Dear Brian:

Thank you for expressing some appreciation for me, I appreciate it!

Focusing on the intent behind people’s words is a excellent idea that I should practice more myself. Indeed people say and do things out of habit. We are habitual creatures by nature.

Coming to think about it, connecting this to the title of your thread, it is divine, perhaps, to break bad, useless habits and replace them with personally-chosen good, useful habits.

anita

Dear Robi:

“My girlfriend recently said to me – ‘You are reliving an old postcard’“- I never read/ heard this saying, reliving an old postcard. I am positively impressed by your girlfriend!

“Now.. I woke up this morning with these thoughts. Pretty interesting thoughts I’ve had for some time now“- I am looking forward to reading your thoughts submitted 5 hours ago, all the way from Spain, at 12:18 pm local time:

“1) The mask I created a long time ago… to fool others I’m not shy, afraid and anxious. I was operating from a place of  very low self esteem. I had very low self worth…”-

– very insightful, Robbi, and your ability to understand it all so accurately tells me that you currently possess enough self-worth to be able to understand it all so accurately.

“Some of the old coping mechanisms (sitting in front of the computer playing games, watching all kinds of stuff ) have been replaced by smoking weed, going out partying, getting drunk and socialising…. operating still from the level of my mask. I was again, too scared to be myself fully… The mask started dissolving quite a while ago and speeded up the moment I met my girlfriend“- this is what crossed my mind before reading this part: that your attachment to your girlfriend is and has been a positive, healing attachment, hence the increased self-esteem and dissolving of the mask.

“I met my girlfriend and moved to Poland in 2021. There I gradually found a different version of myself – a more accepting self. I finally understood I’m okay the way I am and I don’t need to impress anyone“- here it is, right here: an increased self-esteem.

“Of course at times there were battles between ‘the old and the new’,  battles I still have now“- Of course, as always, mental-emotional healing/ improvement is a back and forth process where overall, and over time, you make significant progress.

“I know I’ve changed a lot – I feel like I woke up, I found my wounds, uncovered them, addressed them as much as I was able, confronted my family about the traumas I still carry with me today… “- your significant healing/ improvement is evident in the accuracy of your chosen words. This is all a pleasure for me to read!

“NOW. I feel like Alicante has been feeding the mask. Now I feel like it doesn’t quite feed who I am today… I feel lonely, away from my girlfriend, away from my family, not having friends and not really enjoying my postcard“- I am visualizing the Alicante postcard and I see.. there in that corner, a young man wearing a polo shirt and a mask. Is that you, Robi, underneath that mask?

“2) Missing, Feeling but disconnecting after a while.  I’ve experienced this for the last 2 and a half years since I met my girlfriend. I would feel close to her when we are together…  right before her or me leaving I would feel very sad… For a few days, I would miss her, I would feel connected to her.  A few days would pass and I would start disconnecting from her. I wouldn’t even feel like I wanted to talk to her and often my first impulse would be to ignore her messages – I would be almost annoyed by her contacting me. At times I would think of other women too.. although I’ve never tried anything and never really wanted to. When we meet again, it takes me a little time to ‘adjust’. I would be a little distant at first, maybe for a few hours or a day.. but then slowly I would get back into my ‘caring and loving mode’…. What do you think about this? I don’t know what to make of it. First thing that comes to my mind would be maybe something connected to my mother? Maybe something connected to abandonment?… Why do I disconnect like this? Am I protecting myself from getting hurt? Am I trying to protect myself from missing someone?”-

-you disconnect like this so to reduce your anxiety (separation anxiety, to be exact). It is an instinctual choice made by your brain-body, an automatic choice, a dissociation choice. It is natural and understandable: when away from your girlfriend, you are anxious about the possibility that you’ll never see her again, that the physical separation from her is permanent. This anxiety alarms your brain for a few days, and your brain shakes the anxiety off of it, so to speak, by dissociating, by not caring anymore.

The not caring not loving calm mode is much preferrable (and understandably so) to the caring loving anxious mode.

Once you dissociates and adopt the not caring not loving calm mode, you don’t want to talk to her and to take her messages because you (understandably) do not want your calm disturbed. At times, you think of other women, while you feel disconnected from your girlfriend, because .. you don’t feel connected to her. Again, it’s understandable.

When you understand the logic of all this, how instinctual it is (a choice made by the species you are born as: a social mammal, a human), and not a matter of your individual personal choice, you can see that it all happens because you love her.

“My mother used to take me to kindergarten every morning…”–

health line/ separation anxiety in adults vs children: “Symptoms of anxiety disorder in children and adults are similar. For children, separation anxiety is often associated with extreme fear or anxiety about being away from parents or caregivers. That can make a child less willing to participate in events or social experiences, like spending the night at a friend’s house or going to summer sleepaway camp. For adults, the anxiety is around being away from children or spouses”

anita

Dear Robi:

“With no exception, every time I’m heading there ( before the classes) I get a slight headache – which gets worse during my classes. This doesn’t happen when I work in the bar – although I’m basically in the sun for 8 hours running jumping around like Rocky Balboa“- teaching causes you anxiety which causes the headaches, I figure. Working the bar suits you much better.

