The Art of Letting Go

Have you ever been so smitten with someone that right from under your nose you let an amazing catch get away because you couldn’t lift your head up long enough to see that the grass really was greener somewhere else? Are you that person that is super hung up on your ex and convinced that if you just coast along, your ex will come to his senses and come back to you with arms wide open saying something like “I've made a huge mistake and I realized you are the one for me, I’ll never leave you again... ever!" Well if you are, then ask yourself this question: Why would you want to be with someone who has left you once or twice already? People who are deserving of your love are the ones who stand by you even when the time gets tough.

I must admit, that I completely dropped the ball a few times on love. I have let people who loved me get away because I couldn't move on and was determined to get back the affection of whoever it was that I had my sights set on. Somewhere along the way, destiny can be so cruel to take away the person that makes each day of our life a fairy tale. Then our world would start to turn upside down and we just find ourselves empty and broken.

When it comes to love, each of us can have our different stories to tell. Nevertheless, all of us can be on the same predicament, which is finding the strength to let go of the feelings that seem to haunt us. Being able to move on is not something that happens over night. The process of removing hurtful feelings from your life is not easy and not something to be taken lightly. So when the time comes that you decide that you've had enough and want to take a more positive path in your life, here are a few things that you can consider.

Dwell in the past. Yes, I've said it, dwell in the past but not too much, just let yourself reminisce each moment you've spent together. Ironic isn't it? But sometimes it's only through allowing ourselves to find painful joy in the broken pieces of our past that we can start to feel tired and willingly wave our hands and give up. When that happens, we can start the next step towards totally letting go. After all, suppressing our feelings and holding back the tears are bad to our nervous system. So its okay to cry. There are stages of grief, that people sometimes have to go through in order to move on. Don't be ashamed to take your time and allow yourself to feel the pain.

Realize your worth. Sometimes, when we fall in love, we tend to neglect ourselves, our personal goals and plans because every move we make seems to consider our loved one. Now is the right time to contemplate on what you really want to do with your life, what you've always been wanting to attain. It is through loving ourselves that we can start to move out from the doomed world that covered us. It is through loving ourselves that we can start to find the light again and start a new life.

Commit to accept. It is pointless to say you have given up and after a few days you start to dwell in the past again. You have to decide whether you want your life to be miserable forever by living with the past or start again and find joy. Once you've decided, you need to commit to yourself that you will accept your fate. Total acceptance will allow your state of mind to focus on moving on instead of holding on. This will help you learn to appreciate the brighter side of things and eventually lead you to a new dimension in life.

When your relationship takes a nose dive, you won't believe the statement that you are better off. But as time passes by, you'll realize that you are. If you can firmly believe that everything happens for a reason, you will soon realize the power of those words. After the dust has settled a bit, the reasons that you are better off will begin to fly through your head. Giving yourself time to get past the demise of your love will ultimately be all that it takes. There are no magic bullets to make the pain go away in a snap of a finger. It is something that we must work through in order to get to the better end. Time will teach you the great art of letting go.

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The Art Of Appreciation

What do you value more? Finding a partner who understands you or one who appreciates you? How would it feel to wake up in the morning and be told how much you are loved? I've certainly turned these questions over in my head quite a few times. Honestly, I've always been interested in finding someone who really gets me and if you'd ask me what I mean, I'd quickly say, someone who understands, who empathizes, you know.. But now that I think about it, I realized that what I want more than that is someone who simply appreciates certain ways I see the world, and respects certain choices I've made, even if he doesn't completely understand how my mind works. As a matter of fact, the guys with whom I've had the least in common or who didn't seem to entirely understand where I was coming from, did seem to treat me better and were more into me than the guys with whom I had a common ground.

I’ve met so many couples whose main relationship issue boils down to not feeling appreciated by their partner. It’s so easy to take each other for granted and to get caught up in a pattern of not expressing your appreciation of each other. When you do not show appreciation in relationships you risk the chance of running into trouble as appreciation is one of the best expressions of love and care. It is extremely important to show appreciation to your partner because as they say, you never know the value of what you have until you lose it. Sad to say, some people are often engrossed in what they hope to achieve, forgetting what they already have.

Now what can you do to really let your partner know how grateful you are for everything that they do? I guess the first step is to think about all the special things that your partner does for you, not only physical things like doing the household chores or making your favorite dinner. How about the way that he/she is sensitive to your feelings? Or makes an effort to be respectful to you in front of other people? It’s all the little and big things that count. Once you have all these things in mind, it will be a piece of cake for you to appreciate your partner and show them how much everything they do for you means to you. If you deliberately, proactively choose to focus on what you value about your partner as much and as often as you possibly can, you’ll find that the love in your life just grows and grows.

As you see, that’s the true meaning of appreciation. It’s not just another word for gratitude, a polite “thank you” after someone has done something nice for you, but appreciation as valuing. The thoughts you think, when you are appreciating someone or something, are thoughts about their worth, their value to you, what they mean to you, and why they matter.

What about in our everyday life? Would the same concept apply? You bet! Showing appreciation can be done in many ways. But the most important thing is simply recognizing how fortunate we all are. The fact is that, in this country, even our slums are better than the best of what many other countries in the world have to offer. So it's time to focus not on what we lack, but to fully appreciate what we already have. To give gratitude for our health, our family, our friends, our possessions, however large or small, right now. It's time to count our blessings instead of discounting them.

