Tag Archives: #depression

Mental Health

My Struggle With Hatred After My Boyfriend Was Killed

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Do not let hate make you old and stale and faded

I was beside her, wrapped around her, melting in my anger… – Olya Aman

I was almost abnormally fond of Adam.

The little dimples on his cheeks were driving me crazy. He was the only means of complete and ineffable happiness, the very essence, which I defined as Life.

His heart stopped beating and the Hatred to the person (who drove the car in a state of alcohol intoxication, killed my boyfriend, and remained almost unharmed) began to control my existence with innate satisfaction.

This experience turned my understanding of Hate and Hatred bottom side up.

I meditated on my hate, crying quietly, shouting inwardly. I was utterly desperate in my desire to inflict the same suffering upon a person responsible for that devastating emotional pain, soul-torture, the heartbreaking outcry of my whole being.

I will share my love story with you in a few well-chosen silences, and the story of my hate — in several emotional words.

1) Try to accord with the disturbing person.

The ghost of an idea to get to know that person better (and if not to forgive, but at least to free my spirit from a tormenting feeling of anger, that didn’t let me breathe fully, function satisfactory, and live bearably) invaded my thoughts.

I visited Mary in prison for eighteen months and four days after the car crash. The expression on her face told me wordlessly that I should (if I would be so kind) spend a moment in her presence, make an effort to not shout from inner pain, listen if she had anything to say, have a look into her eyes for just a fraction of a second… and just be quiet.

Mary’s apocalyptic face, whiter than Death’s itself, seemed incapable of even a glimpse of a smile anymore. I felt my hatred if not slipping away but for sure diminishing. In front of me, there was a woman that made a fatal mistake, a mother that could not be beside her kids, a wife that lost her husband’s trust and love.

I, for one, had her to blame. Mary had gone on every night without the consolation of exoneration.

2) Keep in close touch with your motives.

After the meeting with the person who killed my boyfriend, I was unhurriedly and calmly propelling myself toward recognition of my loss and acceptance of my fate.

I did not forgive Mary, I still felt the pangs of hate often. That was a huge step forward to a new life, where moments without this suffocating feeling were visiting me more and more often.

I had never in my life so perfectly understood (even to the most exquisite nuances) that state of hatred I lived in for so long.

But before that meeting, I had not even one-third the command over it. My ability to distract my thoughts and recover some balance in my feelings ranked better with each new day.

3) Thrust hateful shock upon a paper.

Although my loss was the unspeakable and the unwritable history of agonizing anger and bitterness, I created by some occult process of self-mastery a diary of perfectly cruel time in my life. I wrote about the perpetrated deed of self-distraction committed by hatred.

I wrote down my feelings partly because I wanted to get rid of that hate, and partly because I wanted to have a shred of evidence in the form of a written word of that time, to justify my desire to live when my lover was not among the living, to show him that I still loved and suffered tremendously from that loss.

4) Value trustworthy spectators and listeners.

I could not push this pain off or away, but I started to talk about it with people who cared to listen.

By doing so, I rose from the domain of the inner prison cell I used to live in one on one with this feeling of hatred.

I appeared on the surface where friendship and love of close people and consolation saturating from every encounter could help me recover and drift peacefully along with the current of life.

5) Breathe a tepid skepticism and sickly dislike out.

From all the indescribable I had known, definitely, the most intense one was the feeling of overwhelming loss, pain, and hatred mixed together.

This cocktail made me sick to my stomach and dizzy in my head.

I learned a special breathing technique to help me manage this dreadful inner hullabaloo tornado of disruptive feelings.

It helped me to diminish that absolute and incurable hysteria of emotions and, with time, to extract it from my life almost completely.

6) Ease your pain in the certitude of positive and healing forgiveness.

I visited Mary, the unfortunate driver who killed my boyfriend, only once.

I could not force myself to go to prison again. In one more year after our encounter, Mary was released.

When that piece of news was announced in an official letter, I felt bitterly disappointed. Were thirty months in prison enough to pay for the taking of someone else’s life?

I was despite myself with grief. The feeling of hate overwhelmed all my entire being all over again.

The authorities forced our second encounter on me. I needed to be present at the release meeting, where Mary would declare her remorse, ask to believe in her renewed self, and plead to be forgiven.

