Let Go Now: Embrace Detachment as a Path to Freedom

by Karen Casey

Overview

Meditations and Reflections to Help End Codependence

“In 200 short, straightforward daily lessons illustrating the many forms that detachment can take in one’s life. Casey’s latest is an easy reference guide for those seeking recovery or peace.” —Publishers Weekly

#1 New Release in Personality Disorders and Twelve-Step Programs

Do you ever feel like you might be giving other people too much power over your mood? Do you find yourself feeling immobilized by expectations and demands? The cure for facing codependence, says Karen Casey, is detachment.

Control your life by letting go. When we remove codependent behavior from our lives, we discover a life of balance and freedom. Whether you find yourself tempted to become enmeshed in other people’s problems or rushing to their rescue, Casey reminds us to stop controlling behavior —that we cannot control anyone or anything beyond ourselves.

What is codependency and detachment? Inside, you’ll find gems of insight for every stage of your codependence recovery journey. Through 200 recovery meditations and reflections, Casey explores how to set boundaries, control emotions, face attachment issues in adults, and more. Inspirational and easy to read, Let Go Now guides us away from taking care of others, and toward taking care of ourselves.

If you’re looking for a codependent book or an attachment book —like Melody Beattie books,The Power of Letting Go Codependent No More, or TheLanguage of Letting Go book —you’ll love Let Go Now.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642504484
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	11/18/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	258
Sales rank:	328,286
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Millions of fans around the world spend moments of quiet contemplation with Karen Casey daily. Karen is a writer and 12-step recovery workshop facilitator with over forty published titles in over ten different languages. She travels throughout the United States and internationally carrying her message of hope for others in recovery. She is the best-selling author of Each Day a New Beginning, the first daily meditation book written for women recovering from addiction. Oher titles include Let Go Now, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, 20 Things I Know For Sure, It’s Up to You, Codependence and the Power of Detachment, and Peace a Day at a Time. Karen lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Naples, Florida.

Read an Excerpt

53

Detachment is letting others have their own opinions.

MY FAMILY OF ORIGIN DIDN’T ALLOW FOR DIFFERING opinions. My father insisted that we agree with him, or all hell broke loose. Whether the topic was politics or music, his opinion was the only right one and having one that ran counter to it was evidence of insubordination. I locked horns with him for years. I felt compelled to disagree, on my own behalf and on behalf of my mom and younger brother, too. My older sisters seldom got involved in “the dance” he and I did, a dance that continued long after I left home.

I grew into adulthood steeped in this pattern of behavior, a pattern that didn’t allow much room for discussion with anyone. I had to be right, just as my dad had had to be right. It wasn’t until my own recovery from drugs and alcohol that I understood what the need to be right was about. Fear was the root cause for my dad’s attempts to control how others thought. Fear prompted my own, too. Now I know there is nothing to fear. We come together by design. We learn by design. We let go, we detach, by design too, and peace blossoms within.

Letting go of someone else’s journey is the most freeing experience we can have today. And it’s by far the best gift we can offer someone, too.

54

Detachment is being able to let others journey whever they need to go.

IT’S NOT UNCOMMON TO ASSUME THAT SINCE WE ARE generally in the company of family and friends, that our journeys must be similar. And there always will be some aspects that are similar. But what any one of us is here to learn is quite specific. The reason we are journeying side by side is that we need each other for support and suggestions; there is a difference, however, between sharing what has worked for us and trying to control how someone else should live his or her life.

Being able to detach from our loved ones is seldom easy. It doesn’t feel natural. In fact, it more commonly feels unsympathetic and self-centered. But that’s the value of practice. We learned our math tables by practicing them. We learn how to be skillful at golf or tennis or bridge through many hours of practice. In fact, Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers: The Story of Success, says that the key to success in any field requires practicing for it for ten thousand hours. Detaching is a skill too, and we can hone it if we are willing to work at it. The payoff is that our companions learn how to take responsibility for themselves and then rely on their Higher Power, and we learn how to focus on the only journey over which we have any real control: our own.

