the detachment rabbit hole

Let's start this off with a little bit of a story. It's not a good story, but it's a necessary story for this episode. So about a month ago, maybe a little over a month ago, I was doing research for a podcast episode about modern toxic dating advice. The concept was I gather modern toxic dating advice and then give my thoughts on it here on this very podcast, anything goes with Emma Chamberlain. The podcast that you're listening to right now. So I was on the internet doing a deep dive. I was reading articles about modern dating advice. I was going on TikTok, looking up dating advice. And most importantly, for the sake of this story, I was on YouTube looking up modern dating advice and a buzz word that kept coming up in my search was detachment. And at first, I kind of ignored it because I was like, that's like obviously going to be toxic. You know, like I'll go back to that later because that immediately to me sounds toxic. So I guess in my research or whatever, I just kind of wrote it off. I was like, oh, I'll put a pin in that for now. I'm trying to find stuff that is maybe less obvious, do you know what I mean? Because based on my understanding of the word detached, detachment, the concept of being detached in love to me, out the gate sounded like a bad idea, sounded toxic, okay? Just based on my vague knowledge of what that word means. So I put a pin in it, continued my research, found a bunch of modern toxic dating advice, and then I eventually went back to detachment. I was like, last, last but not least, what is this all about? And I clicked the first video I found about detachment in love. And I was shocked at what I heard. I was like, wait a minute. This is not toxic at all. That's it. It's just not toxic at all. And so I was like, oh, I guess I'm not adding that to my list of toxic dating advice. And then I let it go, okay? And then my algorithm decided to almost exclusively feed me videos about detachment in love for the following week. And eventually I fell into it. And I kind of went down the detachment rabbit hole specifically within the context of love. But I would say on a personal level, it extended beyond that for me. Like yes, a lot of the content around it was about dating romance relationships. But I would say as a consumer of content around this concept, I've sort of looked at it within even broader lens. But for whatever reason, I've been fed a lot of content about detachment in love. And I'll be honest, the concept of it, the message around it has actually been incredibly helpful for me. And so that's what we're going to be digging into today. I briefly interrupt this episode to let you know that this episode of anything goes is presented by Hotels.com. Save your way as a new feature on Hotels.com and it says simple as it sounds. When you book a trip as a Hotels.com member, you decide how to use your savings. Take the instant savings now or bank the savings as rewards for later. It's your call. Only at Hotels.com. Save your ways available to loyalty members in the US and UK on Hotels with member prices. Other terms apply. Seasight for details. Now back to the episode. To start, I should explain why I initially doubted this concept so hard. Why I judged it so hard. Well, the technical definition of detachment is the state of being objective or aloof. Aloof meaning not friendly or forthcoming, cool and distant. Now that goes against my love romance dating philosophy. I'm all about wearing your heart on your sleeve to be honest. I'm all about that because even though that's something that's challenging for me, I think dating in romance would be so much easier if we all just wore our heart on our sleeve. I mean, Captain Obvious over here, me, but don't you think like if we all just were completely honest, put it all out on the table at any given moment, how helpful would that be immensely helpful? How often in love in romance do we read between the lines, drive ourselves nuts, trying to figure out what the other person is thinking? How often do people that we date drive themselves up a wall trying to figure out what we're thinking? What a relief it would be if we all just wore our heart on our sleeve. I don't like the idea of being aloof in love, especially in a long term committed relationship, absolutely not. Even cool and distant, sounds like a shitty relationship, sounds like a terrible vibe. If I'm in a relationship, I want to be cuddled vibes. I want to be complemented vibes. I want a little bit of simp vibes, not like full on simp vibes, where it's like, ooh, we need to talk about something other than how awesome you think I am. You know, like that, not that's, yeah, really ever happened to me. I've never been simped on that hard, which is a good thing. That's fine with me. But in a long term relationship in love, if you will, I don't love the idea of being objective or aloof. Like the whole point is that you're really stoked on someone and you might potentially want to build a life together. That's pretty serious in every capacity. So it seems to me kind of counterintuitive, or it seemed to me kind of counterintuitive based on the definition of detachment as its own sort of thing. It sounded to me like not caring, being stoic, being stoic means to endure pain or hardship without complaining, showing emotion or displaying weakness. Like again, all of this to me feels completely counterintuitive in love. Love should be, in my opinion, in my experience, what I crave in it is or not even love it. I need to be careful with the word love because like I should stick to the words romance and dating, but I'm throwing love in there