When we desire something greatly and are working towards it, we often become attached to the outcome, not only by our thoughts but with our emotions too. When emotions come into play our thoughts are increased and strengthened and our physiology reacts, meaning we physically feel and desire in our bodies what it would feel like to achieve what we want.

Now this is no bad thing and if you study the Law of Attraction, you will already understand that it is not only the asking of something that we deem important in our lives that starts the ball rolling in having what we want, but when coupled with the actual feeling of having it, almost guarantees we will bring forth the outcome we want.

So what happens when we don’t get something we want so badly? Or we have an attachment so strong there seems to be no way out?

I am sure most of us have gone through for example, the experience of going for a job, that we believe is right for us, that seems like the next step on the ladder in our career, only to discover after a lot of preparation and “ In our eyes” a great interview, that we didn’t get the job.And depending on what levels we have of self-esteem and confidence, we may experience doubts about wether we are in the right type of work altogether, we may go into great depth of analysis of what could have gone wrong…from the type of answers we gave in the interview to even if we were wearing the correct clothing or displaying the right body language. We may become depressed even and let the deemed negative outcome fan out into other areas of our lives, resulting in anger towards our loved ones and a common side effect that we all see every day is people lashing out at other members of the public.

In relationships many of us have gone through the painful suffering of being with someone who is not right for us and who we find it impossible to be happy with. Or of wanting to be with someone so much, we can only experience happiness when we are with that person. Giving them emotional power over us and leaving us with feelings of despair and helplessness when we perceive that person is taking away the love.

The attachment in relationships can be caused by feelings of unworthiness, fear of being alone and not being good enough. But the effects in such situations can be catastrophic to our total well being and can lead to many things such as addictions, depression, anxiety, OCD and personality disorders as we try to distract ourselves from our true feelings and making decisions to leave the relationship, or to be realistic and patient in allowing a relationship to develop naturally without depending on the other.

A consequence of attachment to others after a relationship has ended will always result in great levels of unhappiness and may develop into obsessive behaviour,feelings of jealousy and even revenge if we feel we have been unfairly treated. Which can consume someone to the point where you may have difficulty thinking about other things, causing a major landslide in other areas of your life.

So what can we do to gain more control of our struggles with attachment, that don’t serve us?