Danielle Washington [00:00:06]:
You're listening to the hella well with Danielle Show, a podcast taking women of color on a journey exploring all things wellness and travel related. We're all about showing you how to put on your oxygen mask first and creating lasting self care habits that will free you to travel the world and live the life you truly desire and not one you have to fake loving. I'm your host, Danielle Washington. Now let's buckle up and start this journey.

Danielle Washington [00:00:33]:
Welcome to another episode of the hello well with Danielle podcast, your weekly mental vacation from the daily grind for busy women who just need a moment to pause. Breathe, Hanwusa. I'm your host, Danielle Washington. And if the sound is a little off today, I am recording from the comfort of my couch because I just needed to be cozy. So we're getting a little cozy today in today's episode because I'm trying not to be attached to where I sit when I record, which goes to today's topic, which we're talking about, attachments. When I think of attachments, typically, I think of being attached to material things, like being attached to my car, being attached to my house, or other physical things that we can hold on to or things like that. But we don't always talk about our attachments and more importantly, the cost of our attachments when we're talking about attachments to our beliefs and to our habits. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today.

Danielle Washington [00:01:41]:
But before we get started, I just want to just let us collectively take a couple of breaths in and out, so we could just kind of tune into the space so we could be here, feel a little bit more relaxed, see if we could just get even 10% more relaxed before than when we first started. So if you can, I invite you to close your eyes, ground your feet on the ground, making sure both of them are touching the ground. And we're going to inhale deeply through our nose. And once you've taken the deepest inhale you've taken all day, I want you to sigh it out of your mouth again, inhaling deeply through your nose and sighing it out of your mouth one last time. Inhale deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. And exhale all the air out. Just take a moment just to kind of reconnect to your natural breaths, fluttering your eyes open, taking a sip of water if it's near you, because we can all use an extra glass of water, I don't think we always drink it well, I can speak for me. I don't always drink as much water as I need to be drinking, and I could tell the difference.

Danielle Washington [00:03:06]:
But to today's topic, attachment, people are always talking about being attached to different things. But I'm like, we don't think about how our attachments to our beliefs and our habits is really, there's a major cost that we're not paying attention to. And this is just as important, if not more important, in how it influences our lives. Because being attached to my phone, yeah, I love my iPhone, but I don't think it affects my life as much as my attachments to my beliefs and my attachments to my habits. And so that's why I wanted to have this conversation, for example, so what am I talking about? A perfect example I can give about how I was attached to a belief. My belief was, I am not as someone who did yoga, that was my belief. I was in the camp. Yoga is not for me.

Danielle Washington [00:03:58]:
And anyone asked me to do yoga, I'm like, nope, yoga is not for me. Yoga is not for me. That was my belief. And I was holding on strong to that attachment for years. Anyone says something about yoga, I'm like, nah, f yoga. I don't do that. That's not for me. And then I was in a situation where I was relaxed enough, I was open enough when it was presented to me in a way, well, let me phrase that it wasn't presented to me as a choice.

Danielle Washington [00:04:27]:
It wasn't a choice, but I was open enough to be like, well, this isn't a choice. I'm not going to go running out of this treatment that I've already paid for. And I was open to slightly releasing my grip on that attachment to yoga isn't for me. And had I not been able to release it slightly, and I wouldn't be here today as someone who loves her job, who loves teaching yoga. But think about it another way. I wanted to travel to Thailand, but at the time I was like, I don't like thai food. I don't eat thai food. Or when I lived in Italy and I was like, oh, I don't eat this, I don't eat that, I don't eat this.

Danielle Washington [00:05:13]:
And I remember, especially in Italy, it was one of those moments where, I'm not saying this is an attachment I was willing to give up easily, but I gave it up anyway. Like, I was in Italy, at a dinner in southern Italy with a bunch of Italians. I'm only american, and they're eating family style and they order. Family style and they order. And this is when my Italian wasn't so good. But I heard them say cavallo. And I was like, I know that word. I may not know all the other words, but I know that word.