What a hellish thing it was to sit through it. I could not lift my eyes to see her talking. When most of the time elapsed, the door opened and two pairs of huge black buttonlike eyes entered the room.

A three-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl. Mary’s husband divorced her while she was in prison, but being a good father brought the kids to see their mother on the day of her release.

The spectacle was refreshing for my feelings. Now I stared all eyed in the scene of devoted love of a mother and unconditional love of her children.

I leapt to my feet and made for the door to shut it and never see these people again, to close that chapter of my life, and be partially contented with the idea that I could not hate this loving mother anymore and hopefully would never see these people again.

Mary and her family moved to a different state, away from the memories and people who can judge her and bully her kids in school. Away to start a new life.

Let me tell you what I know for sure.

Hate is the most uncomfortable, impoverished, and disagreeable feeling to live with.

It sucks the life-giving energy from a human being like a hungry vampire from an unfortunate victim. It is inhaled together with humiliation, mistreatment, and a feeling of impotence.

As an artificially grown black rose, that you may buy to go to the funeral, this feeling cannot becomingly complete a bouquet of beautiful and kind emotions. It spoils the entire picture, sticking out and disgustingly protruding.

Forgiveness and compassion can help to avail this sickly atmosphere.

To say ‘No’ to distractive thoughts means to see better days. Start a journal of positive recollections and put yourself in a contented state every time you read it.

Sometimes things you write may be appalling and rereading those is inflicting even more pain. Tearing up or burning, though, on the contrary, is releasing yourself, freeing your spirit — making it flexible, prone to change.

Close, loving people represent all the vast conscious world of consolation, empathy, and emotional and physical support.

Relax in a company of a friend, the one you can talk a long time to, who will be attentive and intense, who will drink it all in and will help you release your pain, anger, and misery.

Keep washing away negativity with tenderly chosen words of self-compassion that you inwardly voice with each count.

The first note of peace will strike when you inhale in slow fives, hold for another 5, and then let it go with the final 5.

Treat yourself to a luxury of positive visualization.

Feel your detestation passing away with each breath.

Stay tuned…

Mental Health

She Got Her Back Broken to Realize She Was Happy

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The power of giving others the heart to live

To linger here or to feel that you belong… – Olya Aman

My sister Tanya is a lean, long-backed, large-headed girl, with surly tones of her voice and coarse features of her face. We scour the country together now and then: I — on my feet and her — on her wheels. Her wheelchair is a speedy little beast, accelerated by her mighty hands and skillfully maneuvered by her flexible torso. You would never believe, looking at her expressive and full of exhilarating energy face, that death had been hovering over her just four years ago.

A rushing torrent of grateful feelings.

The dark night in my sister’s life started from an unfortunate fall from a high staircase. Her brain stopped triggering signals responsible for the muscle movement and she didn’t feel her legs anymore.

When starting to sit down to her meals, still dispirited and sad, she used to say to me, but truly to herself, “Nothing happens without reason. There should be a higher intelligent plan and purpose in it.” The fairest consolation came in disguise of a prayer. It was holding her tight, not letting her slip into that despair completely.

My sister didn’t feel her legs anymore, but strains of overly agitated nerves of her arms and spine substituted that missing sensation. She strengthened her torso every instant she felt the need to hue-and-cry to the missing control of her limbs. She got herself out of the bed and on her wheels with surprising speed.

Elbowing hard upon goals.

Before the accident, my sister used rambled at her pleasure, mostly spending time in the gym listening to her favorite music. Being 32 years old, she still had trouble finding her place in the grownup world.

It seemed a matter of impossibility to center her life around fitness and body healing strategies now when she lost control over almost half of it. But she couldn’t get rid of this idea. Tanya became transfixed with the desire to achieve the heights she didn’t even think possible for her fully functional, healthy past-self.

Tanya set her heart firmly on a goal to become a physical therapist working in amputee rehabilitation. She learned with passion about specific strengthening exercises that flex and tone the muscles. Her own experience gave her a psychological advantage to motivate people.

Issuing forth with a mentor beside.

