Do as I say, not as I do

The phrase "Do as I say, not as I do" is usually associated with parents and children. But, for those of us who advise other people in some capacity, it takes on a broader meaning. Recently, this has been a theme for me, not only in my role as a mother to two girls but also as a friend and lightworker.

I'm pretty good at telling other people what to do and how to do it when it comes to dealing with issues that pop up in their lives. (Yeah, I'm bossy that way - it probably comes from being the older sister to two brothers.) I think, at least some of the time, I give decent advice. With respect to my kids, it's sort of my job to tell them what to do. And what not to do.

But, truth be told, I take very little of my own advice when it comes to running my life. Which means I haven't been eating well, sleeping enough, keeping myself organized or doing the creative stuff (like writing) that keeps me sane. And because of this, I'm struggling with the fact that - like it or not- I'm a role model for my kids and, to an extent, my clients.

A quick side note about the role model thing . . . I'm currently in school to become a massage therapist. At school, we have those horrible vending machines that sell unhealthy sodas and snacks. Lacking will power and loving Mountain Dew makes it difficult for me to stay away from that particular sugar/caffeine infusion on the days when I'm at school. One day I let it slip in front of my daughter that I was drinking Mountain Dew at school. She knows how bad it is healthwise. We don't keep soda at home. I rarely let the kids drink it - I'm constantly extolling the virtues of water as the preferred beverage. She, rightfully, got ticked off at me. Then I got ticked off because, frankly, sometimes it sucks being a role model. (And because I was stupid for saying something in front of her. I mean, it's ok for parents to have a few secrets from their kids, right?)

It boils down to this: How can I counsel people on how to be healthier, take better care of themselves, be more mindful about how they spend their time and live more passionate lives when I'm not always walking the walk?

Several weeks ago I was whining on Twitter about the fact that I don't follow my own good advice and my very smart friend, Lisa Miles Brady, stopped me in my tracks with this question: What advice would you give me if I was having the same problem?

It took me awhile to figure out a good answer to that question. And here it is: stop trying to do it all on your own. It's not only children who benefit from being part of a village. As adults, we benefit from being part of a tribe. What good is having friends if you can't turn to them in a time of need? And yet, this is so hard for me. I love to help people. With my friends I try to reach out to help even when I'm not asked. But when I need help, I don't always reach out. And I'm really good at pretending everything is hunky dorey (even if I can sometimes admit - at least on this blog - that they're not). My friends don't always know when I need help even though I know some of them would reach out to me if they knew.

There's a reason that we go to healers and life coaches or ask friends for advice. It's not always because we don't know what to do or how to heal ourselves or how to kick our business up a notch. It's because we often need a different perspective to help us choose the right path out of the many before us. When we're stuck, it's usually because we're too emotionally involved in our own lives to see clearly. If you're wandering in the forest, it's great to have someone else with you to rise above the trees and point you in the right direction. Or at least give you an idea of the obstacles you might face if you choose a particular path.

One of the catalysts for this realization came from recent discussions I've had with the lovely and smart Gina Loree' Marks at Embody Grace. (By the way, Gina has been the catalyst for several good things in my life over the past year or so. She's part of the reason I'm in massage school and has helped me along my path in ways big and small. She's one of my heroes. You should all go check her out.) Gina is working on a new business helping healers develop a web presence. She asked for volunteers to help her figure out what healer-types might want and need in this area. Because I love to help and because this is an area where I'm struggling, I volunteered. We chatted on Skype for awhile about what I want to do with my web presence and the issues I'm facing.

Gina noticed during our talk that I need help with something other than my web presence. She sensed that I'm struggling with some of the most basic issues having to do with starting a business as an independent service provider. As a former corporate lawyer, I was comfortable with stuff like forming the corporate entity, getting the paperwork done and hiring an accountant. But I'm floundering with marketing myself, planning a budget on a freelance-type income and coordinating the several different income-generating projects I'm currently working on. Since Gina is a Shiatsu practitioner with her own practice and has been down this road before, she's in a great position to help me through this particular forest.

It isn't that I don't know or can't figure out the nuts and bolts of those things on my own. I could, intellectually at least. But I was stuck in a rut - paralyzed by fear and inertia and a general sense of overwhelm. So Gina offered to help me by being a sort of "accountability partner." She's breaking down the tasks for me into bite sized pieces that I can handle. And she tells me that it's ok if I don't have all the answers now. She reminds me that just putting one foot in front of the other is all I need to do right now. But she also holds me accountable. She reminds me (gently, of course) when I'm not addressing an issue I should be thinking about. We're in the early stages of this partnership and so far it's going great. And once I get a better sense of the services I'm offering, who my "right people" are and, just generally, what I'm all about these days, then we'll work on my web presence. One thing at a time. Or maybe two things.

