Breathe.Gratitude.Love.

Cutting energetic Cords

For over 9 years after the divorce,  I had these expectations of the other parent.  I expected him to be responsible, to pick his children up every Thursday for dinner and every other weekend for overnight stays.  I expected him to consistently pay child support.  I expected him to parent his kids, to love and care for them in the manner that I had imagined. 

In reality, they were never picked up on Thursdays and almost never picked up on weekends.  They were often left sitting by the window with packed bags, tear-stained faces and disappointed hearts.   The child support payments were unreliable and inconsistent. Their relationships depended primarily on birthdays and holidays, and even those were scarce.

I alternated between states of seething anger and refusing to acknowledge that the other parent even existed.  It felt diabolically unfair that my kids were frequently disappointed while I was left to come up with the explanations of someone else’s poor behaviors.  They were too young to understand that being an adult did not always align with the implied duties of maturity.  I felt the need to relay the disappearances of someone I could not stand in a light that spared the innocence in their tender hearts.  This felt like complete bullshit.

From my point of view, he was inconsistent, failed to communicate his true intentions, unreliable and had basically left me to either take care of or resolve everything we co-created.  He had walked away to start a new life, and I was left behind.   

I had been having this same conversation for 9 years now.  The conversation about how he ruined my life, destroyed my dreams, swung a concrete wrecking ball thru the center of my life vision and walked away clean as a whistle.  Meanwhile I was left to struggle with two children, to rebuild a life that was reduced to shambles, and to sacrifice all chances of having the life I once wanted. 

I did my best to holster my feelings for the sake of the kids, but it eventually became no secret that I did not like this guy.  What is there to like about someone who would walk away from his kids as though they never existed?  How could anyone stand someone who says one thing then does the complete opposite or nothing at all?  

The conversations escalated into heated battles, but the words never changed.  They always left me feeling angry and resentful. 

The problem was, the conversations only took place inside of me.  I was the primary sufferer of  the ill effects of these toxic thoughts and feelings.  

I realized this seething as the underlying current to all of my thoughts and actions.  It was running in the background of every role I played, even the mother role.  The toxic effects of this seething anger had been spilling over into other areas of my life for years.

There came an occasion when I needed to have an actual conversation with the other parent.  After 9 years, I still avoided contact with him as much as possible.  I was not sure I could even stomach talking to him.  So instead I sent a text message containing the information he needed.  

His response frustrated me into a loss of words and double vision.  Enough was enough-I’d had it with these shenanigans.  It was time for a real verbal conversation that involved both of us and not just my one-sided rumination with the past. 

I was on a nature walk at the time, so I looked to the trees to support me through this most unwanted task.  My request for a telephone call had been granted and the phone was ringing.  I answered the call, and for the first time in years, we spoke on the phone.

Though I could feel my pressure rising to an unhealthy level at the sound of his voice, I spoke calmly and articulated my feelings clearly.  This was a bit shocking to me and probably to him too, because I was much more irritated than my voice let on.  It was as though I was being guided to say the right things in the right manner, because I was surely planning to cuss at least four times.  But that didn’t happen.  Instead I heard myself saying the words out loud that I had not said clearly in 9 years.  “How could you just leave me to take care of everything on my own?  I was all alone, with two kids.  They were only 2 and 5 years old.  I didn’t even have a job when you left.  How could you just disappear?”

The words came in a clear and even cadence from a heart space I didn’t realize still existed.  It came from the space of the abandoned dreams now reduced to a few scattered family photos.  It came from the wall-sized wedding photo that no longer found comfort in anyone’s home.  It came from the wedding ring set years ago pawned for survival.  It came from an abandoned future that would never materialize.

My anger melted into the sweet, buttery honesty of a deeper truth that suffered in silence at the hands of years of bitterness.  I had no choice but to let her voice be heard.  She deserved to be heard.  She deserved an explanation as to why she was deserted by both of us.  By all of us.  I cannot remember every word that was spoken, but I still feel her soft release of validation into the atmosphere.  

I was not surprised when he deflected responsibility but it did not matter to me in the least.  His response was none of my business.  

