The Practice of Non-Attachment

An Energy Practice for Letting Go of Our Attachments

Oct 06, 2025

During times of change, transformation, death and rebirth, it often becomes necessary to shed our attachments to certain roles, beliefs and narratives that no longer serve the emerging consciousness. In this post I continue my journey through some of the practices of Andean Medicine Wheel that can assist us in these transitions.

Last week we took a look at the practice of non-engagement. Another practice of the south direction is non-attachment. We often become attached to roles, beliefs, family stories, certain identities and certain ideas about how the world is or should be. Sometimes these are roles, beliefs, and narratives that we have chosen. Sometimes these are roles and labels or beliefs and stories that have been placed on us by the culture or others that we have left unexamined.

To practice non-attachment, we let go of the roles we’ve bought into and the labels we’ve stuck to ourselves. The goal is to stop identifying with any story whatsoever. When we shed our stories, with their limiting roles and confining identities, and become a mystery unto ourselves, we’re practicing nonattachment.

Nonattachment requires you not only to let go of your roles and your stories, but to also let go of the part of yourself that identifies with these dramas. When you stop attaching your ego to the identity of a spouse, child, student, teacher, the rescuer, the caregiver, the fixer, etc., you let go of your preconceived notions about who you are, and you stop fretting about whether you’re pleasing or displeasing others. You stop needing validation from people and becoming upset or sad when you don’t receive it. You’re free to simply be whoever you want to be.

Here are a couple of exercises that can assist you in releasing your attachment to someone or something. Think of someone, some role, something or some belief or assumption or even some outcome that you are attached to. Now close your eyes and invite it to appear to you as the energy field that it is, vibrating with the information of that attachment. Look closely at it and notice how you are attached to that energy field energetically. What memories vibrate there? Are there cords attached to you? Is it stuck on you? Are you inside the field? Is it inside you? Let yourself become clear on how you are attached to this belief, person, role, outcome, etc. Now ask yourself if this is a healthy attachment, one that you want to keep or need to keep for some reason. Or do you need to detach from this energy field and cut the cords. Find a way to separate yourself from this energy field and feel it leaving. Feel yourself detaching from it. Feel free of it.

Now bring into your awareness the word and concept of “non-attachment.” Remember, words and ideas are energy fields that vibrate with the information and the potential manifestation of that word and idea. Let yourself see the energy field of non-attachment. Look closely at it. Are there images, colors, words? Imagine you are being whoever you want to be at any given moment. Now extend energetic cords to the energy field of non-attachment and feel yourself attaching to this in place of the former attachment. Breathe this energy and field into you. Let it find its place in you. Perhaps it goes into the 3rd chakra or the 1st or perhaps throughout your entire luminous energy field. Breathe it in and feel yourself connected to the energy field of non-attachment. Repeat this for other roles that you want to need to detach from. Now notice who you are without that attachment. How will you show up in the world? How will you respond to what shows up in your life if you are living from a place of non-attachment?

Another way to release our attachments to roles is with a fire ceremony. This can be an elaborate fire ceremony or as simple as lighting a candle.

Self-definition is so important that we cling to our labels and roles even when they prevent us from stepping into who we wish or long to be and who we really are at the soul level. Our egos often become so identified with our roles and labels that without them we feel that we are losing the essence of who we are. We might even feel like we are dying.

In this exercise you will burn your roles so that you can let go of their limitations. Afterwards you’ll discover the possibilities of those roles without having to get stuck in the story you created around them. Your roles then become what you do, not who you are. You can stop identifying with these roles at the level of jaguar, or mind, and discover their myriad possibilities at the level of hummingbird. At the level of hummingbird, any role can be discarded or transformed at any time because you are no longer identified with it.

Exercise: Burning Your Roles

Gather some twigs (tooth pics or skewers will do), several strips of paper, a pen, a fire and your soul’s courage
Open Sacred Space. Light your fire. Gaze into the flames (fireplace, fire pit, or candle) and let your thoughts slow down and fade. Cease to give them weight and watch them begin to dissipate. Fire has a mysterious ability to help us enter the state of lucid reverie and access the dreamtime—stepping outside of time.
On each strip of paper, write a role, label, or self-definition that you identify with. Include husband, wife, father, mother, doctor, breadwinner, nurse, recovering alcoholic, student, lover, healer, writer, and so on. List all the roles you can imagine. All these roles, no matter how exalted and wonderful they may be or have been, keep you bound.
Wrap each strip with the role written on it around a twig. Thank each role for the lesson it has taught you and the powers it bestowed upon you. Bless each role and breathe that all into the twig. Place the twig into the fire and watch it burn. Continue this process with all your roles. You are creating a sacred ritual for yourself.
Feel the heat as each twig burns, making sure that you work from the level of hummingbird—from the place of poetry and myth, the place of image and symbol. Imagine the demands of your roles disappearing into smoke and ash, as you’re freed from playing the part of mother, spouse, son, employee, etc. Open your heart to receive the gifts that each of these roles present to you.
Know that you are no longer defined by your roles, but you can perform them all with beauty and grace.
Close sacred space.

The Psychotherapist and the Shaman

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