Likewise, they may have old electrical wires, old telephone cables, old telephone sets, mobile handsets, partly broken or damaged furniture items, useless batteries and a number of other such things which have lost relevance but they are still retaining them. Here again, you may keep one or two of these items for many years and you may still not have this problem. This is because such items may carry emotional value for you. Hence such items may be physically useless but they’re emotionally useful. For instance, you may have your first watch with you which your father bought you 50 years ago. Though the watch may be useless now, it reminds you of your father’s love for you. Hence it is not useless and it is useful.
However, if this practice forms a pattern and you retain most of the things that you purchase or obtain; long after they’ve lost their relevance, you have problem of being possessive. It means with conscious efforts, you’ve written a script on your subconscious that you don’t wish to let go of anything that belongs to you. As a result, you become naturally/subconsciously good at holding on to things, even long after they’ve lost relevance.
As this habit aggravates, it may expand to other spheres of your life. For example, you may refuse to lend your car to a friend for a couple of days when he has valid reason to borrow it and you have an extra car. Though he may be a close friend and you may even try hard to give him your car, you may not be able to do so. This is because your subconscious may send strong signals of discomfort when it comes to part with your car, even for two days. Hence you may end up refusing him and you may even regret later. If you’ve reached this stage, it means the problem has become too strong to handle for your conscious mind.
On conscious level, you may wish to give him your car as you value this friendship. However, your conscious desire may not be able to compete with the script written on your subconscious and you may end up refusing him. Likewise, you may often refuse to lend money to your friends or relatives, even when you have a lot to spare and they need it a lot. Even if you put in a lot of conscious effort and you lend money to one such friend despite your gut feeling (subconscious) saying ‘no’; you may start feeling uncomfortable soon after that.
Hence you may start reminding your friend that he owes you money, even when the promised deadline is far away. You may even ask him to return your money before the time promised by him; and you may present excuses. It means you may create fake need for such money and tell him to return it. Likewise, you may take similar actions related to other things that you possess.
With time, your friends and relatives may learn this fact that material things mean much more to you than they do. Hence they may re-evaluate their relationships with you. As a result, most of them may start maintaining distance from you and they may also present excuses when you’re in need. Some of them may have different natures and they may choose to have no relationship with you. Hence you may lose such friends.
This habit can drive your loved ones away in other ways also. For example, if you have a girlfriend, you may try to possess her also like many other things you possess and in doing so, you may push her away from yourself. Whenever she talks to some other guy, you may feel uncomfortable as you consider her as one of your possessions and you don’t have a habit of sharing your possessions with other people or letting go of your possessions. This habit gives birth to a fear which says that the other guy may take her away from you and you may have to part with such a dear possession.
As this fear gets stronger, you may tell her that she should not talk to this guy and in order to convince her, you may give her many reasons why should she not talk to him. Your girlfriend may feel uncomfortable with your approach. Since it may be your first time or one of the first few times you have done such a thing to her, she may accept your wish and stop talking to that guy. As the time goes by, you may keep telling her not to speak to this guy, that guy and many other guys. As the number of guys she can’t speak to increases, her level of discomfort may also increase. Hence she may feel the need to move away from you as you are restricting her choices or freewill according to your wish and this is something no one likes.
Hence she may decide to keep talking to many such guys, you may have asked her not to talk to. This may create tension between the two of you and you may try even harder to convince her not to talk to these guy. She may also do many other things which you may have told her to stop doing. Harder you try to stop her, worse your situation may become and a point may come when your girlfriend may find you too much to handle. Hence she may decide to move away from you or break up with you.
Similarly, you may keep investigating her social media activities and you may keep asking her about her equations with some people she’s been interacting with, through one of her social networking profiles. You may demand more and more explanations about who these people are, why she’s speaking or chatting with them, and all other such questions which convey the message to her that you doubt and restrict her. Hence she may start feeling more and more uncomfortable and restricted in this relationship.
Finally a stage may come when driven by your continuous doubts and restrictions, she may break up with you. Instead of realizing your mistake, you may think that your doubts were true and she was not loyal to you. Such thoughts may provide even more strength to your habit of being too possessive. The reason she left is that you tried to hold on to her too tight. However, the reason you may assume is that you were not able to hold on to her properly and that is why she slipped. This belief may create the need to be more thorough when investigating the affairs of your next girlfriend.
