Then it turns out that she spends the night with the girlfriend who still remained single because there is no other solution. They either go to conquer into the night, or may go to the movies, but whatever the program may be the end is always the same, it is guaranteed that next morning she wakes up alone in bed…
In fact, it is natural that we don’t want to be alone and also that always those things hurt most in life, which are missing. If we don’t have a job that causes the pain, if we are sick we pray to recover as soon as possible, if there is a broken pipe and we have no running water for three days, we pray for not having to take a shower again at our friend’s in another district, if there is no love in our lives, the passion and the lack of the feeling of belonging to someone troubles our soul. It is useful to see that not only singles have problems, isn’t it…???

But still this lack is the most painful of all… What is the mystery of love that keeps us all detained, and without which life seems so mechanical and lifeless? And how is it possible that life immediately becomes rose scented, a rainbow appears in the sky and the warm feeling in our hearts helps to endure the unbearable, to survive the unsurvivable?
Frankly, I don’t have the faintest idea. Since people existed they have been trying to put their thoughts into words about the feeling, in vain…

Sometimes I’m pondering about how much is missed during such a miserable, pathetic state, when we’re moody, aimless, bored and don’t care about anything… I mean, how many possibilities!
How many possibilities to acquire a better education, to earn more money, to build up a nice career, to find ourselves in a good hobby, to achieve excellent results in your favorite sport, to everything that suddenly will be missed when the One enters our life. When we have to show him that what more is in us apart from that Crazy flame… Because, for sure, if beyond our wonderful devotion we cannot present anything else but our fluttering eyelids and puckered mouth, it is almost certain that we’ll be able to stand our ground in love only as much as in other fields of life before… I’m not saying that the magic of puckering cannot last for a while, but in absence of real content, there is no real chance of establishing a long lasting, harmonious relationship. Because if passion has cooled down a bit what are you going to talk about? It is impossible to converse about our non-existent career, hobby, favorite books…

I know that at the time of heartache it is difficult to concentrate on receiving further education in order to rely on more than one opportunities, learning at least one foreign language so that we can speak in the world, or achieving tiny results in any kind of sports (just for the sake of our own amusement) in order to be able to present a little success for ourselves, from which we can feed our self-confidence and self-esteem. And of course, it makes a difference how we introduce ourselves to the love of our lives…

I can not repress the philosopher of religions in myself! For a little note, I must share the thoughts of my favorite philosopher, Hegel, with the dear readership. He maintained that the person who has a strong aim in life, who can stick to one’s aim throughout a lifetime and is able to fight for it, this person will be less worn out by the games of emotions. Personally, I agree with him. You can not live only for love. We need real goals in life that make us nobler, more human, more valuable.

Always Muhammad Ali comes to my mind as the person who realized the above idea. He was preparing for one of the most important matches of his life in Africa, when one of his many wives threw the door open, almost breaking it, and hysterically attacked him: Ali! What about us? Everyone is talking about your affairs, I don’t know what to think about our marriage. Tell me, tell me what you want?! Ali looked up with shining eyes and all he replied was: I wanna be a world champion…

And then a seemingly never-ending process begins! In bookstores and on the Internet dozens of books, magazines, self-help courses advertise the solution, try to seduce us as the Sirens did with Odysseus. You are either ready for the changes or not. Experience shows that we are unable to let the other go, cannot embrace the idea that this is over, now we have to be happy alone. Since this kind of happiness requires active work on our part, we usually don’t feel like accepting this solution…

We rather snivel on the shoulders of our favourite girlfriends because we want to tell someone that the pain is unbearable, that the loss is irreplaceable, that our heart’s been hurt so bad that it’s never going to be healed, that life is never going to be the same as it used to be.
And then on a wine-smelling, series-addict evening new promising solutions pop up on the Internet! The oracle! Who shows you your future, path, direction and opens up new opportunities and promises everything good…

We make an appointment, we go there, we have our fortune told and we are waiting for someone who sorts out our future. Tall, blond man with one black shoe, two days later in the elevator! The answer is really promising… Just to make sure, we visit another oracle to prove the truth of the previous one to ourselves. Magic ball, a black cat – a tall, brown man in the park a week later. Truth reveals itself! Positive prospects, major developments in future.

