Even after a relationship has ended, you may feel unable to move on. If you find yourself reminiscing or ruminating, comparing new relationships to the past or even feel you have trust issues or self-doubt, a cord cutting ritual can help.
It is not only healing but can also help you rebuild your sense of self and self-worth.
Introduction to Cords and Meaning
Cords are a symbolic way of showing that you are still attached in some way to another person.
With cords still attached, you may feel you are giving away your energy to the other person which can lower your emotional and vibrational state. If the relationship was toxic in some way, you may feel drained.
Even if the relationship was positive, with cords still attached, the energy of the two of you is entangled. This may block you from finding new and positive relationships. You may even find that you adopt quirks or characteristics of the other person. You may feel that the boundaries of your own identity have become blurred.
Why a Cord Cutting Ritual?
A ritual can be helpful in everyday life, in both good times and bad. And ritual is particularly helpful during challenging times. Here are just some ways in which a cord cutting ritual can help you:
Structure and Routine: During a time of emotional upheaval, ritual serves as an anchor and provides a sense of stability in your daily or weekly routine.
Mentally and Emotionally End the Relationship: Even if the relationship had negative aspects, the departure of that person may take you time to fully accept. You may even find yourself dwelling on the past. Ritual brings closure.
Expression of Emotions: As part of the cord cutting ritual, you have time to dedicate to process your feelings. Ritual offers a safe space in which you can express and release emotions that might otherwise remain suppressed.
Mindfulness and Presence: Ritual helps you become more present and mitigates rumination about the past and anxiety about the future. A cord cutting ritual requires mindful presence to be fully effective.
Empowerment: With a cord cutting ritual you take an active role in your healing process which is particularly helpful if you feel disempowered, abandoned or are simply grieving the loss of a relationship. Cord cutting restores your personal power.
Transition and Transformation: Endings can be perceived as wholly negative, a loss, but this is not always the case. As much as cord cutting helps you release the past, the ritual also reminds you to look ahead. Every ending can lead to a new beginning.
More than that, you can emerge from the experience stronger than before. My version of cord cutting includes steps to help you regain your sense of self and build your inner strength.
Read on to learn the steps of my own cord cutting process.
Cord Cutting Ritual Steps
The cord cutting ritual can be as simple as you wish. Customize the approach to create a ritual that is right for you from the following:
Step 1: Preparation
Ritual is even more powerful when you perform with some preparation. Use any of the following that are meaningful to you:
Crystals
Hold, wear or lay out crystals that have particular meaning for you, whether for grounding, restoring personal power, or protection.
Light Source or Candle
You may wish to light a candle or other source of light and extinguish it at the end of the cord cutting ritual. Be sure to keep the candle at a safe distance from yourself and other objects.
Incense or Sage
Burn incense or sage to cleanse the space around you.
Photos or Objects
You may wish to have objects that symbolize the relationship or person you are releasing from your life. If this evokes too much emotion, omit this element and simply work with your memories and emotions.
Cutting Tool
Use a symbol to sever the cords. As always, be careful with any physical tool designed to cut. Rather than a physical object, I prefer to use an imagined sword. Another option is to imagine cutting cords with your fingers or breaking them with your bare hands.
Music
You may wish to play a specific piece of music that fits with the intent of the cord cutting ritual. You can choose something that helps you process emotions such as grief, or a song that gives you the feeling you most need, perhaps a tune that evokes a sense of personal power.
Step 2: Location
Decide where you want to perform this ritual. You may want to perform cord cutting in the privacy of your own home. Or you may wish to perform the cord cutting ritual in an emotionally neutral space, perhaps taking a hike to a quiet spot in nature where you feel that you can offload any heavy or negative emotions and leave them behind.
Once you have processed the deeper emotions, you may wish to revisit places that you associate with the other person to cleanse the space.
Wherever you are, ensure that the environment is secure and one in which it is safe for you to close your eyes and focus on your inner world
Step 3: Set Your Intention
Set the intention for the outcome of your cord cutting ritual.
Ask yourself: what do I wish to release? It is simply not true that you need to forget an ex to move on. The key is not to forget but rather to return the memory to a state of emotional neutrality.
