Saturday, April 23rd, 2016. Post One to becoming a better man, a new man.

I start this journal at the lowest point I have ever been in my life. With that being said, the only way is up, I suppose. To tell you a bit about myself, on the outside, it seems like I have it all. A good looking guy, 5'11, slept with around 20 girls, athletic, got a scholarship at a good University to play the sport I love whilst studying a Masters program. I have a wealthy family who supports me, I am cultured, I have travelled the world through my dads work, been on exchange in North America and Europe, been to two different Universities in different continents, but with all this, I am one fucked up individual. I don't have any mental issues or disorders (not that that makes anyone fucked up), but I am constantly depressed, ungrateful, and a person who forms unhealthy addictions. There seems to be a hole always in my life where I fill that gap in with the addiction towards a woman. After getting out of a recent relationship where I basically drove her away like a self forfulling prophecy, I truly loved her, but was probably abused and didn't realize that I was participating in the unhealthiest relationship of all time. Although this isn't about her, its about me, I write this so one day I can look back and tell myself, you loved that girl who treated you like shit, now look at where you are! I recognize that now even shortly after, that I was more addicted to her than anything in my life, and I don't ever want to get back to that place. Like a drug (not that I have ever done drugs), I feel the withdrawals right now, the urges of wanting to call her, message her, even write her a letter are always in my mind. I wake up everyday sad, alone, checking my phone, realizing that the old routine of calling that person and being that way will never come back and I need to change my game plan up.

Since the break up, I have had the chance to sleep with three girls, and I actually slept with one of them. I am quite an emotional guy, in fact, extremely emotional. This was probably the worst thing I could have done so soon after the break up. As I fingered her and sweet talked to this girl who had only slept with one guy before me on one occasion and I knew she really liked me, I started imagining my ex's body and comparing it to hers, it wasn't as good or the same, and then I started to wonder what my ex was up to. It was a terrible spiral which resulted in me almost crying making an excuse for the girl to leave and saying I had something in my eye and a huge headache. I can't do the typical, GFTOW like most guys. I need to completely rebuild myself, completely refocus on my energy on bettering myself, finding a new hobby, making friends, stop being fucking needy, and stop mentioning my ex. The truth is, I think I drove everyone close to me away, because it was my world and main focus for the past year. Thats why I lost her. With me being situated in America, I train everyday in my area of sport for the University Team, I don't enjoy the sport anymore because of my frame of mind right now, and thank god the season is over today for the summer. I go home tomorrow, to Europe, (where she will be 5 minutes away from my house I might add in, and I know we won't see each other, which is good, but its a hard pill to swallow).

I believe outer game and field reports first needs to be coupled with inner game. The field reports will come soon, but this is my journey and I need to build up enough confidence firstly to even start approaching other girls and let alone look at myself in the mirror. As everyone is out tonight partying, which I attended for 10 minutes and felt so out of place and alone and ended up sneaking out through the back door, I write my first journal post ever, hoping that this will be some sort of therapeutic way to help me progress and track progress.

These past few weeks have been the loneliest of my life. Making someone your world, putting all your eggs in one basket ultimately means when that world breaks and the eggs smash, you literally have nothing left in your life. All I have is time, my depression and loneliness. My African friend on the team today, a guy who I respect and look up to a lot and who has been through a lot, looked at me in the eyes and said, 'I know what you are going through... hell, this is your hell, you are alone right now, but enjoy the loneliness, when you don't need anybody, you will have people wanting to be with you', and I will trust him on that. As I write this, looking over at my anti-depressants, and thinking about an utter mess I have been left in due to a single girl, I think of a better me a year from now. Baby steps though. Things will change, things will will improve, and I will update it all here, but first, after long thoughtful minutes, these are the things that I need to do and have decided to do:

