Dear Anita,

Not much of a name ‘Brave’ if I am not that brave.

Yeah, I would like to the exercise.

Alison, I want you to know that it is not okay for you to say that you are going out with your girlfriends and then looking for guys to buy you drink or flirt with. People in committed relationship don’t do that. It is not about ‘ letting be free in loving rleationship’ but respect for your loving partner.

Alison, it is not okay for you to act flirtatious with every good looking, funny guy you met. Its not me being jealous, your whole body language tells it very clearly. It is disrespectful and demeaning to the love that I have for you.

Alison, its not okay for you to say to ‘ I will do it for you cuz I love you’. It feels like you loving me is a favour rather than expression of your feelings.

Alison, its not okay to go out to tacky parties with your friends such as Halloween whores etc. and saying I am being insecure.

Alison, its not okay for you to lie to me or hide things from me and when I asked say to me that I am being clingy and jealous boyfriend.

Alison, its discourteous and disrespectful to invite guys over and have drinks with them in my house and not bothered to say a word to me. Instead, blaming me for having my poor judgement about your integrity.

Alison, its not okay for your friend to cheat with someone and giving so much pain to her husband and you agreeing that its okay to cheat.

Alison, you value holidays and staying in luxury hotels, you value good time and drugs. You don’t value just being with someone and love. You don’t value me. You said you were different but you exactly what I thought you would be.

You hurt me very badly and I let you do it to me again and again. I won’t forgive you for this

Anita

I am not denying that I brought this upon myself by not taking the self responsibility. I have been reflecting upon this and yes there were times where I should have said something but I didn’t. I should have put more effort in understanding people rather than jumping in.

I want to forgive myself for this which I am struggling with as well.

Brav3

Dear Anita,

There are soooooo many triggers around me. From my workplace to the shopping centres, vegetable market, coffee shops etc. I am struggling with all of them. Sometimes I am not able to do RAIN at all. I get so overwhelmed by emotions/feelings and the aversion mechanism kicks in.

I have always consider myself as a good person who believed in doing the right thing and now I wonder what I did so wrong to deserve this. In my previous breakups, I was okay but not as bad as this. It really hurts and made me question about my believes about loving relationship and integrity of people.

If the whole world is filled with such people who are unfair and have poor integrity, if relationships is all about chasing that initial sparks, if people have no guilt or conscience after behaving poorly then why should I stay the same? I am the one who’s suffering, who couldn’t go to work for weeks, who is seeing counselor, who is whining about life on this forum whereas she is just plain simply cruising. My emotional investment and authenticity to that failed relationship is somewhat the cause of suffering.

I am finding my values to be incompatible with this world. They make me vulnerable, they will make me hurt again and again.

Brav3

Anita

Tara Brach explains this in her book True Refuge.

R – Recognize your feelings/ emotins
A- Allow them to be, don’t resist.
I – Investigate with kindness’ in your body.
N – Non identification with thoughts.

I am doing few sports at the moment so yoga will be hard to fit in.

What meant by emotional charged situation was, when my ex and I bump into each other. It just doesn’t feel good. Uneasiness, grief etc starts to kick in. Its like I feel I have been betrayed and there’s not a thing in this world I can do about it.

Anita

I have been reading about Buddha and started practicing meditation. It is the only the thing that helped me since break up. I am also working on learning to live with difficult emotions, especially anger, grief and loneliness.

I have been saying to myself now that this was meant to happen to awake me up from the dream world. The pain persists and sometimes the rollercoaster of emotions take me for ride. But I am starting to accept it now.

However, forgiveness is really difficult. I know its important but I think I am not ready for it yet.

Dear AzaleaErie.

Thanks for sharing your ideas. You said “Lately I have been reflecting on the concept of loving someone and letting them be free, which is hard for me to do”. My ex manipulated me by using this, let them be free. She used to say things like this and then do things like flirting with other guys etc. when she was meant to be in a committed relationship. She took advantage of my vulnerabilities and distorted my perception about this world in terms of right and wrong. It was a miserable time.

And now, she is gone but she hasn’t gone fully. She works at the same place I do. Sometimes I see her laughing and happy as if nothing has happened. As if I had no value in her life. This is the woman I once wanted to marry and have kids.

The most bothering part is I am the one who gave everything to relationship, I am the one who was genuine in love and I am the one who is suffering now, going to counselor, feeling grief, loss and many other things. Whereas, she is cruising with her life.

Nobody deserves this. It is unfair and perhaps there is no god or universe.