because it just kind of comes out. But love is tricky because loving somebody means to care about their well-being and their happiness in a very particular way. I don't know. Love is kind of complicated. And I think a lot of times we date people and we think that we love them, but we actually don't. So it's a very tricky thing. Like you can be dating somebody and not love them and yet you're still dating. Okay. Now my brain is starting to melt out of my ears. We need to reel it in, reel it in, getting back on track. What I was saying was the whole point of dating in romance is that it's vulnerable. It's romantic, hence the word romance. It's deeply powerful. You feel it in a really deep, profound way. It's exciting, it's kind of drug-like like all of this is what makes it so awesome. And so to me, the idea of approaching all of this stuff that's normally so emotive, if you will, so profound, so powerful, whatever, to like approach it with a stoicism or detachment seems kind of unfortunate to me, you know, like to just not care. It's like, but the whole point is that you care. The whole point, the reason why you're pursuing this person is because you care about them in a different, perhaps, deeper way than you normally feel about most people. So it didn't make sense to me. But then upon clicking on the YouTube video about detachment and love, I was like, oh, it's a little different. Listen, I'm not going to take a place of authority here because we all know Emma doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about. I'm just, I'm a student of life just like the rest of y'all, okay, I don't know what's going on. And by the way, you probably don't either, but it does kind of seem to me that the technical definition of detachment is like not be, it's not being used properly in these conversations about dating today. Like people who are on the internet talking about being detached and love, it's taking on a new life. That's a bit more nuanced in a love capacity, in a romance capacity. And that's a bit confusing, you know what I mean? Because I don't feel like the definition of detachment in romance is the same as the actual definition of detachment. It seems like everybody's using a different sort of definition when it's in that context, which is confusing. So it makes sense that, you know, I kind of doubted this whole thing in the beginning. But upon watching videos, I was shocked to hear the way people are using this word, okay? According to people on the internet, detachment in romance and in love is as follows, okay. It's not about not caring about the person, it's not about being a loof, being coy, it's about being emotionally separated from the other person in a healthy way to help reduce love, induce anxiety and ensure that you maintain your own sense of self, okay? It's not about being detached fully. It seems to me based on what I've gathered that it's more about detaching yourself just enough that you can still maintain your own, like you are still the center of your universe, you know, you are still your number one priority. It's kind of like taking care of yourself before taking care of others. It's like the airplane safety manual, you know? They say like if the oxygen masks come down, you put your mask on before you put anyone else's on. In order to take care of others, you have to take care of yourself in a way. And maybe I'm reading this wrong and maybe this is just my own interpretation. And by the way, that's. the case, I'm not claiming to be sort of a source of wisdom here. I'm more just talking about what I've discovered and how it's impacted me in a way. Like that's what I'm here to do today. I'm not here to necessarily educate you. More just share like what I've gathered from all this and how it's benefited me. And then you can do whatever the fuck you want with it. But it seems to me that the concept is like about detaching yourself enough from a particular person that you love that you can take care of yourself before you take care of them. So that you're not being completely consumed by their life, their pain, their challenges, what they're thinking, what they're doing. You can maintain honestly a balanced nervous system at the end of the day that's rooted in you rather than anyone else. But it's not about not caring. It's basically a healthy boundary, really. But I think there's something powerful about the word detach because at least for me, this is all stuff that I vaguely knew I believed in, right? Like I didn't necessarily learn anything completely new going down this detachment rabbit hole. But rather it like really painted a beautiful picture in my head that's been really helpful ever since. And yeah, the word detach to me was really helpful in painting that picture in my head in a way that I've never seen it before. It's like you're not detaching all the way, right? Like you don't need to detach all the way because I think to detach all the ways to not care about somebody anymore, to like train yourself to not care about somebody anymore, right? In this context. But it seems that the concept of detachment is about maintaining a sense of independence in relationships in order to have a healthier relationship because dependence breeds negative emotions on both sides, right? The person who's perhaps more dependent is like constantly stressed about this other person because that other person is like their source of everything in life, you know, source of joy, source of fulfillment, source of comfort, the list goes on. If you're source of those things is in somebody else, oof, you know, that is not a reliable source. Ideally, all those things come from as