1. Find a new hobby, a new addiction.
a. Bought a MacBook Pro Retina Display
b. Going to buy a camera in Europe, indulge in photography and go on hikes and learn how to edit photos
2. I will ask my close friend to change my Facebook password after giving it to him, for a month or two, as I spend a lot of time on social media, I believe this is a time waste. Also that is the only way she can contact me now and would eliminate that thought (can send people you are not friends with messages, and she did that before when arranging break up stuff to return).
3. Read books, first book to read, The Alabaster Girl.
4. Learn how to meditate, each day for a minimum of 5 minutes, and write about it after here noting progress and changes.
5. Do not mention the ex, and ask friends to not bring her up to me as well.
6. Start eating healthy, as my eating habits have dropped. When I go home I hope this will improve as my mum cooks awesome meals and cut out soda.
7. Continue my anti-depressants.
8. See a therapist in Europe (the only time I mention her). Discuss my addiction and codependent tendencies.
9. Focus on school work and really try and do a better job in it maintaining my 4.0 as I dropped this semester and may not get the A's I was hoping for.
10. Give a few close friends my SPAM number so they can communicate with me as Facebook is my main source of communication.
11. Stop researching about what I believe she has, a narcissistic-aggressive personality, I cannot change her. Stop blaming myself and start focusing on myself.
12. Enjoy my summer and be close to my family who are supporting me through this.
13. During the summer, get fit and maintain exercise. Download the beep test on my phone as that is a main source of fitness and our team has that test coming up in pre-season.
14. Post minimum once a week in this Journal, in a slow and detailed manner.
15. Burn, Delete, any reminders of images of the ex. Even the nudes.
16. Continue my Tumblr account that I got yesterday. As weird as this is, I believe it is a good way to spend 20 minutes a day and just find things that match my emotions and say what I am having trouble expressing.
17. Research future places (countries) I would like to live in and jobs matching that criteria as I graduate in January 2017 and have no idea where I want to be.
18. Download Tinder/Bumble (might be too soon and pointless?)
19. Download a news app on my phone and macbook which lets me see more suffering in the world, show me how grateful I am to be where I am.

If any of you ever have things to share, or advice, or critiques, I encourage you to post and share your thoughts, I welcome it all. I know in Europe I am going to have a lot of free time on my hands, a lot of reminders that I spent places with her in, even my room, and I know that I need to keep busy and keep occupied. My friends aren't back this summer, so I know I need to be doing things.

Looks really good overall. It's great to see all of the mental shifts you've made so far and you should be proud of the baby steps you've taken.

There are a couple things in your list of plans that I would advise against for someone like you in your position:

Spending 20 minutes a day on Tumblr for the purposes you mentioned might reinforce and practice the unhealthy emotional processes you're currently experiencing. Exercise caution with this.

Tinder? For such an emotional guy like you, I would advise against using apps that make you swipe left and right like those. I'm forcing myself to practice using these apps because I'm a PUA coach and I have to teach dudes how to get laid, but as a fairly emotional guy myself, it feels kinda disgusting and dehumanizing because I'm swiping left 99% of the time. It's one thing if I'm out in a public place and consciously choose to approach a girl I'm attracted to, but it's another thing when I have to consciously reject profile after profile, especially when girls who resort to online dating are generally far less attractive overall. It's emotionally draining. I am currently in an area with very, very few attractive women, though, so these effects could vary region by region.

Congratulations for making this post. We are proud of you. One year from now you will be looking at this back and see how far you 've come. It's good to see that you are able to pull chicks for sex quite easily but since you discovered that you are not ready yet, don't do it. After learning how to be in peace with yourself, you will be in a better place emotionally then do it.

Now, after some time you will for sure meet someone who is interesting, charming, intelligent and sexy. You will meet 2-3 times, have fun and drinks at a nice cocktail bar and you will have steaming sex with her. Few meetings and more sex sessions down the line, you will begin to really like this chick and fall in love. At this point, it might still be early but you will start recognizing it. I believe you will be more mature and experienced enough to be more in control of your feelings and your self and judge whether this person is emotionally healthy or has the potential to be a drama queen. When your life is in order, you will not be making your girlfriend priority number one in expense of everything else.
I do not agree that girls that "resort" to online dating are generally far less attractive. That used to be the case in the 90's, dot com era and early 2000's for women in their late 20's and early 30's who were looking for a mate. This has changed. Tinder has plenty of girls from 18 - 40, with the majority being 23-32, I believe. Just like you go outside for long walk during a busy afternoon in the city and start looking at the girls around you, you will see nearly the same demographics in Tinder. Which represents a BELL curve. To expand, I would differentiate the ONLINE dating from the MOBILE APP dating. Online might be more time consuming and needs additional effort and money for using a dating website, thus the user has already made the conscious decision to use it. Tinder and mobile apps on the other hand, are free for the most part (with built in app purchase features), easy to set up, easy and quick to use, have easy access being on the phone and are addicting. Therefore more people are using it.

