Letting go of past relationships

Just when you thought you were over it, you accidentally walk into the bar, club, restaurant, coffee shop or store where you once were together, in love. You were there together, before you had the talk about what you really wanted. Before the big fight. Before the reconciliation. Before the next big fight and then when you finally broke up for good.

Why do you wonder if you did the right thing? Why do you miss your ex? Why is closure so hard to close? As the saying goes, breaking up is hard to do. Letting go of past relationships and closure might be even harder to come by. Next time you face this dilemma, try these to finally let go.

Answers
What is really bugging you about the breakup? If you don't have some idea of what really happened to you, it's going to be a lot harder to move forward. Write out what this relationship was for you from the first day you met to the day you broke up. The universe supports loving relationships of equality. Was it an equal loving relationship? Did this person bring out the best (or worst) in you? Was this a sexual relationship, a fling or real attraction and love?

Advice
Ask the friends you trust, "What did you observe in my relationship?" Often the people who love us can see what we can't but they won't open up or give advice to you unless you ask. They don't want to hurt your feelings about your choice. It's so much easier to idealize the past than accept that your relationship had some real flaws that would have erupted over time. Sometimes the questions can be answered by meeting with your ex, but be careful! No sex with your ex or, you may be on different time lines of grief and it can be painful if it appears that your ex is "over it" and you're not. Your ex may also already be seeing someone else which may just make you feel like dog poop.

Reclaim Yourself
There's a reason that people sell the house when they get divorced. Shared space is intimate space. If your place looks like he just left for work ten minutes ago or her toothbrush is still hanging in the bathroom, you're wallowing. Buy new sheets. Paint, move furniture around or have a "newly single" house warming party. Your environment reflects your mind. If it's a shrine to a past relationship, how can you heal? It's not about denying your feelings. It's about letting your mind rest in your own home.

Forgiveness
Even if you can't forgive them, forgive yourself! Relationships don't fail. They change. You may not be ready to forgive your partner for any number of things (like cheating!), but you must forgive yourself. Letting go isn't possible without accepting and loving your own willingness to love. If you are waiting for your ex to say something you want to hear or just to return your DVDs, you're giving them power over your process. Stop empowering them over you. Forgiveness is hard but whether given to them or to yourself, you feed better energy than anger and feeling miserable.

Feelings
Resist the temptation to run out for a replacement person in the first few months. If someone told you their grandmother died, you wouldn't tell them to go out and get another grandma. You would give them all the time they needed to think about their relationship with their loved one and what it meant to them. The need to heal takes longer for some. Some put up false pretense of getting over someone quickly but they are hurting tremendously inside.

Grieving
Grieving is a process of going deeper into consciousness. Therefore, grieving the end of a relationship opens you up to a deeper experience in life. Pain is a necessary part of growth. Take a treasured object that represents your relationship and set it free. Perhaps you can donate a piece of jewelry you received to a charity, release a love letter or painting of you two into the ocean. By marking the end of this important person in your life, you are honoring the time you had together and you are honoring yourself for having the courage to love.

Bar advice. Letting go of past relationships only happens when you arrive at a place of rest and acceptance. It will come. Trust the process and experience your pain. It will conclude into clarity. It will lead to peace. Eventually.

How to Turn Rejection Into Opportunity

You see, the thing about rejection is that it’s only a negative thing if you allow it to be. Sure, it feels lousy at first, but underneath that rejection is an opportunity that can change you for the better. What you feel and what you can do about it is two different things. So how to turn rejection into opportunity?

Ask for an Explanation. If you’re turned down for a job or a raise, calmly and coolly ask the rejecting person why. The reasons may have nothing to do with you (such as budget issues) or, if they do, you’ll be able to use this information to improve for next time. Resist Taking it Personally! It is important to realize that whatever someone says or does that appears to cause you pain is often, if not always, not personal. So if you’re feeling like the rejection is a personal affront to your character, let it go. Learning to let go is actually a simple process that is ingrained in all of us. However, most up us need to relearn the powerful act of letting go.

Let go of wanting to change what happened. If you’re wishing that you were the center of attention in your office, or envying the person who got your promotion, the colleague that dresses better, etc, you are only making matters worse. Let go of wanting to change what the others are doing or not doing, and allow yourself to let go of the feeling of being rejected. You cannot feel others rejecting you, you can only feel your rejecting them back. So let go of wanting to reject them back, and then notice how you relax and lose interest in what they think. You will also find that they begin treat you with much more love and respect.

Take back control. Being rejected can make you feel like a victim but you have been in control all along. The more you learn to let go of your hurt feelings, the more you will realize that only you have the power to determine how you feel. So rather than letting a rejection get you down, use the failure as a stepping stone to your future success.

Now lets look at the situation in a personal capacity when involved with someone. If you're trying to build a relationship with a person and they reject your offer of either getting together, going on a date or becoming more than friends, let it be. Don't let it chew you up inside. The world is made up of all sorts of people. You may not be their type. They may not like the way you look, dress or even talk. You don't expect to go up to Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt and they like you above all other persons, would you? If they rejected you, wouldn't you except it because they said so and move on? Sure you will. A celebrity, however, is no different than anyone else so why let it eat you up inside? If you can accept the rejection from a celeb(and I don't mean that they are any better) why not a normal person?

Shake it off and move on. People are sometimes hurt because the rejection comes a little later into knowing a person. They may have been going out for a while. They also could have been having sex. The rejection by one person may be due to indifference's about lifestyle issues or possibly their ideals of a spouse and partner. It's just one of those things where people find that it's not working out the way they like it to be. Maybe their "space" is being compromised. They may not be ready for a commitment or one is rushing the relationship and the other is feeling trapped. Whatever the rejection reason is one must respect the others decision. Take a bow and leave even with your head held high.

