Go to Part I
Go to Part II
4. Feeling Good Exercises
There are a lot of things that we can do to make ourselves feel better. Feeling hopeless, joyless, sad, angry, fear, sorrow; are all normal feelings but it does not mean we should deeply sink into these feelings and can never bounce back up. Allow yourself to feel these unpleasant feelings but you also have to know when to "take a break" and stop sink even deeper into these feelings. When you think that the feelings are too much for you to bear, it is time that you need to do something else. You can allow yourself to have alone time but DO NOT ISOLATE yourself. Finding balance is always important in life. You do not want to take anything to the extreme.
Some people like to lock themselves away and do not want to see or talk to anybody. On the other hand, some may become the social butterflies (hang out with friends all the time) and have no time to deal with their emotions. Neither end is good and healthy but finding the balance between the two definitely is beneficial.
As I mentioned earlier, you want to have the time to take care of your emotions but also have time to be around people, talking over coffee and have fun. Be careful when you share your story with your friends because they might end up giving you some "advices" that may be counterproductive. I am not saying they are trying to harm you but they give their advices or words based on their own believes or personal experiences in life, which might do no good to you. (That is the reason why I say write it out instead of sharing with a random people). Better still, find professional help -- a competent and well-trained therapist. A lot of Asian probably won't buy this one. Well, don't judge until you give it a chance.
Feeling good exercises could be anything that you like to do. Again, make sure those activities are healthy and do no harm to you. Going to gym, yoga, jogging, singing, shopping (guys like to shop too, they just shop for different things), travelling, watching movies, hang out with friends are some of the things that I can think of right now. You can be more creative than me, I am sure. Once again, you do not want to do any of these to an extreme. (e.g. overdo in gym that cause injury, shopping till you broke, keep watching movies till you are not able to do what you need to do - affect your work, school and daily functioning.)
I like to sing and I do this with turning on the music loud and sang out loud with it in my room. See, be creative :P You do not need to get a group of friends to go to Karaoke to be able to do this because sometimes friends are busy with their own lives. Of course when you can get hold on them, good for you. You can tailor your own ways to help yourself feel better, as long as you know those things will not harm you in anyway in the long run.
You can also treat yourself. Watch your own budget and do what you can: go shopping, take a short vacation etc. It also can be as simple as get a haircut, take a bubble bath, eat your favourite food (don't take too much junk food tho), go to the beach (or any of your favourite place), involve more in your hobby and so on.
I like to redecorate my room like move around some of the furniture or add something on the wall. You can even change the smell of your room and change the perfume you use. If you allow yourself to make things better and to feel better, please do something different. Perhaps you will want to take down the pictures on the wall or put the photoframe away, and put all other things that bring back memories to a corner or in a box. I say do these because you do not need to let these things to constantly remind yourself of the happy time you have with him/her and make yourself even have harder time to let go. I am not saying you should do this so that you can "forget" your past. How can you try to "forget" something that had happened? In fact, later on I am going to write about how you should remember your love in different ways. The "remembering love" step comes later but in the earlier stage, you really want to avoid doing things that constantly bring back memories that prevent you from letting go.
-- to be continued
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