Dear Mina:

I read your daily letter, a beautiful combination of emotion, of love, and of realistic thinking.

What I liked so much about your email from yesterday is the following:

“He probably does not know about what is going on… That he at least still care for me as an ex boyfriend…”- realistic thinking.

“…the thought of someone accepting me is very comforting. The thought that at least one person truly understands me”- you are aware of the importance of being accepted and truly understood.

“it really does not feel like I am fighting alone anymore”- when you are accepted and truly understood you no longer feel alone. When you are around people who do not accept and truly understand you, you feel alone. When you are alone but you know someone out there accepts and truly understands you, you don’t feel alone.

You elaborated on “I became the person that knows the least about myself”

“I do not know who Mina is without her education, her looks, her boyfriends, her friends and her parents. Those things I have wrote DEFINES me as a person for 19 years”- at nineteen, you are aware of what a lot of women become aware of in their fifties and sixties when their children are grown and leave the home and they find themselves alone and undefined.

“I have always been so harsh on myself, saying so many terrible things that I would never say to anyone but I say it to myself most of the time”- you said those things to yourself because you didn’t accept yourself, you rejected yourself.

“To tell you frankly, I still do not know who Mina is very well”- mature and honest. It will take time and attentive involvement in your own life while accepting yourself and you will know more and more who Mina is. You will be pleased learning who you truly are, I am sure of it.

“I listen more to myself, I try to express myself truthfully and only surround myself with the people that I truly like because pretending is very tiring”- The summit of my fresh-air experience, you expressing yourself truthfully, surrounding yourself with people you truly like and no longer pretending.

“I am filtering out people. I am filtering out everything in my life that is worth keeping”- being selective of the people and activities in your life, thoughtfully choosing those, is most important to one’s well-being.

And again, I have no doubt that as you get to truly know yourself more and more, you will be pleased.

anita