Why Living in the Past Can Ruin Your Life

When a relationship ends for whatever reason, a lot of people have problems with moving on with their lives. Instead of trying to deal with their pain and heal so they can have a happy future, they mope around and moan and groan about how horrible their lives are. Worse yet, they will spill their misery to everyone that will listen just how awful they were treated during the break up.

There are many ways to tell if you’re one of these people that are refusing to move on. No one wants to subject their friends to this sort of behavior for long periods of time. Sure, your friends will listen to you and do everything they can to help you get through this tough time in your life, but after a while, they’re not going to want to hear nothing EXCEPT your break up and how unhappy you are.

So the first thing you’ll notice is that your friends, even your best friends, are starting to pull away from you. That’s something you should definitely pay attention to.  No, don’t blame it on them. If they’ve been by your side for the last six to twelve months, and all you can do is talk about your ex, chances are pretty good that you’ve worn them out.

Something else that tells you that you’re not moving on is when you spend all of your spare time looking at picture albums of you and your ex and re-reading your diary written when you and your ex were together.  While you sit and go through these things night after night, you’ve got songs on your CD player that were special to you when you were part of a couple. You simply won’t let those things go.

You refuse to go out with friends and have some fun. Instead, you stalk your ex on Facebook and grill your mutual friends for information about your ex. You’re not moving forward with your life when all of your focus is still firmly on your ex and the life that the two of you once had.

The question you need to ask yourself is just how is dwelling in the past going to help you to enjoy a happy future? The answer, whether you want to admit it or not, is that you won’t have a happy future. You’re going to be 80 years old and still alone, spending your days and nights poring over your old photo albums, diaries and listening to songs that are a half century old. Is that really what you want?

When you decide to stay firmly entrenched in the past, there’s simply no way to live happily in the present while moving into a future that’s promising. Living in the past and clinging to a relationship that’s never going to happen again, will gain you nothing except a very lonely and sad existence. Don’t let that happen to yourself. Do what you can to let go of the ex that will never return and open yourself up to all of the romantic possibilities right in front of you.

Signs of a Facebook Stalker

When a relationship ends, people tend to go a little crazy. Some go crazy for just a little while, and it may seem that others just lose their minds completely. They have to know everything about what their ex is doing, and one of the easiest places to find out this information is through the social networking site Facebook.

The first place that a Facebook Stalker will head following a breakup is the ex’s Facebook account. These pages will usually give all of the current information that anyone interested could ever want on an ex.

If you find yourself in the situation of having just come out of a relationship, there are ways to tell if you’ve turned into a Facebook Stalker.   You may be if you do you do any of the following:

• Check his Facebook page at least once every hour: If you find yourself checking your ex’s Facebook page more than you check your own, you’ve probably crossed over into Facebook Stalker Land.
• Create a fake Facebook Profile and then send him a friend request: Many times, an ex will de-friend and block you on Facebook because he doesn’t want you reading his Facebook page and finding out what he’s up to. When this happens, if you’re rabid to know what he’s doing, you’ll make up a fake Facebook profile complete with hot pictures that you’ve found online to lure him in. Then you send him a friend request. If you go to all of this trouble following a breakup, you’ve definitely become a Facebook Stalker.
• Get a friend that’s on your ex’s friends list to keep you updated: This means that you know someone who’s on his friend list that will enable you to see what he’s doing even if you’re blocked. This doesn’t hold the same risk of getting caught that creating a fake profile can. Doing it this way just means that you can look over your friend’s shoulder while he or she is visiting your ex’s page but it does make you suspiciously close to being a Facebook Stalker.
• Search all of the comments on your ex’s status updates.  When you do this, you’re most likely checking to see if your ex is possibly seeing anyone else yet or if he’s flirting with anyone. This is only possible if you’re still on his friend list. But you’re spending hours scrolling back into his older comments and updates, this means you’re heading into Facebook Stalker territory.

Those are some of the main symptoms of being a Facebook Stalker but there are certainly many more smaller and less significant ones. Look closely at yourself and your behavior since the breakup happened. Then compare your actions to this list. If you see yourself in any of these symptoms, it’s time to get a grip and move on with your life. Stalking your ex on Facebook isn’t going to make you any happier or make you miss him any less. Let him go and start focusing on your own life.

