Etheric chords are metaphysical connections that bind people and are the energetic foundation of every relationship. Healthy & adaptive chords tend to connect us to our lovers through our Higher Chakras while toxic, abusive, and mal-adaptive chords tend to bind us to others through our Lower Chakras.

Break-ups ironically tend to strengthen our etheric chord with the person we are separating from because we spend so much time thinking about the situation and/or repressing important emotions related to the event. Thoughts are electrical energy; and every time we think of someone, we are adding energy to and thereby feeding the chord that exists between us and the other person.

My approach to break-ups is cutting the etheric chord that exists between the other person and I. The idea of doing this frightens a lot of people I have given this advice to because they feel as though this means they are letting the person go forever; however, what typically happens is that the old, unhealthy chords get severed and/or repaired allowing newer, healthy ones to develop.

Our relationship to Self becomes strengthened because we are no longer sending energy into an unhealthy connection and sometimes, chord cutting even manifests opportunities for the relationship to take a new course or begin again.

Before we get into specific techniques, I must soberly add that energy work is never “one time fix all”. If you want any metaphysical technique to work in it’s wholeness, you must incorporate it into a recurring practice.

Here are a few practices I use to sever energetic connections that are no longer serving my highest good:

1. Allowing/Crying

Allow yourself to feel sad when you do, and to cry when you feel like it. These are natural cleansing processes that your body is intelligent enough to regulate without your intentional assistance. 

I think it’s hilarious that all throughout women’s lives we are implicitly told we need a man to complete us through the enforcement of heterosexual marriage/dating, yet when a woman is going through a break up everyone’s go-to advice is dismissively “you don’t need a man/person to complete you!”

Peoples tendency to selectively bombard women with this “don’t need a man” stuff (even though it’s true that you don’t) can lead many women to police their emotions in unhealthy ways. For instance, you might want to cry one day but there might be a subconscious program implanted in you from the people who have been giving you advice that makes you judge yourself for crying/feeling sad because you feel you should know or be doing better. 

Judging your emotions this way is the easiest way to jeopardize your chances of moving past them. In those moments where you feel sad or want to cry, your body is trying to release energy that’s not serving you. Allow it do that.

Energy has to come to the surface to leave your energy field. When you judge yourself by convincing yourself that you don’t deserve to feel the emotions that naturally come up, you are sending that energy back below the surface where it will undoubtedly affect your feelings and actions from a subconscious level; by avoiding your emotions you are binding yourself to that energy more deeply.

This makes your life more difficult because subconscious influences are more complicated to identify, and trapped emotions (energy) in the body eventually become emotional triggers and sometimes even diseases.

2. Keep Your Space Clean

One night I slept at a friend‘s home while they were healing from a break-up & noticed heightened anxiety upon waking up. The anxiety was triggering thoughts about the person I was with at the time, except I never got  anxiety about that relationship so I knew something was off!

I pointed to where I laid my head to sleep & asked my friend, “Were you crying on this pillow?” They sure were! It didn’t take much for me to absorb the un-ease she was feeling while crying earlier that day and project it onto my own situation. This is how energy works.

It is important to purify the spaces in which and objects on which you have exchanged energy with the person you intend to cut chords with because the odds are their energy will otherwise continue to linger in those places. 

Special attention must be paid to the bedroom since that is where lovers generally exchange one of the strongest manifestations of energy (sexual) and because that is the place you’re usually located when you are most sensitive to energy (when you wake up and before you go to bed).

Purifying your intimate space through methods like smudging is important so as to not involuntarily become even more attached to the person while in your most energetically sensitive states. Wash your sheets, mop the floors, & smudge your space with purifying essences (such as lemon & frankincense essential oil) while intending to release any energy not belonging to you for your highest good. 

3. Hypnosis 

In psychology, hypnosis is a “social interaction” in which the conscious mind is put into a state of reduced awareness by encouraging the subject of the hypnosis to focus on a particular stimuli. The hypnotist tells the person being hypnotized to focus on one thing, and once their focus is centralized on that one thing, they become more suggestible to instruction (Kihlstrom, 2008).

You must use discernment when choosing to work with any spiritual practitioner, but especially for hypnosis because it places you in a state of heightened suggestibility to ideas. Luckily, self-hypnosis is very much a thing.

I love self-hypnosis because it allows for deeper visualization which then allows for deeper and accelerated healing. Honor your intuition foremost, I have made tremendous progress using Michael Sealey’s sleep hypnosis videos. This video on Letting Go of Past Relationships might be especially useful for you if you’re going through a break-up.

4. Yoni Steaming

Yoni steaming is an age-old technique in which the steam of natural flower essences are used to bless, regenerate, clear, strengthen, and energetically purify the womb.

Steaming is useful after a break-up, especially with people we were sexually active with, to sever Lower Chakra ties that may have developed through codependency or unhealthy sexual energy exchanges.  The herbs you would use in steaming or any other medicinal practice should take into account your body’s current health condition and preferences, and they should also be herbs that have essences that support the intentions you have for your womb.

Because the Yoni is sensitive and sacred, I do not recommend creating your own steam if you have never done one before and/or if you don’t have background knowledge about the herbs you’re using. One option is to visit/call a local apothecary or botánica and inquire if the people there have knowledge about yoni steams.

I make yoni steams for my clients. If you’re interested, please contact me via e-mail or Instagram (@monben.art).

I also recommend La Sirena (@Jambalaya_Moon on IG) who is a trusted and wonderful womb medicine woman. Her products have been transformational in my life! Her yoni oils helped me center with my womb in 2018 which made it easier for me to have orgasms. I recommend her product catalog for yoni oils and a number of other womb medicines that do similar forms of healing if you are someone who cannot or do not want to do a steam.

5. Egg cleanses

Egg cleanses are another ancient purification ritual I love. Their lasting popularity is likely due to how easy they are to perform. The phenomenology behind this practice is that the person using the egg to cleanse is transferring negative energy from their body onto the egg, and discarding of the egg once it has absorbed all of the energy. There are many different variations to this technique. 

Here is a video of Iya Elemi,  owner of Yeyeo Botánica in Newark, NJ, demonstrating her approach to doing an egg cleansing.

Personally, my method has a few less step than Iya Elemi’s: I smudge an egg, take it all over my body from head to toe while praying, crack the egg in a glass of water, flip the cup upside down on a plate, and light a candle atop the bottom of the jar, and pray Psalm 35 over the candle.

Do not use any jar, plate, or cup that you use for removing negativity to eat food. Once you’re done, flush the contents down the toilet and discard of/clean everything. Only re-use those material for future cleansings of this nature.

Hope this was helpful for you! Many blessings ❤

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Note: This post was originally written by me in 2019, and sparingly edited before being re-published in 2025.

Which one of these techniques are you most excited to try? Let me know in the comments!

Feature photo credit: Nappy.co