Cut Cords of Attachment (30 page)

TALE: One Helpless Victim Finds Gumption

Ruth came in like such a victim that I felt a flicker of doubt I could help her. Sometimes people fall into such a pit of self-loathing and helplessness that they can’t summon the strength to get out.

Still, Ruth surprised me. She was motivated to change, and significantly. Here was the pattern in the cord to her husband:

1. Husband: Angry at life, angry about lots of things having nothing to do with Ruth, but taking it out on her.

2. Ruth: What did I do wrong?

3. Ruth: Since he’s angry at me and I can’t fix it, I feel like my whole world is crumbling.

4. Ruth: If I can’t be a good wife, I have no reason for living.

5. Ruth: I must indulge his every whim, begging and appeasing.

6. Husband: Not responding to her efforts, except for contempt that she is groveling.

7. Ruth: I don’t know what else to do to make my marriage a success. Miserable!

8. Ruth: What am I SUPPOSED to do? If I can’t make him happy, maybe I should kill myself.

Ruth recognized all the cord items. After discussing them with me, we agreed that Items 2-7 weren’t particularly productive or, even, rational. Sure, they were understandable while she had the cord, but now she would have a lot more choice.

For Agreement homework, Ruth could talk for 10 minutes about her own definition of “Good Wife.” What did and didn’t she want that to mean?

Each of us has self-authority. We get to choose how we define our relationships, then create speech, actions, and boundaries to support that.

Actually, I wound up giving Ruth the following kind of homework instead. But either choice could have helped her a lot.

Encourage Lifestyle Change

Lifestyle change may seem like the most obvious way to make your client’s life better. Except maybe the possibility isn’t obvious, not necessarily to your client, not at all. Maybe he was so bound up in a relationship that he couldn’t begin consider the possibility of real change.

Maybe your client tried changing his lifestyle long before coming to you but couldn’t act freely because of a cord of attachment. Once freed from this cord, his life can finally improve.

A simple homework assignment could encourage such a client to take effective, constructive action.

TECHNIQUE: Active Homework

Remember, you have done a powerful procedure. Pushing will not be needed. Active homework is most effective when assigned with finesse.

So collaborate with your client, rather than giving advice. The following method can help you to find the right balance.

1. Ask questions that start your client thinking, such as:

• • “Now that you have released this cord of attachment, are you interested in changing the relationship?”
    
  • “With the cord cut, you have been freed up energetically. What positive action can you take, knowing that it will be easier now?”
    

2. Brainstorm to find one simple action that your client can take. Discuss this as possible homework.

3. Keep discussing until you and the client can agree on a specific, but not-too-big, homework assignment.

4. Also encourage your client to take action beyond that first 10 minutes of homework. Express interest in what he will choose to do, but don’t complicate matters. Next session, your client won’t be shy about reporting additional self-assigned projects, and how well they worked.

TALE: Lose That Groveling Lifestyle

Which homework did I wind up assigning Ruth, the unhappy wife? Remember her Cord Item #5? It was, “Husband: Not responding to her efforts, except for contempt that she is groveling.”

During Step 10, Ruth didn’t understand the concept of groveling. She asked for an example. I described a mother with a spoiled little boy who won’t eat lunch, so Mommy follows him around, offering chocolate bars, begging him to do her the favor of eating them. When Ruth’s eyes lit up, I knew she understood.

For homework, Ruth was asked to imagine three different scenes with her husband where she would refuse to grovel. Instead of begging she would walk away, or insist on discussing the problem, or make her husband buy his own chocolate bars, etc.

Why did I choose this assignment? Homework that involves major Agreements must be timed sensitively.

Beware. Sometimes a client will start her session by saying her goal is to make a decision. If a client is receiving physical abuse, urge her to make that decision. But otherwise she might need to develop more strength before she can make a wise decision (or is able to handle the consequences).

When she came for her session, Ruth was fragile. Cutting the cord to her husband would strengthen her. So would some relatively simple homework related to lifestyle. With more strength, Ruth would be in a better position to decide whether or not to stay in her marriage.

TECHNIQUE: Paired Assignments for Lifestyle Change

Can one simple session really instigate major lifestyle change?

I’ve seen it happen. Removing a cord of attachment can make a huge difference, even if a client has felt stuck for years. For a really ambitious client, you might pair a simple piece of homework with a bigger long-term project. Here are some examples.

Lifestyle Situation:
Alcoholic father

• Immediate homework: Find the nearest Al-Anon meeting.
  
• Long-term lifestyle change: Attend meetings until you have established healthy new behaviors for coping with your father.
  

Lifestyle Situation:
Ex not leaving

• Immediate homework: Act out a short ceremony where you officially say goodbye to that ex-lover.
  
• Long-term lifestyle change: Find a way to get rid of the suitcases he left in your bedroom. Choose a reasonable deadline for him to pick them up. Make it clear that if he misses that date, you will throw his belongings into the trash. Be prepared to do so.
  

Lifestyle Situation:
Bossy spouse

• Immediate homework: Imagine a conversation with a bossy spouse where you manage to stick up for yourself.
  
• Long-term lifestyle change: In real life, when the spouse acts up, try out that new behavior. Develop consistency with acting this way.
  

Goal Setting as Put-In

Maybe your client has set goals before, unaware that a cord of attachment limited his ability to succeed. Now that his aura has healed old limitations, goal setting can work more effectively. Goals bring practicality and focus, helping a client to emphasizing objective reality.

Moreover, with a cord gone, the client’s chosen goals become a form of put-in.

TECHNIQUE: Goal Setting at a Teachable Moment

Think New Year’s Eve. Think birthday. Everyone believes that certain times can be auspicious for a new start. Let your session of Rosetree Energy Spirituality count as one of these times.

