Should I have broken up with my ex?

Breakups are the pits. I’ve been through it and it’s never fun.

The worst part is the nagging doubt that creeps in…often running circles in your mind…questioning your decision to move on.

Should you have ended it?

Rather than telling yourself not to think about it (good luck with that), ask yourself these questions to productively process if giving the relationship a second go is worth it.

1.  Are you in love with him or the idea of him?

Sometimes there’s a desire for an actual person, and other times there’s a desire to have a person fill the loneliness. And that’s okay. I don’t believe we’re really wired to be alone. Pay attention to your feelings and see if they are coming from a place of clarity. Sometimes getting caught up in the sudden loneliness of not having someone to text or having someone to take to an upcoming party causes you to lose perspective.

If you don't think it's just loneliness, really consider the qualities your person has. Too often the memory of a person we miss gets blown out of proportion in our minds; Are the things you love about this man reality, or just longing for who you desire him to be? What specifically do you miss?

2. What were the reasons that led you to break up in the first place?

You might miss him now, but there was a reason to end the relationship in the first place. Was it over something substantial like infidelity or religious beliefs? Has anything happened to make you think those issues have been resolved?
Did you have lousy communication?

Remind yourself of how those difficulties made you feel. That leads into the next question -

3. What would a relationship with him look like now?

If the reason was something like distance or a move, then think about what rekindling your relationship would look like now. If he's on one coast and you're on the other, is that something you're willing to make work? And if a larger mitigating factor, such as distance, isn't an issue, then assess if you're really ready for a fresh relationship. Sure, you know the guy already. Getting back together can be a fresh start, but it also doesn't magically fix lingering issues you had from your previous attempt.

4. Do you see a future together?

It’s possible that when looking at your relationship in a static way, any problems leading up to the breakup (or even post-breakup) don’t seem very large. Maybe you worked through some of your previous issues. But did you consider the biggest one: whether or not there's a foundation for a real future together? The first time around, it can be easy to get swept up in the feeling of falling in love. If you're going to take the effort to restart a previously sputtered romance, building it on a shared vision makes it more likely that this time around you two will make it.

Answer these questions honestly. Also, your ex is not the last man left on earth. You may be feeling sadness, regret or guilt now,  but try and use the lessons learned in your next relationship.

And if there is a chance to rekindle…by all means go for it! I believe in second chances (as long as no hard boundaries were crossed).

Dos & Don'ts of Reaching out to an Ex

By Julita Cardenas

After breakups, sometimes an amicable silence is what you both want. You’ve said all you need to say and acknowledged that it's over, and now you just want to move on.

But that's not always the case. What if you have more to say? What if you want to apologize? What if you want your ex back? There is no right or wrong way to go about this, but thinking about how the other person will perceive your communication can help you make a better decision.

Here are six do's and don'ts of contacting your ex:

1. Do be up front.

Be clear about what you want when you contact them. When most people get a message or voicemail from their ex, they always wonder, “What do they want?” They'll be curious to know if you want to rekindle the flame or just to clear your conscience. Be direct in your communication.

If you want to get back together you can call or email and say, “I’ve been thinking about you recently and wanted to see how you’re doing. I would love see you and meet for coffee.” If the goal is to revive interest, aim to spark curiosity. When you see each other, convey the feelings you had when you were together. If your goal is to clear a guilty conscience, say what you need to say, via email or on the phone, but don’t string them along. Hopefully they'll take the hint either way.

2. Don't worry about whether or not they'll respond.

Even if you're worried that your ex won’t want to see you, or they'll have a hostile reaction to contact, don’t let that stop you. You might be surprised to know that on some level that person might need to hear from you. If things were left unresolved or unfinished, they will also need a sense of closure.

Many people aren't comfortable reaching out to an ex for closure or to broach the possibility of getting back together. Their feelings might be hurt by behavior from the end of the relationship, when communication was hostile or avoidant. If important things were left unsaid, make the move. Initiate communication. It’s better to try to resolve something than to live with unanswered questions about the past. Saying what you need to say is the best way to move on.

3. Do be respectful of their current relationship status.

Consider the options. You might not necessarily know whether they're with someone else, so you need to consider whose buttons you might be pushing when you make contact. Think about how you would feel if your partner's ex contacted them. You probably wouldn’t even want them to respond. You might imagine telling the other person off on your partner's behalf.