Dealing With Your Obsession with a Man

The symptoms of obsession are pretty clear to everyone other than the women that are suffering from this disorder. If you’re not sure, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you think about him constantly?
• Do you call him several times every day?
• Do you stalk his Facebook?
• Are you depressed when you feel that he’s avoiding you?
• When your phone rings and it’s not him, do you hate the person calling?

If you answered yes to these questions, you’re definitely obsessed with this guy. It also is very important that you correct this situation before it ruins your life.

The first thing you should know is that being obsessed is NOT normal. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says. Thinking about someone constantly to the point that you’re miserable, there’s a definite problem that has nothing to do with the man but everything to do with you.

It’s toxic to be obsessed for many reasons. You’re putting your entire life on hold when you’re obsessed. This has a huge negative impact on your life overall that you can’t see.

Feeling obsessed over someone usually starts when you know you can’t have this guy. It’s your mind that cannot accept that he’s never going to feel the same way for you that you do for him. This makes you feel bad. To get rid of this feeling, you start doing things that you believe will change the situation. Calling him constantly, stalking him, and spying on him will not do anything except push him even further away.

You should know that it’s not going to be easy to get past these awful feelings. It is hard work and you’re going to have to do it. The reason it’s hard is because you MUST stop doing all of these things because they’re just going to hurt you. Once these feelings start to fade, you’ll feel much better.

When you find yourself leaning towards doing some of those obsessive actions, try making a list of your thoughts. Put on your list things like:

• If I feel like stalking his Facebook, should I?
• How will I feel if I do it?
• If the answer is negative, ask yourself what else you can be doing right now to help yourself?

Then list some possible things that you can be doing like:

• Go for a walk
• Spend time on a hobby
• Work out
• Call a friend
• Play catch up with work
• Walk your dog
• Cook

You put down these ideas or anything else you can think of. Once the list is finished, you’ll have plenty to do to keep you occupied. Do this every time you’re tempted to act out obsessed behaviors.  If you do this for several days in a row, you should have more control of your obsession.

Keep in mind that you’ll still have obsessive thoughts during this time. This will be when you’ll need to decide what you really want to do: Feel better or give into the obsessive behavior that will only make you feel worse.  The only way out of your situation is to choose a positive path.

Using Facebook to Find a Lost Love

Facebook has become the favorite internet social community for millions of internet users. It’s the cyber hangout where you can connect with your friends and catch up on things. Not only can you keep up with your current friends, but you can find those people that you’ve lost touch with. This is really awesome news for people that are hung up on a lost love because now you can use Facebook to find and reconnect with that lost love.

Following are some tips on how to best do this through Facebook:

1. Become an active member of Facebook. You don’t have to be a member of Facebook to search for someone but that’s all you can do. Even if you find them, you can’t send them a message or connect with them. So you need an account, set up your profile, and add some Facebook friends. You don’t want your lost love thinking that you’re just there to find them. It’s better if they think you ran across them accidently.

2. Search for your lost love. You need to have as much information about the person you’re searching for as possible. This includes their name and where they live. A first name will net you way too many people to search through. There are many people that don’t use pictures of themselves as profile pictures and your lost love may be one of them. This only makes your search harder. This step can be the most frustrating of them all.

3. Study their information once you find them. Now, reacquaint yourself with the object of your search. Carefully read all available information on their profile. Are they married or in a relationship? The more information you have the more informed a connection you can make.

4. Consider the reasons why you want to find them – Before connecting with them, figure out why you even want to. Are you trying to get them back, are you just curious about them, or do you just want to talk to them? A lot of time may have passed so keep your expectations reasonable.

5. Make the connection. Send a message or a friend request to them and see what response you get. Don’t dwell on the past or expect them to remember the same things you do. Just see where it goes.

6. Be friends. You may want to re-kindle that past love immediately, but your past love hasn’t been standing still while you’ve been apart. You need to find if they’re still the person you remember. Get reacquainted with them. Find out what they’re doing now and what their goals are. You’ll need to ask the right questions and don’t assume those answers will be what they were in the past. Like you, they’ve also grown and changed over the years. You need to know this new person they are now.

Something to keep in mind is that you can only reconnect with your past love by using Facebook if this former love is actually ON Facebook. In spite of the large Facebook population, your past love may be one of the minority numbers that doesn’t use this site. In that case, you’ll need to find another way to reconnect.