1. Choose a goal-setting topic related to one of the logical consequences you have discussed with your client.

2. Remind your client that cord cutting creates a new beginning. Then assign your client to sit down and brainstorm about that new start, making a wish list of new
goals.

3. Offer a choice of ways to make that wish list:

• • Writing down ideas, point by point.
    
  • Drawing cartoons, symbols or meaningful doodles to fill up a page.
    
  • Speaking into an electronic recording device.
    

4. Optional: An enthusiastic client can add plans. What might she say or do to bring about that goal? Plans can follow each goal, for instance:

• • Jamil’s
    goal
    is to stick up for himself when with his bossy boss.
    
  • His
    plan
    is to write down words he could use at work—effective ways that he might start to speak up for himself.
    

5. Ask your client to
commit
to doing this goal-setting homework. Which method would he prefer to use? When can he find the 10 minutes within the next 24 hours?

6. Once your client states his choices out loud, he has begun a very personal put-in to integrate his healing. Help your client to appreciate the significance.

Goals are always set in a context. Were your client simply working from the conscious mind, results would flow only that far. But the 12 Steps to Cut Cords of Attachment bring in the power of the subconscious mind and the Higher Self. Also, because you are working with your client’s choice of Divine Being, this goal setting homework will be supported by spiritual Source.

As appropriate, you can also encourage your client to supplement action by keep track of results and reporting back to you at the next session. (Use this option only when you feel reasonably sure that you will
have
a follow-up session.) Remind your client that every bit of inner healing empowers him to make real changes in life.

Action in the world can be needed to bring life into balance. Yet sometimes a person can’t take the action desired until his inner balance alters, just what happens with the release of a cord. If a client is willing to schedule at least one more session with you, together, the two of you can start building cumulative results.

CORD SAMPLE: Goodbye, Turtle. Hello, Tiger.

Frank told me, “I have the biggest library of metaphysical books that you have ever seen.”

Alas, they weren’t helping Frank to have much of a life. At the time of our first session, Frank was the kind of person who fades into the woodwork.

He asked me to cut a cord of attachment to Andrew, a coworker. Cord dynamics went like this:

1. Frank: Just leave me alone to go about my business.

2. Andrew: What matters around here is that I’m the important one. You’d better act like I’m important. I want you defer to me in every possible way. Nothing is too petty for me to demand your obedience. Unless you help me feel important, I’ll slap you down.

3. Frank: How about MY value? You have no idea what I can do. You don’t see me.

4. Frank: I would rather die than be a show-off like you.

5. Frank: How dare you make me seem so small? I’m furious at you.

6. Frank: And I’m even angrier at myself, because I don’t let my own light shine.

Discussing the cord, Frank sighed with relief. The healer had pegged it perfectly. Now he could sit back and have the healer (me) announce that all of Frank’s anger would magically disappear.

As if! I did say, “You “Go Turtle” a lot, don’t you?”

I had noticed the pattern when doing his Before Picture, and now here it was in cord items. I summed up that Go Turtle pattern: Whenever someone seemed to belittle Frank, he would go into hiding, just like a turtle crawling into its shell.

Frank realized this was true. Together we explored goals to change this, and we found one: Speaking up for himself right in the moment when he felt he had something to say. Frank would find this easier to do without the cord that set off the pattern of “going turtle.”

For his homework, Frank was asked to write small-sized plans to implement his overall goal of speaking up for himself. What were some situations where he could speak up for himself more? What might he say? Put-in happens when making choices, even after a client changes his mind within a day of the homework assignment. Put-in happens from the process of doing the homework, not details of how the 10 minutes are spent.

Right from that first session (and he did have some follow-ups, as well), Frank made huge progress in his personal growth. He left that turtle shell behind and emerged more strongly into the very human life he really desired.

Winning Affirmations

Affirmations
are positive statements, carefully chosen to reprogram the subconscious mind. Effective though they can be, affirmations usually take a lot of time to produce results.

Can you appreciate why that would be, given what you now know about cords?

Here’s an example of a common problem related to affirmations. Tom tries using affirmations for anger management. Every day he repeats his perfectly good affirmation: “I am peaceful.”

When temper flares up, Tom berates himself for not having enough faith. “If only I believed,” he thinks, “I would get results.”

What doesn’t Tom know? Every day, he receives a ton of anger through the cord of attachment to his first girlfriend.

In life, there’s a natural order for making things work. If you put the cart before the horse, how can you expect the horse to pull it? Affirmations can’t work productively while contradicted by a much stronger force, negativity in a cord of attachment.

Now that the cord is gone, a client like Tom will receive much better results from using affirmations.

During this special teachable moment, don’t assign just any affirmation. Explore what resonates strongly with your client’s subconscious mind.

TECHNIQUE: Aura-Effective Affirmations

Combine physical awareness with affirmations for a winning combination.

1. Find 1-3 major themes from the discussion with your client during Step 11.

2. Construct one affirmation. Make a sentence that is:

• • Personal
    
  • Present tense
    
  • Positive
    
  • Believable
    
  • Simple
    

3. Ask your client to notice how she feels in her body.

4. Have her open her eyes and speak the affirmation three times out loud.

5. Ask your client to notice how she feels now, physically.

6. Repeat 2-5, trying out different affirmations until you can find one that causes your client to feel significant improvement. This is a winning affirmation.

Assign one or two winning affirmations for homework, to speak out loud for 10 minutes sometime within the next 24 hours.

TALE: I Feel Passion Now

Naomi asked me to cut the cord of attachment to her father. By Step 12, I understood the wisdom of her choice.

Early in the session, Naomi noted that she felt tired, confused and struggling. At the end, she helped with her After Picture, then said in a voice filled with surprise, “I feel passion now.”

Here’s what had been in the cord:

1. Naomi: Helpless, that’s how I feel.