What do you wish to express during this time? Write down or mentally prepare a statement of intention or prayer. This could include words of release, forgiveness, or unexpressed hurt. It can also include compassion and best wishes for both yourself and the other person.
Is there anything you wish to reclaim for yourself? Set the intention for personal change. This can include the intention to regain confidence, calm, trust in yourself, identity and so on.
Set the intention for the outcome of your cord cutting ritual. What do you wish to release, express or reclaim for yourself?
Ensure this is about you, not the other person. You can only change yourself.
Step 4: Ground Yourself
Spend a few moments meditating or using progressive relaxation to calm and centre yourself.
Connect to your root chakra and actively send awareness to wherever your body makes contact with the earth. Visualize sending your breath down through your body to fuel your root chakra. Imagine or feel the warmth of the red as it glows, like a welcome hearth at home.
Step 5: Connect to Your Sacral and Solar Plexus Chakras
Connect to your sacral chakra to call on your source of creativity. With any ending, although it may be hard to realize at first, you also have a new beginning.
Tapping into your sacral chakra will give you the energy to rebuild your sense of self and create the next chapter of your life.
Then breathe into the golden yellow sun of your solar plexus, your centre of personal power.
Connecting to your lower chakras will give you power and stability for the next steps of the ritual
Step 6: Identify and Cut Cords
Focus on your breathing and bring your awareness to the present moment.
Visualize yourself bathed in a soft, protective light. In my cord cutting meditation, I invoke the presence of the moon as a symbol of endings.
In this relaxed state, begin to scan your body and mind. Identify any cords and notice where they are connected. Are they connected to your mind, your mouth and therefore your voice, your limbs, or heart or elsewhere? Where the cords are connected may indicate the kind of control or influence that the other person had over you.
Do any of these cords represent a certain belief or emotion? If connected to your upper chest, notice if these connect to your heart space, or maybe to your liver which can represent melancholy or anger, for example.
Then hold the cord and cut with your symbolic tool or bare hands. Cut the cord completely. Visualize the ends healing and repairing, and feel all energy is now contained within you.
Step 7: Speak the Unspoken
Cord cutting is not just about letting go or moving on, it is also about rebuilding your personal power and reclaiming your freedom. Part of this includes the power of your voice and freedom to speak.
After cord cutting, you may wish to express something that was left unsaid. Of you may wish to state affirmations to add to the power of the ritual, as I have included in my 30 Minute Cord Cutting Meditation.
Remember that this time is sacred and even if the other person has long gone, the energy of the words you say will still resonate.
Step 8: Self-Compassion
Spend a few moments in self-compassion. Throughout the cord cutting process, notice any moments when you want to censor or judge yourself and kindly refrain. Ritual is a place where you can express it all: the good, the bad, the ugly and the vulnerable.
Step 9: Focus on the Future
Once you have finished cutting cords, visualize or sense a bridge ahead of you that extends from the space of your ritual to a new path. You may even wish to visualize a bridge behind you that you cut down, as I include in my 1 hour cord cutting meditation.
What is most important is to take some symbolic action that represents a new beginning for you. You can visualize yourself taking steps towards the next stage of your life.
Step 10: Restore Your Personal Power
You can sit at the end of the meditation and unite the lunar energy of the moon with the sun's energy of your solar plexus.
The end of the ritual marks the end of the time you have set aside to focus on the past relationship. Be sure to end the meditation with your focus centred on yourself rather than the other person.
Final Thoughts
The power of ritual intensifies with repetition. Give yourself time.
You may feel a well of unexpressed emotions surface at first and, like a wound that is reopened, it may feel more intense or painful at first. But as you release the emotional gangrene and heal, you will feel better over time.
When you feel a memory or emotion trigger you again, that is a sign to put aside time for another cord cutting ritual.
Commit time however often feels right until you sense there are no more cords to cut and feel at peace and ready to move on.
As I say in my cord cutting meditation, every ending is also a gateway to a new beginning.
If you need additional guidance, you can listen to my 30 minute Cord Cutting Meditation linked below. For a more in-depth step-by-step guide, you can listen to the 1 hour Cord Cutting Meditation on YouTube.
Cord Cutting Meditation
Thank You For Reading
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