How do you detach your self from emotion?

Question

Detaching yourself? You know what the Buddhist say? Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent.
Detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it.

Take any emotion--love for woman, or grief for a loved one, or what you are going through,fear, hguilt and pain or deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions---- if you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. you're afraid of pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.

But by throwing your self into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now i need to detach from that emotion for a moment'

Turn on th faucet. Wash yourself with emotion. It won't hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside. if you pull it on like a famillier shirt, then you can say to yourself,
"All right, it's just fear, I dont have to let it control me. I see it for what it is.
Same for loneliness: you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely, but eventually be able to say, "All right that was my moment with loneliness. I'm not afraid of feeling lonely, but now i'm going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and i'm going to experience them as well. "Detach"

Thank you all for your answers

Answer 1

You can become numb to emotion. You turn them off and just take things as they come. Trouble is, they are so much harder to get back again!

Answer 2

One can no more detach ones self from emotion than one can detach ones head from ones body. Emotions can be suppressed, denied, distracted and many other things, all of which have severe negative consequences. As far as I know there two realistic approaches to the issue. 1) When you are in the grip of strong emotions, sit on your hands and do nothing until the passion has passed. Take no action, make no decision, say no word. 2) Much more difficult, but fundamentally more advantageous as it leads to abilities far beyond simply avoiding emotional disturbance. Open communication between mind and spirit ( the origin of emotion). When the mind and spirit can communicate, negotiate and cooperate, so that each gets what it needs, each can stop sabotaging the other and the person will lead a far better life

Answer 3

I don't believe it can be taught conventionally. It's nothing you can practice.

The capacity for emotional detachment is hardwired into the human mind, but it takes great trauma or an unbearable sense of loss to unlock it. At the risk of sounding overly philosophical, this trauma or loss opens up an emptiness in you in which you hide your pain. You simply learn to tuck other negative emotions, like anger or fear, into that space as well.

However, if you get into the habit of burying all negative emotions, you'll notice you do the same to your positive ones. Once you get to that point, it's hard to step back.

Answer 4

the question is why would you want to do something like that. My husband used to be extremely emotionally detached. He said he couldnt feel love pain sadness or anger, and it honestly made him miserable. What he did was suppress the emotions, and over a period of time they seemed less intense, he had been suppressing his emotions most of his life. Which made him and I in turn both miserable. Usually people who are emotionally detached taught themselves to do this over a long period of time, probably more or less to adapt to a specific environment they were in whether it be from childhood or just a few bad or traumatic years. This was thier way of adapting to the negative situations, but supressing and detaching yourself is not a good thing to do. If you dont believe me ask my husband, he would know all about what you are going through if you are actually going through this and not asking a general question of sorts. the only thing that has helped him was the meds. Now he doesnt care about much of anything but he says he's happy all the time and doesnt have to suppress most of the emotions he did before.
He prefers to feel over being void of emotion. He suppressed them to deal with the pain. Which in turn made him emotionally detached. But please if you are considering this, dont try it, because it may sound like a good idea but its pure and simple misery.

Answer 5

Practicing meditation, and a slight detatchment from the senses, is good practice. Aside from that...you can kind of just envision walls so that you're alone, away from whatever it is you want to escape.

I really don't suggest it though, because you WILL have to deal with things eventually, and they usually get worse in the time you've ignored them. Furthermore, it's definitely a difficult habit to break; walking through life numb is seriously no way to live.

Answer 6

Trauma or gaining a new perspective on your autonomic reactions to events, smells, fears, hopes, dreams and whatever patterns you are aware of and such.
Meditation can help. Any workable form of concentration. Practice makes perfect.
But not to feed your ego with sweet notions of reality. Discipline and hard work are in front of you.
Rewards will happen, that is already promised in life or you would not be alive.
Probably love is the first cause. Down deep, we look forward to perceiving the past, again because it is so, it is so, it is so wonderful to be loved.

Answer 7

The key is to recognize oneself as separate from external events, people and influences. It's all merely data, sensory input which you can interpret. There is nothing which necessarily requires an emotional response, there are merely situations wherein that is your customary response. You are free to change this. Of course re-attaching is much more difficult, because once you don't care, this applies even to your own state of not caring.

Answer 8

It's easier said than done. Meditation is one way of quieting the mind and detaching oneself from emotion. Become an observer of yourself, and learn what makes you react rather than act.

Answer 9

If you mean how a murderer does it, then no idea. If you mean how hospital workers do it (I have experience there)then: we look at the situation (say a shaken baby) we talk to the parents normally even if inside we want to smack the living daylights outta them see if they like it, but it is not our place to place judgement, that's what child protective services is for. Etc...

Answer 10

ask a sociopath....just kidding.

sometimes people disociate after being traumatized.

the best thing is not to shut your emotions down, but gain control of your thinking. how you think about a situation, can rev up your emotions or come them down.