Acknowledge Failure
When you fail in your career, examinations, contest for that matter, it does not mean you are a failure in life.
“Failure becomes a death sentence when you refuse to learn from your previous experiences,” says William Van Sickle and Jim Smoke in their recovery workshops. Suffice to say that this is often a wake up call.
It is an open invitation to pick up the pieces of your life, patch up and make a beginning. What you have to do is to carry the experiences to help you become better in life. You learn from your mistakes to help you emerge a better person.
The Virtues of Forgiveness
This is another virtue you need to inculcate. Separation brings with it the guilt feeling. Many of the days begin and end with a host of guilt inducers and the ‘why me’ episodes
. The most important thing is to learn from that and not build unhealthy guilt pangs. There is always the feeling of having betrayed your conscience, having promised yourself to keep the flames of your relationship burning, the betrayal of your friends and loved ones.
The best remedy for guilt is to take a handful of forgiveness capsules. You will find yourself light and ready to begin your new phase in life, much fresh and recharged.
Picking up the Pieces
How often have we heard this? How can I trust anyone again? You better make a beginning somewhere. William Van Sickle and Jim Smoke believe the source of frustration for those who have separated is the issue of how to trust again. Rejection is part and parcel of our lives. Husbands reject their wives. Wives reject their husbands. Children reject their parents. Friends too will make a hasty retreat as a result of separation. Here is something interesting. Research surveys indicate that within a year of separation, you can lose up to 90 per cent of the friends you once had. The question those who go their separate ways are left to grapple with is that if someone you have trusted all the years decides to go his or her way, will any other person be willing to accept them? “Once you are hurt by another person, it is easy to build seemingly invincible walls of bitterness and fear that prevent others from getting close,” advices Sickle and Smoke. Yet the path to rebuild trust is never an easy one. If true restoration has to take root, you must be willing to take risks and open out. It takes a lot of effort but at the end, healing will come to you, naturally.
Avoid Revenge
T he route some people take after separation is that of self destruct –anger. “After failure in relationship, guilt and rejection pile up and anger often becomes the emotional conduit we use to express our feelings,” assert Sickle and Smoke. “It clings to the ragged edges of our lives and bursts onto the scene when we least expect it. Domestic violence for example is anger run wild.” There are those who want to go back and punish their friends. But it is better you leave punishment in the hands of the Almighty. It is important that you refocus your energy on just one person – You! That is what it takes to begin rebuilding your future.
Support Systems
Lastly, when you have been cut of from your loved ones by choice or circumstances, it is important that you find new support systems. By replacing those you have lost, it will help you minimize your pain and put aside your feeling of loneliness. So get on with your life though I too understand it is never easy. It never was in life!
Mr. John Patrick Ojwando Lecturer,
Dept. of Media Studies