That’s not enough, since it is actually a good astrologer who knows the truth! We attend to it, search for it, try to make out the exact date from the starry sky, in order to walk home with the possibly most accurate predictions in our bag. The celestials blessed us with amazing formula! Future promises plenty of opportunities for this and that, good job, travelling, love, everything is possible because our own destiny is in our hands! It is difficult to digest! Whatever I do tomorrow that’s how it is going to be… If I enjoy the sunshine, I’ll be happy, if I am constantly thinking about passing love, I’ll be unhappy… It all depends on me! But who can live with so much responsibility?

In the evening we nestle ourselves into our favourite armchair, stare at the TV screen, and don’t get it why nobody is able to understand that we are lost, incapable of decisions and actions, our broken heart cannot be held together even by the world’s strongest superglue. Maybe I should wait because time solves everything. Or destroys? You can seek for scientific solutions, might wander on religious ways, can meditate all day long, anything might come that offers momentary solution, may promise reconciliation in the sea of sorrow …

Personally, I believe my astrologer! I believe that my destiny is really in my hands. It is not simply hard but brutally hard to wake up with the weight of this responsibility every day and to go through the day.

Being a Buddhist, I meditate regularly – for my own happiness. It helps me to see, life is full of happiness, even if I’m unable to see this all the time. It helps me to feel for a moment (!!!) that the world is perfect, the flow of continuous change in it is the natural order of life, helps to see myself with the eyes of an ‘outside observer’ and not to spend my life in the prison of my obsessions, but to try to discover the uniqueness and the inherent endless possibilities and creativity in every moment.
We might lie to everyone, especially to ourselves, might lie that we aren’t afraid. But fear is going to grow constantly inside us. The fear that this miracle of love will never find us again. That He was the last man in our lives, who we honestly and truly loved, with whom we devised our future. That it was the last time that our hearts beat so much for someone.

Then suddenly, maybe not such a long time later, when we’d given up our desires, we’d actually believed that He does not return to us, when we’d got used to our changed days, which has become our everyday life, our fears come to the surface again. Those fears, which will be even more realistic than the previous ones. Which whisper that when we are in a hurry and don’t expect it, when we’ve given up, don’t wait for it, don’t plan it – step out to the street without make-up, with matted hair and someone comes towards us who revives the feeling and the magic happens again! We fall in love…

“People are born for different tasks, but in order to survive everyone requires the same nourishment: inner peace.”  (Sri Sathya Sai Baba)

Some avenues to inner peace include:

• Noticing your breath
• Meditating
• Walks in nature
• Quieting the mind
• Forgiving others and self
• Being gentle on yourself

and many more not listed here.

What exactly is inner peace?  (I’m sure some of you are asking that question.)  Well it’s the feeling of serenity no matter what’s going on in your life; the feeling that you are okay and all is well, even when circumstances appear otherwise.  Inner peace is creating your own internal climate (which you determine), in spite of whatever situation you find yourself in.

Albert Einstein said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead:  his eyes are closed.”

And indeed there is a mystery to inner peace, and finding it requires you to open your eyes fully.  For how is it that some find it and can live from that space, while others struggle to even experience it for short periods of time?

Much like any skill that we can develop, some people are born with a greater aptitude for finding and living in peace, while others have to work a bit more at it (just like some are more naturally skilled singers or musicians).  But that doesn’t mean you can’t live in peace.

For just as everyone can play a musical instrument if they practice enough, so too can everyone find inner peace.  You must make it a priority though and place your attention on it (just like anything else worth doing or having or being).

