Then, I remembered the book I read few months ago about mind mapping. It was Tony Buzan’s book - The Mind Map Book that explains how to organize thoughts, take notes, make business plans, clarify emotions or analyze your dreams. It sounded so easy - just take a blank piece of paper and few pencils in color and let your creativity, by drawing a mind map picture of your thoughts, to solve any your problem.

I started a brainstorming and made the mind map. It was fun! In the beginning, I felt like a child doodling on the paper and making a silly cartoon drawing, but soon solution emerged. As always, it was complicated situation with very simple solution.

The Mind Map Book teaches you to use your imagination, logic and creativity and by drawing symbols, doodles and useful keywords related to your problem and connected in the structure, you can clarify any problem you have.

It is fun and easy way to disassemble problems and thoughts so you can understand them better using both sides of your brain and finally, to discover the solution. Great thing about mind mapping is that with every new map you are getting better and more creative and in the end you always learn something new and positive about yourself.

If you want to know how to find your true love, I’ll tell you: it will maybe take a shorter or longer time, but it will happen and it is quite easy.

So, this is how to find your true love in five easy steps:

1. Take a piece of paper and name it “Bad Personal Traits” and make a list of all bad characteristics (physical, mental, emotional, financial, social…) that you wouldn’t like to find in your soul mate’s character. Take a time to do this. Think of every bad relationship that you and your friends or relatives have had and include these bad personal traits in your list too.
2. Take another piece of paper, name it “My True Love” and make a list of all characteristic (physical, mental, emotional, financial, social…) that you’d like to find in your true love’s character. Look at the examples of the good relationships around you and use your own good experiences to inspire you. Don’t rush this step. Fill your “My True Love” list with love and patience.
3. Take “Bad Personal Traits” list and on your “My True Love” list add one by one, totally opposite traits of these you find on your “Bad Personal Traits” list, in case they aren’t on your good list already.
4. Take “Bad Personal Traits” list and burn it somewhere, but be careful, don’t make a fire. By doing this, decide that from now, whenever you think of your true love, you’ll think of it with optimism and love. You’ll never again connect the characteristics from “Bad Personal Traits” list with your soul mate. For example if you think: “I hope my soul mate will not be a cheater!” - this is not good, because you’ve connected bad characteristics “cheater” with “soul mate”. Think in present time good things about your love, for example: “My true love is wise and handsome!”. It doesn’t matter if you are still single, think of your true love as he/she is already in your life.
5. Take your “My True Love” list everywhere with you. Read it whenever you have time, everyday. Memorize it! Fantasize about your love and imagine that he or she is in your life already. Fell the happiness he or she is bringing in your life!

Be patient! You are on your path to find your true love. Have fun!

If you find yourself looking for signs of cheating in your partner, if you read articles that promise you magic formula in discovering a cheater or listen shows that promise you the same, please stop.

Take a moment of your time and think; why are you really looking for signs of cheating in your relationship? Think of this question carefully and you’ll see that you are losing no matter if he or she is cheating or not.

It doesn’t matter if your partner is cheating on you, it matters that you are thinking of it and you can’t concentrate on anything else. You are giving him a power that doesn’t belong to him/her. Your power! You are giving him/her the power to be in charge of your happiness and no one can be responsible for your happiness, but you. You are making yourself happy or miserable and no one else. It is your choice! You are the master of your life, not someone else.

If you know, for sure, that your partner is cheating on you, do something about it. If you are not sure, you are just suspecting that he/she is cheating and this suspicion goes on and on and on, you have a problem and it doesn’t involve your partner. Believe it or not, but you are just using your partner as a blindfold so you can hide from yourself the things form your life that really bother you.

The problem is that you, somehow, deep inside, believe that you are not worth his/her love and by that you actually give him/her right to cheat on you and to reject you. Think: what makes you feel so insecure about yourself?

Maybe, you weight few pounds more than you should or you don’t have blue eyes or you are not successful as you would like to be… whatever problem you hide inside of your soul, that makes you feel insecure about yourself, now it is time for you to discover it. This is your real problem!

