We both felt an immediate attraction and knew there was something worth exploring. That was the mutual feeling we had about each other the first time my ex and I locked eyes.
And what was my ex doing at the time? Being cradled in the lap of an ex! On querying this later I was told: ‘they were just good friends…’
Yeah, right!
When the time comes, we publicly declare our intimate relationships null, void and very over. But women in particular are notorious for not knowing how to break up. Read: masochistically prolonging emotional suffering.
The all-consuming time, energy and pain of the process most of us put ourselves through when the end is nigh is often a spectacular drama of our own creation. We direct our own many miserable scenes, until the moment we finally decide to bring that curtain down.
After all, how many times does it have to hurt seeing our ex partner involved with his/her new love before we are willing to let go and free ourselves? Just like our ex has.
Making the physical departure out of someone’s life during a break-up has little bearing on the slow psychological departure back to emotional health each of us has to make. Unless, of course, you’ve gradually been making that departure for years under the radar while you’ve purportedly been ‘content’ in the relationship?
But whether you’re the dumper, the dumped or it’s a mutual arrangement, you cannot escape the process. If you’re the dumped, you’ll likely be in shock and denial initially.
From my own experience, I’ve realized ending an important, intimate relationship of whatever length means being willing to go through the five stages of loss – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But not necessarily in that order, because it’s always such a personal and individual process.
Be conscious of what you are feeling as often as you can, because getting stuck in any one of the stages could spell danger. If that’s the case, you’re likely unwilling or unable to move through the entire process towards your healing. And you may need some help at this point.
If you’re in a situation where one or both parties don’t possess enough emotional maturity to sit down and talk things through amicably, you may want to count this as a blessing instead. Why? Although more painful in the short run, in the long run this is far better for your de-cording process.
For your what?
I’ve come to understand that a third, very real energetic entity is forged when you enter a relationship with someone. These are the energetic cords, the ties that bind us to each other. And due to its subtle but powerful influence, it is often the force that is the most difficult to dissolve. However, it is one that you need to begin dismantling as part of your quest to return you to you.
You may like to see them as invisible strands or fragments of your own being or power that you gave away to your beloved. During a relationship’s good times most women want nothing more than to be bound as it produces the feeling of caring and being cared for.
But after it’s over, these are the cords that pull on you, creating the emotional pain when those charged feelings of longing, regret and past/future fantasizing, amongst others, come up for you.
An unhealthy symptom of cording post the relationship, though, is the all-consuming obsessive feelings it triggers. Most humans feel incomplete within themselves. And cords are how we contract to ‘feeding’ each other psychically, emotionally and energetically. Though this agreement usually takes place unconsciously, it’s always a two-way street even if it appears differently to you. From a soul/Higher Self perspective, you wished to experience all you are. When I’m working on dissolving cords in my own life I constantly see them as a separate but connected third entity, in existence both internally and externally.
De-cording is all about pulling back your own essence into you once again. Sometimes, it could be for the first time ever in your life, depending on your history before this. There are several ways to do this, but personally, I find the power of intention works the best and quickest for me. Before I discovered this, it once took me almost as long as the life of a relationship itself to fully release an ex, healing and freeing myself.
Years ago, someone who could actually see cordings between people said: ‘Imagine fine tubes criss-crossing between people currently in relationship, between the dead and the living and between ex-lovers. It’s like a zillion mini-highways constantly moving between humans’. Even if you can’t see these, it doesn’t mean they’re not there, keeping you energetically fragmented until you decide you want to do something to retrieve those lost parts of yourself.
Of course, there’s always a payoff for not wanting to release/retrieve cords and holding onto the past. And clearly why so many do. Going into a memory of what was between the two of you – no matter how distorted you may have allowed time to recreate it – can still produce that warm, fuzzy inner glow.
You may find yourself years later and in another relationship still quietly pining for your old love. Confirmation enough that the cord to that person was never properly released/retrieved when you originally parted company. Even though you entered a new relationship.
Not letting go is also a great mechanism for dealing with hurt (or not dealing with it) by being automatically unavailable to vulnerability, and thus from further potential hurt.
And while I constantly encourage those I see to work with the ‘feeling is healing’ approach, sometimes the pain is just too overwhelming and some people do succumb to denial. You know, ‘everything’s fine’ and ‘I’m totally over the relationship now’, etc. When this happens, as one psychologist puts it, the feelings have to come out ‘sideways’. This can result in all manner of denial symptoms from the start of addictive behaviour (drugs, gambling, fitness) to numerous escape tactics or mental disorders such as depression or anxiety. In an attempt to numb out all feelings, you’re creating an extra load of issues that will also, sooner or later, need to be dealt with.
It is okay to allow and feel loneliness, sadness, anger and all those other emotions deemed ‘negative'. In fact, it really is the wisest way forward for your personal healing.
As spiritual teacher and author of The Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav says: ‘your soul speaks to you in the language of emotions’.
[Mail me if you’d like me to share my intention formula on this with you]