As a result, you may investigate the affairs of your next girlfriend with even more intensity which may cause even more problems. Hence you may end up losing this girlfriend also. This trend may continue and no girlfriend may settle with you. This is because you’re trying to treat them as objects or things which don’t have freewill and they can be customized in any way you want. However, they are people and they have freewill. Hence you can’t possess them like you possess things.
Likewise, you can’t control them like you control things. For example, you may tell your car to be there in the garage and it’ll not leave until you want it to. The same doesn’t hold well in case of people, since they may do what they wish and not what you want them to do. Sooner you learn this fact and stop controlling them, better it is.
Looking at some activities to treat this habit, start releasing your possessions one by one and start from a small scale. At the first level, start giving away your old and useless clothing items or any other such items mentioned before that you have retained even when you don’t have any use for them. In order to get best results, either give these items to needy people if they can still be used by someone, or throw them away if they can’t be used by anyone at all, instead of exchanging them for something in return. Don’t give away many of your old items in a single go during the first level and give them away one by one after regular intervals of time.
Giving away many items at once may create strong discomfort within you. Remember, more an act is in opposition to the script written on your subconscious, stronger resistance the subconscious may pose. Hence you may feel uncomfortable and you may regret your decision. You may even choose to disengage from this practice and in the worst case, you may try to get some of your possessions back. Hence start with small offerings. Small acts don’t stand in strong opposition to the script of possession written on your subconscious mind. Hence the subconscious may pose mild resistance and you may be able to overcome such resistance with conscious effort.
As you give away more and more items, your conscious mind sends more and more messages to your subconscious that you wish to release. Since releasing is the opposite of possessing, such messages may start reducing the quantum of this habit. With time and efforts, you may reach a stage when your subconscious mind may not send vibes of discomfort whenever you engage in acts of giving away your possessions. It means you’ve mastered this level and you’re ready for the next level.
During the next level, start sharing some of your useful possessions with your friends and relatives. Don’t share things which you love a lot and start with the ones that you can afford to share at this time, though with some difficulty. For example, if you love your car as well as your money a lot; don’t share them with your friends at this stage. Doing so may trigger resistance from your subconscious, which may be too strong for you to handle at this stage. Hence stay away from such practices.
On the other hand, if you feel that you may share your clothes, shoes, some of your gadgets and other items with some difficulty; you should start sharing them. At every level, the idea is to do something which is somewhat but not a lot more difficult than what you’re accustomed to. It is like if you’re comfortable lifting 100 kg at gym; you may choose to go for 110 or 120 and not for 150 or 200 as you may fail. With time and efforts, you may reach 150 also, but it is not wise to attempt it at this stage. Hence 110 is a wiser choice. Apply the same theory here and move up slowly.
With time and efforts, you may feel comfortable with this level also. It means you should move to the next level. At this level, increase the resistance and start sharing more. By this time, significant changes have been made to the script written on your subconscious mind. Hence it may not pose strong resistance for this level now. Looking at an activity for this level, if a friend asks for your car for a couple of days and you can afford to do so with some conscious effort, you should lend it to him. You may still have some discomfort but it may not be a lot and you may get over it with some conscious effort.
Similarly, start sharing such things at this level, which are not the dearest ones but which are dear to you. With efforts and time, you may get through this level also and you may be ready for the next level. During the next level, start sharing your dearest possessions with friends and relatives. For example, if you love money the most; start lending it to friends and relatives when they need it. Be careful not to lend money to anyone and everyone, merely in order to complete this activity. Assess the need of the person in question as well as his personality and take a calculated decision.
For example, if a friend asks for money and you know that he has a reputation of not returning money, be careful. Either don’t lend him any money or lend as much as you can afford to part with. For instance, if you can afford to give him USD 100 and forget this amount without hurting your friendship, in case he doesn’t return it; you should give him this amount and not more than that. If you can’t afford to lose USD 500 and you know the friend may not return it; don’t give him this amount as you may lose money as well as friend.
Hence be wise when you’re sharing money or valuables with other people. As you engage in more and more such acts; your conscious mind may replace the remaining parts of the script on your subconscious, with time and efforts. Finally, a stage may come when you may get rid of unhealthy amounts of possession. Though you may still be somewhat possessive but such possession may not manifest on physical levels in most cases. Your habit of being too possessive has been cured and you may continue to grow more and more from here.
