"Disengage"

The first time I heard the word disengage was on the original Star Trek series when Captain Kirk used it when he give the order to his crew. At the time I was really young so it didn't make a real impression until much later in my life when I heard the word again. My husband used the word on me once when my daughter and I were having an argument. She was at that age when she was starting to assert her independence as a young teen. I remember the image of Captain Kirk flooding back into my memory when he said it, understanding the idea but wondering if he had borrowed it from one of the episodes.

I have learned since that no matter who we are drama is something that plays a part of everyone's life. Whether it is being personally involved, watching it on Television, reading about it, seeing it at the movies, finding it at work etc.. in some way we all are exposed to it. Drama is just one of things that is part of the human experience. All these different kinds of exposures to drama leads us down a trail of learning diverse ways of moving through it. Sometimes the drama is out of our hands and we find ourselves caught up in the web of complications looking for ways to disentangle ourselves from it. Boundaries are great but when the drama has crossed the lines where do we go from there?

This is when the word disengage is useful as it means a form of detachment. I know when I heard my husband use it that first time I thought he was being funny and didn't appreciate it. Now years later I have learned a great deal about this one action that is so powerful in helping to see and to maneuver out of storms that have tried to blow me off course. I am not saying that I have mastered it as of yet because there are still times I'm caught off guard but when I am aware of it I know I have the choice to pull myself back. Just by detaching from the emotional roller coaster I can then find other solutions that open up in exploring the situation.

 By stepping back I am able to take a breath giving myself the opportunity to find my center again where my thoughts are a lot clearer. In this state I'm better equipped  to evaluate whether it is something that I really need to be a part of or if it is something that I need to let go.


For more information on this subject a helpful book on detachment is...  
Let Go Now; Embracing Detachment: By Karen Casey

Photographs by Ana