Dear CB:

You wrote: “I have been looking mindfulness and will continue”, so I did the same this morning and came across this website this morning: positivepsychology. com/ mindfulness- exercises- techniques- activities (no spaces) that offers lots and lots of exercises, lots of information of the scientific/ psychotherapy kind, links to articles and other websites; looks like a very informative, responsible website to me.

For example, it has a “Mindfulness Techniques for Anger” section. It reads there that mindfulness helps create space between the stimulus (ex: your anger at your ex) and an immediate, impulsive response (in this example, to overthinking).

The exercise is to sit comfortably, eyes closed, draw in a few deep breaths, think about him leaving you as he did, experience the anger, notice where in your body you feel the anger, “bring compassion to the anger.. remind yourself that anger is a natural human emotion.. Try to hold your anger ‘like a mother cradling a newborn,’ with love and understanding”.

Next “Say goodbye to your anger, bring your attention back to your breath and rest for a while until your emotions subside, or settle down. Repeat this exercise as many times as necessary. It reads: “Practicing this technique can help you defuse chronic anger in a rather counterintuitive manner”, that is, instead of trying to not feel it, you are inviting it to your awareness, “accepting and mindfully feeling your anger”.

One of the links it provides is www. mindful. org (again, no spaces), looks like an excellent website with lots of attention to the pandemic, suggesting how to use mindfulness in these difficult times. One of the exercises there is called STOP:

S- Literally, just stop what you’re doing, rest, pause.

T- Take a conscious breath, a deeper breath, or two.

O- Observe what’s in you: thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations. Notice how you can be aware of them without being ruled/ overwhelmed by them, offer self compassion to yourself as you release tension and stressful thoughts..

P- “Proceed with intentionality, taking the next step in your day from this place of strength, wisdom and presence”.

If you click on “getting started” at the top  of this website, you can ..well, get started. Also at the top, there is “COVID resources” you can click on, and more.

There is so much information in these two websites that if you get yourself engaged with the topic of mindfulness, you will be busy for a long, long time, hopefully all the way to the other side of the pandemic!

anita

Dear CB:

I am sorry that you are losing your ex partner’s mother, whom you loved for so long, and without the possibility of saying goodbye (she is dying from Covid-19).

Your relationship with the this woman’s son= your ex partner= father of your 20 year old- is over. The two of you haven’t been communicating about your relationship for a long, long time, neither one of you willing to communicate at different times.

I suggest that you text or call him only regarding necessary topics, such as the future selling of your house and financial arrangements.

Because you are living with your 20 year old, I suggest that you don’t use your son as a listening ear for your complaints about his father, for your emotions of  “Heartbroken Lost Lonely”; in other words, do your very best to not burden and hurt your son with your pain, for your son’s sake.

Use this thread/ forums to express your emotional pain,  to vent out your feelings: type your feelings away here, anytime.

anita

Dear CB:

I am sorry that you are going through this unnecessary suffering.

Because you continuously haven’t responded to my recent messages to you, I don’t want to continue to send you messages. Please continue to post any and every time you feel the need to. I will not respond to your posts further, but I hope that other members will respond to you and that you will find comfort in their responses.

anita

Dear CB:

I assumed you didn’t like my input and that is why you didn’t mention any of it for quite some time, but if my assumption was wrong, and you do want my input, then you can have more of it. I am glad you don’t use your son as a go between or to vent your feelings of pain and betrayal to him. It is a mistake that many mothers make, using their children as empathetic listeners to their suffering- it hurts the children, young and adult.

One amazing thing about your story is how smoothly your partner of half a century left you, not looking back, not reconsidering at any point, which again, leads me to think that any considerations and doubts that he had, were settled before he left. When he left, he was sure that it’s what he wanted to do. The pandemic, a shock to many, didn’t shock him enough to reconsider. His mother perhaps dying- didn’t shock him to reconsider.

And you have no idea how and why it happened, other than it may be an (early) mid life crisis, and when I suggested other reasons for why he left the way he left, you didn’t care to consider those reasons, just wanting to move on.

It would help me to move on (if I was you) if I understood better. What will help you in your question “How move on” (in the title of your thread)?

anita