There are as many roads to inner peace as there are individuals seeking it.  And no one road will serve everyone.  So don’t worry if you know someone who found it through meditation, and you can’t meditate for five minutes without falling asleep!  That just means you can cross off meditation as your path…

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said, “There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace.  You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub.”  Which is great news!  There’s no need to spend a ton of money or take expensive retreats (unless of course you wish to), for inner peace is accessible to you from the comfort of your own home.

More than anything else, inner peace comes from a shift in your mindset, your perspective, your inner dialogue.  Jack Kornfield asked, “What would we have to hold in compassion to be at peace right now?  What would we have to let go of to be at peace right now?”

And it really does come down to how you choose to view and interpret the world around you.  If you were able to see everything through the eyes of compassion, and not be attached to things occurring a certain way, you would know peace.  If you could live from a state of complete gratitude (even being thankful for things that “go wrong”), you would know peace.

But rather than seeing it as an “all or nothing” deal, why not aim for more inner peace today than you had yesterday?  So perhaps your desire is to experience inner peace more frequently, or to stay in that space a bit longer each time you get there.  Make your journey fun and enjoyable, and notice the changes you’re making along the way.

Think of yourself as living within a snow globe (you know the kind you turn upside down and it snows inside?) — and you are in charge of your internal climate within your snow globe.  What will your climate be — peaceful or chaotic?  You get to choose, day in and day out, hour after hour — the choice is yours to make.

Let me know what you choose…

About EliseOnLife

Elise Fee is a Consulting Hypnotist and a Life Mentor — her business “EliseOnLife” helps clients get a new lease on life. Elise’s many varied life experiences have taught her broader, more expansive ways to view and experience the world and humanity.  She works with clients all over the world, locally in one-on-one sessions or via Skype (audio and/or video) or telephone.  If you are interested in contacting Elise for a personal session, post a comment and she’ll contact you directly.  If you’d like to subscribe to her free daily blog, go to www.EliseOnLife.com

Likewise, no one can make you behave in a way you don’t want to.  You always have the choice of how you wish to respond to any given situation.

Reactions are knee-jerk and tend to happen very quickly, without any thought or editing involved.  Whereas, responses are thought-out, edited, and considered beforehand.  I know this may seem like semantics, but it helps to clearly define what we’re talking about here.

When someone says something rude or inconsiderate to you, do you react or respond?  Do you reply without thought?  Or do you consider your words and choose your emotional state?

Do you react out of the pain that their words might have triggered in you?  Or do you choose what your internal climate will be, choose to respond from your heart, and speak with care?

Here’s how you can tell:  Do you frequently find yourself saying something and then later wishing you could take it back, alter the tone a bit, or change a certain word?  If so, then you are reacting to others.  If this sounds like you, then consider this a wonderful opportunity to learn how to respond differently.

The way to take ownership of your words and actions is to begin to catch yourself reacting.  Begin by noticing after the reaction occurs.  Notice how quickly you reacted to the other person’s comment or behavior.  Notice how you felt when you replied.  Notice the impact your reply had on the other person.  Notice how you felt afterwards.  Just notice, without judging yourself as wrong.

Next, see if you can catch yourself closer to the time it is occurring, in other words while you’re reacting.  Again, just watch, observe and notice, without judgment.  When you are able to do this, next start catching yourself before you actually react.  THIS is when the really noticeable change occurs!

Now that you’re able to catch yourself BEFORE you react, you can take a moment to choose how you’d like to respond.  You can choose to release any emotions attached to the situation.  You can choose to run the words you’re thinking through your heart first, to soften them, and select the most appropriate words.

You can take a moment and think about the impact that your chosen words might have on the other person.  You can take a deep breath or two.  And then, when you’re sure you are pleased with your choices, you can respond to the situation or person.

When you do this, once again notice how you feel while you’re responding.  Notice the impact on the other person.  Notice how you feel afterwards.  And (you guessed it!), do this without judging yourself.

That’s it!  That’s what it takes to make the transition from being reactionary to being responsive…from saying knee-jerk, thoughtless comments to offering well-thought-out, edited comments that you won’t later regret.

