David R. Hawkins

One is to increase the intensity of the attachment by ever-persistent attempts to strengthen the bonds. This approach is based on the fantasy that “the greater the bond, the less likelihood of loss.” However, this is the very maneuver that often precipitates loss in personal relationships, because the other person struggles to be free of the possessive attachment and the amount of restrictive control they feel being placed upon them. Thus, because what we hold in mind tends to manifest, the fear of a loss can, paradoxically, be the mechanism of bringing about that loss

To handle the fear of loss, we have to look at what purpose the external person or object serves in our life. What emotional need is being fulfilled? What emotions would arise were we to lose the object or the person? Loss can be anticipated, and we can handle the various fears associated with the sense of loss by disassembling the emotional complexes that they represent, and letting go of the individual component feelings

When all the negative emotions have been worked through, surrendered to and let go of, relief finally occurs, and the former suffering is replaced by acceptance. Acceptance is different from resignation. In resignation there are still residuals of the previous emotion left. There is reluctance and a delaying of the true recognition of the facts.

We can begin by looking at our lives, identifying those areas of attachment, and asking ourselves: “What internal needs are they satisfying? What feeling would come up if I were to lose them? How can my inner emotional life be balanced so as to decrease the extent, degree, and number of attachments on external objects and people?”

We can ask ourselves why we feel so incomplete. “Why am I so empty within myself that I have to search for solutions in the form of attachment and dependency on others?”

Where am I looking to get love rather than to give it?”

The more loving we are, the less vulnerable we are to grief and loss, and the less we need to seek attachments.

have acknowledged and let go of all negative feelings, and we have graduated from smallness to the recognition of our greatness so that our internal joy comes from the pleasure of giving and loving, then we are really invulnerable to loss. When the source of happiness is found within, we are immune to the losses of the world.

We can look at our major love relationships and honestly examine them. To what degree do they subserve our selfish inner needs? To what degree are we really using the other person to exploit them for our own gain? To what degree are they merely subserving our happiness? To find out, all we need to do is ask ourselves: “If their happiness were best served by leaving me, how would I feel about it?” This reveals the degree to which we are trying to restrict and control the other person—which is attachment and not love

That part of us to which we refer as our “greater Self” loves rather than seeks love