When You Need to Detach

     One of the things my husband and I like to do together is listen to a book on Audible, either together or separately, and have discussions about it.  The types of books he is drawn to are leadership books, books on strategy, and books by military leaders.  To be honest, I'm not super interested in battle strategies or recounts of success by military leaders (some, but not all) and he is not going to have any interest in my Outlander adventure; but, leadership is something that is critical in his line of work and something I hope to also have an impact in.  Leadership books it is!  

    We started with Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin and that was so good we moved right into Leadership Strategies and Tactics by Jocko.  His books were encouraging, motivating, eye-opening, and very pleasant to listen to (anyone who listens to audiobooks understands how important that is).   I was fascinated by his notion of "detaching" from the situation and immediately recognized it as something I do not do very well.

    I am an emotionally based person, I feel with my whole self, am very empathetic, and anyone who is around me can usually tell how I'm feeling by looking at me.  I wouldn't say emotions drive my decisions, but they are a factor.  Even with communicating with my husband, he detaches and focuses on the issue, and I don't quite operate that way.  After listening to Jocko's two books, I decided that this is something I wanted to work on; how to take a step back from the situation, and analyze it more critically versus emotionally.  

    I would be misleading if I said this is something that has been a snap, in fact, quite the opposite.  It is something that I actively have to incorporate into my life when situations don't go as I want them to or unexpected chaos pops up that I have to handle.  But, I do find that when I detach successfully, I find the mental energy spent on the angst of emotions actually goes into handling the situation itself.  In my goal of finding mindfulness and being resilient, this notion of detaching is something I am going to continue to work into my regime.

Do you detach?  Does it help you analyze situations more clearly?

*I have also enrolled in the Women's Assembly from Echelon Front (the organization Jocko and Leif have built) and they give a free one-hour seminar on different tactics once a month.  If you are interested, you can find their website here for more information*