Remember to be kind and gentle with yourself…you are an amazing person with a beautiful heart — and now you’ll get to share that with everyone you meet, regardless of their behavior choices.

About EliseOnLife

Elise Fee is a Consulting Hypnotist and a Life Mentor — her business “EliseOnLife” helps clients get a new lease on life. Elise’s many varied life experiences have taught her broader, more expansive ways to view and experience the world and humanity.  She works with clients all over the world, locally in one-on-one sessions or via Skype (audio and/or video) or telephone.  If you are interested in contacting Elise for a personal session, post a comment and she’ll contact you directly.  If you’d like to subscribe to her free daily blog, go to www.EliseOnLife.com

Last week I felt like I was driving myself crazy with questions, imaginings and intuition. This week I’m being questioned about whether I’m being too dramatic.

Then – 2/3/2004

“The other morning I was so upset because ‘Carl’ had been moping around talking about ‘no closeness’ and ‘Erin’ (my daughter) started to pick up on his mood.  She asked him what was wrong and he said he was just tired.  She said ‘No you’re not, it’s something else.’  I pulled him aside and told him that he doesn’t have the right to affect the kids anymore than he already has; that he needs to get over the ‘closeness’ thing right now because he’s just hurting himself with false expectations.

I started to cry about how no matter how frustrated I get, I still am doing what I have to do to keep the family together for the kids, etc.  His comment to me was ‘Don’t you think you’re being dramatic?  It’s not like I don’t do anything around here.  You’re just looking for negative things’.  I got angry and said ‘Fine, you might think I’m being a drama queen playing up my role in saving this family, but you have a problem with downplaying your role in its downfall.  You make it seem like your problem is small compared to everyone else at AA.  You always downplay the effect your actions have had or should have on me and the kids.  So maybe somewhere between my so-called dramatic version and your version is reality!’

The next nigh we are sitting down talking about going back to the therapist and I bring up the conversation the other morning.  I tell him that it upset me that he made it sound like I was being too dramatic when in reality I try to keep my emotions in check and don’t wine or cry about things.  He looks at me and says ‘I never said you were being dramatic!’

I can’t take having conversations with someone who can’t remember from one day to another!!!”

Now – 4/3/2011

Wow…each time I’m taken back in time in my journal I am can literally feel how I was feeling at the time.  It’s amazing how powerful memories can be, not just in our thoughts but in our entire bodies.  I can feel the sadness, frustration and anger in my heart, shoulders and hands.

I can see now that I was fighting a losing battle, hoping beyond hope that my kids would not be affected by the situation in the house.  There was an ENORMOUS elephant in the living room that I was trying to cover up with a “business as usual” type of attitude.  When I saw the kids being dragged into the drama, my anger reached a feverish pitch which of course didn’t help the situation.  I didn’t have the coping skills then that I do now.  But as the saying goes, when I knew better I did better.

I lived with so much drama for so long that I have become highly sensitive to it.  Since that time 7 years ago I have had to let go of certain relationships and have set healthy boundaries with the people that are in my life.

The gift from that dramatic time of the journal entry is that I no longer get caught up in drama and choose to not have it into my life.

Next week – What’s the right thing to do?

When we come upon circumstances in our lives that we don’t find pleasing, there are several possible responses.  One is to complain about it (and this seems to be the most common response), a second is to accept the situation ‘as is’, and the third is to leave (to remove yourself from the situation altogether).

Let’s take a closer look at each of these options.  The favorite response is to complain about things, perhaps in the hopes that a vocal rejection of the situation might change it.  But Eckhart Tolle says, “To complain is always nonacceptance of what is.  It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge.  When you complain, you make yourself a victim.”

