Cutting toxic connections

For me, there was a feeding tube connected to my relationship with my father. He left me at seven weeks old and didn’t return until I was fourteen. That abandonment created a wound that rippled through time and slowly drained my resources.

I had a client with a feeding tube connected to her parents' divorce. She was an adult, yet she still felt stuck between them. No matter how much time passed, she couldn’t manage to separate herself from their ruin two decades earlier.

Energetic Cords

Energetic cords are a fact of life. They extend out from us, connecting to every aspect of creation. The harmony of these relationships largely determines our energetic health. As a shaman, I always want to know if you are living in balance with your mom, dad, local mountain, place of birth, etc. If so, then the relationship will enrich you and, in turn, your energetic anatomy.

Things are not all love and light, though. Often, unhealthy dynamics build up, and those cords can turn toxic. You know it when you feel it. Maybe your mom's pessimism is ever-present in your ear, or your ex’s constant worry or doubt.

In truth though, cords run both ways. You pass heavy emotions to another person, and they pass theirs right back to you. It’s an endless cycle that continues even when you're hundreds of miles away and haven’t talked in months.

Feeding Tubes

Where cords are a shared dynamic, feeding tubes are a one-way street. They are not nearly as common, but are deeply impactful. They will slowly siphon the life right out of you. You know one's there when you feel utterly drained or paralyzed by an event, place, or relationship.

I’ve seen confident, well-adjusted people crippled by a single topic of conversation. It’s as if life leaves them, and indeed it does. To regain their composure, that feeding tube needs to be cut.

Practical Tips

Ideally, you would work with a qualified shaman who would help you cut any toxic cords and feeding tubes. It’s not just about severing them; the integration work afterward really matters. If you don’t make the necessary growth and change, they will return in time.

But if you're on your own, here’s my practical advice: insight and forgiveness do the heavy lifting.

Insight

Toxic cords depend on the psychological concept of projection. There is some aspect of yourself that you see in others that you can’t fully grasp in yourself. In short, they are living out a part of your personality for you.

For example, in your last relationship, your significant other constantly doubted you or questioned your motives. If you feel that long after the relationship ended, and there’s a cord, then it likely highlights your inability to doubt yourself in a healthy way. To free yourself from their doubts about you, you need to step in and fill that role. It’s a call to look a little deeper at your motives and assumptions.

Another example would be a person who feels controlled by their parents, boss, ex, etc. They feel that person is selfish, manipulative, and exploitative. The cord feels like they are still being controlled or influenced by them in small, subtle ways.

If they worked with me, I would cut that cord, freeing them from the dynamic. However, my next question would be: what do you get out of that exchange? By allowing someone to control you, you free yourself of a certain responsibility. If you want to re-claim your power and self-determination, it’s not enough to just cut the cord. Together, we also need to uncover a sense of courage and adventure within you to retake control of your life.

Forgivness

When it comes to feeding tubes, the biggest sword you can wield is forgiveness, but it must be genuine! Let’s return to our first example of the woman who was being energetically drained by her parents' divorce twenty years earlier. Together, we worked to create medicine from the wound she endured. That divorce may have cost her childhood, but it also made her a woman. It forced her to grow up and taught her how to rely on herself.

With time and from a place of strength, she was able to accept how deeply her parents' divorce had hurt her. She was finally able to see them as individuals and forgive them for years of neglect. With the feeding tube cut and her parents forgiven, the relationship changed. She no longer felt stuck in an endless drama between them. She was free for the first time in years.