She adopted this impressive stateliness from her mentor. The simplicity of her mentor’s life stirred her profoundly. Tanya used to preach to me, “This person is happy, chasing his dreams and loving his family. With neither legs no arms he is shining with heart strength and will-power.” Every trace of my sister’s essence strove to bring purpose and happiness into her life.

Power of giving others the heart to live.

My sister still has a sense of weakness and captivity sometimes. But she is recovering her life-balance by an effort of willpower and a desire to set an example for others.

Tanya always says to her patients that whatever happened to her was not a run of ill-luck but a fortunate wakeful blessing. She teaches them to accept the condition and devotedly love their past and present selves. People in her clinic see a humble person just like themselves, never repenting on her helplessness, but being powerful enough to uplift her spirit and inspire others to do the same.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

The Power of Tenderness and Compassion in My Relationship

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Secrets about water that my life put to the proof

The voice of natural water sounds silver and life… – Olya Aman

Water can rise through the trunks of gigantic trees against tens of atmospheres of pressure. What is more surprising, though, is the faculty of a human being to rise over hatred and aggression in the world, indifference and treachery towards himself, and still be loving and empathetic.

“What the dickens do you drink this water for?” I said deprecatingly, when my dog fired ahead to the water that was spilled on the floor. The bottle it came from was a gift that I didn’t appreciate enough. I considered it a wired birthday present. My dog was a much better expert in a healthy way of life, eating only food in green packages with the logo “organic” on it. And he never before ate anything from the floor, preferring his silvery plate to any other vessel.

I felt that I had to learn more about THIS water. And I discovered that I, being an educated twenty-two-year-old lady at the time, knew nothing AT ALL about this substance. Magnetism and energy locked in this bottle transformed my life.

The honored man that presented the fortunate flask became a source of happiness for me. His kind soul wrapped in a beautiful body opened a new world of love and shared happiness. I went from enchantment to enchantment, scenting compassion in the air, and this feeling of admiration gave a new turn to my thoughts.

The imminent danger of water’s memory.

Experiments in many countries around the world have shown that water remembers everything that occurs in the space that surrounds it. The water structure of each person’s body is identical to the water structure of the place where he was born. Our internal connection to our homeland is depicted in the water of that place. And our inner water-based computer records the entire history of our relationship with the world around us.T

Marat is my future husband, and his story is a vivid example of a ‘movie-like’ experience that is unforgettable and needed to be shared with others.

He seemed to have everything but for the memory of his early childhood and youth. That was strange. Marat possessed the knowledge and education to be adequate and navigate his way in the world, but he could not remember the words said by his mother, and the school games went to with his father.

That happened after the car crash that left him, a single child of a happy middle-aged couple, an orphan. Doctors said it was a post-stress reaction of his brain. The neatly structured organ in his head tried to protect him against his own will. Marat longed to remember, but not any conventional or alternative medicine could help him do so.

One day, about 11 years ago, his best friend came back after a long journey to far-away countries. He brought exclamations of praise and deep respect for the elderly healer he met there. Marat didn’t believe it could work and agreed to go only for the sake of adventure.

The ceremony of their encounter reminded a scene from a mystery movie. Marat and a small wrinkly guy in a dress-like white shirt were staring at one another blankly without words. Then the old man showed Marat to his chamber. The cave was dark and cold and full of small and big glass jars with water. He filled Marat’s little cup from almost every container. And at the point of over dense tension in the easy to guess area in his belly, something extraordinary happened. Marat suddenly remembered. Springwater from a distant mountain village in Kyrgyzstan brought relief to his tired from searching brain.

It happened so that his father was born in that village. His parents, being almost desperate to conceive, went there and spent almost a year in that remote place. They came back to the States to give birth to their beloved son and get the benefit of traditional high-quality medical care. The water from that village remembered Marat, or, rather, his body remembered that water. Some impulse, the life force coming from this water, triggered the processes in his brain. It made the memory of his past a charming reality that he could take into his present.

No wonder, when Marat fell in love with me, from the first sight, by the way, he presented me with the most cherished gift he could imagine. Yes, he gave me a bottle of that pure spring water from far away Kyrgyzstan.

Human power both whitens and darkens water and souls.