No wonder we don’t feel better after complaining.  In fact, we typically feel worse, and then begin to notice lots of other things that aren’t ‘right’ in the world.  Negative attracts negative, and so we find more to bemoan.  And ultimately it really affects us the most (although it will also bother those around us to hear all that negative energy spewing forth).  We feel terrible, are unhappy and are stressed.  So common sense says that this doesn’t sound like the best response.

Option two is to accept ‘what is’.  This means we let go of all of our expectations of how things should be, how it should turn out, how it should look, etc.  When we do this, we open up to whatever will be.  We are accepting of whatever happens, whatever it looks like, and in whatever time frame it occurs.  In other words, we are at peace with the situation, no matter what.  This feels good to those around us, and more importantly, it feels good to us.  We are calm, peaceful and accepting.

The third possible response is to leave the situation.  If you don’t like it and can’t accept it, then leave.  It’s really that simple.  Let’s say you’re at a party and the host’s children are being wild and noisy.  You don’t choose to complain about it (after all that doesn’t do you any good); you don’t choose to accept it and stay at the party under those conditions; so you can choose to leave and go somewhere else.

This doesn’t mean you have to be upset and leave in a huff — rather, you can graciously thank the host for the occasion and make an unobtrusive exit.  Then you can go do something that you would enjoy, perhaps something quieter and more relaxing for you.

Eckhart Tolle also said, “Leave the situation or accept it.  All else is madness.”  So the next time you find yourself in a situation where you are not feeling good, instead of complaining and making yourself feel worse, choose to “Take it or Leave it”.  In other words, choose to accept it the way it is, or choose to leave it completely. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

About EliseOnLife

Elise Fee is a Consulting Hypnotist and a Life Mentor — her business “EliseOnLife” helps clients get a new lease on life. Elise’s many varied life experiences have taught her broader, more expansive ways to view and experience the world and humanity.  She works with clients all over the world, locally in one-on-one sessions or via Skype (audio and/or video) or telephone.  If you are interested in contacting Elise for a personal session, post a comment and she’ll contact you directly.  If you’d like to subscribe to her free daily blog, go to www.EliseOnLife.com

I find certain words or phrases trip me up; words like “ex” or “divorced.” A friend of mine says he keeps stumbling over pronouns; struggling with me instead of we and mine instead of ours.

At one time, my career included a stint as an on-air news reporter for a local radio station. Being a reporter – asking questions, gathering information, writing stories — all felt familiar. But the on-air part was unlike anything I had ever done. Even having much experience with public speaking did not prepare me for this new game.

When you are reading live for 3 to 5 minutes in a stretch, it is as though your mouth and tongue become their own beings. Some days they work together smoothly and on others, they fight each other. At times, I felt like my tongue was an actual stumbling block and the words had to struggle to get around it.

The sensation is much the same now as I try to use these new words in my life to refer to the man who once was my partner and friend. Now, when I try to explain who my daughters will be spending their afternoon with there is a definite pause in the sentence, “oh, that’s my … ex-husband.”

I suspect it is not only a physical pause, but also an emotional one. That moment is when once again my heart and soul are reminded of the tidal wave that has hit my life and turned everything upside down. It is the remnants of those moments that plagued me for months when I could not speak or move, muted and paralyzed by grief and pain.

So, if that is the case, if it is simply waning hurt, then I think a simple sentence stumble or breathless pause is okay. It means I am healing and it means that one day, I can hope that my tongue will again be nimble and my words will flow like water.

Cases like these are the cancer of divorce.

Sometimes I think that the work of experts on divorce is really akin to oncologists who work with cancers of all types.  Some are curable, some require intensive treatment and have a good outcome and sometimes the cancer is so aggressive that all you can do is help the patient cope.

It is inevitable –whenever I touch upon almost any subject regarding divorce, whether its child support, money, or what truth is too much truth, I will hear of cases where it is obvious that whatever can be done is simply not enough. Some marriages die a terrible death.

What one disturbed parent can do to children and to an ex that he or she once loved is often hard to believe. It is a sad fact that most kidnappings in the United States occur in the context of divorce – and violence is not uncommon. The courts and the criminal justice system are overwhelmed and not a fine honed tool. Police arrive and sometimes arrest the wrong parent.

