One of the purpose of relationships is to create the space where we get to deal with our past hurts so that we can become. Your ahead of the game as you recognized that you will bring this into whatever relationship you’re in until you learned what you need to learn/heal.  As you are aware of this I have no doubt that you will end the cycle.  I found the book by David Ricco ‘How to be a Adult in Relationships’ very helpful as I had unrealistic expectations about relationship – impacted by past hurts that need to be healed.

You have to stop doing this to yourself. You have to break all contact and remove all reminders. Cold Turkey. There is no other way. If you continue to play the game you are choosing to lose.

If choosing to play the game is a authentic choice live it authentically without judgment or complaint you will soon learn what you need to learn from it and move forward. Its the wanting to stop but not wanting to stop that is keeping you stuck

You may also find the books and audio lectures by Clarissa Pinkola Estes helpful.
Her telling of the ‘Ugly duckling’ story has a great deal of insight into the problem you face of finding your home/tribe.

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door. Open the door of your pain and walk through.”

“All that you are seeking is also seeking you. If you lie still, sit still, it will find you. It has been waiting for you a long time.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estes

A Blessing
Refuse to fall down
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you from lifting your heart
toward heaven
only you.
It is in the middle of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening. – Clarissa Pinkola Estes

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Peter.

There are many levels to intelligence and emotional/self intelligence may be the most difficult to obtain and transform into wisdom especially when it comes to this thing we call Love

Choosing not to risk again does not make you unlovable. Its just a choice. There is a time for all things even a time to step back from relationships. Is it possible this choice of not letting anyone close enough to see your authentic self is causing as much pain as you feel when you close the door to its possibility. If so a step toward healing may be accepting that choice, for now, as a choice. No need for a facade, frustration or burning bridges, just time to create space to rediscover yourself.

I’m not sure why keeping up the facade is tied to the choice to keep others at a distance to protect yourself and I wonder what you might experience if you let all this thinking of facades go and just be you. You have nothing to lose if you are truly unlovable.

Its sounds to me anyway like you function like most normal people – as its normal is being insecure at times and put up facades. Normal to feel unlovable when things don’t go has w hoped. I hope you find a way to create some space to love yourself.

Everyone thinks/feels their suffering is unique, that they alone are alone in their suffering. All the lonely people where do they all come from. Everyone alone and unique and it is that which connects us all

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless. Gilbert K. Chesterton

To love means loving the unlovable – Its so easy to love when everything goes the way we want but that is not when we love. We experience and expresses love when things are happening that we don’t want.

Unlovable is only cognitive dissonance of a word not understood.  The pain that your experiencing isn’t about love or being unleavable but wanting to control life and the experience of love. Let it go and open yourself to the experiences that come your way.

Often not belonging is trying to fit in where our authentic self is not at home. Finding ones ‘Family’ is part of everyone’s experience – you are not alone.

Anyone who has ever been an ugly adolescent – and we are legion – knows that the feeling of being unlovely and unlovable never goes away; it is always there, lurking just beneath the surface. Ruth Reichl

“Unworthiness is the inmost frightening thought that you do not belong, no matter how much you want to belong, that you are an outsider and will always be an outsider. It is the idea that you are flawed and cannot be fixed. It is wanting to be loved and feeling unlovable, or wanting to love and feeling that you are not capable of loving.” Gary Zukav

Maybe you’ve decided you’re not a genius, that you’re not brilliant, that you’re not prosperous, that you’re not wonderful, that you’re not lovable. Well, you know what? You’re both: you’re unlovable and you are lovable. And they both need equal time. Debbie Ford

“My life looked good on paper – where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.” ― Martin Amis

You certainly have a challenging job and the frustration is understandable however my not be helpful.

I suspect if you think back to your student days you would remember how unlikely it was to seek out advice let alone listen to unsolicited help from an adult. Even if you were of the personality type that did listen it is likely you didn’t have the skill set to implement the advice in the moment. Change takes time then happens all at once and it can take years to learn how to deal with anxiety.

Take the above as an example. I could rationally explain to someone that is feeling frustration for advice that is not received as hoped is an unskillful practice. That this feeling of frustration is more about them then the students they are trying to help. If the person the are hoping to help senses the frustration they could feel at a subconsciously level that the problem had been highjacked (no longer about them) and stop listening. They may even feel anxiety about being the cause of that frustration.

Depending on your personality type you might hear the above advice negatively and so pay it no heed 🙂 (If you read on I hope to explain myself as I intend no offence). Even if the advice was heard learning to cultivate a skillful practice is going to take time

As a counselor, I think you must embrace the serenity prayer –  change the things you can change, accept the things you can’t and work on gaining the wisdom to know the difference.

You can’t change others but you can be the change you want to see. I know that might not sound like it applies but I think it does.

I loved watching the Dog Whisperer.  It amazed me that time and time again it was demonstrated that the dog’s behavior originated from the owners. That for the owners to get the change they wanted in their dogs they had to learn to become the change they hoped to see. If they were calm their dogs were more likely be calm. (kind of like the law of attraction).

The dog whisperer talked about being calm and assertive. (the assertive word got him in trouble with dog community which equated assertiveness with aggression but they miss-understood) So I would use calm and intentional.

At the heart of being calm and intention is the ability to listen and respond vice react in the moment.  I would bet that if someone cultivated the practice of being calm and intentional they would have greater influence with those they engaged with. I don’t think its advice that is going to change the situation but how you listen that will create space for change.

Another lesson I learned by watching the show was the problems with dog mind is that it becomes fixated on what it ‘fears’ and can’t look away. In such a state, often all that was required was a nudge on the leash to distract and create space to disengage from the ‘fear’ and see it for what it is. (almost always False Evidence Appearing Real)

I suspect a student experiencing anxiety is more likely to listen to a person that listens in a calm and intentional way and that “knows” when to nudge in order to create space for the student to disengage from the issue they are fixated on and find there own way out.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Peter.

I’m sorry to hear about your depression and hope you find a way to let go of the anger and disappointment your feeling.

My feeling is that as long as we continue to try to do better when we know better no lessons we learn from are wasted so no point beating ourselves up.  Its all just part of path that got us to where we are.

Though I have also left the Church, doing so has allowed me to know that the reality of every breath we take is a birth, betrayal, death and resurrection. Not a something that happens once at the end of life (or after life) but is every moment. I often wonder if Christ call to follow him was a call to make that truth conscious and being conscious able to say Yes to Life as it is, the good and the bad, and know that that is ok even ‘good’.  I found that when I can get there the tensions I feel about living by the rules, doing everything right, having the world work the way I want it to…. dissolves.

Anyway I wish you well and remember that religion and church are not the same as spiritually. Ending your connection to a church or creed does not end your connection to your spirit.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” ― Joseph Campbell