The essential things to know about life are usually simple – but can be sticky. One thing we need to know, to maintain our health and sanity, and work the true law of attraction, is that there are threads of psychic energy running between us and everyone who has touched our lives.

When we are joined with another in love or community or a common cause, these cords of connection can be very strong, and entirely healthy, allowing supportive energy to run both ways. If the balance is off, however, the cords of connection can drain our batteries, like jumper cables working in reverse. When a relationship has gone sour, or become unbalanced, energy may be moving only one way, draining one of those involved.

A very common issue is that when we break up with a spouse or partner or close friend, the psychic cords between us remain intact. What now flows along the cords  is no longer healthy emotional energy but bad feelings and rancor that can bring both members of the old relationship down. More seriously, the surviving psychic bridge can become a means by which a jealous or bitter ex comes calling, confusing night dreams and wakeful perception and energy. This can cause all manner of guilt and grief and confusion.

We may be connected psychically to people and things (and fantasies and ideas) we have forgotten or never regarded as important, with mixed results. Such connections offer psychic bridges for unwanted intrusion.

For everyday psychic well-being, we need to recognize these psychic energy cords and develop a simple practice for disconnecting when the effects are unhealthy or unwanted. One of the best guides to this topic that I know is a quirky but essential book by Max Freedom Long titled The Secret Science Behind Miracles, based on his study of the practices of kahunas in Hawaii in the early 20th century.

“Numberless threads connect every individual with the people and things he has touches,” writes Long. These threads are called aka n the Hawaiian language. Aka means both “cord” and “vine”, something that branches out. The aka cords emanate from the unahipili, which Long calls variously the “subconscious spirit,” the “shadowy body” and the “low self.” According to Long,the kahunas believe that”all things, be they men, animals, flowers, chairs or thoughts, have shadowy bodies, and these remain after the thing in its gross physical form has been destroyed”.

What he calls the “shadowy body” is what I generally call the dense energy body. But its Hawaiian name, unahipili, contains a further practical teaching. At the root of that word is pili, which means “sticky”. So the low self can also be called the “sticky” soul. “It sticks to everything we contact or see…It is like touching fly-paper with a finger and, when the finger is pulled away, a long fine thread of the adhesive substance is drawn out.”

This certainly puts a spin on the phrase “stuck on you.” These Hawaiian insights invite us to self-scan from time to time to check what we have stuck to us, and where we are stuck to people and things in ways that deplete or confuse us or them. What to do, when you find that your energy body is in a sticky situation? It’s cleanup time. I like to do a physical scouring with sea salt in water, with the intention that the physical bathing will be accompanied by an energetic scrub. I also like fire cleansing rituals.

When I find a really powerful but unhealthy cord of connection, I may want to try to visualize myself cutting that, and letting the severed ends dry up and fall away. A gentler approach, which I have come to prefer, is to see that big-time psychic link as something like an electrical extension cord that can be carefully and firmly unplugged. It’s remarkable how much energy – and clarity – can be found when this sticky theme is addressed in our lives.

In my book Active Dreaming I offer simple techniques for reading and, where necessary, releasing psychic cords of attachment. In my workshops and trainings, I often have groups experiment with these methods. In one group, we focused on determining gentle but effective ways to “unplug” unwanted or unhealthy cords.

For many in this group experiment, color was a guide to the condition of psychic cords. Toxic attachments appeared black; old, energy-draining attachments appeared grey, sometimes the grey of used chewing gum. Some fresh and improvisational approaches to releasing or cleansing psychic links emerged. One woman pictured herself swimming in healing waters while little fish nibbled away gently at the psychic cords that needed to be released. A man found that an ally (a “Chinese doctor”) entered the scene; he tied “little bows” in the problematic cords, leaving them to wither and drop away gradually. For another member of the group, the ally appeared as a crow that pecked away at the root of a black cord of connection to a deceased friend, until all the stagnant dead energy drained away.

Some found it possible to cleanse and restore proper flow in the cords of attachment involved in current realtionships. A woman found that the psychic cord between her and her boyfriend was a very lixed picture; it was mottled grey, black and red. She did not like the deadness of the black and the drabness of the greay. She pictured herself drawing the energy of a waterfall to which she had recently hiked to cleanse and refresh the connection. She continued with this powerful and spontaneous mediation until the cord glowed red and gold, the black and grey gone.