Child protection laws sometimes protect, but they are also used by manipulative parents to gain advantage in court by falsely accusing an ex in order to gain leverage over the kids and child support money.  Judges are only human, and have too many difficult cases to handle.

My heart breaks for the children that are subject to these horrors. Lying, promiscuity and adultery are, in my opinion, small things in comparison to no food, no electricity, living in shelters and violence (both physical and verbal). The former is how relationships can fall apart in bad ways. The latter is about whether or not the man (or woman) has the sense of duty to make things right even if he (or she) did something terribly wrong.

So often in divorce, people act out. They can be angry and self righteous or sometimes just feel free for the first time in decades and become the adult equivalent to acting out teenagers. Inevitably, the children are injured, not by the divorce itself, but by how it is handled.

So, what can be done?

If you are the healthier spouse, then you are trapped in a story which is largely not of your own making. You have to respond to an ex spouse who just wants to win – and at all costs.

What you do have control over here is your own sanity, and the innocent ears of your precious children. Therapy is really a must. All the outrage must be mobilized productively, and all the hurt and fear needs to be soothed. Children rarely benefit from an angry parent, even if he or she is justified.

You make hundreds of decisions everyday that can impact your kids and, hard as it is to believe, you may have some leverage with your ex if you don’t fall into his traps. For instance, if you are angry and spout off time and again, your home can become a frightening place for your kids.

Or, on the other hand, they may identify with your temper and act out in school as bullies – it happens and I have seen it. And if you are so angry that you provoke a fight in public with your ex, he can use it against you in court to show how “unstable” you are. I have seen this too. You don’t want to give him this kind of power.

A therapist will help you grieve the loss of your marriage and much of what you held dear, including a sense that the world is fair. It all has to go, because children need a stable and realistic parent to help show them the way back to sanity.

When speaking about being realistic, in dealing with a very difficult ex you will need to set limits and still co parent. Not easy. You will have to decide when to hang up the phone on him as things heat up, when to walk away from a toxic situation, and when it is time to call your lawyer or the police.

You are not always going to get it right and under all this pressure, you’re not always going to be a saint. So, when done well, a good relationship with your therapist can help you come back to center.  No matter how angry or hurt you may be, your children will always come first. This will be your gift to them.

In malignant situations, therapy is important for your children as well. They need to have a safe place to deal with what they are going through with an adult ally. In addition, your child’s therapist can help you understand how to be a better parent.

On occasion, a talented therapist can counsel the self serving ex spouse and may make some headway. And, if things get dangerous, some therapists find the wherewithal to hold an out of control parent accountable. It is not a perfect solution, but sometimes the cancer of divorce can only be managed, and not really treated.

It is better than nothing.

Ultimately, the children will grow up and come to terms with the trauma they experienced. Some will be hurt forever while others will emerge stronger because of the experience. Here is where a stable, healthy parent can make all the difference. They will ultimately cling to your strength, your stability and your confidence.

Some divorces can truly be like malignant cancer. But if you can give your kids the best of what you have, you are giving them a lot. It is the best medicine that we have.

Author Bio: Mark R. Banschick, M.D. is a diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology with over 20 years of experience in child and adolescent psychiatry. The Intelligent Divorce course evolved from his work as an expert witness in custody disputes. Dr. Banschick has appeared on the CBS Early Show and has been quoted in The New York Times, The Huffington Post and firstwivesworld.com.

Dr. Mark Banschick’s book, The Intelligent Divorce, is a powerful and inspirational self guided resource that will change your life and the lives of your children.

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In general when a relationship ends, whether it be a marriage, a long-term love or just a few weeks of dating, there are two parties involved–the dumper and the dumpee. The difference being that the dumper is the one who ends the relationship while the dumpee has the relationship ended for them.

