by Patrick Tay

Created on: August 21, 2008

As there are many reasons that lead to a broken heart, I will like to confine my discussion within the context of failed romantic relationships.

For those of us who have ever been through one-sided romantic relationships or failed ones, we know how it feels like to be rejected by someone whom we love very much. Although we are often advised by friends to just move on, some memories still haunt us throughout our lives. Much as we know that it's wrong and unhealthy to hold on to sad memories of the past, the memories of our emotional scars somehow still lingers somewhere in the dark recesses of our minds, refusing to go away. It almost seems that sad memories have a way of capturing our attention even during moments of our lives when we thought that we have long forgotten about them.

Yet, we know that we should forget the past and get on with life. So, how are we able to do that with our hurtful past pulling us back while we are moving forward? Through personal experiences, below are a few of my recommendations that I hope will be useful to you.

Let's begin with one of the most effective methods but it's also the hardest to employ, which is forgiveness. We cannot let go of the past if we do not forgive. What we cannot forgive, we retain. This is a fact. Just mention someone's grievances to them and we will often see them starting to lament on how others have let them down or chastising others for not reciprocating their love or care. There will be a few individuals who refuse to dwell further into the past. However, if they merely change the subject, it might simply imply that there's still a tinge of sadness/anger/frustration that they try to steer clear of through avoidance. And this is never good enough. Only when individuals continue to talk about the issue with ease and comfort - to the extent of having an ability to genuinely laugh about it - that we can consider them to be free from their past. It takes a lot to forgive, but this is one of the few things that we have to do to be happy in life.

When our hearts are broken, it seems that there are more nights than days, more sadness than happiness and more failures than successes in our lives. What we do not realise is that what we feel at a particular point in time may not speak well of our lives in the future. It seems to be human nature for us to project what we feel at the moment onto how we will feel for the rest of our lives. This is not advisable as long-term project of being a failure in life may make

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