So, it’s important to identify your objectives before reaching out. Do you want to be friends? Do you want to apologize? Do you want to win them back? If you ask to get together, you can say, “If you are single, I’d love to meet for drinks. But that if you're with someone else, I respect that.” Saying something like this will also give you an indication whether they're still interested in you. Decide based on what’s best for the other person. If they're happy with someone else, don’t be aggressive in your approach — even if you want them back.

4. Don't continue to contact them if they don't respond.

If your ex hasn't replied to your messages, voice-mails, emails, pokes, Snapchats, or any other form of communication, it’s time to chill out. They might not want any form of communication with you, especially if the relationship ended on a sour note.

Don’t wait for intervals of three to seven days and then try again for a balance of playing hard to get and not being clingy. Just stop. You can live with the knowledge that you gave it a shot, and then move on with your life. You tried. Don’t beat yourself up.

5. Do keep it light.

Avoid sharing too much emotion in a text or voice-mail. Sometimes people respond to this kind of honesty, but it's best to keep things casual until you meet in person. Remember, upon seeing your ex, you might feel differently about what you want. You might think you want to get back together, but once you see them, you realize the chemistry just isn’t there. Or, you might think you just want to get some things off your chest, but once you get there, you feel a strong attraction and want to rekindle things.

This can definitely be confusing. Unless you know exactly what you want when you contact them and have made what you consider to be an irrevocable decision regarding that, keep your communication light and be direct. Avoid pouring your heart out unless you think that is the best way to get your point across. When in doubt, assess the situation in person.

6. Don't wait too long.

It's important to be truly ready before you contact an ex, but it's also best to avoid postponing it for too long. They won't be waiting around for you. They'll be moving on with their lives. This doesn’t mean they'll forget you or resent you, but if someone else shows up and sweeps them off their feet, they're not going to let the memory of you stop them from taking that leap.

Time changes things. Six months go by and they have a different hair color and a Tinder profile. One year goes by and they have a new job and might be engaged. Seize the moment — if that's what you really want. Your desire to rekindle the relationship, start a friendship, or apologize is irrelevant if you never do anything about it.

Weigh the options. Decide which consequences you can live with and which you can't. Then just do it!

Loving again

Love Again After the Narcissist = Equals = Loving Yourself First

by Lucy Wright

Loving someone who doesn’t love you back, who is only capable of loving themselves… is like waiting for a ship at the airport.

One of the happiest moments of life is letting go what you can’t change. Let. It. Go. Easier said than done when you’ve devoted yourself to, and tried so hard to love the self-absorbed.

When I was finally out of the marriage – and starting to discover who I was again – I asked my counselor how I would “not do it again.” How would I not find, not be attracted to, and not end up with, ever-ever-ever again, another Narcissist. Would I know the red flags? Being with a Narcissist was all I knew. My father. My NEx. How would I “not do it again.”
“You have to love yourself first” is what I heard.
What? Who? Me? Love Me?
I didn’t understand.

I had been a shell for so long. To remember who I was, I had to forget what he spent so many years telling me to be; what he spent so many years telling me who to be.
I was curious about “moving on” after the ExN, but I made a pact with myself to remain solo – just me, myself and I – for at least six months post getting out of my abusive relationship and having my divorce finalized.

Inwardly I knew I wasn’t ready to date. I was scared of the very thought of even trying to go out and meet a man for a cup of coffee and attempt to carry on any sort of thought-provoking, intelligent conversation. Who was I? What did I like to do? What were my goals? Where did I like to travel? After being told the answers to all of these questions for so long – you are this, we do this, we like to go here but not there – I couldn’t even answer these simple questions for myself, let alone think I might sound interesting to someone else.