Nowadays it became clear that positive and negative human emotions are the strongest elements of influence on water. Water, experiencing fear, aggression, hatred, projected on it, is suffering. Those feelings deform its structure and reduce its energy. Love, on the contrary, increases water’s energy. The power of tenderness and compassion is yet unexplained, but accepted by almost everyone’s intellect.

I became the most negligent person when it came to the choice of food after I broke up with my ex. He took excellent care of his diet and very little of my emotional state. I was devastatingly unhappy in our relationship. He was a handsome, cold-hearted person, which made me detest anything good-looking, tasty, and healthy. I developed a belief that things, being eatable or not, are pretty on the outside and empty on the inside.

After our separation, I was rebelling my past healthy lifestyle, and I became a regular visitor to fast-food places. That made me look 10 years older and 30 pounds heavier. I thought badly about the food I ate and drinks I consumed but continued to do so to prove some wired point, the meaning of which I couldn’t explain even to myself. All those substances I swallowed made me feel even more depressed until the day I met my future husband, Marat.

He is incredibly plump and extremely cheerful. His spirit is contented and grateful. Nothing can spoil his positive attitude to life, even my negative connotation of every aspect of it.

First few months we ate at the same bad-quality-food places I favored. Surprisingly, I felt my body not as heavy and my mood not as gloomy anymore. Somehow, Marat’s uplifting spirit charged every eatable object with his life-giving energy.

When we started to live together and Marat became a master of the kitchen space, life became almost an unbearably sweet experience. Both of us fell in love with new aspects of vigorous and healthy life. By degrees, we started to spend quite ridiculous money on food, and water was the number one investment in our list of the most important things.

Water combats behavior and life itself with music and love.

Classical music gives water an occasion for displaying the splendor of symmetric beauty. As if choosing music that uplifts and rejuvenates us, we should be spellbound listening to a loving person, and determined to run away from a twisted and vengeful one.

I love music, and I am a skilled pianist. I and my husband attend musical events as often as we can. My best friend, but for my husband, is a magnificent instrument in our living room.

Every day I hurry home to my soulmate and discuss Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven with it. The decanter full of water is on the nearby table and it witnesses all my musical performances. I have a habit of taking it to our dinner table and later to our bedroom. This water seems to be full of notes of love and care, beauty, and affection. I take excellent care of my water and fill the vessel with the best of the best. Play music to it and make every note enter my body and my soul. I drink it with satisfaction and feel refreshed, delighted, invigorated. I am forgetting my cares, feeling as if I had wings to my feet.

No thing about water is an illusion. Nothing in the world is softer and more yielding than water. We do not realize how close and almost identical we are. Water wears down the hard and strong, and none can overcome it. When our strength husbanded, we are capable of glorious things just the like.

Stay tuned…

Mental Health

5 Nature Healing Techniques

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Receive life with much philosophy and nature… – Olya Aman

Introduction

G. shuffled through life most of the time being far gone indeed. His mood being as dark as the grave, his face being as weary as the days of his past, and his voice as harsh as the hollow moaning of the damp unwholesome wind.

He was not yet past 36 and the earth and life itself seemed not his element anymore. The expression in his eyes was scarcely of his age or of the world. So many shadows from the past played about his face that G’s smile, above all, was the worst evidence of artless pain and misery.

The horrors of the war left no trace of the memory of a happier existence, long gone by and forgotten, vanished in the scenes of fighting and killing. These marks of cruelty and anger buried every trace of love and affection he had ever known. It seemed that nothing in this world would be able to recall any positive emotion in his soul. Darkness and nightmares watched G. as he slept and was awake.

The sinking of soul and spirit is alleviated by an emergent field of ecopsychology. It awakens the remembrance of our connectedness to the web of life. We need to be careful about how we deal with nature as we are an inseparable part of it.

Blithesome environmental music and freedom in the landscape carry thoughts of recreation and peace to the hearts of people. Remorse may seem unavailing, but it creeps away when met with brightness and mirth in the scenes of brilliant sky, vast fields, and high mountains.

Our relationship with nature should be explored, and nowadays mental health practitioners pay more and more attention to the aspects of ecotherapy. The inner impulses of every person’s soul long to be connected to the environment.

1) Connectedness to Earth as the Core of Ecotherapy

G. was a true personage of an uncouth man with sharp eyes and rough hands. The fervent prayers, gushing from the hearts of his many relatives, overcharged with wild nature and simple close to deprivation and far from cruelty life, were his daily companions in his youth.