Watching our loved ones move through their experiences, and praying for them if the need arises, is our assignment, little else.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction

MEDITATIONS

    1. Detachment is simply watching the events that are unfolding around you, getting involved only when your journey is part of the experience.

    2. Detachment is stepping back from an experience in order to allow room for God to do His or Her part.

    3. Detachment promises quiet contentment.

    4. Detachment is making no one a project.

    5. Detachment means taking no hostages.

    6. Detachment means giving up outcomes.

    7. Detachment is letting the solutions be determined by God.

    8. Detachment is understanding that we are never the cause of someone else’s actions.

    9. Detachment is getting over “it,” whatever “it” is.

  10. Detachment frees up our time.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

  11. Detachment simplifies our life.

  12. Detachment is an acquired habit.

  13. Detachment means freedom from obsession.

  14. Detachment is knowing that what others do is not a reflection on you.

  15. Detachment is not making a big deal of situations, even complicated ones.

  16. Detachment empowers us.

  17. Detachment frees us from overreaction.

  18. Detachment may mean doing nothing.

  19. Detachment may be remaining quiet.

  20. Detachment is not acquiescence.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

  21. Detachment is disengagement, nothing more.

  22. Detachment means not letting the behavior of others cause you to suffer.

  23. Detachment can be triggered by the reminder, “Don’t go there.”

  24. Detachment is not letting someone else’s past determine your present.

  25. Detachment relies on the “little willingness” to surrender.

  26. Detachment is noticing people without judgment.

  27. Detachment is freedom from chaos.

  28. Detachment is “moving away” from a conversation that begins to irritate.

  29. Detachment is knowing that the mind can change if what you say to the mind changes.

  30. Detachment is letting decisions that need to be made by others be only theirs.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

  31. Detachment is “keeping it simple”—staying out of situations that don’t directly involve you.

  32. Detachment is having your life be about you, not about other people.

  33. Detachment is living in our adult observer role.

  34. Detachment is not being dependent on others for good feelings.

  35. Detachment is taking responsibility for our own life.

  36. Detachment means not being a victim anymore.

  37. Detachment is living one’s own life while letting friends and family live as they choose.

  38. Detachment is never letting someone else control how we think, feel, or behave.

  39. Detachment is letting go of fear over others’ behavior.

  40. Detachment is freedom from relying on others to complete our lives.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

