Relationship Redemption:
Finding Closure and Self-Forgiveness
 
By Frank Kermit
 
We all make mistakes in life. If you have ever tried to get into a relationship, are in a relationship, or are recovering from a relationship, chances are about 100% you screwed up somewhere on something. If you are lucky, you have a partner (or ex-partner) that either has a lousy memory, or a partner that chooses not to remind you too often of the times you goofed.
 
However, with all that said some mistakes are bigger than others. Insignificant mistakes can be corrected easily. But those mistakes that can detour the journey of your entire relationship, maybe even costing you the relationship itself, are a little harder to process. Even when your ex partner either forgives you, or just does not care anymore about your error that forced about the parting of your ways, people still need to do something to achieve a sense of peace with their pasts. People need to forgive themselves. And for some people, self-forgiveness is mission impossible. In fact, those people who more easily forgive others may struggle indefinitely to forgive themselves for a number of their relationships gaffs, both great and small.
 
There is a real danger that this particular population may very well get into the bad habit of punishing themselves with self-sabotaging behaviors, which makes their circumstances even worse, causing even more acts of unforgiveable bad judgment, and the cycle continues until a person can be overrun with a horrible shame-and-guilt complex that forbids them from the capacity to function in an emotionally healthy relationship.
 
For people who find exceptional struggle with forgiving-thy-self I have often found that the key to the ability to forgive yourself for the relationship faux-pas of your past is reaching a point when you can trust yourself, not to commit the same mistake again. Once you prove to yourself that you have new behavior patterns that would prevent you from ever making the same mistake again, some people find a divine compassion for themselves that they previously could not tap into.
 
People, who repeat the same negative behavior patterns in relationships, will inevitably continue to do so, until they take an active role in learning new behavior patterns, and repeating those new behavior patterns, until those behavior patterns become unconscious habits. When it comes to unconscious habits in relationships, those new habits will foster into an intuition that will give the relationship seekers a sixth sense that will keep them away from bad relationship partners, and point them within the perimeters of potential premiere partners.
 
Sometimes mistakes can include things like infidelity, wrong priorities, superimposing unrealistic expectations, committing too soon, losing their sense of self in a relationship, becoming too needy or dependant on their partner, acting out personal issues from childhood that have nothing to do with their current partner, or simply choosing the wrong people to date. All of these errors can be understandable in their unique contexts, but they can all destroy the best relationships that come into your life.
 
When seeking help in relationships, a person tends to want to seek out ways to fix what they keep doing wrong that lands them to lose their relationship opportunities.
 
Even when they learn what exactly they did wrong, and intellectually know what they need to do next, it is not until they go through a real life experience to process that new knowledge into action, that a person can start to feel confident that they will stop making those same mistakes again. Until that challenge is met, the certainty of their change-work is in question. However, once a person commits to a new behavior pattern such that, they have now reach a point where he or she can trust in themselves, to never make those same mistakes again; THAT is when a person can get to the point of self-forgiveness. In that moment of a newfound respect for self, is the RELATIONSHIP REDEMPTION that allows for even the most hurtful past of any relationship wound to find ultimate closure.
 
In closure on our pasts, through the self-forgiveness of our own personal relationship redemption, we will find the beginning of our new chapter in the book of our life.
 
Frank Kermit 

This is an excerpt of an passage from my books:
I'm A Woman, It's My Time (The Coaching Workbook for Women)
and
I'm A Man, That's My Job (The Coaching Workbook for Men)

How To Deal With Toxic People
By Frank Kermit
 
Toxic people are defined in this article as people who lack the capacity to reason, or people who have the capacity to reason but just do not want to reason with you.
 
In the hierarchy of relationships, the category for toxic people is the lowest category that exists. That is because when you identify someone as being a toxic individual, you do not invest any further time in dealing with that person, or at least any more time than you absolutely have to. When you encounter a toxic person in your life, and if you can completely cut that person out, then it is best do to so.
 
When cutting someone out of your life, there are consequences, just like with every other decision you make in life. As Robert Ringer teaches, you choose your actions, but not the consequences of those actions. Be sure that you do not end up suffering more for getting rid of someone, than if you tolerated them.
 
For example, if you work in an environment with a toxic co-worker, you may not be able to cut that person out of your life without quitting the job.
 
However, the consequences of quitting your job may be worse than simply tolerating your co-worker, especially if you only have to deal with that co-worker in a limited capacity or if you are already looking for another job.
 
 
When it comes to family, the same rules apply. If you cut out a member of your family for treating you in a toxic manner, you will have to deal with consequences that you may not have anticipated such as having other family members cut you out because they sided with that relative. For example, in some cases, a cousin may boycott you when that relative is present, but that same cousin may happily engage in communicating with you when that other relative is not around. Are you prepared for the consequences?
 