Exposure to the wet morning grass, cold fresh mountain air, and many animal-friends brought on belief in good, frank, and honest which hung over him till the first days on a battlefield, those reduced G. and his faith sadly. An effort to come back to his native place was the only way to recover his life force back again.

The earth does as much for us as could be expected in an age when the population cannot afford to stay connected to it for nothing. Relationship among humanity is built on the principle of giving and taking and the same motto we tend to express toward everyone and everything. Nature, though, is worn with use, disheartened with selfishness, and tired of human contact.

We should attribute exceptional importance to the process of creation, the natural forces that govern life. Harmonizing with these systems, we may experience spiritual illumination, improved mental and physical health. Respect in every aspect of life is vital. To cherish nature as we cherish close, loving people is just as important. Love given to the human being revives life forces in that person, and the same emotion granted to the surrounding environment awakens its blooming essence.

Personal well-being is lost amid a host of every-day troubles, filled with artificial noises that stifle and destroy, it becomes empty and arid. To not let it slip away completely, we need to stay connected to planetary well-being. This feeling of union with a greater system of interaction makes a sense of weakness and captivity vanish. Only when seeing ourselves as a part of the world we can recover our balance and will-power.

2) Nature as a Tender Healer of Mental Fatigue

Only coming back home to his old and shabby house, senile forgetful mother, simple-hearted coarse childhood friends, and his ancient failing horse, he began, at length, by degrees, to get better. How deeply G. felt the goodness of his surrounding in his native mountain village, and how strongly regretted he that the ill-advised desire to escape in a search of a better life led him to the war.

Whirred, monotonous and tiresome as a clock life, words thrown out, conversations started, then the concert of mentally fatiguing angry emotions – this existence makes a wall against which one dashes in vain. To stop that deafening and blinding cycle, we need to walk in a nature preserve. No voices for lying, no faces to hide themselves behind – only the vastness of fragrances, nature sounds, and beautiful inspiring scenes.

The atmosphere of inhaled, tasted, touched, heard and seen satisfaction reduces the symptoms of depression. We feel less anger and more positive emotions. All senses participate in the recovering process. Engulfed in the brightness of green spaces, we have a greater capacity for paying attention, delaying gratification, and even less need in pain medications.

Simply calling flowers and plants into view positively affects creativity, productivity, and problem-solving skills. Over-wrought nerves, aggression, and agitation are waved away as if with the help of a magic wand in the presence of animals and under the exposure to the sounds of nature.

3) Activities that Add Variety to Life and Bring Back Glorification

Who can describe beauty and tranquility of a mountain river and snow-covered tops and hollows? Is it possible to imagine life without the pureness of that balmy air full of grass’ and flowers’ fragrance? The green hills and rich animal life, only touched by hunting in necessity degree and never in pleasure seeking unwise killing.

Life as it should be, love as it was created, and friendship as it was intended – healing emotions, and curing energies of nature didn’t wash away crowded, pent-up memories of the war, but a life of toil and peace in the atmosphere of pure, almost untouched plant and animal life made those memories Past, and not Every-Day-Haunting Nightmares of the present anymore.

1. Fresh sensations revealed during meditation.

Even when it seems that the world had been turned upside down, a tranquil moment of abstractedness can put it right-side up again. We are able to come over to the positive way of thinking after reflection on the connectedness of all alive and breathing

2. Horticultural therapy reveals to us the ability of the earth to give a sensation of maternal protection to our senses.

Garden-related activities of digging soil, planting seedlings, weeding garden beds, trimming leaves help to alleviate the symptoms of stress and burnout.

3. Animal-assisted therapy is at the service of reducing aggression and agitation.

Animals are able to pure out more of the treasures of our souls than we could even imagine. Often after the time spent in the company of wild or domestic animals, we feel intoxicated with delight and happy sensations.

4. Physical exercise in a natural setting brings us closer to the feeling of satisfaction with our mind and body.

We become more independent, more inspired and even more In Spirit – inspiration visits us while we are walking, jogging, cycling or doing yoga outside.