It is neither disgusting nor dehumanizing. People and especially men have been evolved to select women firstly based on their looks and then everything else; which everyone here would agree with and it is primarily the most important factor for selecting a mate. In that argument it is also disgusting and dehumanizing for choosing to approach a particularly attractive girl in comparison to the ugly girls surrounding her at the lounge bar.

For Tinder there are two approaches. The one to swipe everyone to the right and then unmatch your unattractive matches, or screen out and swipe left the women that you can not see your self dating at all. Skinny, I would recommend you to start using Tinder, let's say one month from now. For the next month, ignore women until you sort your shit out, since you have already told us you were not able to have sex with that girl.

I may be one of your biggest skeptics but have to congratulate you and at least making some steps.
Stop thinking like this...Your ex was a nutcase and a fucked up person. Don't get me wrong, you have your issues, but if someone is putting there hands on you...Its THEM, not you. You didnt cause it, or deserve it. So stop thinking like that.

Again, stop blaming yourself. You're annoying, and yes pretty depressed and dependent person. But if a girl is hitting you and biting you, again...thats HER. A normal girl wouldnt hit your or bite you because of your behavior. Your ex is a nutcase, has her own issues and its not your fault. You got hit because SHE'S fucked up. You STAYED because YOU'RE fucked up. My point with those statements is to say, the abuse and how she treated you is 100% her craziness. If she was annoyed at you, she should have just left. Not BITE you. Youve annoyed the hell out of me online, but guess what...if I come to your town and punch you, I'M THE FUCKED UP one. Now, stop blaming yourself. Just wanted you to check your thought process. You didnt lose her because of your own shit, you "lost" her because she was crazy. Trust me, your ex is not going to have any kind of happy healthy relationship unless she fixes her mental problems. She hit you because you annoyed her. She'll hit the next guy if he is annoying too. Even if he isnt, she'll hit him for being too laid back. She'll hit him for being too alpha. She'll hit him if he's too clingy. She'll hit him if he hangs out with his friends. She'll hit him for whatever reason is in her sick head. And either she gets a weak guy who will take it and be miserable with her, or she'll get a normal guy who will just leave her once she pulls that shit, or she'll get her a real asshole who will just beat the shit out of her. In 2 years, she'll be alone and still fucked up. And youll look back and see that it was her, not you. Both of you have her issues, I'd say you're annoyance and need is far far less bad as her having to beat and bite boyfriends. The added benefit you have as well, is you've realized you have issues and working on them...she isn't. Now, enough abt your ex.

Dont worry about banging chicks now. Youre obviously not ready for that. Nor were you when you met your ex. Fix that gap. You dont need to date right now. You dont need to get laid. You have a hole as you said, so fill it before you think about women.

Neo, stop correcting him about what he thinks of her. We have covered this in 200+ posts of saying that and repeating the same thing all over again will not resort to anything different other than continuing the same subject. He is not ready to see it yet but he will see everything clearly with time.

I would say that the guidelines of this thread is to discuss about everything else from this point on and AVOID any discussion about the past. It was already covered extensively and he can always re-read the whole thread in the relationship section.

Congrats. Finally a step in the right direction.

I'd suggest you not delete your facebook. You're not cured of alcoholism when you ban yourself from bars. You're cured when you have the option of drinking however much you want but also have built the control and discipline to limit yourself to healthy amounts.

_________________
I know my place. It's me on top of the world.

My in depth texting & dating guide.
There's no such thing as shit-tests.
How to keep a girl.

I think Neo pointed out the stuff that needed to be pointed out. It wasn't what he thinks of her that was being corrected...it is what he thinks of himself. He was being abused and every abused person should know it's not their fault even if it's told to them over and over again when it's brought up. At some point he'll start to believe it so he won't keep blaming himself for it.

Skinny...you're stepping in the right direction and I'll remain an optimist about it.

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Part of him going forward is to stop blaming himself. I'm not telling him what he thinks of HER, as much as what he thinks about himself. In the old thread, alot of people, even myself showed annoyance at him. He was called pathetic, weak, less than a man, so when he writes that he lost her and blames himself, I have to take some responsibility if he got the idea that his weakness is what caused the abuse. I was making it clear to him that his weakness that we were frustrated with, was not what made him be abused. And I stand by telling him that he was not the problem, after my words may have helped him identify with that. As I said:
If I see the guy blaming himself still for someones actions, i gotta call it out. He's blaming himself NOW. If we cant tell him to blame himself because its the past, how can we tell him to make ANY changes when all of them have to do with his past?