Also, when it comes to toxic family members, keep in mind that the issue of having to interact with them after cutting them from your life, at functions such as weddings, funerals, and other events may be something you will have to deal with. In some cases, you may end up having to skip those weddings, funerals and other events. Are you prepared for the consequences?
 
It is important to understand the difference between a good person who is acting in a toxic manner as a result of a bad day, or particularly challenging situation, and someone who lacks the capacity to reason with you on a consistent basis. In the case of a good person acting badly, take a pause, and show compassion. It will bring you and that person back to the level you originally connected on.
 
If it is a matter that you are dealing with a consistently toxic person, there is no trying to reconcile or reason with that person. Just like a drug addict on a high, the ability for rational thought simply cannot cope with the state of intoxication. There is no point in even trying to figure out why a person is toxic, or just acts toxic with you.
 
You will never get a satisfying answer, because by the very nature of being toxic, a toxic person is unable to explain such a reason.
 
The best way to deal with a toxic person is not to deal with that person at all.
 
Buy these books now:

I'm A Woman, It's My Time (The Coaching Workbook for Women)
and
I'm A Man, That's My Job (The Coaching Workbook for Men)

Frank Kermit

Heavy Hearted Holidays
By Frank Kermit
 
The holidays come with wonderful expectations of joyous celebrations, family gatherings, and time spent reconnecting with loved ones. Images of happy times celebrating love surround us in holidays sales announcements and media.
 
However, there is a side of the holidays that doesn't always get the attention it merits. Truth be told, it is the one time of the year, which
 
I keep my availability to clients on a 24/7 basis, because for a significant number of people, the holiday season is not about joy, but a melancholy reminder of loneliness and loss.
 
Spending my holidays consoling the lonely and broken hearted, gives me an incredible sense of gratitude for my own wife and son, and cherishing the fact I can share my non-working hours with them.
 
Right now, some people are going into the holidays newly single from of a divorce they did not see coming, and will experience their first holiday away from their own children.
 
Yet others will realize they are alone again for the holidays, because they forgot to make finding someone special to share it with a priority earlier in the year.
 
There are also those experiencing the new normal of entering the holiday season with one less significant person in their lives due to death.
 
Whether widowed, experiencing the passing of a family member, or grieving the loss of a friend (or job, or even good health for that matter) sometimes the holiday season becomes a crossroads of reflection, and the memories of some missing element from our lives, consume our thoughts.
 
Some will choose to stay in, not take part in rambunctious merry making, and instead enjoy some quiet time nursing their sorrow.
 
Some people use the holidays as a time to make a life plan to restructure their journey and set goals. Then there are those who feel so overwhelmed by it all, they unfortunately turn to self-destructive behavior patterns.
 
In the holiday spirit, I implore everyone reading this to keep in mind that each of us copes with loss and loneliness differently and to be supportive of one another.
 
You do not have to agree with how someone copes. What you need to evoke within yourself is your sense of compassion. Compassion is one of the most powerful comforting gifts human beings have to offer and exemplifies some of the best in humanity.
 
In fact, it is very possible to equate that compassion IS the holiday spirit we were meant to indulge in at this time.
 
So if you are struggling to let your heavy-hearted holiday be a happy one, at the very least, aim to keep yourself alive and healthy through it.
 
I wish you all peace and healing at this time, whatever you celebrate, and whoever you are. As long as there are individuals in the world who share compassion, no one is ever truly alone.
 
Frank Kermit

 Everybody‘s Holiday Happy, Except You
By Frank Kermit
 
Do you hate it when everyone around you seems to have something extra to celebrate this year for the holidays, except for you?
 
You aren’t alone.
 
Sometimes, it can be a little frustrating when holiday announcements from your friends and families seem to leave you feeling a little less merry because somehow, you could end up feeling somewhat, left behind.
 
It is not always easy to celebrate with others, when whatever it is they are joyous about, is a little reminder that your own life may not be where you thought it would be by now.
 
In fact, one of the reasons that some people hate the holidays is because of how much they are reminded of just how unhappy they really are.
 
Did your closest friends introduce you to their newest relationship partner? Great! Makes you one of the last of your group to the single for the holidays.
 
Did someone in your family use the holidays to announce a new baby on the way? Great! Makes you doubt if the same thing will eventually happen to you before you feel like quitting after trying for 2 years and still not having a kid.
Did a friend of yours just announce that they start a new job after the holiday season?  Great! That reminds you that you really should update your resume again because your employment insurance is running out and the pressure is mounting. 
 