much as possible from within, right? In theory. And then for the other person, the other person who is being depended on, perhaps more, they can feel suffocated. Like, oof, you know, I feel like I'm carrying this person around in a backpack in a way. Like it's just this weight. Like I, because this person is relying on me emotionally in such a significant way. Like I feel responsible in a way that is kind of dreadful and heavy. It's about detaching enough to be independent still in a relationship or, you know, whatever, I guess, yes, in a relationship. Any type, though, I think this applies to any type. I think of it sort of like, again, the word detach really became a very strong, like it just painted such a good picture of my head. Like when I was thinking about the concept of independence and relationships, again, this is something I already knew was valuable, but seeing it in my head solidified it in a brand new way. Like I was imagining it, like, you know, like you and people that you love are connected by threads. Okay, this is probably a metaphor and image that you have probably thought about in your head before too. Like I don't, again, I don't think I'm like painting a brand new picture here. Okay, I'm not Edward Monk painting the scream. Okay, this is not, I'm not, and I'm not claiming to do so. I'm not painting a new painting, right? It's like I'm fucking copying Van Gogh's self portrait right now. And I know that, but I'm admitting to it. I'm giving, I'm giving idea creds. I think of it as like you and people that you love are connected by threads, like sewn together, right? And the, to me, the idea of maintaining a level of detachment is to like, you kind of cut the threads and then you reso them more spread out so that you're further away from that person. You're still connected. You still have the threads connecting you, but instead of being so tightly sewn together that you can barely move, you can cut those threads and you can sew them a bit looser so that everybody can move freely, but that love is still there and there is still that connection. And I think that visual to me, the comparison between being so tightly bound and sewn to somebody that you can barely move versus being able to move completely freely and wonderfully almost as if the threads aren't there, but the threads are there. You know what I mean? Like that visual to me was so valuable. And that came from the, this, this detachment rabbit hole. I think another interesting thing that I discovered going on this rabbit hole is that it's about relinquishing control of others, letting them make mistakes, letting go of anxiety about what they're doing, relieving ourselves from the responsibility of others, like accepting the fact that others behaviors to an extent are out of our control. And that is like one of the key pieces of advice that you receive if you're somebody with anxiety, you know, let go of things that you can't control. And this is going hand in hand with that, right? But I do think that at times we can forget how out of our control, other people's actions are, you know, like we can't control if somebody that we're dating cheats on us. We can't control if they have fun without us. We can't control if they are feelings about us change. We can't control any of that. I think that we think that we can through our actions, like we think like if we're the perfectist, most perfect person in a relationship that that would never happen. But is that true? It's like, no, I actually sort of been starting to believe that there's no such thing as being like so perfect that somebody could never leave you. Like even that doesn't work. I think it's sort of a relief to believe that people are going to figure out who you are, whether you like it or not, and they're either going to like it or they're not. And that's it. Like you can put on a show all you want. But I don't think it works. I think eventually people will see through it. Eventually you cannot keep up the charade for that long and eventually they will see through it. And so to me, that's kind of a relief, right? And again, maybe that's not true. Maybe you can put on a charade your whole fucking life. I mean, sounds miserable, but you know, you could do it. But it's sort of a relief to think that eventually you will be found out, found out for who you are, regardless of what kind of charade you're trying to put on. And I don't think it changes the outcome of a relationship. Like I think a relationship is either going to work or it's not. And a charade that you're putting on is not going to change that because I think, again, this goes by, I promise that this goes back to what I was talking about. A part of detachment is relinquishing control of others. What they're doing, what they're thinking, what they're feeling. That's out of our control. We must let it go. We must detach enough to let that go. And I think what's great about that is that that allows you to be yourself in a relationship. And that is so much better because again, you're going to get found out anyway. So it's like just do it out the gate and save yourself the exhaustion in a way. But also too, like, yeah, if you're like concerned about what somebody you're romantically interested in is doing, if you're concerned about it, like, you feel like they go out without you too much, you feel like they have more fun without you this and that. Like that might still bother you even if you're detached. And that's then a sign that maybe you're not compatible, you know, maybe it's not working. Like you could still discover that. I think it's just that if you're somebody who's particularly