Lets not derail though, thats just my point of view and maybe I cant see what you mean. If his progress is to be hampered by negative reoccurring thoughts abt his old relationship, I dont know how we cant tell him to let go of blaming himself.

ANY blame, depression, guilt, and anger are tragic expressions of an unmet need. These feelings are useful in the sense that they can serve as cues to figure out what needs aren't being met in the present.

If he zeros-in on the need, or needs after giving himself the empathy he so very needs, the blame will disappear.


For example, if the need is for connection, blame will cut him off him from becoming aware of that need and instead he'll blame himself for falling short to keep the relationship afloat. The 4 aforementioned 'conditions' cut people off from their needs, and in-turn cut them off from the world around them. By becoming aware of his blame patterns (the internal dialogue, or 'jackals' in his head which are often linked to dogmatic thinking 'shoulds' 'out-tos' etc..), he'll be able to see the need more clearly and connect to it. The blame, depression, anger, or guilt will melt-away if he can remain connected to it and find ways of meeting that need (which don't require her of course).


This is all Compassionate Communication/'Non-Violent Communication' (Marshall Rosenberg) which some of you known I am quite partial to and in my work as a therapist and personal accounts I've witnessed how powerful it is in speeding-up the internal shift towards wellbeing.

I agree with you, perhaps I did not devote the essential time to express my thoughts clearly. The message I was trying to bring across was that we have already covered everything in the other thread extensively, including the fact that that he shouldn't blame himself for her actions and how she is and to stop bringing up scenes of intense memories such as the biting, name calling etc. He was obsessed and started to analyse her and read psychological profiles online that would match her behavior and trying to figure her out.

Whereas for me the solution would be to just leave it all behind, try to think of her less and less every day, focus on other things in life and then with time I strongly believe he will be able to come into this realization of his own. I 've been in a relationship with someone irrational / abusive and I have had my fair amount of addictions and this is what my personal experience says. I can identify in some ways. The social environment you are in, helps you IMMENSELY.

I just started writing some parts of my story which followed the same patterns but then I remembered that I had already written about them months ago in the other thread. So I stopped and deleted everything because it does not serve any purpose for the OP right now. What he needs is to get along with his life, he is going to the right direction, he will think things clearly and will stop blaming himself. Once someone stops blaming himself and accept the situation that what happened has happened and takes the decision to move forward, then he can heal.

The most important part is to prevent something similar from happening in the future. And this will never happen again if you have the following:

1) Healthy social environment
2) Sense of purpose in life
3) Healthy balance of life: work/fun/pleasure
4) Higher self esteem
5) Positive thoughts of oneself.

For sure. A lot of it really comes down surrendering (to what is, essentially), which isn't 'giving-up' or a sign of weakness, rather a show of strength. With that comes acceptance and healing, and revitalized energy to live life in a new way - the only constant in this world of impermanence is change, and that includes who we are, our "identities" - the person you are now is not the person you were 5 minutes ago, or even 2 seconds ago, for example.

April 25th, 2016 – Flight home

Hi all,

I write as I wait to board my plane back to Europe, a weird feeling as every plane I have taken in the past few months has been with her either over here or back home with her. As I write, I ponder my last year and most of all last six months. I have had some of the best memories of my life with one person in the past year, but also some of the worst. Since my last post, things went downhill to be honest and I was writing an update here yesterday but decided to not write anything as I wanted my posts to be positive, but I realize I must be true to myself and what’s going on with you all in this thread, for you and I. As I was going through the cleansing phase of deleting everything off my phone and computer, I stumbled upon old pictures, old memories, I deleted them all but it still put me in a weird mood. I then deleted numbers and messages off my phone, her and I never communicated by text or phone calls, we used Facebook messenger and Facebook call for 95% of our conversations due to the data phone plan (which we still share and I will get off of when I come back). As I was deleting numbers, I stumbled across an old number which I had texted twice back and forth a few months ago, no idea who it was, and I ended up calling it just to see who it was, after nine seconds the person hung up on me and it went to her voice mail. Hearing her voice, I immediately hung up and realized I had just called her, and that after three weeks or so of no contact or conversation really on the phone she hung up on me without a thought or hesitation. Earlier that day, my mum had also liked pictures on Facebook of her, which appeared on my home page, her partying with friends, drinking, winning awards in her sport and looking to be honest really happy and good, this put me back a few steps. I realized she had zero thought of what I was up to, or curiosity to what I am up to, even calling by mistake she didn’t want to have any knowledge of me. If she had picked up however, I probably would have hung up as well. I got very mad at my mum and deleted her off Facebook myself. Furthermore, I was going through my soundcloud account, and I realized songs were being liked that I didn’t like, and she is the only one who has my password and uses the app on her phone, songs like ‘I am in Love’ and ‘I need you right now’ were lately liked and it fucked with my head big time, therefore, I changed the password, and my mind further wondered if she is with that new guy in her pictures I saw more than twice on her sports team. This post, probably the last one I write mentioning her is being written because in my last post I say ‘I am at rock bottom’, but I slipped even further. Not that it is a competition to who wins a break up and moves on quicker, but I fully understand why you can’t see what your ex’s are up to, and why social media is probably the devil, it sets you back, it shows one person cares less, one person got off easy, one person is relieved. Even if no one knows that she slapped, bit me, hit me, manipulated me, in the eyes of her and her friends, I am the psycho, and life can be unfair.