Bar advice. The rejection is sometimes lessons well learned. It makes a person better and brings tested feelings into light. Look into that light for better things to come.

Valentine's radical responsibility

When you assume radical personal responsibility, you live in a truth that proclaims:
I am responsible for how I allow others to affect me.In a world of forces beyond my control, I can learn to be the keeper of my own heart and mind.

Even when things appear not to be going my way, and I am upon an emotional sea of crossing and diverging currents, I can still navigate my way to my ultimate good fortune.I proclaim that I am not a victim of the world I see. I am a co-creator of it. Let love and wisdom be my moral compass, and let clarity be the wind in my sails.

New peace, harmony, and power fill your relationships when you practice radical personal responsibility. Through it, you enter a more refined sphere of relating that enhances your life and accelerates the realization of your ultimate spiritual self. Practicing radical personal responsibility forever changes the way you approach and resolve conflict.

Jealousy and other emotions like it can appear to be happening to us or to be inflicted on us by others. But to address the root cause of any upset, you must learn to observe the internal factors that shape your own perceptions and reactions. We call this ability to observe yourself and realize your power to alter these perceptions and reactions Radical Personal Responsibility.

We call it radical because it is such a departure from what is commonly thought of as responsibility, which can mean laying blame. Instead, it is insight into the deeper workings of your mind that illuminates how you have contributed to any challenging situation before you.

When you take personal responsibility, what are you taking responsibility for? You are taking responsibility for your own consciousness and the effects that it creates. The thoughts, beliefs, feelings, attitudes, impressions, perceptions, and interpretations, all of which you hold in your consciousness, can be a matter of choice.

If you are like most people, you are unaware of all the moments of choosing that go into your beliefs and your interpretations. You probably haven't noticed you are making choices all the time, choices that determine the possibilities that will be open or closed to you in your future.

If it feels as if your beliefs just show up fully developed and you have nothing to do with how they came to be a part of you, it is because you have not developed the ability to observe your own mind. The CURE (Conscious Upset Resolution Exercise) will help you.

Most of your beliefs were probably “absorbed” from your family when you were younger. The rest of them were absorbed from the community you grew up in and from the culture at large. The process of absorbing them was invisible to you, so you didn't notice you were doing it. It happened silently, in the background of your life. The process of absorbing your beliefs was invisible to you.

Regaining that awareness and accepting personal responsibility is an acquired skill. If it wasn't demonstrated for you when you were growing up, or you haven't intentionally studied it, chances are you haven't a clue about how to do it.

A start is to recognize what personal responsibility is not. In the absence of personal responsibility, all you can do is blame others for your difficulties because it looks to you as if they are to blame. This forever dooms you to a “victim” mentality that separates you from your personal power and spiritual and relational maturity. The CURE will teach you, step by step, to approach life’s hurdles in a different way that both enlightens and empowers you.

Once you learn to practice radical personal responsibility, you will find a source of inner strength and power that no one can ever take away from you. Because of your ability to take authentic, empowered responsibility, you will find that, in time, upsets become less frequent, of shorter duration, and less intense. This means you have more time and energy to focus on living the kind of life and sharing the kind of relationships you truly want and deserve.

Bar advice. While you are thinking with the situation of Valentines, you got to remember the responsibilities of actions that may happen that night. Also, what happens after in terms of work, business, family, yourself, etc. Why I say all this? Well, the things we do on Valetine's day may add or subtract to our daily lives. think about it responsibly.

Smart women's views

There's a burning question that women ask themselves when they see other women. Especially if she seems better or more well off than herself.What then can be done?

A Smart Woman uses her entire toolbox of experiences, talents, feelings, logic, intuition, education, and yes, even her mistakes, to live her life authentically engaged. She takes the time to care for herself, evaluate what she really thinks and feels, and acts and reacts from a place of patient love, energized compassion, and balanced accountability. Choices are opportunities and she welcomes them.Opportunity leads to her future and she faces that future with a ready and willing heart and a nimble and open mind.

A Smart Woman respects others’ points of view while still making her own choices. She gives generously to others while nurturing herself. She knows the value of boundaries and is skillful in using them to build stronger relationships. She speaks up when she needs to and she knows how and when to supportively listen as she keeps her vision of peace and tolerance in sight. She knows when to walk away, wishing luck and best wishes to those who are on another path.This includes long time friends and colleagues. She knows and values her true worth.

Adaptable, caring, capable, and clever, a Smart Woman embraces life and triumphantly whoops and hollers her way to joy. She claims her power and her divine birthright, as each of us do, in a myriad of infinitely beautiful and unique ways, creating a fulfilling life as a Smart Woman. She's not out to prove anything to anybody. She is here to learn, live, love, laugh, and contribute.One important key item is that she also makes her own money. Why? Well, being dependant on others, especially a man, will make her inferior and even desperate but when earning her own money she is in control. By all of these things that is her true self there is but one obstacle that may(or may not) be a downfall problem for her. What is that? Well, men. Something to think about. Then again some women don't know how to because men are an alien species to them sometimes.Anyway that's a different topic at this moment.

Bar advise.You should believe we all have a lot to share, to communicate, to witness, and to celebrate.So, what do you think? Are you ready to explore? I hope so because you need to be a Smart Woman with firm plans. Are you? Setting yourself up this way will take you through many difficult situations that life may throw at you.