I went to a meditation retreat a little while ago and the teacher said that emotions are like the clouds in a blue sky. You are the blue sky and the clouds just pass through. You are not your emotions. And this helped me to see that even though emotions may feel overwhelming at times that there is still part of me that is stable and separate. And every emotion will pass. Even a terrible thunderstorm will pass by. It make take a few months but you will feel better and one day you will be completely over your ex girlfriend. This suffering will not last.

It is really good that you are taking the time to experience your emotions now. This is the path to healing and it takes a lot of strength to face these painful emotions. But you will be better off for going through this. You will be stronger and wiser in your future relationships.

I know it must be really hard since you have to see her at work. It would probably be easier if you could erase her from your daily life.

Even though your ex may appear happy and carefree I suspect she is hurting a lot too. I can’t imagine anyone would leave a long relationship and not feel pain and hurt over the break up. She may just be hiding it.

About freedom and jealousy, I know that no one is completely free and in a relationship there are certain commitments that limit freedom of course. I am struggling with my own jealousy in my relationship right now. So writing to you maybe helps me to sort out my own thoughts. I guess what I mean is that I need to trust my partner to honor his commitments and respect our relationship. He has to be free to commit to the relationship or not. If I act out of my jealousy and try to control him or monitor him this will not work. And it will lead him to feel resentful and stifled. Jealousy is such an ugly emotion and it is hard for me to accept it within myself. And I struggle to handle it in the best way possible. I don’t want to nurture my own jealousy or to cause unhappiness. But it is really hard to do.

I recently saw a great episode of Louis CK’s show. Louis was contemplating ending his relationship because his girlfriend was going to leave town in a little while and he was afraid of getting hurt. So he thought maybe he should dump her before he got too involved and got hurt. And this old man told him that he was being stupid. That having a broken heart is actually a good thing because a broken heart shows that you loved someone. The old man said that he hasn’t had his heart broken in thirty years and what wouldn’t he give to have his heart broken again.

So right now you are just paying the price for having loved someone and love is a good and valuable thing.