Appreciation is a cornerstone of love, one of its most important elements. Whether it is appreciating the beauty of the sun rising in the morning, acknowledging the joy of spending quality time with loved ones or the intimacy of making love to your partner, appreciation in general helps pave the way for a deep connection, intimacy, and honesty in our relationships.

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Should You Be Friends With Your Ex?

Should you still be friends with your ex after the breakup? Or does it have to be all or nothing? Although the optimists among us like to think that it's possible to retain a friendship with their ex, the realists just like myself know that this is just not going to happen. There will always be some issues that will cause former lovers to act in strange ways. It's human nature to be resentful when your ex finds a new person to cuddle up to, even if your feelings have somewhat faded out, the thought of someone else taking your place in the memories that you and your ex once shared can sometimes be painful to fathom. So having that person lingering in your life serves as a constant reminder and makes it even harder for you to move on with your life and turn a fresh page.

You know what I honestly think? That there will always be conflicts in the friendship that may arise if you choose to still be buddies coz you were once more than friends at some point in your lives. And you will always feel uncomfortable when there is a new romance for one or both of you, not only that, a too close friendship with an ex will likely cause problems in your next relationship. How do you expect your new one to react to your friendship? Do you expect him/her to join the two of you on your little friendly hangouts? Or that he/she would sneer in your direction and keep your friend as far away from you as possible?  Odds are, that your next one will not be your biggest fan. Awesome right? Sure it is!

So to keep your life moving in a healthy direction, you need to determine exactly where an ex fits into your life, or he/she will continue to affect you and your future relationships. In my opinion, when a relationship ends, there should only be two choices. Either you choose to forget your ex and move on with your life, or you make a strong attempt to win that person back. Sure, it can be tempting to stay close to the person whose life was so intertwined with yours, but jumping into a friendship with an ex muddles those often very confusing emotions, so it would be best to forget that person and move on to the next chapter of your life. I know it's easier said than done, I certainly do, but I also know for sure that eventually you'll move on and find that person who's truly meant for you. On the other hand, if you're interested in giving your relationship another shot, you should then try and take that chance. Since you don't feel like totally letting go, chances are, you still have feelings for your ex. You may say you're over him/her, but at the back of your mind, it's always nice to think he/she will come to his/her senses and realize you shouldn't have parted ways. Do you see where I'm driving at? Good!

The faster you accept this as a truth, the better off you will be. Coz even with the best of intentions, it’s tough to become buddies after a breakup. After all, how can you move on from someone who you still make such a huge part of your everyday life? So, should you be friends with your ex? Well, only you can decide..

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Dominant By Day, Submissive By Night

Women are expected to be soft and gentle. There used to be this lingering stigma from generations of the not so recent past that expected women to be downright timid. But times have certainly changed, women nowadays have come a long way in the world. A lot of them are now taking up leads in many businesses and making their presence felt in corporate world. She might or might not be in a position of authority at work, but has a personality and a level of competence. She knows now what she wants in life just like men, and will do the best that she can in order to achieve it. She doesn’t have to take a back seat any longer.

But then, though women nowadays are more aggressive and assertive than ever before in most aspects of life, men generally remain the dominant ones in relationships and sexual aspects. After all, many women, just like myself, are still wary of making the first move, and expect men to have the initiative. Furthermore, many women expect men to make the plans. And we all know to whom the burden to initiate sex falls most of the time.

Ironically, a woman who is strong, confident, and assertive in her life and her dealings with people in general still wants a dominant man in her life. Sure, that's her persona during the day, but majority of women shift roles when it comes to their emotional and sexual lives. I’m sure it’s different for everyone though, so I can only speak for myself. But undeniably, most of the fierce and passionate career women love nothing more, than to come home and be under control by a strong and masculine man. Someone who will easily take her lead anywhere she wants to go, be it in the relationship or in the bedroom. However, this doesn't mean that men are just domineering Casanovas and women are all simply doormats who want to be controlled, beyond any doubt, this is an ignorant view of the two powerful forces in our world that should ideally offer us balance, but instead seem to have been misinterpreted and thrown completely out of whack.

You might probably be wondering why do these strong women want to be submissive in the bedroom and the relationship? There are many subtle answers but most of it comes right down to natural wiring. Feeling safe and secure in a relationship is a critical element for all women. You bet it is! Another reason that more typically dominant women may enjoy being sexually dominated is that they enjoy a private scenario wherein they can relinquish some of their control. For someone who has to be constantly in control in order to keep her family and job together, her public nature can be quite tiresome. So it would be nice to give up responsibility for a change in an arena that is presumably intimate and private. Anyway, those are based from my own point of view.

Women were never intended to be doormats, and those that choose to develop a submissive spirit toward a loving partner don't feel used at all. It does not mean being weak, helpless, or inferior, but quite the opposite. It means using your unique gifts, talent, and strengths to help your significant other be the best man he can be.

So the bottom line is, you can never know for certain and generalize anything. We all deserve to have our opinions heard, deserve to be given respect, and deserve to know the exact ways to avoid all the pitfalls along the way. It is true, that women have been raised to have a passive nature, but it doesn't have to be like that any longer. So if you're a woman, you should then take the time to stand up for yourself and your beliefs – coz if you don't, then no one else will. Quit being everyone’s doormat and take a step in the right direction, right now!

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