And because I just love synchronicity, I have to mention that while I was working on this post, I read this great post over at The Complete Flake. LaVonne was talking about hitting a wall and not knowing what to say or do next. Instead of shutting down, she reached out to a friend who helped her move forward. It made her realize the importance of this: "Ask, and allow others to help you, encourage you, love you." That's what it's all about.

We don't have to do everything all by ourselves. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

It's about connection! Now what?

I know I'm supposed to be writing about the Consciousness Cleanse that I'm doing and I'm two days behind but I'll get to it, maybe later today. Maybe not. But in the meantime I just had an epiphany walking home from the grocery store listening to Amazing by One EskimO. (Which is really an amazing song. Seriously.) The epiphany is this: It's about connecting to other people! That's it.

For some of you, this may not seem like an earth-shattering epiphany but for me it was and this is why. I'm really independent. Have been since I was a kid [insert sob story about divorced parents, blah, blah]. I had to do a lot of things on my own so I got used to being alone. And sometimes I actually do need to be alone in order to recharge. But really, deep down in places I don't talk about at parties (well, maybe I do), I'm a people person. I need to be around other people. Actually, it's more than that - I need to connect with other people. So it isn't enough to just go out and walk around the city surrounded by other human beings. I need to connect on a personal level.

This is related to my recent realization that I'm afraid that I'll spend the rest of my life alone. It's not that I can't live by myself or go out to dinner alone. It's not that I'm afraid of supporting myself (although if anyone wants to apply for the job of Sugar Daddy, the position is wide open). I'm just figuring out that I have a deep-seated need to share my life - my day-to-day existence - with other people.

It isn't necessarily that I need to get married again or even have a serious romantic relationship - although that would be great. But without a "partner" of some sort, it means I have to work harder to get that connection I need. That's probably one of the reasons I waited so long to get divorced. An unhealthy connection is still a connection. Having someone to come home to, even if all you want to do is avoid them, is still easier (I didn't say better) than having to do the work of finding someone else to spend time with (or ignore, I guess). I never said it was a good reason to put off getting divorced . . .

I would probably be really happy living in a commune. Assuming the other people living there didn't annoy me too much with New Age music and assuming I wouldn't get kicked out for wanting to keep my one pair of Jimmy Choo's. But if I could find the right tribe of people to live with, I'd be great.

The wonderful thing about my new career path of being a massage/Reiki therapist is that when I am working, I can't help but connect with people. Being a healer allows me to use my hands, heart, mind and spirit to work. Being a lawyer - I used my mind (and my hands if you count drafting boring documents using my hands). When I was working at a company, I was in meetings all the time. Most people hate meetings. I hated some of them - when they were pointless and boring. But mainly, I loved that part of my job and now I know why. It was the part of my job that involved connecting to other people. Helping them get stuff done. Helping them work through issues. That's what I love to do.

But right now I'm spending a lot of time alone, writing and trying to set up an online business. So how do I deal with it? Two words: Facebook and Twitter. Isn't the Internet wonderful? On Facebook, I've reconnected with all kinds of new and old friends, near and far. I connect with all kinds of people - sometimes on a deeper level than some in-person relationships - on the Internet. Just a few of my relatively new Internet friends are Gina, Miss Mandie, LaVonne, Peggie, Jesse, Kevin and Tony. These are real people who could totally call me up if they were in Chicago and I would drop everything to meet them for coffee. I might even consider donating a kidney if one of them needed it. Or maybe just offer to edit their eBooks. But I've never met them "in real life" and it doesn't matter. They're just as much friends as many of my other "real life" friends are. Which is why I spend way, way more time on Twitter and Facebook than I really should.

The really important thing this epiphany does is shine the light on the things I do when I get lonely. And I get lonely a lot these days when I don't have custody of my kids and I haven't made the effort to get together with friends. What I end up doing when I'm lonely is eating crap and messing around on the Internet. And it never seems to fill me up because "you can never get enough of the things you don't need." (I don't know who coined this phrase but it's a good one). The point is - as much as I love my tortilla chips, if I'm eating them to assuage the loneliness, I'll never stop eating them. I will never be able to get enough because they will never get rid of the loneliness. The only thing that gets rid of the loneliness is connecting. What do I do when it's late at night, none of my friends are on Twitter or Facebook and I start feeling the need for connection now that I know I shouldn't grab the chips (or start playing computer games)?

