Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving, a quote from Albert Einstein.  
We can get quite off balance in our life when there is a significant loss and time seems to stand still. We seem to stand still, even though we get through the day to day. One topic that can usually exacerbate the stress for clients I see during the holidays is the impact of losing a significant other. Whether this loss came from a break up, divorce, or death, grief is experienced similarly in all cases. Grief can be re-experienced during significant times of the year (especially holidays) no matter the length of time that the relationship has ended. However, the  intensity of the grief usually subsides with time and depends on the significance of the relationship. Without getting into too much detail about the journey of grieving, I would like to share some thoughts about moving through the holidays while dealing with the loss of a significant relationship.
           Initially we may feel like the world is upside down. Getting it back right side up is a part of grieving. In order to get things right side up again, we must be able to accept the reality of the loss and work through the pain of the loss. We do these things by having a funeral, getting rid of an ex-partner's belongings, or talking about the loved one in past tense. We also get through our grief by acknowledging and accepting our intense pain from the loss and how we are impacted by the loss. This may be hard to do, especially during the holidays. However, we can start to do this by sharing memories about holidays with  the significant other, writing a letter to express our feelings, or sharing our feelings with someone we trust. And if all fails, eating lots of sweets/comfort food can also help us get through this holiday.  
            When you are feeling like your world is back right side up, then you're ready to take the final steps in moving forward. These steps include adjusting to a new reality without the person and creating a new meaning for your life now that incorporates the end of that relationship. We take steps in moving forward by doing things for ourselves that were once done for us by our loved one, praying, or making connections with new/old friends. Lastly, we move forward by acknowledging our eternal connection with that significant person for the time we were together, and creating new rituals in our lives that includes that person's memory/significance of their life on us. Ex: going to their favorite restaurant and ordering something completely new; making their Thanksgiving specialty dish with a twist; celebrating the holidays in a new location. 
           Although there are many different ways we grieve and different things we can do to work through that grief, the tasks listed above are the essential tasks we work through. I gave examples of getting through each task, but it doesn't encompass the wide range of things that we may do to grieve. It also does not capture the duration of grief because grief does not have a specific time frame. However, we still do our best to get through the holidays and move forward on our own time.  

          Past relationships can come back to haunt us in many ways. Even when we have learned from the mistakes that were made and have moved on, the past can still shape the way that we build future relationships. For this blog post in particular, I will focus on how we can be affected by cheating or infidelity in our past. 
          Cheating, whether we experienced it or witnessed it with people who are close to us (usually our parents), can have a profound impact on our ability to trust and our mental definition of what trust is. When we are exposed to cheating, our mind naturally makes a silent mental note that people cannot be trusted. This also means that the more pervasive the cheating, the more mental notes we have. As a result of this, we now have an undetected warning sign in our mind that people cannot be trusted and we proceed with caution in our relationships. Let me first note, that there are other experiences other than cheating which may contribute to this mental note that people cannot be trusted. I will also note that having this mental note is not a negative thing. However, this mental note can impact how we build our relationships and contribute to difficulty with trust because some people can be trusted and we want to be able to trust. Essentially having this  internal conflict is what contributes to difficulty trusting in new relationships.   
           So how do we learn to trust again or even start to trust? I'm sure you were already thinking of this question. In order to keep this post short, I will share two suggestions. Firstly, we have to start by asking ourselves what trust means to us and what it would look like. How does someone act in order to be trustworthy to me? Also important is how we act to convey that we trust. Trust, like many other things, is a two way street. We can't expect to only receive it and not give any back. Trust as a two way street means that  we don't go looking for ways to undermine or investigate our partner's trust.  If this person is not trustworthy,  their actions will define this not our investigative measures. Now I'm only referring to a new relationship, not when there is  any present or past infidelity. (This will be a topic for another post.) 
          Another thing we can do to start trusting is to question our feelings. Why do I feel I can't trust my partner? It's not easy to trust and sometimes trust feels uneasy. But we should ask ourselves whether we are feeling doubt from our current partner's behaviors or from our own past experiences. This part will require a personal investigation into our own feelings and experiences.
           We can move beyond our past experiences. Our past hurt or fears do not need to influence how we form new relationships. Not that our past should be ignored, but it's important to be aware of the positive and negative ways our past impacts us. More importantly, if our past impacts us negatively then it can benefit us to re-evaluate how we can change this negativity in order to have more positive experiences in our relationships.