Your friend has a caring person in you. This itself is an important support for her to live happily. One cannot decide for her though sometimes staying emotionally detached and keeping a positive focus for oneself can help one to manage the interference. To be able to live happily under the same roof she needs to decide and plan how to handle three areas – the relationship, herself and her children.

For the relationship she will need to accept where she has no power or authority and stop creating arguments or losing energy for those expectations. Acceptance is the main thing of accepting what is not there and not going to be there. Since she plans to continue the relationship she may choose to keep up basic communications so work that needs to happen happens smoothly. She can give the relationship opportunity to heal by keeping some goodwill communication or actions that are with less effort such as complimenting or doing a small favour or regular greetings.

When something is not there in our lives we get into false assumptions that we are unlucky or in some way deficient. She can rid herself of these false assumptions and realize the respect and care not being there are limitations of her husband’s. He may be too critical or expecting too much and not empathic enough. These could be his issues. She can instead determine to feel good about herself from her own viewpoint and that of other caring people. She could make a list of all ways that she is disturbed by her husband’s behaviour – mentally, emotionally, physically. She would need to think creatively of what possibilities exist to handle these disturbances in a way that she is less affected, such as think different thoughts internally, hire help, go for a walk at certain times to avoid confrontations, etc. Taking therapy can help her feel supported and in control of her emotional choices. She could also list her own individual interests and talents and create some avenues of satisfaction here.

With her children she may need to learn positive parenting methods and give them some perspective on the conflict. You could discuss the concept of safety and if you are the safer non violent and less judgmental parent you can help them identify ways to meet their needs with you one on one and co-operating with you.

This is very true that there are no specific rights and wrongs. There is no way out of having to take on risk as there are no guarantees. Any decision is a risk. The only guarantee is of our own of resolving to peacefully handle whatever comes up and thereby we are likely to be successful.

Before we make a decision we need to have the information from our own thinking or from the outside world too. We need to figure out the consequences of our choices what they could be and to what extent they will be. We need to know what resources we have from friends, extended family, financially and legally to know whether we can deal with the consequences. Anything can be good for you as long as you are ready to manage the consequences of your choices else you would need to exercise discipline and not take on that choice. In the modern world, families do need to be open to the choices of their child and change the criteria from one of religion for the marital partner to one of seeing if the person their child has chosen is a mature, responsible and caring person.

If you choose the person who loves you, you have to guess your family’s reaction. They may cut off communications or actually tell you to leave home. Some families may threaten harm too. You have to think of ideas and resources you could use to handle such a situation. On the other hand if facing so much opposition is something you do not have the resources to take on either because the opposition of your family will be too strong or you do not have the economic resources to do this or emotionally you do not want to do this you would need to stay with tradition.

Negotiation and persuasion and allaying the fears of the family that you will continue to care for them can sometimes work. Often after a period of cut off, a family will come around to accepting your choices. Is there anyone in the extended family who you trust and who would support you? That can enable a family to go beyond the tradition to be open minded.

Commitment is something that has to be mutually nurtured – it is not automatic from one person. Commitment of the other strengthens as one shows tolerance, understanding and communicates needs and demands in peaceful respect based ways. One needs to have fun based activities in the relationship to support it too. If necessary, counselling can help in creating more harmony between the two people.

Did these panic attacks and hypertensions happen to you after doing self hypnosis? It would be preferable to go to a therapist to release such thoughts and feelings and bring back balance. Self hypnosis and meditation need to be done for limited time periods maybe just half hour. Along with this our focus on our practical tasks is important – our nutrition, physical exercise, daily chores and work.

You may have used self hypnosis for high expectations from yourself and in your life. This can be disturbing. It is better to use self hypnosis for small believable goals and use it for step by step progress.

For some time you may stop the self hypnosis and focus on physical methods of calmness and health, such as exercise and yoga and small daily practices and goals. When you regain balance you can return to self hypnosis

In the spirit realms your mother can still hear you. You may sit in stillness, at the time of prayer and be in your ‘center’ – calm and balanced. Invite her into your space mentally. Feel her presence; let her know your guilt and your genuine repentance for this. Let her know you loved her and somehow never thought the threat was so bad from your brother. Then you may let her know to leave and return to the spirit realms and let her know you are peaceful so she can be peaceful too. You may also symbolically do some charitable work for the old and vulnerable. So though you cannot make up for your mother you can surely make a difference for others. Learning our lessons is the pathway by which we may release our emotional disturbances. You can consciously let go your guilt with this learning and actions. Your messages from the heart will reach her.

Your friend has got into an addictive pattern of seeking emotional comfort and excitement in life by seeking new partners. Addictions of any sort are like a compulsion to escape feelings of emptiness, boredom, meaninglessness where the person feels no possibility to have their life be better. Instead of dealing with the challenge of their life situation which would require work, discipline and focus, they escape it with either a substance, an activity like sex, or too much T.V. viewing.

Eventually what is occasional or done ‘just this one time’ becomes an easy way to escape the hurt, disappointment and pain. The person ends up wanting more of it, becoming helpless in managing their temptations and thereby becoming irresponsible. However rather than face their true responsibility to find better ways out of their problem they stay in the comfort of this easy solution and to justify this they may need to feel their problems are too big and they are too unfortunate so they cannot help what they do. A whole belief system of this sort sets in, which is definitely not ethical or functional and will in some way damage the person or the others around them, especially if there are children.

Such a person may not seek therapy or healing because they are in one sense in a comfort zone. First the person has to see their behaviour as being wrong in some way. Often a person in such situations will justify what they do in different ways such as ‘sex is not a sin’ or ‘with my husband being so difficult I need this emotional comfort’. Also now that there will be men who relate to her in this way the temptations exist and present themselves even when they decide to stop. Then the person succumbs with the thought that I’ll do this ‘just this one time’. In such cases there is not much we can do and eventually one may need to detach from such a person and their thought processes. Admitting they are addicted and this action is in some way destructive is the second step. Getting back the control over their choices and away from the unethical or destructive behaviour to positive outlets can then happen through a combination of self discipline, therapy or healing.