I don't know. I guess we'll see tonight. (I really, really wish I had a good answer for this - maybe someday soon I will).

The power of forgiveness and releasing resentment

Today's Consciousness Cleanse is about forgiveness. Debbie Ford says that forgiveness involves "releasing the invisible ties to those who have left you, betrayed you, disappointed you or hurt you" and that if you don't "cut the cords of resentment you continue to be imprisoned by" those people and situations you've presumably been trying to get away from. Hmm, that sounds familiar. I wrote recently about being connected energetically to old, unhealthy relationships and how important it is to cut those cords in order to be truly free. My post was mainly about ex-spouses/lovers but the same principle applies to all old relationships where you were hurt in some way.

One place where this kind of forgiveness and detachment might be useful is with our parents. In some ways, it's easy to detach from an old relationship with someone who isn't around us anymore - like an ex-spouse. Out of sight, out of mind does work in many cases. But what if you still have a relationship with someone who has hurt you or disappointed you? Unless you had really exceptional parents they probably did both at one time or another. No matter how much you love your Mom and Dad, you may find that you're carrying some sort of resentment towards them for something. Unless you release that resentment it has a negative effect on you. It poisons you, your relationship with your parents and maybe even your relationship with your own kids or spouse.

For the longest time, my Mom could get a rise out of me for what seemed like the littlest things. She would make some random comment and I would fly off the handle and get angry. She'd get defensive, I'd get angrier and our relationship suffered. I didn't realize until fairly recently that I was holding a tremendous amount of resentment towards her for things I thought I had long forgotten. But the truth was that although I may have (for the most part) forgotten things, I hadn't forgiven her. That's why I would jump to anger with seemingly little provocation.

Some of the things I was still pissed about were really small. Like the fact that she "wasn't available" to come with me to buy a prom dress until my step-mom offered to go with me. Then she was suddenly available. Seriously, I was still pissed about that 25 years later. Some of the things were pretty big like the fact that when she and my Dad got divorced she moved out of the house while my brothers and I were away at summer camp. Even though we knew she was leaving, it was pretty crappy of her to do it that way. It took me over 20 years to realize that I was angry about it and another 10 or so years to have the courage to actually tell her that I was angry about it. Looking back I feel silly for having held onto that resentment for so long. It was poison for me and everyone around me. And there was no reason for it. When I finally told my Mom that I was upset about those things - big and small - she apologized. I know she was doing the best she could at the time. I still think what she did was wrong. But I forgive her. No amount of telling myself that I shouldn't be angry for what happened so long ago could ever set me free. It wasn't until I accepted the fact that I was angry and truly forgave her that I could be free of the resentment and its effect on my life.

You may be in a situation where you can't talk to the person who has hurt you. Your parents may have passed away. It may be dangerous to talk to an abusive ex. The Cleanse for today recommends that we write a letter detailing all of the pain and hurt we've experienced and in the letter ask our highest selves for release from the prison of resentment. I think that's a great idea for situations where you can't actually confront the person who has hurt you.

If you're not comfortable writing things down or it just doesn't work for you, you can achieve the release another way. Try sitting quietly, with one hand on your heart and one hand on your lower abdomen. Tell yourself your story of hurt and pain as if you were telling a good friend. You can do it out loud or silently, whatever you're comfortable with. I don't think you have to dig deep into the details unless you want to and feel ok doing so. Talk about why you were hurt or disappointed. Don't let your internal critic tell you that your feelings aren't valid! Your internal critic is an idiot - never forget that. Don't judge your feelings - it won't make them go away and it won't help you heal anyway. When you're done with your story, tell yourself "I'm sorry you were so hurt. But it's ok. It's over now. You can let it go. You don't need to carry the hurt anymore." Or you can simply say "I accept that [this thing] happened. I accept and acknowledge my hurt and anger. I now release all resentment, anger and hurt feelings from [this thing]."

Remember that you can forgive someone without telling them (or yourself) that what they did was ok. Forgiveness is the simple act of letting go of the anger and hurt and sadness that is attached to whatever or whoever hurt you. For really big stuff, you may need to do this exercise more than once or twice. There's no magic pill to make these toxic feelings go away - there's only acceptance and release. And however long it takes you to get there is perfectly fine. The important thing is to keep working at it a little at a time.