Danielle Washington [00:05:44]:
They just ordered horse. I was like, what the f? They just ordered horse. I'm american, I don't eat horse. Horses were what you ride, you don't eat a horse. And that was my attachment. And I'm not saying that's like, oh, my God, let go of all attachments to everything. But what my time in living in Italy taught me was to let go of a lot of attachments to my beliefs, of what it meant to how I lived, how I ate, how I spoke, how I thought. Like, my time in Italy changed me because it got me to relax a lot of my attachments to how I was living my life and what I thought to where I came back an entirely different person.

Danielle Washington [00:06:37]:
And so those are just a couple of different ways that you can look at examples of how I see attachments and how they show up in our life. But what's really at the root or behind the scenes of attachment, in my opinion, I think it's fear. I think it's fear of sense of lack. I think it's a feeling that you need to feel safe from the unfamiliar. So therefore we attach to what feels comfortable, aka the comfort zone. But if you think about it, your comfort zone really isn't, is it really comfortable? Yeah, maybe it may feel comfortable, but I don't know how safe it is because how safe is it for it to ultimately limit you from the unfamiliar, the unfamiliar for me in living in my safe zone of I don't do yoga, kept me away from something that helped me understand myself better, helped me relate to other people better, being familiar and saying, oh, I don't eat thai food, so I can't go to Thailand would have kept me from going to Thailand. And instead, in that situation I didn't tell that story, was that I always wanted to go to Thailand, but I was like, I don't like the food, so what am I going to do? I always wanted to go to China. I literally had an option to go to China when I was in 7th grade.

Danielle Washington [00:08:08]:
And my parents wouldn't let me go because like, oh, you don't eat chinese food? I'm like, well, I can eat McDonald's. They're like, you don't eat that either. And I was like, dang. So my parents wouldn't let me go. So there were all these countries that I wanted to go visit, but my limit, my attachment to I don't eat that was like, I can't go. And so for Thailand, I challenged myself. I'm like, you're going to try thai food. You're going to try thai food every other day until you see something or find something that you like.

Danielle Washington [00:08:41]:
And I literally did that. There was like, one day Italian, the next day a Thai, and then day italian, the next day Thai. And so I found the most amazing thai food restaurant in Chiang mai. That was so good. I still dream about that spot. But had I not allowed myself to be open and kind of release the grip of my attachment, release the grip of my comfort zone, I would have never experienced that. And that's what I wanted to talk about today. Like, the cost of attachment is real, y'all.

Danielle Washington [00:09:19]:
I mean, the first is being, like, mentally rigid. I look at my dad and he's like the ultimate person. He's like, I love my attachments and I ain't letting go of them. But it makes you so close minded. And I realize as I traveled a lot out of the country, I think there's something in the water that Americans are hella closed minded. Not saying all Americans are, but I'm just saying that that's one thing I've noticed. But being so close minded prevents you from personal growth and learning, but also the social isolation of being attached to whatever it is. And when you're extreme about your certain habits and beliefs, it alienates you from different things.

Danielle Washington [00:10:06]:
Like saying, I'm attached to saying, oh, I don't date outside my race, but you don't know. Your perfect person may be that other person, that just may be a different race. When you say, I'm attached to these viewpoints and these lifestyles, oh, I'm not someone who would ever try to surf if I was attached to that. I wouldn't enjoy the joys of being in the water. There's so many missed opportunities when you are so holding on with dear life to these beliefs and these habits that you just miss out on so many amazing things, whether it's a relationship, whether it's personal, new experiences or whatever is it whatever it is. And the other cost of our attachment that we don't always think about is the stress and anxiety, that fear. Stepping out of our comfort zone can increase the stress levels, causing anxiety over potential changes. And you just freak out about any change.