attached, you're going to get upset like every time they they're not hanging out with you at any time they're having fun without you, it's going to freak you out, you know. And you're going to overthink it and you're going to spiral about it. And that's not necessary. It's a waste of energy. If you're detached and then you're still concerned about what they're doing and stuff and you don't trust them, that's like, that's, that's an issue. That's a valid issue. But I think we can oftentimes spiral about those things. And then the final discovery going down the detachment rabbit hole, the last sort of detachment pillar, if you will, would be the concept of detaching from the outcome of the situation. Okay. This was perhaps the most profound for me on a personal level. Even though this is something I already had somewhat of a grasp on, I feel like again, this really solidified something in my head in a way that I am so grateful for. Like it's been so helpful to have this BS solidified as it is in my brain now. Like it feels rock solid in a way where maybe before it was like the leaning tower of pizza, well now it's, it's like more not leaning. Like what's a building that's not leaning? Like the Louvre. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. The leaning to our pizza, it looks great. It's been there a long time, but it is leaning. The Louvre on the other hand, that thing is like symmetrical and perfect and like rock solid, you know, although did it get robbed? Because maybe that kind of fucks up my, oh yeah, I did forgot about that. And then I just remembered they stalled jewels. Okay, maybe the Louvre wasn't the right idea because it clearly it's not as structurally sound as I'm trying to like I need something in this metaphor that's like really structurally sound by I mean, the Louvre is still structurally sound even though to get robbed. But that was more of like not about the structure. Let's stick to architecture here. Architecturally, the Louvre is very solid. I would say probably any who I've had an understanding of the importance of not expecting an exact outcome. I've even talked about that on this podcast. Like I have had an understanding of that for a long time. You know, the importance of keeping your goals sort of broad enough that life can sort of unfold as it may and you're not locked into one sort of outcome, right? Like things can unfold naturally and you can be a bit more intuitive in your life if you don't have this exact specific idea about what your life is going to be. I've had that going on in the brain. leaning tower of pizza style, but going down the detachment rabbit hole and kind of grasping this concept of like detaching from the outcome. I don't know. It's like it doesn't sound that different from what I already held as a belief, you know, but it's there's something about the word detached that ended up being really powerful for me. And I feel like I've truly grasped it in a way that I maybe didn't before or like, no, I wouldn't say that actually. I would say it just feels clearer in my brain than ever. It feels sharp and refined in a way that has really been helpful for me in my life recently. It's about releasing expectations about the future so that one can enjoy the moment and analyze one's actions rationally as they occur and make smart decisions about the next move in the relationship. If you're all like, you know, if you've decided that this is the person you're going to marry on like the fifth date or even a year in and you've decided that perhaps too soon, depending on your life in circumstances, doesn't leave any room to potentially be wrong. And sometimes you're wrong about those things, especially in dating. We're like, at first, you're like, oh my god, this is the love of my life. And then you get to know each other a little better and you're like, you know what? We're actually not that compatible. And see, I've been the type in the past to like make up my mind really quickly, like, oh, I'm going to marry this person. Yeah, this is the person that I'm going to marry. And then it doesn't work out. We're not actually that compatible. We should not get married. We are not good for each other. And I will stay in relationships longer than I should because I kind of made that decision, right? And I think that those experiences that I've had in the past have forced me to work on releasing expectations because I think the fall is much harder when you're wrong than if you just didn't know, if you just accept that you didn't know what was going to happen and you left it open ended. But see, I'm not somebody who likes to leave things open ended. I love having a plan. But I think in certain things in life, having a super buttoned up plan, it can backfire, you know? And I think the concept of detachment in romance is like, detach yourself from the outcome. I would argue, almost completely. Now, this is perhaps up for debate. Again, I'm not an authority on this topic, but the way that I internalized it was detaching from the outcome completely, especially in dating. Listen, you want to have goals, right? In your life, you want to have dreams, etc. But I think on a micro scale, like say, when you're dating somebody and, you know, I will say, obviously, this rabbit hole that I went down was mainly about dating and love and relationships. So that was why I internalized it in this way. Like, in dating, I think it's not a bad idea to detach from the outcome completely until, you know, there's a conversation had between you and your partner that's super serious about like what the future is. But I think a lot of times we jump to conclusions really early