“My girlfriend would like me to go back to Warsaw.. although she prefers not to say anything – she always encourages me to do as I feel“- a wonderful girlfriend!

“She’s running her own business there and lately it started getting better and better so leaving her business there and coming here doesn’t seem like the right thing to do“- I agree.

“These last days I’ve been applying for all kinds of jobs in Warsaw…  Let’s see if there will be any offers – then maybe I can weigh things and see what makes more sense“- yes, see what makes more sense depending on what work becomes available for you. If you find a good job that you can do in Warsaw, living close to, or with your girlfriend.. that reads logical and sensible to me.

“Very often after 3 or even 2 hours of teaching I get so tired that I just don’t have the resources. Whenever I have those headaches I feel like my body is telling me something“- your body doesn’t like teaching!

“Anyways, gotta go now – put my polo shirt on and look like a teacher“- I am visualizing Robi in a polo shirt and a headache.. I hope not. Rest well after the teaching!

anita

Dear Brian:

I re-read this morning every word you shared in your various threads since your very first post on Jan 9, 2022, almost 2 years and 4 months ago. I learned that (I am boldfacing your words):

It is very, very important to you, in the context of social interactions, to be genuine, not fake, not a fraud, not robotic and dishonest. You prefer to not interact with people at all than to interact with people who are fake, robotic and dishonest about how they really feel, and you don’t want to reciprocate such fakeness.

You feel/ have felt disconnected from the society where you live because people are praised for their so-called positive interactions, which, being fake, are not really positive: “I really would rather someone not talk to me at all than say a few meaningless phrases out of obligation… saying ‘It was great talking to you’, when you didn’t enjoy the conversation is what I’m referring to“.

“Trying to fit into the social structures of a society has been a challenge for me… A long time ago, I decided to live by my own rules… If I don’t think you’re funny, I wont laugh. If I didn’t enjoy the conversation, I might wish them a good day, but I wont say that it was great talking to them“. You will not answer certain questions that people ask you, and the questions you answer, you will not answer in the ways you believe people expect you to answer.

“My intention is to simply seek input and possible solutions… I don’t mind new perspectives… How do you give a good impression without appearing disingenuous?… I wish supernatural beings would communicate with me. That would be cool. I just don’t think it has happened… Spiritual beings are welcome to communicate with me. I don’t think they have yet.“-

– “Being spiritual means seeking a meaningful connection with something bigger than yourself, which can result in positive emotions and wiser action” (an online definition). I will add to this definition, “which can result in genuine positive emotions”.

It’s almost like you gave up on having genuine connections with people, so you hope to connect with supernatural beings, or spiritual beings instead.

You are welcome to continue to be genuine here, in your thread, and I wish you to be genuine in-real-life, every day. Strange how I forgot, that for a long time, I was very troubled by the same thing, fakeness vs genuineness. When I caught myself smiling not because I felt like smiling, I stopped the smile. I hated being fake-nice to people, and I made sure that my face showed anger when I felt angry. Coming to think about it, as I am typing to you.. growing up (growing in is more accurate), I wasn’t allowed my own emotions, I was severely judged for my emotions, as in being a bad person for .. genuinely feeling this way, or that way. So, I turned my genuine emotions inward, pushing them down.

My mother was super nice to people most of the time, super-ingenuously nice, that is,  when in their company, flattering them, complimenting them, feeding them with the most expensive foods… and then she’d complain about them behind their backs, saying that they take advantage of her and hurt her feelings. When I suggested to her to stop being so nice to them, she said she couldn’t. When I offered to be not-nice to them myself, to speak up for her, she ragefully threatened to kill me.

And so, I was made to be quiet during hours and hours (through the years) of watching her sort of go belly up with fake, exaggerated niceness to people who, she claimed, were bad people. It was a torture for me. I remember how difficult, how uncomfortable it was to hold all my anger inside, without expressing it. I was angry at the people who she claimed were taking advantage of her, and I was angry at my mother for being so nice to them and never allowing me to do what was right and just: to make the supposed bad people go away, instead of being so nice to them.

Thank you, Brian, for making it possible for me to understand what I shared right above better than I ever did.

“How do you give a good impression without appearing disingenuous?“- maybe a lot of people are stuck (like my mother was, like I was.. and sometimes, still am) in ingenuity, and not liking it at all. If you model being genuine- in a friendly way though- it will encourage some other people to be genuine too.

anita

Dear SadSoul:

“permission to no longer suffer?”–  I love this. I think I might be the tiniest bit headed in this direction“- I want you to not suffer, SadSoul. There is no advantage to you suffering. No benefit in it, not for anyone!