By taking your very first step in resolving your real problem, your self esteem will grow and you’ll feel great knowing that you are doing something good for yourself. All the power that you have been giving to your partner, by making him/her in charge of your own happiness or misery, will be yours again and you’ll be free to love and to trust again.

If you are desperate to find love, it means you are lonely and you feel incomplete and with these two feelings you tend to be very, very tolerant, more tolerant than it is healthy for you, when you choose a partner.

We are all sometimes lonely, but I must tell you; loneliness is very tricky. When we feel lonely and receive attention from potential partners, we can easily make mistake and take it as love, even if this person doesn’t meet our basic emotional needs.

When you find yourself searching for love, it would be better to go out with your friends or go some places where you can find some new friends. Trying to find new friends and social networking is much healthier then finding love. When you are looking for friends, you are probably going find some and some of them might become a love of your life, but when you look for love, you are rushing in and there is good chance that you are going to have a heart break.

Finding love is a process, it has its steps and missing a step or two can cost you more than you are able to pay. These are steps everyone should make in order to find true love:

• Meet someone you are attracted to
• Get to know him/her by becoming friends to see if you are having any common interests in life. Remember, you should feel very comfortable with who you are when you are with this person.
• In case you have common views in life and you still feel attracted to each other, start dating and have fun.
• If you both have urge to spend more and more time together, get into serious relationship and stop seeing other people.
• Become the best friends and true support to each other.
• You are both thinking about living together or marriage.
• Congratulation! You have found your true love!

Take time! Don’t rush things in! Don’t try to find love, let love finds you.

Now, we witness more and more women in their 30’s and 40’s, still single and very anxious about getting committed. Why?!

In one hand, I deeply believe that media have their blame in it, in the other, watching lives of our mothers, no matter if they had a happy or not so happy marriage, don’t help.

This is why I blame media, movies, commercials and similar for girls having commitment phobia:

• They made us think that everyone of us has one and only Mr. Right, which is not true. Why is not true? Well, we grow and change by every day and what suited us yesterday, often doesn’t suit us today. So, yesterdays Mr. Right, possible would be wrong for us today, which is kind of good to know. Now we can be more realistic, not to wait for the perfect one, but for one who will be ready to grow and change with us and these are easier to find than perfect one. Remember, I didn’t say easy, I said easier.

When I think of women who are generation of our mothers, all I see is a sacrifice. They sacrificed their careers, their time and life for happiness of their children and husbands. If they were happy, the whole relationship commitment was easier, but if they were not happy, it was a disaster.

No matter which of these two was the case, I don’t like to see today’s modern women to sacrifice anything. I believe that women have to find a new relationship success formula, so we don’t have to fear that we will be in need to sacrifice important parts of our beings.

Also, to denial that we need someone who will be our lover and a friend, to commit our time and love to him, would be the same sacrifice. We don’t know what future brings and we can’t know if our relationship is meant to be forever, but what we will always be sure of is that we were brave, we gave our best and we won’t have any regrets.

Every person is different and this fact makes dealing with grief a personal thing. There are five stages of grief and they are typical for everyone, but how we behave in these stages makes us unique.

Few days ago, I have written about feelings that we might feel when we are heart broken. I have tried to explain how we think and feel according to my experience (yes, I had a broken heart few times in my life) in all five stages of grief:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

The way I see, the best thing you can do to help yourself heal is to realize in which grief stage you are and after you recognize the stage, to act in a proper way to help yourself. The key is to prevent yourself to stay more than you should in these stages. We tend to stack in some stages and even to circle around, for example: anger - bargaining - depression - anger - bargaining - depression…

In denial stage it is very important to recognize your feelings of grief. Cry, talk to someone you trust, but be sincere to yourself about your feelings.

The most common thing, I notice, is that people stay in anger stage more than it is healthy for them. You can be angry and you should not denial that you are angry, but you will agree with me that you actually don’t know the deepest inner urge that has pushed that person to make choices that hurt you, so don’t blame him or her. Let higher court (God) to judge him or her. Don’t let any more of your energy to go to someone else when you need it badly to heal.