on. And I think detaching from the outcome can be incredibly helpful in dating. It's like, okay, third date, this is going really well, but I don't know what's going to happen. And that's okay. I'm going to let it happen to me and let the answers become clear to me. I'm not going to jump to conclusions about the answers. That's not to say that you, you won't know that somebody's like your soulmate on your first date. It's definitely probably possible. Definitely probably possible. But I think the detachment from the outcome not only relieves a lot of anxiety because then you're not like trying to make sure it's perfect. Everything's unfolding perfectly, but also to you approach judging this person more rationally. This episode is brought to you by eBay. We all have that one piece. You know the one, the thing that's so you, you've basically become known for it. And if you don't have yours yet, you'll find it on eBay. Let me put you on people. eBay is where you'll find those one of a kind, can't stop researching, stay up dreaming about pieces again and again. I'm talking about that off the runway, Red Love The Romer that you've had your eye on, the trendy top with the cowboy on it, or that sleek fleece from the 2017 colorway. All of these finds are on eBay. They even offer millions of main character pieces backed by authenticity guarantee. eBay is the place for pre-loved and vintage fashion. eBay, things people love. Now, I think what's been the most interesting about going down this rabbit hole is that in the moment, I was like, oh, this is interesting. And like I agree with all of this and I've kind of held all these beliefs, you know, somewhat loosely in my head for, you know, a while now. But I think what was the most interesting is how it stuck with me and how it sort of changed the way I approach, like, no, it hasn't changed the way that I approach things. But I feel like it's just given me a sense of clarity. And I know I've said that a lot in this episode. It's like, Emma, you've said 18 times that, you know, this is like gone from the leaning tower or pizza to the Louvre, okay? We're no longer leaning. We're very solid. We're very upright, you know what I'm saying? But I've just found that I recently have been really gravitating towards this idea of detachment in life to things. And not in the way that I ever would have expected, right? Because I really judged this concept. I was like, detachment means to be completely removed, like to remove from something, to unattach, you know, you're attached to something that you're not. And I think digging into the nuance of it, okay, to be detached from something can mean if you want it to to just loosen the threads a little bit, you know, it doesn't mean cutting the threads completely. It just means loosening the threads a little bit. And I will say there's other areas of my life where this sort of concept applies. And there's other areas of my life where I've sort of already kind of been doing this, but this sort of discovery of like the concept in in a love context actually also helped in other areas of my life. I would say my career is a great example of that. I would say I've been working on my attachment slash detachment to my work life for a while now. Because well, I think it started in the very beginning when my career began because the particular career path that I chose is pretty unpredictable, right? You don't really know what tomorrow brings. There are a lot of really complex variables in a career like this. Not that that's like a bad thing. It's kind of neutral. I mean, there's complicated variables in every career path. But I would say in my particular one, it's quite finicky this career path. Like you could wake up tomorrow and nobody wants to watch your YouTube videos. Nobody wants to listen to your podcasts anymore. You know, they're you're relying on people wanting to spend time with you. And that's a very fickle thing. You know, if people decide one day that they don't like you anymore, if you grow and evolve or change, maybe even devolve, okay, you might lose that audience and that is the driving. That is what allows it to be a job is that there's people consuming the content. So it's like that's a very fickle thing. And that was something that caused me a lot of anxiety as a young person. A lot of anxiety. I was like, like, really taking a big risk. You know, I'm not going to college. I didn't finish high school properly. I did technically kind of, but like, you know, I took like a test to get out early, but it's like, took a huge risk to do this as my job. And at the drop of a hat, everybody could go and not care anymore, not like me anymore. And now I'm out of a job. And now what? And so very early on without even realizing I was doing it, I started to establish a sense of detachment with this job. And it's been very hard because it is so intertwined with my life, my day-to-day life. Like, I talk about my life. That's a big part of this job. I show a lot of my life less so as I've gotten older. But I still do that. It's complicated. It's more complicated as the career progresses. And I, yeah, more things, it gets more complicated. But also too, I'm my own boss. So like, I mean, there's definitely deadlines that I have in contracts that I mean, it's not like I'm completely my own boss all the way. But I can choose what hours I work and things like that. And so that means I can work all the time. And I'm somebody who's like a perfectionist and a freak. And so sometimes I will push myself to work all the time. And that's the leads to terrible work-life balance in misery. And so like I think in this particular