Before the relationship with the ExN began, and even during the first few years we were together, I was social. I had confidence. I had a lot of friends. I was smart. I enjoyed reading and keeping up with world events. I kept myself in shape and I enjoyed wearing pink. I felt good.
I smiled.
Throughout the years I was married to N-him, I lost all of that. I had no friends, no confidence, and had to ask for validation and permission before making even the most simple, seemingly obvious decision.
He went to the gym. I stayed home with the kids.
I rarely left the house.
I wore dark sunglasses.
I never smiled.
……………………………
I knew I needed to learn to be Me again. But… who was Me?
……………………………
Fast forward six months when I finally took the leap to go for that cup of coffee. With a man.
I struggled, a lot, but I ended up learning about myself. And eventually I had some fun.
I was slowly figuring out who I was again. It took a long time initially, and the learning is still a work in progress. To this day, so many years later, I continue to struggle, at times, with who I am, who I was before, how I changed so drastically with N-him in order to survive, and how all of that affects me even to this day. Difficulty making decisions? What did I do wrong? Why doesn’t he understand what I’m trying to say? Why do I have so little self-esteem sometimes — still?
I took time to start learning to be me again. I am still learning.
………………………………
I have learned to love myself again after life with a Narcissist But I continue to have “triggers” from my past that cause me to doubt myself sometimes even now.
Bless my current husband for being patient with me. And understanding. Many times I don’t even know what is going to set me off – why I start crying, or what is said that revives some memory in my brain from the past, and causes my walls to go up so quickly.
Real men love you for who you are. They know your baggage, and they still love you anyway. They are caring, gentle and kind. They do not judge. They will never hurt you. They treat you with respect. And by standing by your side, through thick and thin, good and bad, better and worse, you, a survivor of domestic abuse, can finally begin to understand what it means to have trust in someone again… to love someone again.
I am a different person from who I was when abuse was my norm. I want my kids to know that there is no abuse in true, unconditional love.
<3
Learn to love yourself first.
Then find your ship – not the one at the airport – and determine your course forward.
Have some fun.
And when you are ready to…
Trust in Love again with someone else.

Dangerous Minds

We’ve all been burned by psychopaths largely because we fell for their lies and their lines.  The better informed people are with their techniques of deception, the more they can recognize them and protect themselves against them. A psychopath gets you within his power largely through deception. As Cleckley noted in The Mask of Sanity, the main reason why people are easily taken in by their lies is not because the lies themselves are that convincing, but because of the psychopaths’ effective rhetorical strategies. What are those?

1. Glibness and Charm. We’ve already seen that these are two of the main personality traits of psychopaths. They know how to use them to their advantage. Psychopaths lie very easily and in a smooth manner. They often pass lie detector tests as well because such tests register emotion, not deception. Psychopaths tend to remain cool under pressure. They can tell you the most implausible stories–such as when they get a call from their girlfriend but tell you that it’s a random call from a jailbird–but do it so matter-of-factly that it makes you want to believe them. Sometimes they distract you from the content of their words with their charm. They look at you lovingly, stroke your hair or your arm and punctuate their speech with kisses, caresses and tender words, so that you’re mesmerized by them instead of focusing on what they’re actually saying.

2. Analogies and Metaphors. Because their facts are so often fabrications, psychopaths often rely upon analogies and metaphors to support their false or manipulative statements. For instance, if they wish to persuade you to cheat on your husband or significant other, they may present their case in the form of an analogy. They may ask you to think of the cheating (or breaking up with your current partner) as a parent who is sparing his drafted child greater harm by breaking his leg to save him from going to war. This analogy doesn’t work at all, of course, if you stop and think about it. Your significant other isn’t drafted to be dumped for a psychopath. You’re not sparing him any pain by breaking his leg or, in this case, his heart. You’re only giving credit to the psychopath’s sophistry and misuse of analogy to play right into his hands, thus hurting both yourself and your spouse.

3. Slander. A psychopath often slanders others, to discredit them and invalidate their truth claims. He projects his faults and misdeeds upon those he hurts. To establish credibility, he often maligns his wife or girlfriend, attributing the failure of his relationship to her faults or misdeeds rather than his own.

4. Circumlocution. When you ask a psychopath a straightforward question that requires a straightforward answer, he usually goes round and round in circles or talks about something else altogether. For instance, when you ask him where he was on the previous night, sometimes he lies. At other times, he tries to divert you by bringing up another subject. He may also use flattery, such as saying how sexy your voice sounds and how much you turn him on. Such distractions are intended to cloud your reasoning and lead you to forget your original question.

5. Evasion. Relatedly, psychopaths can be very evasive. When you ask a psychopath a specific question, he will sometimes answer in general terms, talking about humanity, or men, or women, or whatever: anything but his own self and actions, which is what you were inquiring about in the first place.

