Dear mindoverheart:

I feel for you. I am sorry you are shattered, feeling guilty and in despair. This is a distressful, painful state of mind to be in.

I see your user name here: mind over heart. There is the rational mind and there is the emotional mind/ the heart. The two need to work together for best results and how to make them work together is often a lifetime process and I hope you give yourself the empathy that you need and deserve and the patience to work this long process.

It is a process, so it takes time and thought, evaluating and re-evaluating, experiencing and learning from experience. Can you take a break from the guilt and despair and think: I need to learn from this and go on. It is like being angry at a young child who is learning to walk: do you beat her up for falling or do you hug her and encourage her to get up and walk again?

How are you supposed to get it right, to get this mind/ heart thing right from the beginning? A young child never gets it right (as far as I know) from the very beginning, walking and not falling right from the beginning.

The fall is painful, give yourself that hug that you need, forgive yourself, understand all you wanted was to love and be loved (nothing to feel guilty about)- you just went about it the wrong way. Consider getting up sometime and doing better next time.

anita