tao of Dana -:

Shake off the toxic ties

There's nothing like being super present and excited and living in wonder...breathing in the future is a beautiful way to say it. In the midst of all that breathing of the future, if you feel stuck in the past you should consider a big purge of the things that are holding you back.

When you hold on to tightly to anything it will likely drown in your grip. More importantly... when you let the unpleasant parts of the past linger and collect, you are bound to repeat them in many ways until you learn.

Some people say that you need to stay (unless your wellbeing is in jeopardy) in a situation- job, friendship, relationship- until you learn the lesson. If you flee too early, you miss the big "ah-ha" moment and you will, because you aren't done with the lesson, pick it up and repeat it all over again.

I am a big fan of avoiding unnecessary stress and suffering, but I stay places that I put myself now until the lesson is there. It can be a day, two days, a week...two years. When it arrives, and it is impossible to ignore, I know now I can leave without feeling that this same lesson will definitely come yet again.

When you feel yourself still sticking to the past, or repeating it endlessly, you may be overdue to release it.

Here are three ways to shake off the toxic ties and rebuild your energy with a sparking future in front of you...!

1. Burn it up.

I have seen versions of this, but the simplest version for me is always the best. Of course, be safe when burning anything, especially paper.

Write out all the negative emotions you feel attached to a lingering situation. If you just left a bad job, write out clearly all the ways that you felt badly along with all the ways you saw it coming but avoided or ignored it.

This helps you to have clarity.

You are not a victim. We all see and know the truth of things.

Dr. Pat Allen, the undisputed relationship guru of Los Angeles says, that you have three choices where personality traits in relationships are concerned between two very imperfect people (as we all are!) : "accept things, reject them or tolerate them." Tolerating leads to nothing but stress, and stress makes you sick. On this list, you can put all of these things, particularly the ones you decided to tolerate that you knew were not right for you.

Now: read the list.

Understand it is not a part of this moment.

And burn it up (safely!)

It's a very awesome fresh start.

2. Cut the cords.

Some healers claim we have energetic attachments to other people and also to places and habits. They link us to the past and allow that past to still pull on us in negative ways. One of the ways to clear out the past is to forgive the past and imagine yourself cutting these energetic cords.

Whether or not we have these attachments in reality, the exercise is one of awesome forgiveness.

Get super relaxed before bed and scan your body for spots along the centre line of your body that feel stuck. Concentrate on these areas and see if there are people and situations that spring to mind when you focus on each area. Do you feel the ties that bind you to these people in a negative fashion? If so, imagine you have a scissor and can cut these chords. This is a beautiful symbolic way to imagine the negative ways that people relate to one another melting away, rather than wishing people away from you. Before you sleep, wish everyone well in your life.

Sometimes I have to repeat it ten times until it feels complete, but I do it until I feel at peace and can wish peace for everyone else in my life, even the ones that were unpleasant!

3. Write it out.

My favourite way to reconcile the past is to turn it into art.

Write out your favourite stories in a few short paragraphs of your illustrious past where you felt wronged, bullied, victimized or otherwise treated like crap.

Now, re-write one story, seeing the story through the eyes of a neutral party, or better, through the eyes of the imagined perpetrator.

If you can empathize with others and see the story through their eyes and standing in their shoes, you will see that you are both

1. not a victim and

2. very apt to feel compassionate toward whoever treated you poorly because in their life they are suffering.

It is such a cool exercise to see things in a fresh light. And it is wonderful for everyone!

Vital note: know that this whole time you created the situations that you found yourself in, you needed to have all of those experiences and with this new clarity you can move forward to build a life that you are truly proud of in every way.