5. Increased awareness is reached when we are involved in restoring activities.

A sense of purpose and hopefulness, belonging and connectedness is born during the process of generous improvement done To and For the benefit of nature.

Conclusion

G. started a chain reaction of a nature healing process, in which his own rejuvenated personality was the first link, by contacting his battle comrades and inviting them to visit his poor farm. G. could not even imagine the outcome of his good intention. Now the place is the most blessed, homely ecotherapy healing work-camp known so far.

People in mental struggle come from all over the world to find contentment and peace again. Working together, improving their life, cultivating earth and personalities, they share memories and feelings. Here again, they can feel themselves the most blessed and favored of mortals and have a touch of unmingled happiness.

True felicity of pure and most amiable generosity of people around; the warmest, soul-felt gratitude creates an attachment to the place and mental state of peace itself. The earth in her mantle of brightest green is glad to accept wounded hearts and treat them with a cheerful serenity that gives vent to the tears which now a person is unable to repress. And when the eyes are full of water, the remedial river is covering the troubles of today and the worries of the past.

The sorrow and calamity of the world half closes, becomes more distant when you feel that you belong to the bright sphere of nature. There is no pursuit more worthy of the highest nature that resides in every one of us than encouraging the circulation of deep affection and gratitude toward nature. The sacred emotion of connectedness to the earth makes fears weak and selfish regrets feeble.

Stay tuned…

Mental Health

How My Cousin’s Self-Compassion Helped Him Recover From Drug Addiction

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Self-compassion taught him to admit the fact that life is painful sometimes

Take the misery of negative self-judgment in a luxuriously calm refuge-island of self-compassion… – Olya Aman

My cousin Victor was a fair example of a typical ‘mazhor’ (a kid of wealthy parents). He snapped his fingers and had everything he wished. And when his father lost every dollar they had in a risky market deal, Victor’s self-esteem suffered a great deal. He simply lost his place in the world, thinking that material possessions were the only means of determining it.

When his family moved to a shabby-looking village house nearby, his grandma left him in a will a long time ago, he considered all his plans for the future ruined. I found him very poorly equipped to live frugally and happily, rather he was prone to make up in negative judgmental feelings what he lacked in dollar bills. We were not friends, although spent hours together talking, or arguing about life. I was only 13 at the time, but felt myself superior to this 18-year-old kid.

Victor lived a narrow life of anxiety and depression. He suffered from fits of narcissistic, self-absorbing anger. He stopped any communication with his father, blaming his misfortunes on him. He spent almost all his time in the nearby town, and when he occasionally showed his wistful face in our village, he often ended up in my kitchen. He longed for compassionate attention and understanding. He was lost amid his troubled thoughts and feelings, and painfully needed to talk to someone, to pour his misery out and, by doing so, try to get his turbulent life in order. I tried to be a sympathetic listener.

In about a year of village life, Victor stopped coming home at all. I can admit now, I missed this troubled boy a lot. His parents found him almost too late. He entered the narcotic state of self-destruction, greedily grabbing after each opportunity to get stoned and forget about the present.

Self-compassion tells you to resist the temptation to criticize harshly yourself and others. You reach the full potential in life if you are alive with kind thoughts and feelings concerning others.

Six months in a rehabilitation clinic drew a straight line between his past and his present. Victor had to learn all over again to establish contact with people. But to do that he needed to notice their engaging characters, rather than labeling any new acquaintance either as a ‘valuable’ or a ‘useless’ one as he used to do before.

I was happy to accept my cousin in a small circle of my best friends. Now we could talk without raising our voices. Now we had more in common.

Self-compassion kindles a sense of belonging and connectedness. Attachment to humanity is the only way to diminish suffering.

To find new friends, Victor needed to add more positive emotions to his life. I loved him and was ready to accept him with the entire fabric of his timid personality and teach him to understand the keener pleasures of life without an abundance of money. Victor needed more people like that in his life.

The first note of compassion washes away anxiety. It was suggested by the science that self-compassion lights up regions of the brain linked to empathy, pleasure, and caregiving.

He plunged into the healing process by getting rid of regrets, doubts, and self-bitterness. Victor added to his life the rich touch of self-understanding, self-acceptance, and self-praise. It gave him power enough to think favorably about his future. I always told him he was smart enough to reach the desired, be it personal happiness, or material comforts. Finally, I saw signs that he believed in this creed.

