{"id":1791,"date":"2012-08-06T03:00:14","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T07:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lettinggo\/?p=1791"},"modified":"2012-08-05T09:33:58","modified_gmt":"2012-08-05T13:33:58","slug":"the-gift-of-calm-detachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/08\/the-gift-of-calm-detachment.html","title":{"rendered":"The Gift of Calm Detachment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question:<\/strong> How can you stay peaceful when you are with people whose lives are really in distress, especially when they are close to you?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> You must ask yourself a different question. I’d suggest the following: What could be more healthful and healing to those around you who are distressed than your calm detachment from their pain? The distress you feel around such people is not born from your wish to be peaceful, but rather is a form of identification with the very pain you would address.<\/p>\n

Question:<\/strong> How does one \u201cidentify\u201d with another person’s pain? Do you mean we take it or feel it to be our own pain as well?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> To identify is to vest one\u2019s sense of self in that thing, person, or with whatever the subject may be we are identified with. When someone we care about is suffering, they need (our) compassion and not our unconscious identification with their pain. Why? This state in us — of identifying with another\u2019s distress — serves only to help make their pain more real to them, as well as helping to make the sleeping \u201cI\u201d in us seem real.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: How can you stay peaceful when you are with people whose lives are really in distress, especially when they are close to you? Answer: You must ask yourself a different question. I’d suggest the following: What could be more healthful and healing to those around you who are distressed than your calm detachment from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,73],"tags":[1282,1284,1283,246,288,52,106,296],"class_list":["post-1791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-raising-children","category-love-relationships","tag-calmer-parenting","tag-detachment","tag-distress","tag-helping-others","tag-identification","tag-pain","tag-peace","tag-suffering"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Gift of Calm Detachment - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/08\/the-gift-of-calm-detachment.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Gift of Calm Detachment - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Question: How can you stay peaceful when you are with people whose lives are really in distress, especially when they are close to you? Answer: You must ask yourself a different question. 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His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. 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