He wanted to offer a free healing session. “You have some negative entities that have attached themselves to you, right by your crown chakra,” he said. “I can help you remove them.”

I hesitated. Nothing’s ever really free, right? He was also flirting with me, heavily. It was making me slightly uncomfortable.

But I agreed. The shaman had arrived in my life at a pivotal moment and the serendipity of it all couldn’t be ignored. So we got to work.

I don’t remember much of what happened during the healing, but what happened in the days that followed the session was an intense influx of anxiety and panic.

A sort of chaotic adventure ensued as I came to navigate a whole new version of myself—one that was, well, energetically naked. I felt totally lost. Everything I’d been used to carrying—even if it was negative—was suddenly gone. There was a surprising emptiness to healing I hadn’t anticipated.

But that emptiness is exactly what allowed me to come to know some of the most important aspects of transformation.

Cutting energetic cords leaves us energetically naked, stripped from all we have ever known—even if what we’ve known wasn’t so good for us.

Sure, we may feel we’re ready to be cleared from any negative attachments we still have. But what we may not be prepared for is the wide open emptiness we can come to feel after these attachments are no longer there.

Many of us have carried these energetic cords our entire lives and for lifetimes beyond. Learning how to live without them is, well, f*cking scary.

An almost paralyzing anxiety can ensue in the days and weeks to follow after an energy clearing—simply because we have to learn how to live energetically naked, so to speak.

It’s like having a closet full of clothes and suddenly finding that one day it’s all gone—even the clothes you’re wearing. The first step is to cover yourself with something so you can re-enter the human world without feeling overwhelmingly vulnerable and exposed.

And it is from this experience of energetic nudity that we come to know the true power of choice.

Once we’ve let go of the burdens we’ve been carrying all our lives, we’re suddenly left with all this room to choose what we attach ourselves to from there on out—the color, fabric, and feel of the energetic clothing we decide to put on our bodies after shedding all the old layers.

The important thing about all this new found choice is to ground ourselves to something. Otherwise it feels like we’re walking around the world completely naked without our feet actually touching the ground. Floating through space can be fun for a while, but not when it comes time to function in the world.

Choice can be overwhelming, especially when we’ve stripped ourselves of all we’ve ever known. But if we can identify two to three energetic touchstones that allow us to anchor our lives in the human experience, we can feel the expansiveness of soul liberation, but also have the experience of walking on solid ground.

So this is where we find our anchor points.

Anchor points are energetic touchstones of commitment and relationship that ground us in the way we truly want to feel and live in the world. They can be anything that encompasses an energetic exchange. Maybe it’s a romantic relationship that’s asking for a fuller, deeper level of commitment. Or a city that’s been calling you home for some time but you’ve been hesitating on making the move. Or a business you’re building that really just wants your attention, daily. Maybe it’s the relationship you have with your body and soul, most of all.

Anchor points give us some degree of certainty and focus in an otherwise overwhelming experience of uncertainty. They become energetic experiences of home regardless of where we exist in the world.

The first energetic touchstone I cultivated after the healing was that of deep and profound love for myself—to restore the connection I had with my body, spirit, and inner child, because it is my connection with her that I hold with the utmost importance. She is the relationship with which I base all of my choices and she was the one who wanted the most nurturance in a state of vulnerability.

So for the days and weeks following the healing, it was walks in the woods with the trees, deep soaks in the bathtub, and lots of emotional release. Sitting with my new found naked vulnerability in a space of compassion and love. And slowly regaining my strength each day with new recognition of the power I suddenly found myself with to choose my life’s direction.

The cutting of those energetic cords created the space for more of me to show up in the world, and for more love to enter my field.

There’s a reason the shaman didn’t do the work of re-sealing my energy field for me—because the power of choosing what I energetically tied myself to was finally (for what felt like the first time ever) in my hands. So I breathed through the overwhelm and leaned into what my body and soul wanted to go deeper into my own experience of self love.

And once I established a deeper level of connection to my inner self, she had some changes she wanted me to make in my life, including leaving the physical environment I was living in. A powerful choice was born as I came into deeper alignment with one of my core anchors.

Eventually, I seemed to enter a new version of myself. One where I had more power than ever before to create that which I wanted in life.

And as I continue to stand taller in my role as a creatrix, I ground myself deeper into the energy of my own anchors—the love for my soul, my body, and my relationship with the divine.

So the next time you find yourself navigating the intensity that follows an energy clearing, know that this is exactly where your true power lies. And in order to navigate the natural overwhelm that will arise with this new found freedom of choice, remember to identify and ground yourself in your anchor points. They will guide you home to yourself, wherever you may be.

Author: Jessica Sandra

Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Shahadalharbi/deviantart.com