6. Pointing Fingers at Others. When you accuse a psychopath of wrongdoing, he’s likely to tell you that another person is just as bad as him or that humanity in general is. The first point may or may not be true. At any rate, it’s irrelevant. So what if person x, y or z–say, one of the psychopath’s friends or girlfriends–has done similarly harmful things or manifests some of his bad qualities? The most relevant point to you, if you’re the psychopath’s partner, should be how he behaves and what his actions say about him. The second point is patently false. All human beings have flaws, of course. But we don’t all suffer from an incurable personality disorder. If you have any doubts about that, then you should research the matter. Google his symptoms, look up psychopathy and see if all or even most of the people you know exhibit them. Of course, even normal individuals can sometimes be manipulative, can sometimes lie and can sometimes cheat. But that doesn’t make our actions comparable to the magnitude of remorseless deceit, manipulation and destruction that psychopaths are capable of. Furthermore, most of us, whatever our flaws, care about others.

7. Fabrication of Details. In The Postmodern Condition, Jean-François Lyotard shows how offering a lot of details makes a lie sound much more plausible. When you give a vague answer, your interlocutor is more likely to sense evasion and pursue her inquiries. But when you present fabricated details–such as when you are with your girlfriend in a hotel room but tell your wife that you were with your male buddy named X, at a Chinese restaurant named Y and ate General Gao chicken and rice which cost a mere $ 5 at a restaurant and discussed your buddy’s troubles with his girlfriend, who has left him because he cheated too much on her–your wife’s more likely to believe your elaborate fiction. Because they excel at improvisation, psychopaths are excellent fabricators of details. Even novelists have reason to envy their ability to make up false but believable “facts” on the spot.

8. Playing upon your Emotions. Very often, when confronted with alternative accounts of what happened, psychopaths play upon your emotions. For example, if his girlfriend compares notes with the wife, a psychopath is likely to ask his wife: “Who are you going to believe? Me or her?” This reestablishes complicity with the wife against the girlfriend, testing the wife’s love and loyalty to him. It also functions as a subterfuge. That way he doesn’t have to address the information offered by the other source. To anybody whose judgment remains unclouded by the manipulations of a psychopath, the answer should be quite obvious. Just about any person, even your garden-variety cheater and liar, is far more credible than a psychopath. But to a woman whose life and emotions are wrapped around the psychopath, the answer is likely to be that she prefers to believe him over his girlfriend or anybody else for that matter. Even in such a hopeless situation–if a psychopath’s partner doesn’t want to face the truth about him–it’s still important to share information with her. Psychopaths form co-dependent, addictive bonds with their so-called “loved” ones. They’re as dangerous to their partners as any hard drug is likely to be. If their partners know about their harmful actions and about their personality disorder, then at least they’re willingly assuming the risk. Everyone has the right to make choices in life, including the very risky one of staying with a psychopath. But at least they should make informed choices, so that they know whom they’re choosing and are prepared for the negative consequences of their decision.

Deception constitutes a very entertaining game for psychopaths. They use one victim to lie to another. They use both victims to lie to a third. They spin their web of mind-control upon all those around them. They encourage antagonisms or place distance among the people they deceive, so that they won’t compare notes and discover the lies. Often they blend in aspects of the truth with the lies, to focus on that small grain of truth if they’re caught. The bottom line remains that psychopaths are malicious sophists. It really doesn’t matter how often they lie or how often they tell the truth. Psychopaths use both truth and lies instrumentally, to persuade others to accept their false and self-serving version of reality and to get them under their control. For this reason, it’s pointless to try to sort out the truth from the lies. As M. L. Gallagher, a contributor to the website lovefraud.com has eloquently remarked, psychopaths themselves are the lie. From hello to goodbye, from you’re beautiful to you’re ugly, from you’re the woman of my life to you mean nothing to me, from beginning to end, the whole relationship with a psychopath is one big lie.

From www.lovefraud.com

Deceit & Manipulation

By Joel Akande

No one likes to be manipulated. It belittles us all and make a mockery of our intelligence. Besides, being deceived and manipulated breaches the trust we may have in individuals. In addition, being deceived implies that we are being fooled and could considerably affect our individual confidence.

What is Manipulation?

To be manipulated implies that truth and lies are being mixed together all at once or interchanged and presented as the whole truth.  A manipulator's  aim is to control the victim. That is to say, a person tells you lies and package the lie as the truth, present the lie to you to make you believe in the fabrication. Unaware, you are taken in: You accepted untruths as authentic. Manipulation can also be a situation whereby the victims are misdirected or simply twists facts in a "mix and match" of lies and truth. Manipulation is not the same as "negotiation" or "agreement".