Danielle Washington [00:11:23]:
And I want you to take a moment to think about that times when you kind of got anxious about change in your life. And what that, again, is that fear of letting go of that attachment. Attachments aren't bad. Attachments keep us safe. Our safety zone, our comfort zone does keep us safe to some degree, but it also can limit us. There's a time and a place, and there's a balance to how we attach to things. And so in this episode, I wanted to have this conversation to open up to the possibility of loosening the grip of attachment. Aware.

Danielle Washington [00:12:08]:
You can let go a little bit. Letting go of that grip starts with self awareness. And so I encourage you to become more aware of where are you holding attachments? Like, it's, like, for your life depends on it and seeing. Okay, do I really need to be holding on this tight? Taking small steps to, like, what can I do to test and challenge these attachments? See if you could sit in some of the discomfort. Just be aware. Notice what you notice. Notice where does it come up? Is there a feeling with it? Is there emotion with it? Is there a memory attached to it? Where do I feel this in my body? Just seeing if you can allow it to hold space and seeing how that feels. Cultivating a sense of openness to it, learning how to become open to new ideals and new expressions little by little.

Danielle Washington [00:13:19]:
I'm not saying switch everything cold turkey, and now you're just changing everything up. No, just see what? Something small to see if you notice that. I feel like this is an attachment that isn't serving me. I feel like this is attachment that is holding me back. And then see if you can slowly by slowly, become more aware to it. Make small steps, sit in the discomfort, and continue to be open a little bit more and a little bit more, and just test and see what happens when we identify so much as our attachments, to the point to where they start to define who we are. That right there is you moving steps away from your true self. It limits your possibilities.

Danielle Washington [00:14:16]:
It limits your potentiality. And I know if you're listening to this show, you have hallow potential. So I want you to be able to expand and not shrink because you've identified. Well, this is who I am. And I think about that even as saying I'm attached to being a black woman because I know I am. I am a proud black woman, and I'm attached to everything that means to be a black woman. That means my hair is important to me. That means that I dress a certain way, I walk a certain way, we talk a certain way.

Danielle Washington [00:14:56]:
I feel like I'm repeating a Beyonce song because I am. But we are. But that same attachment has really jacked up my life in some ways, being attached to being a black woman and feeling a black person in America I've been attached to, well, oh, what does that mean to be black? That means you have to talk a certain way. I remember being younger, people were like, well, you don't talk black. Which made me feel like, well, I wasn't attaching hard enough to my attachment to being black. And so I tried to change who I was to fit into the identity that I had attached to that defined me. My attachment defined who I was. When, yes, I am a black person.

Danielle Washington [00:15:48]:
I am a woman. I am a black woman. But that doesn't define me. That's not just all of who I am. That is a characteristic. So I don't know. This is what was in my mind. So I'm hoping this will help you guys kind of think of ways that you may be holding on to attachments.

Danielle Washington [00:16:11]:
And I pose the question to ask you just to think about that and how might you shift some things in your life? How might some of these attachments be impacting your life? I invite you to take a moment to journal about this, meditate on it, and I'd love to hear you share your stories of overcoming attachments to beliefs or habits or how you're fostering this new growth. Everything doesn't happen overnight, but it starts with awareness. And that's where I wanted to have the conversation today. Let's be aware of our attachments and see how we can learn together to loosen up the grip on the control and being open to the unfamiliar. I look forward to hearing from you and I will talk to you guys next week. Ciao.

Danielle Washington [00:17:15]:
Thanks for joining us this week on the hello well with Danielle show. Make sure to visit our website, helloellwithdanielle.com, where you can subscribe to our show on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon music and never miss an episode. Also, you can follow us on social media at helloell with danielle on Facebook and Instagram. And hello, well with Danny on Twitter. And if you like hella, hella, hella.

Danielle Washington [00:17:37]:
Loved the show and got some good nuggets out of it.

Danielle Washington [00:17:39]:
Know that I'm not too proud to ask for you to please leave a rating or review on iTunes so that we can continue to expand our reach and help other women of color. Again, thanks so much for listening and I hope to see you next week. Ciao.