Dear Arden:

“I hope you are well“- thank you. Unfortunately sick with Covid at this time.

“10 months in long distance, I think we’re dealing with it well… All in all, we’re doing out best, separately, sometimes I am encouraging him and sometimes he does that to me. I never hold in when I feel like crying, I feel like if I hide something, that would harm me a lot. So just letting myself flow, of course not with everyone, just with him and on my own.“- reads like you are dealing with the long-distance well, and that it’s a good relationship (now a marriage)!

“I am also trying to find new solutions, freelance gigs… I have been feeling how far I’ve come, honestly. I can see how my mind is changing, and how fast I am growing… Building a life is not easy“- indeed, you’ve grown so much since we first communicated on June 7, 2019. You are strong, resourceful, resilient and quite amazing!

“a friend that has been giving me some mixed signals within the texts, confuses me. She asked me months and months back, ‘What is holding you there? Why not quit?..’… all I need was positivity. Not someone that would tell me all the negative stuff… I wouldn’t want that from a friend…. she blamed me for being touchy…  It’s like she is ignoring or even not looking at what I express, in a positive way…. stuff like that, I catch myself not seeing things clearly here, so it’s been making my mind busy on some level.“- you referred to her as a friend. Seems to me that she is not a friend but an acquaintance. Maybe she is friendly acquaintance at times (?), but otherwise, she seems to be someone who brings you down. That’s a shame.

What you need is encouragement, not discouragement; positivity, not negativity; clarity, not confusion; someone to focus on your positives, not someone who ignores you or blames you! I wish you limited contact with her, or better perhaps,  put it on hold altogether..?

anita

Dear Clara:

Re-reading your yesterday update, we have this in common: I too grew up with a very explosive parent, a mother in my case.

“he would go head to head and gets very confrontational, or explosive…  also very judgmental… he called me useless and loser because I didn’t get married. It was so hurtful for me, I almost ran away from home that time“- it’s amazing how words can hurt. Judgmental words from a parent hurt the most.

“So from young I have learned to hide my emotions“- you learned to suppress your emotions/ push them in. To not express them/ let them out.

“when she came home late, I don’t often text or call he during the time, because I didn’t want to upset her. Once she gets home, she realized I was upset and she was caught by surprise“- you suppressed your anger while she was at work (an under-reaction), and when she got home late, your anger within you exploded (an over-reaction).

That’s what suppressed emotions do. My mother suppressed her emotions a lot in-between explosions. Fast forward, I suppressed my emotions, and my suppressed emotions exploded in all kinds of ways, even without an outward display: they just felt unbearably intense.

“All I have to do, is to stay calm and collected… I guess that probably should be my stance when I meet her. Be open-minded and see what comes up“- I think that your best bet as far as your relationship goes is to indeed stay calm and collected and that will take changing the habit of suppressing your emotions => expressing them, every day. You are welcome to do so here, on your thread: to type them away, from the gut, to the outside (the computer screen).

anita

Dear Clara:

I wish you had a 2nd and 3rd, etc., session with this therapist. One session is not enough.

anita

Dear Franco:

I like the direct, honest way. I am guessing there’ll be anxiety on your part whichever way you go (direct or indirect), so it’s not like the indirect way will be anxiety-free.

Plus the indirect way can bring confusion, as she may not know for sure what it is that you are looking for, and you may get confused about her replies, not knowing for sure if she is interested in you or not.

anita

Dear Franco:

“a friend of mine… told me to not catastrophize the event because It happens frequently when a man is interested in a woman to act a little awkward, happens to everybody“- when he said this to you, did you feel better/ calmer, as a result?

If you felt calmer, it means that hearing his words regulated your emotions of anxiety, embarrassment, etc.

What your friend did was take the same event that had upset you so much, and offered a different way of looking at it. Your way of looking at the event was something like this: I am one of the most unacceptably awkward man in the world,  and that’s why I was laughed at, and now, the girl knows how unacceptable I am.

These thoughts understandably, cause and fuel painful feelings of shame, despair, etc.

Your friend introduced different thoughts, paraphrased: You are not the only man in the world that feels awkward when approaching a woman, everyone feels awkward.

Same event; different interpretations.

When you notice next time that you feel anxious about a situation, ask yourself: is there a different (and possibly true) way of looking at this situation? Look at it from a different angle, see the bigger picture. This is part o Emotion Regulation.

“sometimes talking with a friend is helpful“- talking to a helpful friend is one way to regulate your emotions.

So is journaling, listening to calming music, taking a brisk walk outdoors, drinking hot tea, following guided meditations, doing yoga, Tai-Chi, and more.

“he suggested… message her on Instagram, but I don’t know what to write to start the conversation, life is short I want to know her“- you can message her that you want to get to know her. Did your friend suggest a message?

anita

* I want to add a note about Tommy’s post:

“Oh, wow, so much.. BS. No not the right word. You seem to be extremely cerebral… There is nothing special about enlightenment… Drop this monkey mind”–

– calling Peter’s thoughts and feelings BS? Telling him there is nothing special about what he believes to be special? Telling him to drop his ideas and beliefs?

And, sneakily, you say BS is not the right word, but you don’t delete the it.

You call him extremely cerebral: Wel, you Tommy were extremely rude here. Personally, I’ll take extremely cerebral over extremely rude any time of the day or night.

anita

Dear Franco:

Part of my recent availability is that I have Covid since yesterday and can’t go out..

I like it that you place some humor into what happened, good thing! Humor is one way to regulate emotions. There is no way to make emotions go away, but there are ways to regulate them.

“even a friend of mine told me not to think about it because it doesn’t mean that girl thinks badly of me“- looking at a situation that you interpreted a certain way, and asking yourself: is there another way to interpret this situation? is part of emotion regulation (part of CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). It’s about seeking the correct, true interpretation of events instead of making assumptions.

Like I wrote to you before, maybe she likes shy guys, maybe her focus would be on your strengths, not on your weaknesses. I don’t know, but neither do you, unless you find out. We can talk more about this tomorrow.

anita