Being kind to yourself means to learn the art of positive self-evaluation. There is nothing in this world more delightful than that state when you mentally balance between self-worth and acceptance of imperfections in yourself and in the world around.

Today Victor claims to have self-compassion enough in him to straighten his life in a balanced, heartfelt, and mindful way. He is not ignoring his past, but he is no longer exaggerating his own misconduct, rather takes the best from each experience. He needs to fight his way to happiness, always remembering about his past addiction. He praises himself for each day lived without drugs.

Conclusion

My cousin discovered inner instruments to make himself believe that he was special just the way he was. Victor doesn’t need money, recognition or fame to prove it. Today he accepts things as they are, because being not perfect means to be unique.

Victor recognizes his past mistakes and explains the reasons for them. Self-compassion taught him to admit the fact that life is painful sometimes. He radiates an atmosphere of power and productiveness, even facing hardships.

My cousin is imperfect yet magnificent as every one of us is. When he embraced what he could share with others rather than what benefit he could take from each person, he found genuine friends, people ready to be beside him even when he is in the wrong. Now his self-worth is much less easily shaken.

Stay tuned…

Mental Health

Only Her Parents’ Death Could Teach Her This Simple Truth

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Essentials for building inner contentedness I’ve learned from my friend

Let us be acquainted with my childhood friend Marta.

She is my noble and generous friend. Noble not by birth but by her personal qualities, virtues of the heart. Our strange friendship started in the first grade and ended in the 8th… to be renewed with the boldness, freedom, and maturity of womanhood.

When in school, Marta used to make fun of everyone in a boisterous manner. When someone came to the class with a new school bag the classmates used to say, “Marta will be mad before long, you wait and see.” And sure to the word, she gave enough time to lamentations that all the kids were ready to swallow up all the new things they had before Marta could lay her envious eye on them. They called her ‘the practical’ because of her love for all material things.

I rarely had anything popular at the time: the cool gadget pet that you can feed and it grows into a funny fat cat or a scary huge beast; the pretty multicolor pants all girls adored and considered the only possession that can pave you a way to a popular kids’ group; the denim backpack with numerous pockets, belts and buckles that every boy and a girl had; the list is endless. The lack of those things made my life a nightmare sometimes. I was an outcast in old neatly looking pants, and a sweater my mom made with so much love that I felt her hugging me each time I heard a bullying accusation. I looked so lovely in it, which made every teacher adore me. And… yes, I was hated for that even more.

Marta’s parents were respected doctors with busy schedules and no time for sentiments. She was well dressed, well fed, well groomed… and not loved enough. There were no grandparents to substitute the lack of genuine affection, her whole being was craving for.

She started to take a fancy to me mostly because I seldom had anything worth her attention and I liked her, because she was the only child walking home with me. My friendship happened to be the most precious thing for the child that could have everything in her life but for sincere affection.

After 8th grade, we’ve lost each other. Marta and her family moved to live in the nearby city, and I stayed in my native village till graduation.

Change the desire to possess to an affectionate attitude towards yourself.

A few years ago, a nice-looking woman entered my train compartment. The long trip to the far-away city was shortened to a thought provoking and tears causing conversation.

I wanted Marta to make the running. The inner writer and explorer of human mines raining in me. I was resolved to persevere in my silent patronage of the conversation.

Marta gave voice to her inner child, and we cried bitterly and laughed heartily at the memories of a girl who considered gifts to be the merits of love. A girl who could ill bear when someone had things she considered pretty and nice. She thought that meant someone was loved more — and that notion was painful for a child deprived of a genuine feeling.

That day in the compartment Marta looked contented. Strong character was visible in the physiognomy of this young woman with her big unmoving eyes, her almost lipless mouth, and a high intelligent forehead. Marta carried herself with confidence. There was not even a passing feeling of irritation, only that physical beauty that comes from the loving energy inside.

I was not able to take my eyes off her. She radiated positive energy and every word she shared was saturated with thoughtful consideration. I couldn’t help thinking that the person in front of me was not the Marta I knew.

Recollect a painful loss.

