Do you know you have a right to become as healthy as you want, no matter what your family does or doesn’t do? Do you know you can love - Melody Beattie

Taking care of myself is a big job. No wonder I avoided it for so long.

"When emotional energy comes our way, we feel it. We take a few moments, acknowledge the sensation, and move on to the next step. We don't censor. We don't block. We don't run from. We don't tell ourselves, "Don't feel that. Something must be wrong with me." We don't pass judgment on ourselves for our feelings. We experience them. We allow the energy to pass through our bodies, we accept it as being our emotional energy, our feeling, We say, "Okay." Next we do that mystical thing so many people refer to as "dealing with our feelings." We appropriately respond to our emotion. We examine thoughts that go along with it, and we accept them without repression or censorship."

I believe detachment can become a habitual response, in the same manner that obsessing, worrying, and controlling became habitual responses — by practice. You may not do it perfectly, but no one has. However, and at whatever pace, you practice detachment in your life, I believe it will be right for you. I hope you will be able to detach with love for the person or persons you are detaching from. I think it is better to do everything in an attitude of love. However, for a variety of reasons, we can’t always do that. If you can’t detach in love, it is my opinion that it is better to detach in anger rather than to stay attached. If we are detached, we are in a better position to work on (or through) our resentful emotions. If we’re attached, we probably won’t do anything other than stay upset.