"Let go of your attachments." How?? What does that mean? - My "Death" Practice...

If you're interested in transformation and psycho-spiritual healing then you'll hear this at some point, "Just let them go." One of the greatest challenges is letting go. Especially, if it's a close loved-one. And before I share my "how" just know that, like all other things, it's an ever-existing practice. The spiral of life is never-ending. Sometimes the themes we seem to transcend we come back around to eventually. But transcending levels IS real and very possible. Here's my experience...

Keeping it short, my surviving my first, fourth trimester was inner gladiator work. Postpartum is a phase that is incredulously underestimated in the U.S.A. It was 2009 and in my journey then I had prayed to get to the root of my traumas and, boy, was it effective. It was a dark night of the Soul for two years. It was an unrelenting bootcamp of inner transformation.

One of the biggest themes was letting go of my loved-ones to my core. Not just once but several times and still continues only now on a subtle scale. The genesis of this really started years before that. When I demanded my abusive Mother to "talk to me like a human", then hung up on her for the first time as she continued drowning me in curse words and daggers. But this was outer steps I took to set my standards and stand up for my peace. To a goliath no less so, it was a huge step indeed. But nothing like what was to come.

When I was pregnant I knew that I was to be on a consciously-intended healing journey and the cashier at my food coop at the time became my coach as she had 25 years of healing from her family. She suggested I write my family a letter. I wrote that I needed to heal from my childhood and that I wasn't sure how long it would take, but that I needed them to honor my time in silence and privacy.

Sure enough, the deep dive was cosmic and devasting. I did my best to stay afloat and my family of origin couldn't be further from my mind. Until... a year later... they-- my Mother, Stepdad and two sisters-- showed up unannounced on my son's first birthday. My husband was holding our son and I slightly opened the door confused and aghast at the unexpected intrusion. I call it intrusion because as soon as I opened the door my family felt "robbed" of their grandson so my pedophile stepdad pushed through and launched himself at my son trying to take him from his Father. Details aside, when I mustered up the courage, after moving through a slight anxiety attack, I sat them down and began:

"Please know that I love you very much." My Mother's eye went from blue to piercing black with a stripe of white light in the center. It was strikingly ominous, as she said, "Hmm, ya right." Still, I continued.

I told them that it was not okay. I had set a clear boundary for myself and standard for them and that I appreciate they waited a year, but they were not welcome. They need to leave immediately and if they come back uninvited again, I would call the police. Still this was not the inner work of which I speak.

Death, inner death. "Death" of the person specifically and my relationship to them. Not only did I have to face and accept that my Mother was NEVER going to be the Mother I'd always fantasized I needed and for which I was desperate for her to be. So, I grieved that. Still, it was a more superficial level. I was truly tested when, near the anniversary of my Mother's, Mother's death, I received a message that my Mother was in the hospital. I shook.

By that time, my psionic intuition was highly sensitive. A part of me let me know that my Mother was simply moving our karma through her body, nothing more. So I moved through the socially obligated and even instinctual draw to pick up the phone. That voice returned with perspective on how it's a way to be sucked back into the great cyclic drama and painful identity of eldest daughter. I refused. I felt through it all and that was still, only the next layer.

Exactly a year later, I received an identical text and I was taken to the Underworld. I didn't like the feeling of another whirlwind. I asked, "Is she going to be ok?"..."Yes." Okay, Spirit how I could jump off this train because I didn't want this to continue on as a new tradition.

A ritual was handed to me. A death ritual.

I was offered a vision. Imagine that my Mother wasn't going to make it out of the hospital. I was launched into a parallel reality where I helped with the funeral. I saw her in the casket and I watched her lower into the ground. I was immersed into this experience fully embodied and engaged in the emotional energetics.

Next thing I knew I fell to my knees.

If you have ever "cried uncontrollably" then you'll understand that I didn't cry I was being cried. Writhing and wailing. Moaning and yelling. Somatically detoxifying myself of emotions from a cellular level for 90 minutes at least. I am sure my husband was perplexed about what was happening. I wasn't.

I knew I was being freed.

A cleansing. An emancipation. I was used to it with the transformative work I had already been enduring, but I didn't expect it that day. It was a phoenix kind of evening because when I arose 95% of Mother-Daughter angst was gone. I was beyond it. I embodied epiphany. My Mother was just a person. A woman struggling on this plane like me. She wasn't my Mother. She was human. A human that could no longer have the hold on me that she had. I had no longer yearned for my Mommy to be all that I needed her to be. She was an acquaintance I could empathize with but was completely detached from in regards to our history. Our roles, our story and all the expectations I no longer need to carry.

I removed the state of suffering to the point that she could no longer trigger me.

In fact, so much that, when I was ready, I met up with my Mother and my Sister and had a powerful conversation where I was directing the flow and in neutrality. I felt like we were talking women to women. I didn't need her to be different and I wasn't walking on eggshells. She no longer had power over me nor was I hanging her by her toes for not being perfect. I was free and so was she; at least on my part. I was proactively able to go toward and through the other side of a pain point into facing the fear and surrendering to discomfort and emerging free.

So, I have engendered this process in different areas and with different people. That said, I still have some ways to go with certain people, but as far as my family of origin they exist on a completely different plane for me now and I for them. I was given a gift. A ritual that have brought forward and I would like to share a short-hand with you. Just in case you need a baby-step if it feels too big or a shorthand if you need a quick shift. Here's an example:

I let go of my attachment to my Mom being perfect. - I let go of my attachment to my Mom not being perfect. I let go of my resistance to my Mother being perfect. I let go my resistance to my Mother not being perfect.

There's no pressure to forgive and forget. Just freeing yourself. I hope this helps. All of it. I will be thinking of you. Let me know how your journey in letting go is going.