Hang in there, keep doing what you’re doing and don’t give up.

Rejections are inevitable in life. You can let them crush you and go into a suicidal rut, or you can step up, roll with the punches and use them to spur you into creating even cooler stuff and finding even more amazing opportunities.

There’s nothing to “do” except keep showing up, keep your head up, and stay in as resourceful a frame of mind as you can. If there is any improvement to be made in job interview technique etc., it’s not going to be learned by victim-like, depressive thinking. This time in a few years you may be very pleased you hanged on in there and didn’t let the rejections knock you down. 😀

It is amazing how a few hours can make things seem different. I guess perspective is everything sometimes. I sincerely appreciate your insights.

Absolutely. They are your insights – and the insight that perspective is everything is a huge one.

I hope to have the courage to bring all of this up with him and more importantly the strength to walk away if this relationship does not end up being one that can meet my needs of the open expression we have been discussing.

Do you hope to have the courage and the strength … or are you going to have the courage and the strength? And … what needs to happen in order for you to have the courage and the strength like that?

People are not psychic and he is not going to magically change his ways because you wish he would.

Furthermore wishing he were doing something different but not telling him what it is is just going to create stress for you.

There’s no reason why he “should” be doing anything. You can talk about the kind of relationship you want to create though.

An alternative to discussing what you want to create with him is going first. Verbalizing your feelings and see if he reciprocates. But only by talking to him about this are you actually going to get anywhere, because expecting him to do something without letting him know what it is just does not make sense.

This paragraph may relate to your situation, it may not, but just in case: Do you actually love yourself? Are you ok with or without his love? Here’s the thing: you want him to verbalize how much he loves you. Is this so you feel good about yourself – if so, how about you work on no longer needing his expressions of love to validate your sense of self, and become independently worthy, without needing him to keep reaffirming the way he feels about you. The reason I say this is because any good feelings you get from him telling you how much he loves you are created by your own thinking anyway. You can prove this very easily: every time somebody says they love you, they may well be lying, but if you believe them you’ll still feel good. Equally somebody could say they love you and mean it and you not believe them, in which case you won’t feel good. Therefore, the only thing that is creating these good feelings for you when somebody says they love you, is the THOUGHT in your mind that they love you, which could mean in your mind that you are OK, or they are acting the way they “should”, or whatever. If you think through what you’ve just read, you’ll quickly come to realize only thoughts can create this feeling for you, not what somebody else actually feels, thinks or says, which means believing you need somebody to keep telling you that they love you, so that you can keep building up your sense of self through their validation, is a potentially pointless and dangerous exercise.

Either way, stop expecting him to be doing things and not letting him know what they are, in fact stop expecting things full stop, it is a complete waste of energy and will make you unhappy. Instead, think about what kind of relationship you want to create with him, let him know what that is and whether he’s willing to do that with you, if not then maybe this isn’t the relationship for you, if so then sounds like you’ve got a better deal than you did when you were wanting other people to change and unwilling to change yourself. Instead of trying to change everybody else, have a think about changing the way you see things and do things yourself! 😮

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by Rock Banana.

Where are you based? The social scenes are different depending on where you are but something that I recommend is going to groups designed for specific things. For example, you could go to a dance class, or a tai chi class, or a meetup of people who like to play board games together. If you’re religious attending a church or religious community – or if you’re not religious maybe even a secular Sunday meetup with communal aims – can be a great one. Become more of a social butterfly, talk to strangers wherever you go and be keen to make strong contacts with people.

You are never screwed when it comes to making friends. The opposite. The time to start is now. Get going. Your real friends could start out being strangers in just about any context, and the more connecting you are willing to do, the easier it’ll be for you to have those real friends.

Take up meditation.

Your choice to acknowledge your reality as a human being in development, is cool. When it comes from a place of acceptance of who you are, that’s when it’s truly powerful – and who you are is NOT your thoughts, or who you ‘think’ you are. Who you are is simply the observer of the experience you are having in this moment. The observer of thoughts, the observer of experiences. The space behind and around the thoughts and ideas and concepts. That’s who you are.

Go ahead – shift thought systems, realize ambitions, choose who you want to ‘be’ in the sense of the energy, perspectives, introspection, practices, etc. that you bring to life. But if you do all of that from a place of the idea you lacking something, then it’s not going to be as enjoyable an experience as when you wake up to the fact that you ARE perfect ‘now’, in the sense there’s nothing “wrong” with you. Of course perfection is just a concept, but so is “wrong”, so is “lacking”, so is “not good enough”, and the fact is, when you accept reality for what it is, then of course you have achieved the peace, fulfillment + “perfection” you are looking for, albeit not conceptually.

So why do the transformation, the development, the practices? Because you enjoy it. To align yourself even more closely with the way of ‘being’ in the world that you want to ‘be’. But not because your happiness or sense of self depend on it – when you make the choice for your happiness and sense of “who you are” to be separate from the internal mental shifts and developments you are making, that’s when those activities will be TRULY fulfilling.

I really hope that makes sense – it’s difficult to explain without it seeming contradictory, I think. But I’m trying to express two different ways of relating to reality. Hope you got at least some of it!

It’s not about thinking your way out of suffering, it’s to realize that thoughts create suffering and not to take them so seriously. If you’re already figuring that out and discovering that on some level, then cool! The thought disputing elements are just there to address recurring beliefs, the idea being that when you stop believing the thought to be ‘true’ it won’t keep asserting itself in your attention. Anyway glad you’ve got stuff that’s working for you Moon.