Dear Noor:

I am thrilled to read from you. I too wanted to let you know right away. I want to re-read some of our past communication and reply further, soon enough.

anita

Dear Laelithia:

I would like to reply to your post of Feb 21 (which you addressed to me, and which I didn’t answer), and to learn about the new developments in your life, but I don’t know if you are still following the activity on your thread/ the forums, it being that your last post is almost 7 months old. Please let me know?!

anita

Dear Lisa:

Thank you so much for your kind words. I don’t know if you are following the activity on your thread, more than five months since your last post here. If you are reading this and would like to communicate further, please let me know.

anita

Dear Javairia:

Thank you for the message above! If you’d like to talk further, please let me know if you are reading this (I don’t know if you are still following the activity on your thread/ in the forums).

anita

Dear Noor:

Thank you for your good wishes and love. I would like to reply in detail to your recent post, but I need to know if you are still following the activity on your thread, it being that your post above has been unanswered for a month a half. Please let me know if you are reading this and I will reply further.

anita

Dear Arden:

You shared that you have a friend who’s been helping you a lot in the last month in the process of moving to a new flat. You love and trust this friend 100 percent, and her help is making your life easier. But you feel annoyed and resentful toward her for organizing your belongings the way she sees fit, for being overinvolved in your life, for commenting on how you should furnish your new flat, how you should clean it, etc. You want to have your “own time, alone without her visiting all the time“, your “own space”.

You are questioning whether you are a good person for feeling this way about a friend who is helping you as much as she does, and you are wondering if you feel this way toward her because you fear that you “would never be able to pay her back“, even though you are prepared to have her stay with you in your new flat in the future, if she will need such help.

Did I understand your situation correctly?

anita

Dear Positivitea:

You are welcome. Whenever you make a mistake, remind yourself that everyone makes mistakes, correct what you need to correct, and let go of guilt,  don’t allow it to linger. Switch to empathy for the person who is trying so hard and is doing her best (you!)

anita

Dear Caroline:

A good mother would want and encourage her daughter to become capable and reasonably-powerful in life. I am sorry, Caroline, that your mother- like mine and so many others’- belongs to the bad-mother club.

“Last week she asked me whether I work for American managers. I said yes, those are my managers. I saw something weird in her eyes.. admire perhaps, but different, mixed with.. envy, I think. Immediately she changed subject like she got scared of her own thoughts or.. getting deeper into the subject. But I don’t understand. She would like to brag about my success, money etc. in front of other people. But she’s afraid of it somehow“- Best I can figure is that (1) she likes to brag about herself (as a mother, in this case) for producing a professionally/ monetarily successful daughter. Her bragging is not about her appreciating you. It is about seeking the appreciation of the people she is bragging to, wanting them to think highly of her.

(2) What you saw in her eyes is impossible for me to know, of course Maybe she was thinking something like: I wish I could work for American managers (having images in her mind of herself working for American managers, maybe images taken from a movie or a television program), followed by her thinking something like: but I am too old/ unqualified to work for American managers, followed by: Caroline is young and qualified, followed by envy, followed by… some thought that scared her..

When angry at you in the past, or still: what does she say or do to you?

anita