Green Medina

Detaching with love sounds like a strange idea. If you love someone, why would you detach from them? This is a concept discussed in Al Anon and other support circles for people dealing with addiction and abuse. Al Anon is a group for people who have family and loved ones who are addicts. The idea of detaching with love is letting go of a loved one’s problem. Your loved one’s problem doesn’t have to be your problem.

The reality of living with a loved one who has addiction — or some other kind of toxic behavior — can mean you’re dealing with one crisis after another. This puts you in a position where you are constantly in “rescue mode.” In rescue mode, you may have tried literally everything under the sun to solve your loved one’s problem. But nothing seems to help. Your situation starts to feel hopeless. Like you’re swimming against the ocean current, only for powerful waves to pummel you against the shore again and again.

This is because if your loved one is an addict, or abuser, they have to first want change before true change can happen in their life. You can’t change another person, especially not against their will. And even if they do want to change, their change has to come from within. You cannot impose it on them.

If you grew up in a household with addicts or abusers, there is a chance that you may be codependent. What is codependent? I’ve already written much about it this week here and here. But in quick summary, codependency is characterized by an excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, typically one who requires support on account of an illness or addiction. The word codependent was initially used to refer to those who had a relationship with an addict. But it can now also be used to refer to a person who has a relationship with an abuser. The abuse doesn’t have to be physical either. It can be emotional, intellectual, or any other kind of abuse one might imagine.

Codependents take the problems of others upon themselves, much to their own misfortune.

While my previous articles focused on what codependency was, this one focuses more on the process of detatchment, and an example of this from one of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.).

So why is detaching important? A key part of Al Anon is learning that you cannot solve all problems by yourself, and that you certainly can’t fix other peoples’ problems for them. Trying to do so can actually make the situation worse. You may become an enabler or an abuser yourself. It is not our role to control other people. All we can do is give that person’s problems to God. God has the power to help that person. Not us.

That doesn’t mean you leave the person high and dry. It means that you recognize that you do not have the power to control the person’s problematic behaviors, and you give over those behaviors to God, rather than taking them onto yourself.

As Psych Central states, “Detaching (or detaching with love) is a core component of codependency recovery.” Detaching with love can even mean caring so much about someone else that we let them learn from their mistakes. Psych Central relates how Codependency expert, Melody Beattie, says that when we detach, we relinquish our tight hold and our need to control in our relationships. We take responsibility for ourselves; we allow others to do the same.

Deepak Chopra even has a Law of Detachment. It includes this commitment: “I will allow myself and those around me the freedom to be as they are. I will not rigidly impose my idea of how things should be. I will not force solutions on problems, thereby creating new problems.”

What a beautiful idea! Living in this way also respects the idea of free will. It’s an idea of having enough trust, and faith in the Greater Good that you allow matters to unfold naturally, rather than turning yourself into a stressed out wreck determined to control all outcomes.

So how does this relate to Sa’d bin Abi Waqqas, who I mentioned in the title?

Sa’d bin Abi Waqqas was one of the companions of Muhammad (the prophet of the Islamic faith who brought the Quran through God’s revelations).

Sa’d was one of the early converts to Islam and he converted young, at only 17 years old.

When he converted, his mother (the closest person to his heart) was deeply unhappy about this choice. She threatened to starve herself until he left Islam. She even said she would starve herself to death, and then everyone would call him his mother’s murderer.

This is indeed a difficult predicament because Allah commands Muslims in the Quran to be kind to their parents. (The Qur’an, 17:24). Is this a paradox? Is there a Catch 22 so to speak in the Islamic religion? The answer is no. Here is a relevant verse from the Quran: “O believers! You are accountable only for yourselves. It will not harm you if someone chooses to deviate — as long as you are rightly guided. To Allah you will all return, and He will inform you of what you used to do.” (The Qur’an 5:105)

What this verse of the Quran is saying is that just because one’s parents deviate, that doesn’t mean we have to deviate along with them. So how does one face this difficult challenge?

Now many of us who have read about psychology will recognize the tactic of Sa’d’s mother as manipulation, or even as a form of emotional abuse.

Sa’d had much wisdom, even as a young man. While he implored his mother not to starve herself to death, he didn’t allow himself to be controlled by the situation. He didn’t leave Islam or pretend to leave Islam as a way to appease her. He showed his mother compassion, while also being authentic to his principles. And three days later, his mother finally ate.

I think there are many lessons from the story of Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas that recent reverts to Islam could learn from. Many reverts struggle with a lack of acceptance from their families. This doesn’t mean the reverts should be harsh toward their parents. But rather, it means that if their parents (or other family members) are trying to force them to leave the religion or do other un-islamic actions, they can politely assert their boundaries or leave the situation.

In conclusion, the life of the companion Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas contains many valuable lessons about boundaries, moral courage, and leadership for those of us in the modern world. Sometimes it can be difficult to stick to one’s principles, especially when there is coercion or harassment from the people we love. The Quran does not tell us to respond back with more mockery or harassment. Instead, it tells us to be firm in our faith and to turn away from the foolish. (The Quran, 7:199). There is no doubt that Sa’d’s firm moral character allowed him to win crucial military victories and eventually landed him the position of governor over al-Kufa. As a recovering people-pleaser myself, inshallah God will make me more like Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas.

(This article was originally published on my Medium page, Striving for the Straight Path). Check it out to see more lessons I’ve learned and experiences I’ve had in converting to Islam.