Did someone make it out of the hospital, or return from active military duty, to be home for the holidays? Great!  You have to be sure to go over and say hello, after a quick trip to the cemetery to pay your respects to the person you lost this year.
 
The holidays are not always fun for everyone.
 
For some, it is a time when a person finally gets a massive break in life and a chance to find real joy.
 
For others, the only massive break they are pre-occupied with is nursing a massively broken heart.
 
If you are fortunate enough to have something wonderful to celebrate this year, please do.
 
Enjoy your moments and share them accordingly.
 
Just don’t throw them in the faces of people that you know are struggling right now. 
 
Show those people a little compassion when you can. Invite them to join in with you, but fully understand if they are not able too.  
 
If you are unfortunate during this holiday season, remember that someday in the future you very likely will have something amazing to share, and will want to celebrate with the people you most care about.
 
When the people around you are asking you to share in their joy, make the effort to be happy for them, and if you cannot do that, excuse yourself so you do not risk tainting the mood.
 
In the long term, you will be glad you did.
 
Happy Holidays. Congratulations on your good fortunes, and hang in there whatever your struggles.
 
Frank Kermit

Mourning for the Holidays
By Frank Kermit

Doesn't it seem like so many people die around the holiday season?
 
I wrote this article after I attended the funeral of an old colleague of mine.

I made every effort to attend the wake and the funeral. Meeting his family for the first time and feeling their grief reminded me that the holidays are not always a time a joyous celebration.
 
For many people it is a time of mourning and bereavement remembering lost loved ones. There is never a good time to deal with the death of someone you love, and for it to happen so close to the holidays is no exception. What it does mean is that the holidays will be more challenging as people still come together, and the need for compassion and understanding is at an all time high. It is not just because grief will cause people to be sad when most people are expected to be enthralled with making merry. It has to do with the different ways that people grieve.
 
One person's method of grieving may be completely out of line with how another person expresses sorrow. If you remember one lesson from this article, it is this: Show compassion and acceptance for the way someone needs to grieve, even if it is the exact opposite of what you would prefer that person utilizes to manage mourning. Since the funeral, I have been swarmed with memories of Christmas pasts. I wanted to share some with you and also share some ideas about mourning the holidays.
 
When my grandfather died in the 1980s, I was still in elementary school, and too young to really understand the effects of grieving for death. What I remember was being taken out of school for a few days while the family came together around my widowed grandmother, and having to attend a funeral home wake and a funeral service. I do not remember understanding everything that was going on around me at the time. What I do distinctly remember is that every time I was reminded of something that I wanted to tell my grandfather, I had to come to acknowledge again and again that he was gone.
 
Other than the death of pets, it was the first time a human family member died. Although my grandfather died earlier in the year, I do have a distinct memory of how my immediate family and our extended family had to balance celebrating the holidays and honoring his memory.
 
That Christmas was a somber one. We did not have the loud massive family get together that I had become accustom too. I have a hazy memory of my grandmother breaking out in tears missing her husband at one point while being the center of attention, probably opening a gift of some kind at the table.
 
When I later returned to school in January, I was faced with that obligatory writing assignment of the (what you did over the holidays) composition. Not sure what to write given the loss my family was suffering, I asked a family member for guidance and was told to basically "make up something acceptable".
 
In short, I was told to describe a wonderful scene complete with laughter, singing Christmas songs and even threw in some street caroling on the way to a midnight mass...truly a far cry from the quiet, almost depressed real life version of a mournful holiday eve.
 
Heck, it is not like my family ever did street caroling or singing songs when they were not managing mourning the holidays anyways. Too busy talking loudly, preparing food, eating food, and then recovering from the meal.
 
What I wanted to write is exactly what happened, but for some reason it was important to that family member to keep our grief private regardless of the fact that everyone that knew me, also knew that my grandfather died (being pulled out of school for a week might have been a good hint).
 
The key word in the directive I received was the word: ACCEPTABLE. As in, it would not be acceptable for our family to experience grief at that time of year. I found it odd, but I chose to obey like a good kid. Yet, I always believed it would have been a much more interesting story if I had told the truth about what really happened that holiday.
 
The struggle was managing what -I- would have wanted to help me express -my- grief (writing about missing my grandfather and how Christmas was different this year) and what a family member wanted to help them manage their grief (keeping our pain private).
 
As the years went on, how we celebrated the holidays changed with each year. Some were marked with great celebration for the weddings that took place that year, while others reflected the emptiness left when other family members had died that year. The holidays, it seemed to me, was a time of reflecting on the changing nature of the relationships of the previous year, the loss of some of the people we loved, a reminder of the break ups and divorces happening, and a call to also remember to cherish the good news of new relationships forming and the births, adoptions, and additions of new members into the family.
 