My Mom recently said to me (right after I signed up for massage school), "You know there's probably lots more jobs for lawyers than there are for massage therapists." That's the kind of thing that would have sent me into a tizzy before. Partly because she was totally and completely wrong. But really because she wasn't supporting me in my attempt to make a happier life for myself. She was being selfish because she liked saying "My daughter, the lawyer" and didn't want to have a daughter who was "just" a massage therapist. She was the one with money issues, not me. And on and on. But none of that came up for me in the moment. Instead, I smiled and hugged her and said "I know you're worried about my financial well-being and I love you for that. But I don't want you to worry. I just want you to be happy for me."

That's when I knew that the resentment was gone for good.

On my own

As I was writing my 2500 words today, I was struck by the realization that I am afraid of being alone. Not scared of the dark afraid. Not afraid to go to the movies or have dinner by myself. Afraid of spending the rest of my life without someone of the opposite sex to share it with. My divorce is almost final and then I'll be officially on my own. I wanted the divorce so it's not that I want my ex back or anything. And I thought I'd be psyched to be on my own and have some of the freedom I was lacking. Which is why I was surprised by that realization.

I thought something deeper was going on and wanted to figure out where the fear was coming from so I sat in Remembrance on it. Remembrance is a wonderful Sufi meditation practice of connecting with your heart which is taught by Mark Silver. After just a short time in Remembrance, I had some interesting revelations.

The first thought that popped into my head was "Being alone means death." That might seem a bit over-dramatic unless you look at it from an ancient human DNA standpoint. When humans were living in the wilderness, being exiled or separated from the tribe meant certain death from starvation or hungry wild animals. Women needed a provider to take care of them and their children. Even though it's not at all applicable to me in this life, it's probably something that comes from my 'lizard brain' that doesn't want to be ignored. (The lizard brain is the part of our brains that has been with us since the beginning of our evolution as a species and it's most concerned with survival. It's the part of our brains that makes snap judgments about the safety of people and situations and helps keep us safe from a hungry tiger. Which is generally not relevant to life on the streets of Chicago. But you never know, I suppose.)

I thought about how the need to be part of a "tribe" might apply, even if tangentially, to my life today and it occurred to me that most people have an innate drive to connect with other people. It might be the lizard brain tribal inclusion drive. Or it might be more emotionally-based rather than survival-based. I know that I have a strong need for emotional connection and I don't think I'm alone. The growth of social media bears that out. I know there are a lot of people that use Twitter and Facebook and the like to make money but far more people are using them to connect to other people in some deeper way. For some, online relationships are a poor substitute for the "real thing." But some of my online relationships have been deeper, more interesting and more life-changing than many off-line relationships. That said, romantic relationships that are solely online leave something to be desired. (And let's leave it at that, shall we?)

So I went deeper into Remembrance and realized that I've been avoiding some things related to my being on my own. As part of my divorce, we need to sell our condo and get our own apartments. We're separated but we share the condo and a one-bedroom apartment nearby. Whoever has custody for the week lives with the kids in the condo and the other lives in the apartment. And then we switch. (It's called "nesting" which is short for "something done by parents who can't live with each other but can't bear to make their children move"). It's been a great transition for the kids but frankly it's been a royal pain in the ass for me. I lug all my business and personal stuff back and forth every week. Despite the difficulty, I've been avoiding doing some things that will help us get our condo on the market and I haven't even started to look for my own apartment. So I asked my heart what was up with that. And then I did the math. I've lived with my husband for seventeen years. That's almost half my life. Before that, I was on my own for only a few years because before that I lived at home or with roommates or in a sorority or a dorm. So in my entire life, I only lived alone for a few years. That's it. Now I'll be responsible for my own housing. Picking the right place, decorating it, taking care of it. For some people that's probably exciting. I thought it would be exciting for me, too but it's not. It's honestly terrifying. But until I really sat with my procrastination and anxiety and asked my heart about it, I had no idea what was going on. (You probably can't imagine what a wimp I feel like right now. I mean, what is the big deal? Eighteen year olds barely out of high school are able to get themselves into apartments. What the hell is up with me?).

I wish I could say that in all this I came up with some solutions to getting past my fear that I could share with you. But I didn't. Not yet, anyway. As with my habit of over-apologizing, knowing is half the battle. Now that I know about my fear and know that at least some of it comes from my reactionary, fraidy-pants lizard brain, maybe I can manage it better and move forward. I've found that once I accept the fact that I'm afraid about something, the fear isn't as intense anymore. Our fear is there to protect us so if we don't pay attention to it, our fear will get more and more intense until we do pay attention.