Most of the time our attention goes immediately to the dumpee because they tend to feel hurt and they are the one who was left. As compassionate people we reach out to them, show our support, encourage, and often tell them the things we think they need to hear in order to heal. That is only normal. No compassionate person is going to hit the dumpee while they are down with questions like “What about the dumper?”

The problem with this situation is there are still two parties involved. Two parties that experience an equal amount of difficulty. Yes I said EQUAL. Equal, although very different. During my divorce I read a book where the author described divorce like death. It was the death of the same relationship, however the type of death experienced by either party was very different.

For the one who was left, the death was sudden and unexpected and the grief is filled with strong emotions. For the one who did the leaving, the death was similar to a death following a prolonged illness, which included a grief  that began long before the actual death. When the death actually took place, there came a sadness but also a great deal of relief.

As the dumper, you do not experience the “surprise” or feeling of being left, you experience a whole other set of emotions. There is guilt for hurting someone, frustration with how to deal with things, the decisions (made all alone) on how to deal with every situation, sadness, withdrawal, grief, all of the things that the dumpee feels only they are taking place during the relationship instead of after the relationship ends.

Depending on the situation and circumstances the dumper may spend days, weeks, months, or even years, with all of these emotions weighing on them and in most cases unable to share those feelings because the relationship is still somewhat intact, even if only superficially.

The dumpee on the other hand can immediately start talking to friends and family and begin the healing process of trying to make it right in their minds. They do not have to suffer any of the pain alone like the dumper who does not receive the immediate compassion from others except from the select group of dumpers that relate, and many times that only occurs after the breakup.

Not to mention the fact that at that point, the word is spread, lines are drawn between friends and family and the dumper immediately becomes the bad guy/girl. So not only does the dumper have to suffer through the emotions alone, they now have to deal with the loss of some friends and the judgment of others. But here we are, compassionate and caring and taking care of the dumpee.

Why is it that we feel so compelled to help the one who was left but the one that did the leaving has to do it all alone? Is it really that difficult to understand that the dumper has feelings too?

It wasn’t until after my divorce that a friend of mine told me there are two types of people, dumpers and dumpees and you are one or the other. More importantly while you may be able to sympathize with the other, you can never truly relate or understand all that they go through and experience unless you are of the same type.

As a dumper, which is the personality trait I have always taken on, I can better understand all of the things that relate to those types of experiences. While I certainly have empathy for a dumpee, I can honestly say I feel more commiseration with the dumper.

Like I said I have always had the personality of a dumper. There is not one relationship I have ever been involved in that I was not the dumper. For all of you dumpee’s out there that may have not headed my warning above and are still reading, do not mistake being a dumper with not being able to maintain or enjoy a relationship long-term. And DO NOT think that a dumper can only be a dumper because they lack feeling and are heartless. That is far from the truth.

Even as I write this, there is a part of me that knows I will never be able to get through to a dumpee because 1) I can’t truly relate with them and 2) they can’t associate with my feelings. Although I could sit here and write out all of the feelings I experienced in my divorce, most of you would dismiss them and blame me for one thing or another because I was the dumper. I think the only way to truly give you a glimpse into the pain a dumper experiences is to recap the loss of my relationship years ago with my husband now.

We had been together for more than five years and our love was strong, passionate and young. Young because we were young, not young meaning new. We had not grown into the people we are now who can talk about anything and talk about everything and without that communication even a love as strong as ours can struggle. We were still trying to find ourselves while trying to be together. But even with growing pains, I truly never believed we would be anything other than Jeff and Carrie, always and forever.

Slowly my world was changing. I was in search of myself and he was in search of himself. In that, he made one minor mistake but a mistake that, in my youth, I could not get past. It caused me so much hurt, pain and grief that it didn’t matter how many times he apologized or what explanation he gave. I loved him more than anything and I knew he loved me the same way. But as a dumper, my pain was set aside. I spent countless hours running through all of the options. I agonized over how to move forward. Now granted if I could go back today, as the woman I am now, I would have made a different decision but at the time the only decision I felt I could make was to end the relationship. Even though he tried over and over to talk me into reconsidering, I had made my decision and I was sticking to it. As much as he thought I was hurting him (which I was) he did not see the nights of crying myself to sleep. He never saw the struggles I had with deciding and the tears shed over asking him to leave. Even though my pain went on for longer than you can imagine, I never allowed him to see it and really as the dumper, I didn’t feel I had a right to show it.