Looking at parallel measures, start applying these practices to your personal life also, from third level onward. It means when you’re ready to lend your car to a friend in need, you should start giving space to your girlfriend, wife, children, friends and other likewise people. Let them make their choices and try not to interfere much. For example, don’t bother much when your girlfriend talks to some other guys or she opts to have male friends. She has a right to her own life and she can live it the way she wants, until she crosses a line. Be wise enough to know when a line is crossed and don’t be alarmed by small things.
On the contrary, you can promote and support her in doing such acts. For example, you can encourage her to make more male friends if you feel that she wants to do so and she is abstaining only because she is afraid that she may offend you or make you uncomfortable. Simply take a step forward and encourage her to do so and let her know that you trust her, and her happiness as well as freedom is important for you. You should try and do the same to your wife, husband, boyfriend, children, friends and/or relatives; and you should give them more freedom and space whenever it is needed.
You may think that by giving this much freedom and space to your girlfriend or boyfriend, you are risking your relationship as he or she may find a person better than you and he or she may leave you for them. In reality, this is just a fear and nothing else and you are not going to lose your girlfriend to some other guy by doing so, if she really likes you. On the contrary, she may respect and love you more.
Contrary to what some people may think, your girlfriend or boyfriend, your husband or wife, are not always looking for better people or better choices. For example, your girlfriend may not leave you for a better person in most cases, if you are a good enough person or even a reasonable person to be with. Your girlfriend may leave you for someone else only if you are not a good person, you don’t respect her enough, love her enough, care for her enough or you lack many other such good qualities. If such is the case, she is anyway going to leave you sooner or later, no matter whether you allow her some freedom or not. By restricting her, you’re only going to make her leave you sooner.
Most people may not always be on the lookout for the best partner in the world. They may not wish to run from one person to another in search of better and better people, until they have reached the best person. Most people may wish to settle in their lives when they find someone good enough for them, though this someone may not be the best person or a very good person. It is only in a case when a person is not good enough for someone or not good at all, that the second person starts looking for other options as she may not want to waste her life with someone who is not capable of adding any value to it.
People love freedom and they are generally not comfortable with anyone who tries to restrict it. Freewill is the basic expression of every soul and no one should try to restrict it. The best way to avoid someone leaving you is by not holding them. In order for someone to leave you, you must hold them first. Holding here means that you get possessive beyond healthy limits. As you do so, this creates a need for them to take a step back. On the contrary, most people love such people who are liberating type and they provide freedom to everyone in their circle. Just imagine why would you want to leave someone who gives you complete freedom and accepts you for what you are?
Therefore, if many of your girlfriends have left you for other people and you are afraid of giving any freedom to your current girlfriend, fearing that she may also find someone else and run away, you are not treating your problem and you are making it worse. This is because, you are trying to hold on to her so tightly and block her breathing space so much that she has no choice left but to push you away or move away from you so that she may get some comfort. Hence, restricting her freedom and being too possessive is only making your problem worse.
If many of your girlfriends have left you, the fault probably doesn’t lie in them and it lies in you. Hence instead of finding more ways to stop your current girlfriend from running away, you should find more ways to fix yourself and make yourself a better person who can add some value to his girlfriend’s life. If you are good enough to provide value to your girlfriend and make her happy, she may not leave you. However, if you have many negative habits and you can only make your girlfriend feel uncomfortable and miserable in your company, you may not be able to stop her from leaving you no matter what tricks you may try.
As you allow more freedom to the people around you, and as you motivate as well as support them to make the most of their lives, they may start respecting and loving you more. This is the time when you realize that more you try to possess a person, more he moves away from you whereas more you liberate a person from conditions, closer he gets. So what is possession according to you, may actually work as a runaway signal for most people around you whereas what is freedom or letting go according to you, may actually make you possess your near and dear ones with greater strength.
Most people may do anything to ensure that they don’t lose such people who are good and who encourage as well as support them to make the most of their lives. Accordingly, they tend to stay closer to such people to let them know that they hold much value in their lives and they don’t want to move away from them.
Himanshu Shangari