I wrote them letters. I wrote them letters, and some of them I lit on fire and I watched them burn. I wrote them letters and some of them I threw into a lake and watched them float away from me. When do you do this, it's like symbolism to your brain. Burning into the atmosphere, or floating away from you -- letting go.

I've done this over and over again for the same people and that helped me. I had to learn about empathy, and what true compassion meant to me. I had to be in their shoes and understand what caused them to become capable of being the way they are. I had to learn what forgiveness is not to understand what it really meant to me, and that helped me move into acceptance.

I had to learn that they're still going to be wrong after I forgive them, and that I can't take back or change anything that happened. Most importantly, I learned that forgiving them was the most loving thing I could do for myself, and that's what gave me the strength to persevere.

I tried meditating on it, you can find guided meditations online to listen to for beginners. There's no wrong way to meditate either. I would sit and close my eyes in a silent place and try to focus on one sentence like "I will accept love". Sometimes I would just paint, or take a quiet walk at night. My goal was to clear up my thoughts.

After practicing different meditations for a while, I started having very intense meditations. I will never forget this one in particular where I was focusing on an affirmation to give kindness to others, and it kept changing to "be kind to yourself", and then.. there I was, hugging a little girl. It was me. I started crying. I continued to sit in silence, in my meditation, allowing myself to feel my emotions and not judge myself for it. When I was done meditating I felt like a piece of me was finally bound with some love it was missing.

I know what it's like to read someone talk about meditation and think "I don't fucking get it." But honestly, if you just try, and keep trying, it can be so beneficial for you. There are proven studies that meditation is extremelygoodstuff for your brain.

The next part sucks: I just let time dull the edges.

Good luck.