So, Fear, I hear you. I get that you're afraid I'll die if I'm all alone (and I promise I'm not laughing at that feeling even though you have to admit it's kind of funny). And I understand that you're afraid I won't be able to handle all the things that go into living alone - what with my ADD and bad habit of avoiding paperwork and other boring yet important things. But I promise you I'll be ok. Really I will. It would be fantastic if you could go over and talk to Procrastination about all this and maybe the two of you could give me a break for a little while so I can get some stuff done. Maybe you two can take a vacation somewhere nice? Stay as long as you like. Alrighty then. Are we cool? Cool. Glad we had this talk.

Still connected to your ex?

I happened to notice my Twitter description the other day and was pleasantly surprised. I hadn't looked at it in a long time - I wrote it about a year ago on a whim. It says: Turning life crises into growth and opportunities for positive change. When I wrote it, I was talking about myself. I was trying to turn my own crises into something good - still am. What struck me, though, is how much it sounds like an "elevator speech". That's the short description of what you do that you have prepared for times when you only have an elevator ride's worth of time to tell someone what you do. A friend has been telling me for weeks that I need an elevator speech. I didn't realize that I already have one in my Twitter description.

You might wonder what this has to do with Reiki healing and massage therapy which is what I do (now). Short answer: Not much. Or, everything. Or really - I don't know. Because my path is still unfolding and nothing seems to happen to me in a logical way, I'm not exactly sure what it means. I know it means something. I know that my path has something to do with helping people do what I'm trying to do for myself - turn the crap in their lives into compost and grow a beautiful garden. (Thanks Gina).

I've realized that people in transition seem to be coming into my life lately and talking to me about their lives. (Which is awesome.) Maybe it's that my honesty about my own situation makes people feel comfortable talking to me about their struggles. Maybe I've somehow advertised on the Universe's equivalent of Craig's List that I'm open for business and here to help people work through various life crises. I'm not sure. Whatever the reason, I've been talking to people about their relationships. More specifically, the end (or near end) of relationships and how hard it is.

I think we all understand that ending a serious love relationship is emotionally painful. We may not know just how emotionally painful it is until we're going through it but we expect that kind of pain. What we don't necessarily expect is the physical pain. And most people don't understand the hit their "energetic body" takes when a relationship ends.

Sorry - I hate to use "woo woo speak" but I couldn't think of another way to say it . . . what I mean by "energetic body" is this: we're all made of energy. To way oversimplify it - when you break us down to our smallest parts, past the cells and beyond the molecules that make up the cells, you get energy. Not only are we made up of energy, we're affected by energy - especially the energy of other people. Especially, especially the energy of other people that we love.

When we start a relationship, we connect to our significant other energetically. I "feel" that connection like a cord coming from the center of the chest. At the beginning of a relationship, the cord is thin but as the relationship grows, the cord grows with it. The more our lives intertwine, the more our "energies" intertwine as well. When a relationship ends, the cord has to detach somehow. We unwind from each other. Untangle our lives. Sever the cord. And it's painful. The problem is, it's a kind of pain we don't expect and we often don't recognize it or worse, we ignore it. We don't deal with it and that leads to problems.

Some people never cut the cord of old relationships so that they're still energetically (and emotionally) connected to their exes years later. A friend mentioned yesterday that her parents - who are in their 80's, have been divorced for over 30 years and are both remarried - still hate each other so much they can't be in the same room. What that says to me is they never actually disconnected from each other. Just because they're legally divorced and physically separated doesn't mean they're emotionally separated. I don't think it's possible to hate someone you aren't somehow attached to emotionally (or energetically). People we aren't attached to simply cannot generate that kind of animosity in us. They might annoy us. Maybe we just don't like them as people. But hate? Being unable to be in the same room for any period of time? That's emotional attachment. Very negative emotional attachment.

Another example - a friend was engaged to be married a few years ago but broke it off. It was a very unhealthy relationship. She's now about to get married to someone else - a man who is much better for her. A man she loves. She's happy. But she hasn't been able to bring herself to tell her ex that she's getting married. They aren't friends - she doesn't talk to him or see him. He sends her messages (sometimes nice but mostly snarky), she doesn't reply. She knows that she shouldn't care about telling him and yet she's agonizing - has been for weeks - over sending him an email. She's still connected to him.

