Hi Emi,

When you are in a Masters program, you will be too busy to miss/lament/feel bad for long.

My mom always said, “A busy woman is a happy woman”. And she’s right!

When you do see your boyfriend, it will be a happy event. And the highlight of your month/weekend. Find great places halfway between and see each other there!

My daughter and my sister both have long distance relationships, they see their boyfriends often, and all is well.

Best,

Inky

Hi Emilia,

This is a big, brave step that you are taking.  When you applied to be on the Masters Course, you knew that it would mean leaving people behind that you loved yet you decided that the end goal would be worth that sacrifice.  Now it’s only two weeks away, all those fears are surfacing.  You will miss the people you love – accept that.  Your dog will adapt to being with you and, yes, you will be enough for him – he loves you unconditionally, he’ll comfort you when you are sad, and he won’t mind a bit that you are introverted.  He will be your best friend.

18 months isn’t really very long and 3 hours isn’t really very far.  You can split the time up into smaller segments so that you can have family reunions during holidays etc. and, as others have pointed out, you can meet your partner half way sometimes.

Once you are there, your main focus will be on obtaining your Masters and this should keep you busy leaving you less time to dwell on ‘home’.  You will be sharing this Course with others which means you already have a common interest and I am sure that once you are there, there will be at least one person with whom you will strike up a friendship.

Good Luck for the future.

Peggy

Dear Emi:

You are 25 and in two weeks you will be moving 2 hours away from your sister, 3 hours away from your boyfriend and 4 hours away from your mother. You will live with your dog and pursue a master’s degree, visiting with your boyfriend and family on some weekends, if not every weekend.

I think that you will be fine. It will be an opportunity for you to practice courage as you tackle “the biggest difficulty (you) face in life in general”, which is, as you put it, “living from a place of fear”.

We are all afraid, all of us, people. We all need to find better ways to live with fear. It takes managing fear in  mindful ways. When you feel the fear, see it coming, increasing, go for a walk or make yourself a cup of hot tea or listen to some music, or play with your dog, or listen to a guided meditation and so forth- do something so that energy of fear has someplace to go to instead of staying and increasing inside you.

When you communicate with your boyfriend, tell him that you miss him, if you do, but don’t burden him with your fear by maybe going on and on about how much you miss him, how sad you are alone and so on. Control how much you share with him and in doing so you will be practicing self control. Practicing reasonable self control over your behavior (including controlling what you say) decreases fear.

I hope you post again, after you move, if  not before. I would like to read more from you.

anita

Dear Emi:

You are welcome.

“when I’m anxious or sad or frustrated, I panic or cry or yell”- part of mindfulness will be about you noticing the beginning of feeling “anxious or sad or frustrated”, before these emotions escalate and become to much to tolerate, leading you to “cry or yell”.

“When anxious, I often vent and vent and vent and expect someone else to fix me”- same thing, notice the beginning of you feeling anxious and do something to calm yourself, before the anxiety escalates, leading you to “vent and vent and vent”. This will help you feel better and will not harm your relationship. No one feels good when another vents and vents and vents, it is draining and the person on the other end of the venting becomes resentful at one point.

anita

Dear Emi:

In my therapy years ago, my therapist gave me “Mood Logs”, many copies of a form that I was to fill in whenever I felt distress, an “off day” moment. The idea is to fill in that form when you have an off moment instead of ignoring it and ending up  with a whole off day. Repeating this exercise can help you notice off moments before you spiral, or lose control. Would you like me to find the form and type in the outline for you?

anita

Dear Emi:

It is not a hassle, I will look for that form, maybe more than that one form when I return to the computer in about 12 hours from now.

anita

Dear Emi:

I just checked and the Daily Mood Log is available online just as I know it, if you google “daily mood log, pdf” or “daily mood log, james stolz. I hope you print this form and copy so you have a dozen of those to start.

In the form you describe first a “Situation of Event” that brought about some distress for you, some uncomfortable feelings/ emotions (I use the two words interchangeably). Next, you have lists  of Emotions, and you pick the groups of emotions that you felt as a result of the situation (that was difficult for me, for a long time, to identify my emotions, if this is true to you too, do your best, don’t have to be exact).

Next, you identify the “Negative Thought” you had during that situation, the thought that brought about your unpleasant feelings. Next is the key aspect of the work here: you look at the negative thought and ask yourself if it is realistic; you look for “Distortions”.

There is a list of distortions page 2 online. Take your time to study these and ask me if you want me to explain any of these further. Following this, you correct the negative thought and state “Positive Thought”.

I would use “initial thought” instead of “negative thought” and “realistic thought” instead of “positive thought” because you may be in a situation that is really bad, or negative, so the “negative thought” may be realistic and contain no distortions, and your unpleasant feeling/ emotion therefore fit the reality of the situation, nothing to correct. But often one or more of the initial thoughts is distorted and after identifying the distortion, you can correct the thought.

After correcting the thought, if it needs to be corrected so to fit reality, the person almost always feels better. In the form you estimate a percentage for how you felt before correcting the thought and after, and how much you believed the initial (Negative) thought before correction and after.

Here is an example of a situation: you feel very sad because your mother looks so sad. One of the initial thoughts (Negative Thought) was: it is my fault that my mother is sad. Next, you think about it: did I cause her to be sad in this situation… no, she is sad because of this or that and I didn’t cause it.. and you think: what distortion is it?.. emotional reasoning, I feel guilty, therefore I think that I am guilty (when I am not), you get this aha feeling and notice that you are feeling differently about the same situation.

What this does, in this example, is that next time the person feels guilty he or she will think: I feel guilty but maybe I am not guilty. Just because I feel a certain way, doesn’t mean the feeling is reality.

I hope you let me know how this form works for you.

anita