When I asked her about the turning point, the element in her life that caused this alteration, Marta fell silent for a moment, so much taken up with her thoughts that her eyes seemed to stop seeing.

The loss she endured was painful enough to make her think of what she could have exchanged for a life given back. Her parents didn’t have time to love her, but she loved them with every cell of her body and every vibe of her soul. She was only 18 when an unchained element of nature left her an orphan, her parents’ car being smashed from the road by a violent gust of wind, both her mom and dad dying instantly.

It seemed like a dream, or fiction, or chimera. Vulnerable and insecure, Marta was left alone to think about the present. The past was gone, but the future was hers. Anything in that timeframe of days bygone and days to be still lived was compared to that particular incident.

I could see into the inside of her nature with the eyes that understand and the heart that can weep in unison with her soul. I lost my father in a car accident only a few months prior to our meeting with Marta. The day I received a call from my mother I would never want to forget. It turned my world upside down, and it stayed this way till that meeting with her on the train. I finally had a person who spoke to my heart with the words it could understand.

Any feeling, being at its utmost tension was measured to the one we both felt at that time of a loss. She showed me how to not be at war with myself. Life, after having handled her so roughly, seemed now was willing to teach her the survival skills. She found the diary her mother had, and that precious notebook was full of tender words her mother seldom voiced but no doubt felt — and that was the only thing that mattered.

Think about true values in life.

Marta was not going from then on, she was led by love. The exhilarating effect that love has, changed her understanding of true values. Any envious feeling towards material possessions of others disappeared like a star lost in the distant darkness of the horizon.

Her salvation was in a feeling of gratitude. Her beauty was in the desire to devote her life to the people she loved. Her life was in pursuing the course of in-spirited life: a life of inner and outer health.

Marta had no family left. She decided to have a big one comprised of abandoned children, orphans. She volunteered for many years in various orphanages around the country and abroad. Marta’s family left her a substantial legacy which she spent on education and donated to different causes.

Train your senses to feel empathy.

Marta was lost in wondering and half-admiration when we shared the account of some major facts from our mutual friends’ lives. She felt genuine enjoyment from seeing others succeed, and sincere sympathy towards the ones failing to achieve the desired.

She witnessed life undisguised, seldom gentle and often cruel. Her experience made her compassionate and generous. Marta favored a minimalist approach to material possessions. She became a passionate advocate of children’s rights. Her dream was not to have a luxurious house and an expensive car, but a tiny home full of love and child’s laughter.

Our shared journey was coming to an end. Marta waited silently for any fresh question that I could have, being a little tired from all the various emotions she forced herself to go through again. She surely satisfied all legitimate curiosity, and I let her rest and husband her strength, joining her in contemplation of a succession of low hills and rich forests outside the window.

Remind yourself of the love you have.

Marta became an active, vigorous woman, and even now I can see her in my mind’s eye being happy in her chosen career. She is a therapist working with at-risk youth.

She rarely breathes a word of her private misgivings, but always opens a listening spot in her busy schedule for a friend who needs some consolation. And she offers her love with that shy grace that is so very charming.

Marta and her husband do not give up hope to have their own kids. For over 10 years, they failed to conceive. They adopted a two-year-old girl and a 13-year-old special needs boy, two siblings whom they didn’t want to separate. Every time I visit my native country, I go to their house to get the feeling of unconditional love. This family is happiness personified. Her daughter experiments with my hair and her son makes me play all known table games with him. I go home with my hair tangled and my heart singing.

Marta shares love. And the more she gives, the more she has coming back to her. Marta’s life is unbroken by the misfortunes. Every painful event stitched the pieces of heartwarming feelings together, making a beautiful patchwork quilt of her love-centered life.

Conclusion

Let love be your faithful guardian that keeps close watch and prevents you from taking a negative feeling into your life. Let empathy be your true comforter that reminds you about the beautiful emotions that fill your heart and soul. And the bitterness of past grief should bore you company in moments of false despair. The contradiction between them will bring back your self-control.

I am just beginning to pour forth in the most respectful manner the stories of people who were able to restore equilibrium in their lives. Often, we obliged to go away together and take our laugh or tears out with the person who opens his/her heart to us. You should not regret the time spent when you become wiser with the experience that was lived through by someone else.

Stay tuned…