Hi Emma,

Have you ever wondered that without the experience of your youth, you will not be the person you are today? Present Emma is wise, have good health, appreciate her partner and a good friend to others because young Emma have gone down the other road and realised how empty it all feels. One of the issues that you are going through at the moment is that whenever you feel happy about something, you feel that it is undeserved because young Emma will come out and remind you of how things used to be.

If you want to move on, a suggestion I have is that instead of judging young Emma for her wild days, be compassionate towards her. In our youth, we have a tendency to do things outside of our character in order to look for love and acceptance and some people will use this to get us do things that made us feel horrible about ourselves afterwards. This often leads to a lot of unresolved guilt leaving us thinking “how could I have let this happen to me? That’s right it’s because I was stupid and bad ” when it’s simply just a case of being young and naive.

So the next time young Emma shows up in your mind, don’t push her away or alieanate her from the present you. Just accept her and be proud of making it through the dark times.