Why Does Manipulation and Deceiving Occur?

The objective of a manipulator is to control the victim and the manipulator may go to any extent inculding using the Police, Courts and the Law, and any means to control the victim.  All said, the victim of manipulation are almost always in one form of relationship or another with the perpetrator. Also, manipulation occurs and it assumes that the victim is not capable of finding out the truth about the matter(s). Thus, from the victim's position, manipulation may occur when the victim and perpetrator:

1. May be in position of trust such as children trusting adults or their peers. Adults may deceive or  "mis-educate" and manipulate or misdirect  the children so that the perpetrator is able  to gain different forms of  advantages such as affection, attention, being kept in company and so forth.

2. It may occur whereby the victim and perpetrator are in intimate relationships such as husband and wife situation. Clearly, one party may trust the other or the two individuals may actually actively manipulate each other.

3. Politicians, may deliberately manipulate facts to suit an existing situation. So the followers and the public are the victims of  lies and deceits.

4. Employees of companies, business partners,  students and anyone under authority of another may be a victim of manipulation.

The Perpetrator.

The perpetrator of manipulation:

a. Fears the truth as some Countries and politicians do. In the same way marital partner who fears that his or her sexual adventures may be discovered may start to manipulate the other unwary partner.

b. The perpetrator may be apprehensive that telling the truth  as in politics and businesses, may lead to loss of revenue, income, loss of political position and self-esteem (Please read here: How to Deal With False Accusations)

c. Perpetrator of manipulation may want to keep a state of duress and fear upon the victim to that the victim is always in submission to the authority of the perpetrator. This is common in political settings in authoritarian countries and autocratic states.

This may also happen between a vulnerable partner in a relationship, between children and adults and the other over-lording partner who wants to maintain a condition to continually exploiting  the other in the relationship.

d. Manipulation by the perpetrator may be as a result of mental illness such as grandiose delusions of hypomanics or in mania or personality disorders. On the other hand, manipulator may simply be sane but criminally minded persons.

e. Manipulation may also occur as a result of drugs such as cannabis misuse leading to weird claims of paranoia.

f. Manipulation does occur in religious situations of "the bad or evil" attempting to manipulate the truth or the good people.

Signs and Symptoms That You Are Being Manipulated
a. The manipulator fails to back up the claims with factual evidence
b. Manipulator prevents you from wanting to establish the evidence. You may be asked to "act now" which is in fact a false sense of urgency. Warning: Do not so act.
c. You feel under duress and uncomfortable.
d. You may be threatened with severe consequences. This may be the case when children are manipulated. They may be asked to respond to inquiries from outsiders in certain ways or not answer at all.
e.The story of the manipulator keep changing facts and scenes. No consistency.
f. The storyline may just be too strange to believe.
g. Manipulator present as if they are on your side. They tell you what you want to hear while they have different intention
h. If manipulator is questioned intensely, his or her defences will collapse

How Does Manipulation Occur?

a. Deceiving another person is always a pretense by presenting a false facts as the truth. A weird story may be told to cover the truth.  False accidents may said to have occurred where there is none.

b.Manipulators are good at double dealings. They may tell one story now to Mr. A and then for the same alleged event, tell another story to Mr C, all in the hope that Mr A and C will not find out the truth.

Letting go and moving forward

By Karim Hajee

Let's face it. Many of us choose to hang on to things that at some point have hurt us, angered us, made us feel sad, or depressed us. If we choose to hang on to them, we will never move forward and we could even create physical or medical damage to our bodies. To prevent this from happening we need to let go but no one really tells you how to let go and move forward. Sure it's easy to say: "Just let go, move forward, forget about it, just let go." But that really doesn’t work. I’m about to show you how to let go and start moving forward.

Why You Need to Let Go and Move Forward.

Throughout our lives we go through different experiences, some are positive and some we see as negative and unpleasant. When you hang on to a negative or unpleasant experience you are constantly thinking about it. And when you constantly think about that negative event you prevent yourself from healing. How many pleasant memories do you recall everyday? Chances are you're like most people and you have a number of unpleasant experiences that you're holding on to, which is preventing you from moving forward.

The more you carry the worse life gets. Why? Because you've filled your mind up with negative experiences, because you continually hang on to something that doesn't allow you to move forward, in short, you're carrying useless baggage that's really slowing you down.

