Attached to non-attachment

First, an update from me…. I’m now in Bali!! But I almost, kinda, not really, didn’t make it to Bali because of a volcano and may or may not erupt. Find how what I learned about non-attachment as a result! Plus I’m having all these issues trying to find a quiet enough place to record my podcast, so maybe you can hear a bit of background noise, maybe you can’t but I know it’s there and it’s annoying me!!! So what does attachment have to do with it all? You might have heard that it’s super useful to master non-attachment. What exactly is non-attachment? Non-attachment is pretty much how it sounds, It’s about not being attached to any particular outcome. Why is this useful to practice? Because when we are attached to a certain outcome and then it doesn’t occur or materialize or work out, then we experience resistance to what’s being presented instead. And it’s that resistance which causes us pain and suffering. That’s when we get angry, annoyed and pissed off. It just makes life harder to deal with and when we start in on that downward spiralling behaviour, recovering to find an acceptable solution gets harder. So what should you do instead? Be open. Go with the flow and don't sweat the small stuff. Make plans but be open to them changing and unattached to having the plan go exactly the way you expect. That way we can become more adapable. We’re able to roll with the punches more and it makes ‘fixing’ things when they don’t go to plan a lot easier. So I thought I was kinda ok at this whole non-attachement thing. Just yesterday I was making plans to meet a friend and spend a week with her in Ubud which would have been super fun. Then I got a message from her saying that she wasn’t coming to Bali anymore, but she had a really good reason, it was actually good news for her. And I was like ‘great!’ and instantly I saw that it was actually going to suit me way better to not go to Ubud next week and would probably be easier to spend a shorter amount of time there maybe later in the month. That way I can get more settled in Canguu and create a more stable work routine while I’m here. But the mind is a super tricky thing. And sometimes when you think you’re being open and non-attached suddenly you realise that your mind has been tricking you. I recently caught myself out with this whole volcano situation when I was ‘trying’ to be open to the plan changing but it actual fact I was daydreaming about how I would handle the plan changing, and what I would do instead. I was going to stay in Spain longer… or go to Sri Lanka instead… or Noosa in Australia. Turns out I had actually become really attached to wanting the plan to change so much that I had talked myself out of Bali!?! WTF! WTF! I discovered that I needed to be unattached to both the plan changing AND the plan staying exactly the same. So what’s the best way to naturally experience and develop this non-attachment, go with the flow kinda attitude? Well, you guessed it - meditation! Because meditation helps us to live the experience that we are not our thoughts. It helps us to naturally not take anything seriously, without trying to do anything different. The more you meditate the easier all this is to master. It’s just one of the natural side effects. Want to know my top 8 tips for meditation? If you’d like to learn some of my favourite resources for starting, building and committing to a regular meditation practice, I have a new free resource available, just for podcast listeners - it’s my 8 top tips for meditation. To access it you need to head to lilab.life/toptips As always thank you for tuning in and listening. If you have a question about meditation don’t forget you can send these to me by emailing [email protected] and I promise I’ll send you a personal reply and your question may just get featured on next weeks...