So was I the one left, no. But I did feel the pain and equally as much. Absolutely, and in my mind, more. I think it is fair to say that my pain is always going to feel more real and justified than someone else’s. If we were honest, isn’t that how we all feel?

My question to you is “what about the dumper?” Why is it we often forget about them and instead just place blame? Don’t they deserve our compassion as well? Or as the dumper are we just expected to suck it up and deal with the decision we made? Not that we would take back our decisions because unlike the story above, in most of our situations although we have suffered in the process of making those decisions we are secure in them –I know that I experienced great pain in my divorce although I have no doubt it was the right decision.

So again I ask “What about the dumper?”

Author Bio: Carrie Dahle has spent her life doing the right thing, rather than pursuing her dreams. That is until now. Four years ago, she threw caution to the wind, divorced her then husband of ten years, and began reaching for the stars. She began writing professionally, and has been published numerous times. She is the founder and creator or Day to Day Woman and hopes that her experiences in life will inspire others

But last night I heard an even better definition of insanity…I saw the movie “Unknown” with Liam Neeson. (I know, I’m behind on my movies.)

At one point his character says, “Do you know what it feels like to be insane?  It’s like a war between being told who you are and knowing who you are.”

Bells went off in my head when I heard him say that!  For throughout my life, those are the times when I truly felt like the world was upside down, like I must be crazy, like nothing made sense, like I couldn’t convey myself clearly — the times when someone else tried to define me, label me, describe me, and it didn’t fit with my own knowing of who I am.

I’m sure at some time in your life, every one of you has had this experience — when your own sense of self ran smack dab into someone else’s idea of you…and the two ideas didn’t mesh.  You felt off kilter, like you woke up one day and found the sky was green — it felt like something was horribly wrong and you couldn’t right it.

For when you try to explain to the other person who you really are, they can’t hear you.  Why?  Well, because they have already formed their own (incorrect) picture of you, and (in most cases) are not able or willing to change it…even if it’s wrong.  It’s enough to make you feel crazy…and thus its appropriateness as a definition of insanity.

Experts say that we form a first impression within 10 seconds of meeting another person, and that it takes many more experiences with that person to alter a first impression.  In addition, our perception of others is affected by our own life experiences — in other words, the lens we look through is unique to us and will color what we see.  This explains why it can be so hard to get someone else to see you for who you really are.

And then if you add, on top of that, the fact that many people aren’t being themselves — meaning that they are not expressing their authentic self 24/7/365 in all situations — it’s no wonder we don’t feel truly seen or heard.  And this creates the sensation of a disconnect: between what someone tells us we are and who we know we are.

What we can learn from this is that it’s important to share who you really are, AND be prepared that others still may not see you accurately.  Know that if you are being real, then it’s not personal — it has to do with their lens and what they choose to see or not see, and that’s not something you can control or change.

And if you want to feel sane, hang around with people who really can see you as you are, and who appreciate you for who you are and for who you are becoming.  It’s amazing how great it feels to be with people who get you!

About EliseOnLife

Elise Fee is a Consulting Hypnotist and a Life Mentor — her business “EliseOnLife” helps clients get a new lease on life. Elise’s many varied life experiences have taught her broader, more expansive ways to view and experience the world and humanity.  She works with clients all over the world, locally in one-on-one sessions or via Skype (audio and/or video) or telephone.  If you are interested in contacting Elise for a personal session, post a comment and she’ll contact you directly.  If you’d like to subscribe to her free daily blog, go to www.EliseOnLife.com