1.Remove yourself from further sources of temptation and let it be known that you have. Don’t go where you used to go, and don’t hang out with people you used to hang out with, and avoid people who do what you want to avoid doing. 2.Be particularly careful of your behavior when with person you’ve harmed. For instance, if you have an affair on your husband, when in social situations, patently ignore members of opposite sex and stick by side of your husband. 3.If embarrassment has been caused and/or temptation remains, be willing to relocate – get another job if you had an affair at office, or move to another neighborhood if it was with a neighbor. 4.Over-communicate. If you used to sneak off to drink or gamble saying you were working late, or meeting a friend, announce where you’re going, with whom you’re going, and when you’ll be back. Give a phone number and an invitation for them to check in with you (i.e., check up on your). Better yet, YOU call. (Don’t whine. This is a consequence of your actions you must deal with if you want to regain trust.) 5.Be meticulous about keeping your word. If you say you’ll meet him at 5:00 p.m., be there at 5 till. If you say you’ll pick up milk at store on way home, do it. 6.Make your life an open book. Display, without vindictiveness, things you used to hide – cell phone bill, address book, credit card statements, contents of your travel suitcase, who’s on other end of phoneline, and what’s in cup you’re drinking out of.

You can grasp picture better if you consider unfortunate analogy of a dog who’s been beaten. If you adopt such a dog, you’ll find every time you approach them, they will cower or run away. You will have to approach slowly, with your hands exposed, palms up, so that slowly dog will learn that you don’t harbor weapons, and don’t use your hands to hit. This requires discipline on your part, and consideration for other, but is part of restitution. In other words, you make it very clear, overly-clear, that you don’t intend to do what you did again.

In sum, if someone has granted you forgiveness for something you’ve said or done, and you want to continue relationship, you will have to rebuild trust. Damaged relationships can be repaired with forgiveness, time, changed behavior (and words are a behavior), and restored trust.

In this way you can identify which situation and people bring you pleasure, and which bring you pain, and make wise decisions.

In case of my friend in car, she might have had that experience also if her boyfriend were currently facing a bypass or cataract surgery. You need to be able to sort out what’s causing what. Is it pain about someone you love, or is someone you love causing you pain?

This is important because being able to experience and process a negative emotion gives you more confidence in your ability to manage them. The better you understand what’s going on, more you realize you have a choice. If you study how to process a certain negative emotion, such as anger, you’ll come to know your trigger-points, and your patterns of response that aren’t productive. These you can always change. You can also choose which things are worth energy it takes, and physical stress toll it takes, to get angry.

Understanding your ability to change things gives you personal power. You always have a choice. You have option to avoid things that make you angry, to avoid criticizing yourself when you do feel angry, to learn how to calm yourself more quickly, to change how you respond when you get angry – both internally and externally – and to eliminate people who constantly make you angry.

The more you learn about emotions in general, and yours in particular, more options you have. You will become less puzzled in grip of an emotion, less rigid in your responses, and better able to think and respond (or not) rather than feel and react mindlessly. This makes you a full and complex human being, not an input-opereation-output machine.

We generally acquire more emotional intelligence throughout our lifetime, but it’s not a given if you aren’t processing and becoming aware. If you find yourself swamped by same things over and over, take a look at what’s going on, do some reading, and work with a coach. If a certain situation always triggers a reaction from you that gets you in trouble, understand this is something you can change. You can learn to bring about a different outcome. After all, not everyone who gets angry hits someone, gets hot under collar, shouts, becomes passively defiant, or sings a happy tune. Of all responses out there that are possible, you can learn to choose best one for you at time.