Dear Robi: too tired to read and reply this evening. Tomorrow!

anita

Dear Clara: I will read and reply this evening (morning here).

anita

Dear Robi: Good to get and read a bit of your message. I am just about to be away from the computer, will read and reply in about 20 hours from now.

anita

I wish us both: Jasmine and anita, a peaceful mind, self-confidence and inner strength today, and every day, one day at a time (and during particularly challenging days: one moment, one hour at a time).

anita

Dear Clara:

I realized yesterday that it was 6 days since you last posted and was going to submit a how-are-you inquiry post, but knew that I was going to be out for the rest of the day and wouldn’t be able to answer (at least not thoroughly) if you answered on the same day. Good to read from you today, a week following your last post!

“I am slowly adjusting to my pace. I begin to get used to being alone in the house… Yesterday she returned something and put it in the lobby of my building. I don’t know why but I cried immediately when I stepped foot in my flat… She still has something left in my flat“- I wish that she’d return all that belongs to you, and take all that belongs to her, all at once, so to no longer re-ignite your attachment to her. It isn’t fair to you!

“If she came back today, I think I would still want to be together… However, I also feel that I am moving on to find myself and to try to see other people and the world“- a moving on to the New while still attached to the Old: this is what healing from a breakup is about.

“I also got some photos of my family and my travel, and I hang them around the house. I feel this made the flat belongs to me a bit more.“- bit by bit: well done, Clara!

anita

Dear StrormMako:

I am glad that you finally talked to your boyfriend and that he made more of an effort to talk to you yesterday. I hope that your boyfriend will not be regularly traveling for work.

How are you feeling today?

“My boyfriend is traveling & I had surgery. I feel abandoned… I know he is so overwhelmed yet I feel so abandoned… I don’t have a very trustful or emotional connection with my mom, so he is so important to me“- I think that earlier in your life, you lost trust in your mother (to whom you were very much emotionally attached) because in some meaningful way, or ways, she abandoned you and betrayed your trust.

Fast forward, in your vulnerable state post-surgery, your boyfriend (to whom you are very emotionally attached) travels for work, and your past painful abandonment experience awakened in the present time.

“He’s my world… I miss him so much…  Am I playing the victim too much in my head here?… I feel guilty that I expected more from him when he is obviously very overwhelmed… I still feel guilty for feeling abandoned… Anxiety really does blur the whole picture“- (1) I think that much of your anxiety is about the awakened abandonment experience, (2) that feelings of guilt from your childhood also awakened, (3) perhaps your mother portrayed herself as a victim, and you don’t want to be like her in context of your relationship with your boyfriend..?

anita

Dear StormMako:

I will reply further later, maybe as late as tomorrow, but for now, in regard to: “I still feel guilty for feeling“- there is no real, or valid guilt in feeling anything. Whatever you feel now, or felt then, is not a matter of your choice. No Choice = No Guilt.

What we say and do is subject to choice, not what we feel.

“What is your advice for feeling guilty about something as silly as this situation?”- you did not say or do anything wrong. Rest in this fact, best you can.

(I used to feel guilty about anything and everything because my mother raised me on guilt, guilt-tripping me on a regular basis).

anita