Instructions for Attachment

Begin by assuming something has already taken hold.

Do not wait for confirmation.

Attachment does not arrive with ceremony.

It settles while you are paying attention to something else.

Proceed as if this condition is stable.

Check that you can still perform ordinary tasks.

Eat, answer messages, keep appointments.

If any of these become difficult, do not adjust the assumption yet.

Allow anticipation to appear.

It will insist on sequence—before and after, signal and response.

Do not correct it immediately.

Anticipation is not a failure of discipline;

it is the body leaning forward to test what is already present.

Keep your instructions simple.

Avoid declarations.

Avoid promises framed as precautions.

At this stage, the goal is not to secure the feeling,

but to recognize that it exists without needing to speak.

•

If you find yourself revising past interactions for missed signs,

pause.

Reviewing does not indicate progress.

Reduce unnecessary checks.

Silence is not a data point.

Treat both as neutral conditions unless proven otherwise.

•

Should anticipation attempt to convert waiting into rehearsal,

interrupt it gently.

Remind yourself that attachment does not require momentum.

At this stage, your task is maintenance.

Keep the assumption.

Allow the expectation.

This is the point where most guidance becomes unreliable.

You will have followed the steps correctly

and still feel unprepared.

•

Name the task anyway:

how to tolerate the interval

where attachment exists without confirmation.

Do not dramatize this interval.

It is not a test.

It is not a punishment.

It is a span of time in which nothing resolves

and nothing withdraws.

You may experience the urge to secure the feeling—

to ask it to declare itself,

to give it language sturdy enough to lean on.

These are understandable errors.

They are attempts to convert anticipation into outcome.

When this happens, return to the simplest instruction.

Remain attached.

Do not require evidence.

Do not treat silence as absence

or delay as refusal.

If you must do something,

do less.

Wait without rehearsal.

Hold the interval as it is,

unconfirmed, intact.

At some point, the instructions will stop working as intended.

It means they were provisional.

You may notice that attachment persists

even when anticipation becomes erratic.

Attempts to stabilize the interval by preparing outcomes

will produce only brief relief.

If the feeling intensifies, do not escalate the steps.

More structure will not produce certainty.

Instead, revise your expectations.

The purpose of these instructions is not to deliver confirmation.

Accept that the interval may outlast your ability

to manage it cleanly.

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When the interval extends beyond usefulness,

discontinue further instruction.

Do not interpret this as an ending.

The absence of confirmation does not negate

what has already taken hold.

If nothing arrives,

continue as you are.

If something arrives,

do not mistake it for completion.

Attachment does not conclude when observed.

The final step is not action.

It is acknowledgment.

Remain where you are.

The interval will not close

because you have learned how to stand inside it.