What did I do to get over this and stop moping around, I started talking to this girl who is extremely attractive (admittedly better looking than her maybe, one of the few who I say is), and we started talking and I realized I am so use to how my ex spoke to me on a daily basis and treated me. Questions I asked such as, ‘What are you up to’, ‘where are you, ‘want to meet up?’, seemed usual to hear and ask and for someone who I am just getting to know this is deadly, I could see her distancing. In my defense, this beautiful blond and I connected very quickly, and I explained that I am leaving the country Monday, she wanted to meet, and I pushed it on two occasions to meet up where she couldn’t on both, and now has left it at the point of her not replying to my last text. Realization: I realize girls like the status of men and the chill mindset, they do, they like the confident man, the man who doesn’t seem to really mind what his girl is up to because what he is doing is ten times more important. To get there, the man has to love his life by the things he has in it separate to his girl such as the gym, photography, sports, etc. I believe I have a hole in my life because my life outside women is something I don’t take pride in or put effort into. Another realization: The girl I told you that I almost had sex with shortly after my ex and I broke up, she has been texting me, trying to get in touch with me. She told me I was on her mind and asked if she was on mine, lying to her I said ofcourse (I didn’t think about her once). The more she pushed to see me and the more she pushed to see what I was thinking, the less I wanted to talk to her, the less I even wanted to be associated to her. It was there on a plate for me to take if I wanted to fuck her, at any time of the night I know she would have come over, and I say again, this girl has only had sex once before with one guy. Let’s be honest, this is how my ex saw me. It was so easy for her to hang up on me and for her to not care how she acted, why? Because I cared so much, and she didn’t. And this is how I cared with this girl, until I finally made up an excuse to leave the conversation and say bye and didn’t even wait for her to say bye back. She found out I was leaving the country, and she told me to call her before I fly out, not to be rude, or disrespectful, I will not because I don’t have anything with this girl, and I don’t want anything to do with her. Another thing I realize, when someone feels this way, and is done, it is done, and closure is not required or needed (the way I felt so hard done by now) because there is nothing no one can do to change their mind.

So after being set back in the past two days, I tried to take a step forward. Doing the things on the list in my first post, I have started to slowly try to meditate. I have to admit, if you guys can share some further insight, please do because I would love to know more. I sit comfortably, and I focus on the breathing under my nose, I imagine an upside down triangle and focus all my energy into that area. I feel the tingling under my nose, and I count to 60, very slowly with around a 10 second gap of each breath. This lasts about 15 minutes. My thoughts sometimes ponder elsewhere and go to other places, I have to admit it is hard. Furthermore, in Europe, I was going to put my European sim card in my phone, but I will not for the first few weeks as this will force me when I am out to enjoy the outing as I will have no signal and not be on my phone. I am also trying to actively get off Facebook, not to delete my account, but just not be on it as much. I realized I am not ready for any girl, hot, small, sexy, petite, smart, I am just not ready. I have therefore deleted bumble and tinder.

