basis. The latter must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its contradiction and revolutionized in practice. Thus, for instance, after the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself be destroyed in theory and in practice". - Theses On Feuerbach (1845)
Karl Marx
As The New York Times put it in 2019: “It is illegal on 75 percent of the residential land in many American cities to build anything other than a detached single-family home.
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)