Endigar 944 ~ The Gift of Compassionate Space
From Courage to Change of Jul 05:
I think the word detachment is often misunderstood. For me, detachment is the freedom to own what is mine and to allow others to own what is theirs.
This freedom allows me to keep my own identity and still love, care about, and identify with the feelings of others. In fact, I believe that the degree of our humanity can be measured by our ability to know another person’s pain and joy. I have been practicing the principles of Al-Anon to the best of my abilities for a long time. But when someone in the fellowship shares about having a difficult time, I can go right back to day one. I no longer live with that type of emotional pain, but I can feel theirs. I can identify without needing to remove their pain. To me, that is an Al-Anon success story.
Today I don’t have to like everything my alcoholic loved one says or does, and I don’t have to change her, even when I think she’s wrong. I continue to learn how to care without taking everything personally.
Today’s Reminder
I can detach and still love, still feel. I can learn to take care of my own business while allowing others to tend to theirs. Today I can detach without losing compassion.
“Love your neighbor, yet pull not down your hedge.” ~ George Herbert
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There’s a kind of fear that gets baked into your bones when you grow up watching someone you love self-destruct. For me, it wasn’t just about their drinking or their choices—it was the way they lied to themselves, the way they collapsed inward and expected the world to hold them up.
That fear didn’t vanish when I grew up. It disguised itself. It came with me into adulthood, where I found myself drawn to familiar pain dressed in different clothes. I didn’t realize at first that I was recreating the same story, casting myself in the same role: the quiet savior, the one who absorbs and holds and fixes.
I have this gift—I used to call it compassion, now I know it’s more complicated. I see people deeply. I feel their ache. I want to help. But somewhere along the way, that gift boomerangs. It turns inward, sticks like tar, and pulls me into a place where love becomes sacrifice, where being needed becomes more important than being safe.
Detachment felt like a cold word to me—like a turning away, a kind of emotional shutdown. I thought if I truly cared, I had to be enmeshed. If I loved someone, I had to take on their pain, their chaos, their choices. I couldn’t tell where I ended and they began.
But Al-Anon has shown me a different way.
Detachment isn’t withdrawal—it’s freedom. It’s the grace of boundaries that let me hold onto myself and still love deeply. I no longer have to absorb another’s suffering to show I care. I can stand beside someone in their pain without losing myself in it.
Today, I know I don’t have to agree with or approve of everything my loved one says or does. I don’t have to make it okay. And I don’t have to lose myself trying to make it different. That’s not indifference—it’s clarity. It’s love with room to breathe.
Detachment has allowed me to soften, not harden. It has taught me to stop trying to rescue and start learning how to relate with respect. It has given me back my life, and with it, the ability to show up for others without vanishing in the process.
I can feel deeply, love freely, and still stand firm in my own center. That is a gift I hold with gratitude today.
Daily Reprieve 
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