On a positive note, I will be seeing a therapist in Europe when I am home and my mum’s friend who is a “life coach” and was in an abusive relationship for five years want to meet up with me. I also won an award at my banquet for the sports team of my University this week of achieving the highest grade at the School on a sports team. I sit here, about to board my plane, I realize my whole life changed, and is about to change even more. This could be the worst summer of my life, maybe the best, but I know that I will be alone for a lot of it, rebuilding myself. Whilst others party, fuck bitches, tan, go to the beach, I know I will be reading books, on this site, hopefully one day getting to a place where I will not be thinking about anyone else but myself.

Sounds like you've come to some meaningful conclusions and some re-frames of your relationship. Above all else realizing there's life post-relationship, and allow yourself to get caught-up a bit in fantasy (in a good way), realizing there are some cool girls out there worth connecting with, or at least exploring a connection with (even if you don't its the possibility that's healing in itself).

Glad you've realized that putting anyone else first isn't the way to go, and that your needs are paramount to surviving in any sort of a relationship, and that certainly extends to creating healthy boundaries from the get-go, something which entirely lacked in your previous relationship.

All-in-all a great narrative, and some good insights.

Rather than concern yourself with how summer will be ("good" or "bad"), focus on the present. Life just IS...it's not fair/unfair, good/bad, it just IS. Be mindful of this whilst doing everything you can to enrich your life.

Good post. n2 is right about it being a good narrative.

As opposed to most struggling members of this forum, you're not stupid. You're just being an idiot. And I say that with the most positive of all intentions in mind, because that's something you can easily fix. Hell, it's something you've apparently already started fixing.

Abstract of the fact that you're going through some tough shit, you seem to be a smart dude. Keep this up and you'll be better sooner than you expect.

_________________
I know my place. It's me on top of the world.

My in depth texting & dating guide.
There's no such thing as shit-tests.
How to keep a girl.

I want to caution Skinny on holding onto the Abused narrative moving forward.

I've seen this in some of his posts and feel it's a good opportunity to bring to the fore in terms of healing and creating a healthier self image.

First, I have no doubt that the two were abusive towards each other, but that it manifested in different forms. Physical abuse generally leaves a visible trace which is disconcerting in itself to see (I had a friend from my former gym who I'd learn passed away last week at 38, and would often come to the gym with heavy amounts of concealer to hide massive bruising all over his body - his ex was a violent drunk). For abusers to exists by obvious logic there must also be the abused (those willing to stick around and endure). Sadly a lot of abuse from the male end goes under-reported because, well, we're the 'stronger' sex and there's a lot of stigma associated with speaking-out about being abused, especially when it's at the hand of a woman.

I know, I've been and had endured the effects of an physical and emotional abuse (the only one of its kind, thank god). I also know how creating an Abuse story, or "narrative" can be damning in itself. Trying to move-on while having created an identity as an Abused person made it all but possible for me to move forward, at least it slowed my progress. I shared my story to anyone that'd listen, even people I didn't know very well to the point where I was questioning my own ability to hold boundaries with people. Associated with this was the embarrassment, the self-blame, the "SHOULDS" (e.g. "I SHOULD know better than to share this with anyone willing to listen").

The point is it was those weak, or next-to-know boundaries that got me into trouble in the first place. Incidentally, the gift it brought to me was a focus on relationships as a niche of interest, and in particular how to dismantle co-dependent patterns of being which were so seemingly entrenched at the time.

Added to the self-blame (and anger towards my ex) was akin to trying to run a sprint with a 1 tonne weight strapped around your shoulders; there was just way too much inertia to gain any momentum. It was only until I was able to FORGIVE her for her shortcommings and the fact that she's a damaged person I was then able to see her humanness and have compassion towards her. I felt an immediate peace, but not after first allowing myself to get swallowed up into the abyss of sadness and really allow myself to experience those feelings as a means to gradually moving through the dark chasm and out the other end into the daylight.

To this day I don't deny some of her behavior was "abusive", and I also see my part in the play, so-to-speak though I don't blame myself. Since then she's attempted to come back into my life on multiple occasions, and where I am now in my life, thanks but no thanks. I have a deep caring for her, I'll call it love, but I choose to send out that energy from afar without actually having her in my life.

And that's basically what surrender looks like, and how it paves the way towards healing, self-acceptance, and a heightened knowledge of self you can use to navigate more easily through life's challenges.


I share this with you as a source of encouragement, an example of what surrender looks like (in a very practical sense), and to treat yourself with the love and compassion that you couldn't receive from her. More importantly, to maintain this regardless of whomever you're with, and to hold firm on boundaries which serve to protect the core values you hold dear.