  41. Detachment, when fully expressed, promises peacefulness.

  42. Detachment is a gift that we receive from our relationships well lived.

  43. Detachment from others is necessary to fully enjoy attachment to God.

  44. Detachment is knowing that others’ criticisms are about them.

  45. Attachment to God is what makes detachment possible.

  46. Attachment to anyone other than God imprisons us.

  47. Detachment is not letting the mood swings of others determine your own mood.

  48. Detachment is practicing the awareness that changing our thoughts can produce changed feelings.

  49. Detachment is knowing that happiness is the by-product of how we live our lives, not how others are living theirs.

  50. Detachment is not needing attention from others to feel okay.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

  51. Detachment is being able to care deeply about a situation or another person from an objective point of view.

  52. Detachment is not creating or preventing a crisis when it’s clearly not our business to be involved.

  53. Detachment is letting others have their own opinions.

  54. Detachment is being able to let others journey wherever they need to go.

  55. Detachment is knowing that you are not God.

  56. Detachment is no longer succumbing to the suggestions of others when they are not right for us.

  57. Detachment is being able to walk away from situations that are not helpful to us.

  58. Detachment is knowing that your life is God’s business, not yours.

  59. Detachment is knowing what is not your business.

  60. Detachment allows us to hear God.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

  61. Detachment is letting others take care of their own affairs.

  62. Attachment to people deadlocks our growth.

  63. Detachment can be as simple as breathing and walking away.

  64. Detachment can be enhanced by prayer.

  65. Detachment means giving up “hostages.”

  66. Detachment is letting the outcome of another’s behavior be his or her problem.

  67. Detachment is doing the “next right thing” without focusing on the outcome.

  68. Detachment is realizing that our lives are not dependent on what others are doing.

  69. Detachment is showing by example, not words, how our lives can change.

  70. Detachment is looking at life from a distance.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

etc.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Full of powerful and beautiful words to grant readers ‘the serenity to accept the things they cannot change, courage to change the things they can, and wisdom to know the difference.’ Karen’s words will stay with you long after you put down her book.”
—Becca Anderson, author of The Woman’s Book of Prayer

Editorial Reviews

Though the prolific Casey (Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow) admits that embracing detachment (to "bring together" separation) is a conundrum, she sees it as a way of life that must be followed in order to find true peace. A dysfunctional upbringing lead her to alcohol abuse and then AA, which helped her to understand her codependent behavior: she had "danced around others" and based her self-image around their approval. By practicing detachment, which she admits requires a commitment of patience and time, she experienced a major transformation. Too many of us, Casey believes, allow the behavior of others, whether good, bad, or indifferent, to control us. After a brief introduction, she presents 200 short, straightforward daily lessons, from "detachment from others is necessary to fully enjoy attachment to God" to "relinquishing the role of being someone else's Higher Power," illustrating the many forms that detachment can take in one's life, and the obvious foundation behind her self-help philosophy. Obviously inspired by the tenets of AA, and updated with an eye to the east, Casey's latest is an easy reference guide for those seeking recovery or peace.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

Karen Casey teaches us how to row our boat (note: not other people’s boats) gently down the stream. When we row gently, we don’t yell who or what must be on the bank around the bend. We peacefully accept what comes and this makes us very merry. We quietly bless the people who are there, knowing that is exactly where they should be. We let go and allow the River to carry us home, certain that the River is our God-given will, our safety, our comfort, and our peace. Let Go Now is one of the most profoundly spiritual and helpful books I have read.”
—Hugh Prather, author of Morning Notes and The Little Book of Letting Go

“You just can’t go wrong with Karen Casey. In Let Go Now she steers a course though the at-times confusing waters of detachment. She takes the reader though 200 little classes explaining what detachment is and what it is not. This book would help anyone trying to live a life as serene yet productive as possible in this often busy time.”
—Earnie Larsen, author of Stage II Recovery: Life Beyond Addiction and From Anger to Forgiveness

“A cornerstone concept of both Eastern philosophy and Twelve Step programs, detachment is often misunderstood and misapplied. In Let Go Now Karen Casey elegantly brings this time-honored term into everyday situations so that it can become a true, userfriendly tool for recovery. She not only tells us what detachment means, she shows us how to do it, one day at a time.”
—Tian Dayton, PhD, author of Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance

“Casey has given us a wonderful guidebook for one of life’s ongoing challenges—detachment—so essential to our spiritual health. No one with a caring heart would want to miss this essential read. Another winner for Karen Casey and thus for all of us!”
—Marilyn J. Mason, PhD, author of Igniting the Spirit at Work and coauthor of Facing Shame: Families in Recovery

“My measure of a book’s worth: 1. Does it open a window in my mind? 2. Do I change? 3. Is my life improved? The answer? Yes on all counts for Let Go Now.”
—Anne Katherine, author of Boundaries and Lick It!

“Written in the form of 200 meditations, Casey's (Each Day a New Beginning; Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow) book is aimed at those enmeshed in other people's problems and/or deriving a sense of self-worth from others. She points out that while detachment is difficult, its practice paves the way for oneself and others to grow and move in new directions. Casey's reflections will ring true to readers, and she acts as a sister in the process of recovery and becoming whole.”
—Deborah Bigelow, Library Journal

From the Publisher