career, detachment is very necessary. And it's been an ongoing journey as to how to master it. Because I think in every single like every single facet of this career, I think benefits from a level of detachment. And so I've been sort of working on that for the last eight years or however long I've been doing that. Detachment from number one, the outcome, accepting the fact that this could go away tomorrow. And that's okay. And that's just something I have to accept. You know, like this might not last in the same way that other careers do, right? That's one one thing. Another thing, there's like an emotional element of this career where I'm being very vulnerable on camera. And people are consuming that. And it's a very vulnerable pair of social experience. I think that can become at times a bit heavy. And I've tried to manage my level of attachment to that. Also to work-life balance, there needs to be times where I'm detached from my work-life. And I have a life outside of it. That has been incredibly challenging for me because I'm a workaholic by nature. And I just want to work all the time because it makes me feel good. In the moment, or I think it makes me feel good, but it actually ends up burning me out really badly hard and fast. But I've sort of been doing that or working on that in my career in a way for the last eight years, because it It became clear to me very quickly that that was a necessary thing, but I didn't have a word for it And I think the word detachment really like or the word detached Detaching detached attached like for whatever reason that word just clicked in my head And made it all make sense. It made it all click and I feel like It's allowed me to I don't know. There's just like a word for it. That's been really helpful Like listen, there's a lot of ways that you could sort of Sliced this whole thing. Do you know what I mean? Like there's a lot of ways that you could look at it like It's really just like age-old concepts repackaged like using the word detached Detaching detachment. It's really just repackaging other ideas. Like it's not a brand new fresh idea to me or probably to you either But the reason why I wanted to talk about it today is because there it has had A significant impact on me and it's been incredibly helpful and it's just Sometimes all you need is just a word that like triggers a visual in your brain that just helps you solidify something in your head and I Have seen this sort of creep into every category of my life whether it's dating whether it's work whether it's Friendship whether it's even hobbies like it's just it's creeped into everything in a way that I think has been incredibly helpful and beneficial to me and so I just thought I'd discuss it with you all and hey, maybe it was helpful. Maybe it was helpful. Maybe it wasn't Maybe you're like Emma You're on like you're kind of sounding like a dummy today, and that's okay If this is like old news to you. This is whatever listen you got there first you win you got there first and you win But like I can't I can't even tell you all how often I'm like closing my eyes and thinking about The concept of the threads like how tightly woven I am to something like how tightly woven am I to this person To this goal in my career, you know to this whatever how tightly woven am I to that And how can I loosen those threads a little bit to maintain a healthy sort of balance and I think the beautiful thing about it is I've applied it to so many different things and it's only benefited my life like when it comes to say like dating for example, okay I'm not even worried. I used to be like I Used to be so worried in dating and especially in singlehood, you know very concerned with the outcome concerned about how A guy I'm talking to feels about me really like over taken by that and listen there are still moments where perhaps that happens to an extent, but Then I remember the concept of detachment I take a moment of mindfulness and I sort of allow it to calm me down You know, and then you know what what comes from that? Enjoying the moment more enjoying it same thing goes with career. I can have a lot of anxiety about my career In in ways that are maybe a bit unconventional, but the job itself is a bit unconventional. It's a bit odd You know, and I have a lot of anxiety about it and when I'm having anxiety about it I'm like, okay, you need to detach a little bit. You need to loosen the threads a little bit. Some of your threads are too tight Oh, that's what it is God, that's what it is when I feeling when I feel anxious about something, okay? Whether it's dating or it's career or it's a friendship or it's whatever that means some of my threads are too tight I'm too attached to something and I need to loosen the threads a little bit and when I think of it like that It sort of inspires me to solve the problem address the problem Why are the threads so tight? What do I need to do to loosen those threads? You know what I'm saying? Anyway, I hope that this was useful to to at least one of you out there And if it was and if you enjoyed this new episodes of anything goes every Thursday stream anywhere Coming out. It's always a joy to spend time with you all and I really am so grateful that you spend any of your valuable time with me I'm on the internet at Emma Chamberlain and my coffee company is in the world and on the internet chamberlain coffee Thank you all for listening and hanging out as I just said literally five seconds ago It's always a pleasure, but it is true. It is always a pleasure And I'll talk to you next week. I love you all Ah Detach but not too much. That's my advice for you. I guess. I don't know