What mattered is I finally gave her a voice- the part of me that was still hurt, still devastated by the manner in which she was left in the dark to fend for herself.  She felt she had been dumped on the side of the road in a big black garbage bag with a kid on each hip.  His words continued to  ring soundlessly in the background as the hurt part of me finally stood up tall and into the sunshine.  For 9 years her voice had been relegated to echoing from the same walls of rejection and hurt that nobody heard.  Today they were released into the atmosphere and the universe heard her loud and clear.  It was the beginning of her freedom to rejoin the outside world.  

Cutting the cord

The days following the telephone call found me feeling increasingly lighter than I had in over a decade.  The space that resentment and contempt occupied in his honor progressively dwindled and left my body, energy and consciousness.  The daggers that auto-populated at the mention of his name no longer penetrated my spirit.  I was finally becoming free.  

The lighter I felt, the more I healed.   The more I healed, the more space I had available for enlightened knowledge.  The more knowledge I received, the clearer the vision became for my new life.  I was no longer bound to someone else’s energy as a source of my surviving, thriving or anything else. This was my life for which I was perfectly designed to master.

I am immeasurably grateful for the opportunity to have spoken these words to their intended recipient in a safe and constructive manner.  This option is not always available as the person to which we need to express our feelings may not be available to us.  

Physical, mental and emotional safety are paramount and must always be our first consideration.  The other person’s presence is not required for energetic detachment, especially if it risks our well-being in any manner. 

Here are a few ideas that may help when the other party is not physically available:

• Go somewhere and scream.  Nature is preferable (and much more forgiving than the neighbor downstairs from your second-floor apartment).   Nature will hear your screams as a beautifully wordless prayer.  The atmosphere knows the translations held within your cries, and she welcomes them into the fabric of the world.  The universe hears your prayers and answers with offerings of gentle comfort.  So go out there and scream as loud as you safely can and as often as needed.  Your prayers are always heard and answered.  
• Write a letter.  If screaming is not your thing, write a letter to the person whom you want to address.  Try making a ceremony of your letter writing.    Here is my letter-writing ritual:

• Light a candle representing the presence of an ancestor or compassionate deity as your support system.  
• Allow time and space for your emotions to pour into the surrounding atmosphere.  Let the tears fall down onto the paper, as they are filled with information that the Divine longs to hear. Write down the words, even if they don’t form complete sentences. God gets it.
• Activate your letter by reading it out loud. Allow emotions to have a natural release. 
• When all of your feelings have been recognized and your ceremony is complete, the Spirit will guide you in the proper manner of disposal of the letter.    Disposal of the letter releases the unwanted energetic ties and moves you closer to your freedom.  
• Recover from your letter-writing ceremony with self- care activities such as a warm shower, a cup of hot tea, a nature walk or listening to uplifting music.

• Own your part.  I had to own my part in the entirety of this relationship.  My actions played a huge part in the relationship progression and outcome.   Owning your part in the breakdown of any relationship is vital to the overall mastering of your existence.  This does not give the excuse to spend days, months, years or a lifetime in self-blame.  This simply means acknowledging what you could have done differently.  A first-string ball player does not run to the sidelines and bury himself in blame after every missed shot.  He quickly acknowledges, corrects and continues in the game.  Owning your part is a way of saying “Oh yeah! Got it!  I know what to do next time.”  Failing to own your part leaves you open to the seductions of victimhood, and you are not a victim.  You are mastering your existence, and mastering requires the maturity to own all parts of the game, including the losses.  
• Move into something new.  You likely already have something new you would like to do inside the voids left by the release of negative energy.  This is likely a reconnection with a creative venture that ties closely with your life purpose.  Begin to bring those things into sustained focus.  Replacing the negative energy vacancies with a high-vibrational activity that incorporates creativity and passion helps to rebuild the bridges that may have been lost to toxic energy.  Perhaps now is the time to take the dance class, start a blog, or organize a neighborhood sip and paint.

Gratitude and Love

I am grateful for the release of what no longer serves me.  This experienced served as a true exercise in authentic forgiveness.  The bitterness and hatred that once ran in the background of my life is transformed into bounding love and self-acceptance. 

Of course the journey is ongoing, and there are times when I must re-align new point of view. But the possibilities for a future filled with love is now fresh and available within me. I declare my heart healed.

It is released. 

Copyright Madeline A. Cameron March 2025