Why do we stay connected to old relationships? Partly because we're afraid of change and addicted to anger and/or victimhood (topics for a later post perhaps). But also because we don't realize how we're still connected and so we don't know how to disconnect. We may think that it's enough to get legally divorced and move out, but it isn't, as the two stories illustrate.

I think that in order to dissolve an energetic connection, we need to do three things: realize, acknowledge and accept that the connection exists, explore whether there are other reasons we're staying connected and consciously work to - gently - cut the cord.

Realize, acknowledge and accept

Remember that "what we resist, persists." If we resist the idea that we're still connected to someone we've divorced, the connection will persist. And we have to accept that the continued connection is ok and understandable. Even bad relationships usually have good components. Or they were good at the beginning. Whatever it is, the relationship served a purpose while it lasted and the connection was created. Just like the first step for an alcoholic to kick the booze habit is acknowledging he has a problem, the first step to separating ourselves from an old relationship is to acknowledge that we're still attached. It's also good to acknowledge and accept the fear that probably surrounds

Consider why you're still connected

There are a lot of reasons we might still be connected to a former love. Some possible reasons are simple. We may be the dumpee rather than the dumper and we're still in love. Some are more complex - we may be the dumper and feel guilty about the dumping. So we stay attached because we feel responsible for hurting the other person and we somehow think that by staying connected to them, we're doing them a favor. It could also be that maintaining the old connection keeps us from making a new connection. I know that seems odd at first blush but think about it. We got hurt in our old relationship so we're probably scared about getting hurt in a new one. If we're still "married" to our past relationship then we're not really available to be fully into the new relationship. If we're not fully in the new relationship, maybe we won't get hurt. If you had children together, to a certain extent you'll always be connected. But maybe the connection is stronger than it needs to be for those purposes.

It's important to consider the reasons why you're still attached. You don't want to start cutting the chord without knowing what it's purpose is. Not to be overly dramatic but that would be kind of like trying to diffuse a bomb by cutting wires willy nilly. The connection serves a purpose, you'll want to understand what that purpose is so you can address it while you're severing the connection.

If the purpose isn't immediately apparent, try to sit quietly and ask yourself the question. If you aren't used to talking to yourself, give it some time. It may take a few tries before you get a coherent answer. Or talk to a friend about it. Sometimes our friends see things in us that they don't want to tell us without being asked. (Be careful which friend you ask. Don't ask a friend who hates the ex. They'll have a hard time being unbiased. And they might make you feel bad for still being attached. What if you don't have any friends who don't hate your ex? Send me a note and I'll talk it through with you. I'm good with stuff like that.)

Cut the cord - gently

This could actually be the easy part. Or the hardest part. It really depends on the reasons for the connection. For some people, just realizing that they're still connected is enough to help them let go. More likely though, it will take some time to dissolve the connection. Especially if it has stuck around for a long time. So be kind to yourself during this process.

Sit comfortably with your eyes closed. Try to picture the connection to your ex. Like I said earlier, I tend to "feel" it (in myself and others) as a cord (or rope or fishing line or even a rainbow) connected at the center of the chest. But yours might be different. (Or I might be hallucinating, you never know.) Focus on your breath, trying not to get sucked into any heavy emotions when you think about your ex. If feelings do come up, acknowledge them and try to let them go. Before you let them go, see if you can figure out where, physically, those feelings are coming from. Picture that area of your body and visualize some kind of cord or rope coming from that area and connecting to your ex. Then try to visualize the connection dissolving - like a rope unraveling or melting or just disappearing. Whatever works and feels right.

Keep in mind that meditation and visualization don't have to be deadly serious all the time. In fact, if you try to have a sense of humor about it, the process is easier. So picture the cord as licorice with you unwinding the strands and feeding them to Munchkin children. Or something. Just don't feel like you have to be all serious. Unless you want to be. Which is fine, too. It's all about you.

Another method comes from Havi's way of dealing with fear. Talk to your connection. Tell it that you understand it's trying to protect you or help you. Let it know that you don't need the protection anymore. Remind it that you aren't responsible for protecting your ex anymore. Ask it what it needs in order to go away and leave you alone forever. Write it some notes. Draw it some pictures. You'll be surprised at what you learn about yourself in the process. You might find out more about the reasons behind the connection and some things you can do to fill those needs in a healthier way. Once those needs are filled or acknowledged, it's easier to disconnect.

There are different ways to approach this task, try a few things and use what feels most comfortable to you. Be nice to yourself and patient during this process. It isn't easy. It isn't always fast. The most important thing is to actually do it - because these old connections are huge energy vampires. They hold us back from being our best and strongest selves.