A simple trick to help you to move past resentment and bitterness

One of the hardest things any of us can go through is the pain of rejection.

Whether that’s because a friend has ghosted you, you’ve got a difficult relationship with one of your parents, or a romantic partner has broken your heart, the pain can be truly excruciating.

There’s nothing quite like the pain of someone who told you that they loved you, telling you in some way that their feelings have changed. And yet, what’s the alternative? We all have to be prepared to open our hearts up to love, to friendship, or else risk ending up like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, and I’m not talking about her living alone, that’s something many people choose to do and wouldn’t change (including me, right now!), but rather the fact that she was so stuck in her pain that she never took any steps forward into finding a new life, new friends, or a new love. No one wants to be in that situation.

But it’s all too easy to want to close our hearts off, to never risk going through that kind of pain again, isn’t it? I’m still not quite ready to do that, almost 2 years since my last romantic relationship ended.

Something was different about the way I dealt with the pain of heartbreak this time around, though. This time I didn’t run away from my grief, instead, I sought to face up to it and to work through it.

It took me 47, almost 48 years to really understand that emotions aren’t something that you need to (or…