When my father died after a very long battle with his health challenges, it marked a significant change in our identity as an immediate family. My mother was now a widow, and I was reminded of all our mortality.
 
There were a few things I left out of his eulogy that I never told anyone. One of those things is that one of his unfulfilled wishes was for him to see me get married and start a family of my own before he died.
 
A month after he died I celebrated my birthday, my first without him. With each important date that came along (his birthday, his wedding anniversary, father's day, and the holidays) it was an adjustment to the new normal.
 
With each one I tried different ways to celebrate. Some of them I spent with friends, some of them with family and some I spent alone. On father's day I made a visit to the cemetery bringing my mother with me.
 
At Christmas, I spent it with my immediate family, and had to manage my own coping method of withdrawing from the crowd with some of my families coping methods of making mountains out of molehills.
 
At New Years Eve, I spent it alone at home making only a quick visit to another uncle recovering from heart surgery.
 
What I learned is that each person copes with grief in his or her own way. Some need to party with others, and some need to spend time alone. Some need to cry out at the casket at the funeral home, and some need to yell at the people crying out at the casket because there are people who are too uncomfortable at the expression of another's grief.
 
If there could be something I hope will make managing your mourning this holiday season easier, it is this: No matter how uncomfortable you are with the way someone expresses grief, show some compassion and simply learn to accept it.
 
If you cannot do that, at the very least, please shut the hell up. Just because you cannot handle someone else's grief does not make you -stronger- and it does not make the other person -wrong-.
 
In our pill-popping society, family members may often push for mourning relatives to be sedated, not in the best interest of the mourning relative, but because the family members feel ill-equipped to manage excessive expressions of grief. Never yell at someone for expressing grief.
 
Give that the person the space and acceptance needed to process the intense emotions. If drugs suppress those intense emotions, then those unexpressed emotions may and likely will manifest in other ways (like emotional blocks or dysfunctional self sabotaging behaviors).
 
There is no -better- way to grieve. There is only the way that works for you as long as you remember even though mourning is a personal experience, that does not mean you can not get help with managing your grief. It is OK to seek out the aid of a professional, or even a companion willing to listen and who is OK with you being vulnerable and your truest self at your lowest moment.
 
They say that we each need to live each day as if it were our last. I am not a believer of that personally for reasons too numerous to mention in this article.
 
However, I do encourage people to live each day as if it were the last day that someone you love will live. If there is someone you want to reach out too, that you need to forgive or remind that you love, or want to apologize too then do it; not because you might die tomorrow, but because that person may die tomorrow. Get the difference?
 
Once in a while, I remember someone that did something nice for me, and I will contact that person and thank him or her, not because I might not be around, but because I wonder how I will feel if I miss the chance to tell them before that person is no longer around.
 
Three weeks ago, I attended the funeral of an old colleague of mine. I made every effort to attend the wake and the funeral but I never got to tell him how much I appreciated him, his works and his talents while he was alive. Now, I never will.
 
Understanding relationships goes hand in hand with understanding the principle that every relationship you have on earth is temporary and that unions between people end either by choice (break up, separation or divorce) or in the best of cases, will end by the death of one of the people in the relationship.
 
Be mindful of this fact when you take the time we all have (or lack thereof) for granted. Happy Holidays whatever you celebrate and whomever you happen to love.
 
Frank Kermit

Kevin Jackson is the author of the book Survive Her Affair, and founder of the site: www.soyourwifecheated.com Kevin Jackson has a unique gift to help men heal from their wife's infidelity. (At least, that is what hundreds of happy customers have to say.) Since late 2010, Kevin has been teaching men around the world how to survive their wife's infidelity, no matter how hopeless their situations seem. Using his no-b.s. approach and unique male perspective on the healing process, he has become the leader in the field of Affair Recovery For Men. Kevin's obsession with this topic began with a very personal experience of betrayal in his own life. He looked around for help to get through his own pain, but all he found were books and programs that were primarily for women. (And these books were full of examples of the man being the one who cheated... talk about sexist). Kevin used his knowledge of internet marketing to put up a website, and started helping men online navigate through the perilous waters of affair recovery. Quickly he had a loyal following and an online tribe. Kevin has leveraged his secrets and philosophies to help men in all 50 states, and from every walk of life. He is available for media interviews and appearances.

 Date: August 2014, Title: Survive Her Affair
Frank Kermit makes his 1st appearance. Kevin Jackson author and founder of Survive Her Affair, interviews Frank Kermit as part of a series of audio bonus to the purchase of his book. This is a 10 minute preview of the first interview for you to listen to, and get an idea of how men react to being cheated on by their wives.