Of all of my many blog posts, one of the most popular has been my piece on how to perform a cord-cutting, from August of 2013. I receive emails about this topic at least a few times a month.

That tells me there are a whole lot of people out there trying to heal from broken relationships, break bad habits and survive dysfunctional families.

If you haven’t read the article, here’s the brief synopsis. A cord-cutting ritual is an easy bit of energy work you can do to release a dysfunctional relationship, be that a love relationship, a friendship or a toxic family situation. You can even do a cord-cutting to release your own unhealthy behavior or belief.

One thing I sometimes hear from people is that they have performed the cord-cutting ritual but still feel attached to the person or behavior they are trying to release. Another thing I hear are reports of unscrupulous psychic scammers taking advantage of people’s pain by performing cord-cutting rituals for exorbitant prices. These scammers often say (erroneously) that one cannot and should not perform these rituals for themselves.

If you have done a cord-cutting to release a friend, family member, lover or behavior, and haven’t yet received the results you wanted, here are some things to consider.

First, sometimes it takes more than one ritual to release the energy that binds you. This is especially true if the relationship is familial or lengthy. Don’t hesitate to do the ritual every day for seven days, or once a week for as many weeks as feels right.

Second, you need to do your part by refraining from re-engaging with this person or repeating your behaviors. Whatever energy you feed is the energy that will grow. If you keep speaking with a person you are trying to release, for example, your cord-cutting is like to be ineffectual.

Emotional habits take a while to break. If you are used to thinking about someone, or responding to their manipulation, over a long period of time, you will still have some desire to continue this pattern. The cord-cutting will ultimately help you wipe away this energy. While that energetic process begins the moment you perform the ceremony, you may not feel its effects right away. Be patient with the energy work and be patient with yourself.

Finally, cord-cutting cannot take the place of grief. Cord-cutting can give you the strength to move on and can help release an unhealthy compulsion. Yet, anything that has an energy strong enough to require cord-cutting will also require a grieving period. Do not confuse grief with the desire to reconnect. Grief expresses the disappointment that the person you cared about can’t be who and what you needed them to be. Grief is natural and necessary at the end of a relationship. We must move through grief rather than try to avoid it.

There is energy work that you can do to help you handle your grief. There are meditations, stones, herbs and oils that can help give you strength, remember your joy and find your grounding as you go through your process.

Unhealthy relationships usually have a lot of guilt associated with them. Never does that guilt feel as strong as when we decide to break away. We need to recognize guilt as part of the manipulation that made the relationship unhealthy. Guilt can also be borne of our unrealistic expectations of how we should be, or how our relationships should be.

While cord-cutting can’t relieve our grief, cord-cutting can be very effective at helping us release guilt and expectations. This allows us to move forward in our healing process.

If you have performed a cord-cutting and still feel attached to the person or behavior you are working to release, keep trying. Do it again and do it with the expectation that healing and release can take some time to accomplish. Do it with the belief in your own happy future. Do it with the belief in your ability to be free of what has trapped you.