Think of it this way: you're on a hiking trip and along the way you keep picking up heavy objects, things that really don't serve you. After a while, these objects begin to slow you down and unless you get rid of them, you'll never complete your trip.

To let go you have to get your mind to focus on different goals and different objectives. It's not about saying: I let go of the pain from my fight with ---- and move on. That will help, but if you really want to start moving on, then you have to get your mind to focus on new things, in the process you automatically let go of the things that have been slowing you down.

How to Let Go and Move Forward

Researchers believe that that if you hold on to negative feelings, sad emotions or depressing memories there is a possibility that you could reshape the human cell to the point where your thoughts of the past have a negative effect on your cells and your physical health.

Hanging on to negative past events is a process that can destroy your life in ways you're not even aware of. Ask yourself these questions: Do the negative things you hang on to serve you any purpose? Do they help you move forward? Do they work in your favor in any way? If you said no to any or all of the above then tell yourself this: This emotion/feeling doesn't help me so I'm letting it go and focusing on what is important. Then begin focusing on what you want next, focus on what is important and what can improve your life. This is a simple process that gets the mind moving in a new direction and you stop building negative energy created from the negative events/emotions, which only attracts more negative situations. When you begin focusing on more positive things you begin attracting positive situations.

The next step is to create an action plan, the past is over. Where do you want to go now and how do you plan to get there? You may not have the answers but merely thinking about the options forces your mind to go in a new direction and you automatically let go of unwanted feelings and emotions.

The key to your success is to train your mind to move in a new direction so you send new messages to your subconscious mind, which then brings you the opportunities to move forward.

The final step is to live in the present moment, to start living in the now. Living in the now is different than living for the moment. Living in the now is the process of enjoying everything that is going on at this present moment. Take a look around you and appreciate those things that you once thought were trivial. When you are here now you can be nowhere else. You are not hanging on to something, you are here now. I know some of you may say the following: "But Karim, where I am right now really sucks, I don't want to think about it." It only sucks because you're looking at all the negative things going on. Focus on a few of the positive things anything from nature to the wonderful family you may have. This forces your mind to look at things differently and tells your subconscious mind that you're ready for new possibilities, then you’ll begin to let go and move forward.

How to mend a broken heart

How can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
... Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again. 
-- Bee Gees

A deep loss can feel like your heart has been shattered into a million pieces. You’re left with shards of pain, metaphoric hemorrhaging, and difficulty breathing. The heart that pumps your life source serves as your emotional mind/body - A mind and body that writhe in anguish.

For me to say that experiencing grief is a horrific experience is an understatement. The pain is indescribable. Overwhelming. Hollowing. Aching.

Emptiness.

It’s a process to be experienced and cannot be set aside or sped up.

Why is this happening to me? Why can’t I see the big picture? Why can’t I heal?

When you break up with a love you not only lose your mate - you lose you best friend, your confidant and your future. All of your plans for tomorrow and your dreams for the future have been shredded and burned. Your heart reaches out pleading for reconciliation, but your mind stops you short.

You grab your phone. You write. You stare at the text.

The debate on whether to send the message you just composed creates conflict between your logical mind and your injured heart. Do you send the message or not? Staring at the phone you calculate your amount of self-respect versus the desire to feel better . . . if only temporarily. Logically you realize that sending the message will not change anything. Your heart yearns for connection. Can the logical mind mend a broken heart?

First, you must acknowledge that your heart has been broken. Breathe into the pain and accept.

Second, try to avoid denial and rationalization. This is a nightmare; you will get through it. It is happening. The only way round is through (Robert Frost).

Third, grief does not have a timeline. It takes as long as it takes. Surrender the belief that you will never fully get over the loss, but you will learn to accept it. You’ll get through it when you get through it.

Fourth, embrace the present because grief lives in the past. Your experiences have been lost. Living in the moment will allow you to tolerate the pain.

Last, be real. If you’re hurting don’t try to hide it. Authentically live in the moment of pain, acceptance, and sadness.

Breathe into the agony and accept. As Panache Desai says, “Lean into it. Breathe. Accept. Embrace and embody the blessing of sadness, because where there is acceptance, judgment no longer has any power. When you let this energy wash over you, there will be an intensity to it, but as you keep allowing it to flow through you, it will eventually diminish. Allow life to do its job.”