In bargaining stage, it seems like we have forgotten what happened and all we want is everything to be as before. In this stage you need your friends more than ever to prevent you to do foolish things as calling your ex. You must remember that situation is changed and you need to accept this.

Depression is the hardest stage. We remember nice things from past, we remember bad things from past and we don’t know which one of these two makes us feel more sad. We feel empty. This is difficult stage, but you could use it to rethink about bad choices you have made and why, so you never repeat them again.

With acceptance, dealing with five stages of grief is over. You are healed and ready to live and enjoy your life again. You are wiser and grateful for every new day in your life. Welcome back!

I have tried to simulate feelings of acceptance after relationship end. This is how people feel and think when they finally accept that their relationship is over:

I woke up unusually early this morning and a look through my bedroom’s window made me smile. It was beautiful morning, bright and sunny, and I felt alive for the first time in a very long period of sadness and depression.

Somehow everything seems fine and I see now that my broken heart is healed. This bad love looks so far away from me and I have learned a lot. This fact turns my ex love in one of my greatest life teachers. I’m accepting now that I had my share in this heart break. Some mistakes, I deeply believe, I will never make again.

I feel strong and I’m happy knowing that somewhere near me is the love of my life, that will make my life complete. I’m ready to love again and I’m not afraid of being hurt.

Tonight, I’ll go out with my friends and I’ll have the greatest time. I just know! Hello, life! Here I come, again!

This is example of how people feel in depression stage of grief after love is ended:

He didn’t call! He doesn’t love me after all. My heart is broken. I’m going to die. I feel so empty and nothing has a meaning any more. Why should I even bother to get out of the bed in the morning? Why? My life has no purpose.

No love, not at least a hug or a kiss, nothing. Just silence in my room. My phone is dead for days. I don’t remember last time I have smiled. Only tears and sobbing in my bed, under the shower, even in the train full of people. I hope I won’t get fired, because I know that my job is suffering also.

Will I ever get over a broken heart? It doesn’t seem so. I’m rejected because of someone else. My self esteem doesn’t exist any more. I just want to lay down and cry.

• Read more about how we behave in the last, fifth of five stages of grief - acceptance!

In bargaining stage of grief we still are not fully aware what happened to us. We are willing to forgive “unforgivable”, because we are not ready to accept the truth that our relationship is finished forever. This is an example how we would feel in this stage:

I wonder what he is doing right now. Is he good and well? If I could only just hear him for a second, I’d know.

I miss him so much. I need his touch and I want to hear his voice again. Just one “I love you” and I would forgive everything. Just one “I miss you” or “Come back”, I would be so happy again. Maybe phone doesn’t work properly? No, everything is fine with the phone. Please, call me!

Maybe, I should call him? I know he’s behavior was the reason we broke up in the first place and that it would be better if he call, but what would be if I call instead? I must think of good reason for why I call, when he asks. I don’t want to lose these few drops of self esteem that remain.

No. It is not my turn for a call like this. I must calm myself. I must find a way to think about something else. Maybe he will call after all! I must be patient.

• Read more about how we behave in the forth of five stages of grief - depression!

After relationship is over, it is natural to feel angry. We can’t accept what happened to us and we feel need to blame the other side. Be careful not to stay long in this stage of anger, because for relationship we need two, but for brake up we also need two. We must recognize and accept our part of responsibility for relationship brake up. This is how we feel:

He must have been blind! How can it be that he didn’t see my pure love and devotion to him? Why would he want someone new? He will never find anyone like me to love him when times are hard. Who does he think he is? Brad Pitt?!

But, wait… Maybe that’s it! He doesn’t want someone like me. He wants someone else, completely different from me. I was just a game for him. Someone he spent his time with, no one to remember, someone replaceable…

How could I be so foolish? It was obvious! He didn’t love me! He doesn’t deserve me. I just can’t believe I didn’t see through him.

It was my fault! I just didn’t want to face the truth that we were not meant for each other. Now, I’m paying the price and it costs me more than I’m able to pay. I don’t know how to get over a broken heart of mine. How could I let this happen to me? When and where did I lose my self esteem? If I had only been wiser, I could prevent this entire emotional mess!

• Read more about how we behave in the third of five stages of grief - bargaining!