Dear humour,

you’re very welcome.

the other things you mentioned are there I think. I don’t understand if the way I perceive myself is the way people perceive me or how I should behave at my age and so on.

If you grew up separately from your mother and had no interaction with her as a child, then one thing that was missing was the s0-called mirroring. The baby reaches out, and the parent responds to the baby’s gestures. Or the baby cries, and the parent soothes her. The baby smiles, and the parent smiles back. That’s called mirroring.

If there is no one there to mirror us (to respond to our signals, our communication), I think one of the consequences is that we don’t know ourselves. We don’t know how others perceive us because we weren’t “perceived” (seen and mirrored) properly by our parents or care-takers.

So if that’s what happened to you, you’d need mirroring. You would need someone to see you and respond to you. I think the best way to do it is within a therapeutic relationship because a good therapist is (among many other things) a safe mirror. So that you slowly get that feedback, i.e. response to the signals you give out…

Dear Addy,

thank you, I’ll try turmeric (just googled it, didn’t know about sleep-inducing properties of turmeric…)

I think Yes. and That’s why the shield because showing weakness meaning afraid of more attacks you know?

I see… your assumption here is that when you show weakness, you’ll be attacked. Although you said that when you did share some of your weaknesses and vulnerability, both of your girlfriends showed understanding for it. They didn’t attack you, condemn you or ridicule you.

But the problem is that your father did attack you and condemn you harshly for not performing a certain way, be it handing him the proper tool perfectly, or finishing proper school (one that he deems good and respectable enough). If you failed at any of his expectations, I guess you were judged for being “weak” in his eyes. Whereas your mother condemned you for being weak if you couldn’t control your anger. You were supposed to be “strong enough” (or “wise enough”) to take your father’s abuse silently.

So both of your parents condemned you for showing some form of weakness – whatever each of them deemed as weakness.

And so due to your childhood/youth programming, you adopted a false belief that showing weakness means opening a hunting season on yourself. Allowing others to attack you. While that’s not true at all… but it is true in your worldview, based on your childhood experience.

Can you see now how our childhood experience shapes our worldview, i.e. the narrative we live and operate in? To you, showing weakness means being attacked. And this is probably what prevents you from emotional intimacy…

I do worry about showing myself as a weak person. Because part of me doesn’t accept that I’m a weak person, The things I’ve been through the weaker person wouldn’t be able to pass that. I know I’m very resilient and strong about what I want.

You’re not a weak person – your parents gave you that message. They’ve convinced you that you are. And a part of you (your inner child) believes them. Another part fights against it. That’s the Protector, who says “you can’t hurt me, I’ll never admit that you’ve hurt me.”

You are indeed very resilient (you’ve lived on your own since you were 16 or 17, right?)… but regardless of that, a part of you (your wounded inner child) feels weak. And the Protector part will do anything in his power not to show it to anyone. The Protector part will do everything to appear strong and cool. That’s the part that often uses sarcasm…

On another hand If I do start the dating or relationship, I make sure fulfilling my responsibilities from my side. Giving proper attention, Communication, Planning and Spending time together.

Seems like you really want to be prepared for a “project” called relationship. You want to plan everything, so you wouldn’t fail and none of your weaknesses gets revealed, right? You want to pass it with flying colors…. But the thing is that if you plan too much, perhaps spontaneity is lost? If it’s a project, and you’re the project manager… what’s the role of your girlfriend? The one who goes along and fulfills the plan set by you? I am being provocative here on purpose, but do think about it….

I do have what you can say “Do not settle” mindset.

Yes, I understand… but I don’t think your reason for not settling is the fear of missing out. Because you said you’ve never approach the girl first – it’s always them who approached you. This tells me you’re not a butterfly, wandering from flower to flower, afraid to miss out… You might have been fine alone, had those girls not initiated a relationship with you.

That’s why I think your fear of settling and commitment is caused by what we’ve discussed above: your fear of showing weakness, i.e. being seen as weak.

Dear Dan,

good to hear from you! At the moment I am sick with covid and am struggling with some unwanted side-effects, like insomnia (and feeling pretty beaten during the day due to lack of sleep), although the respiratory symptoms are almost gone. I hope it goes back to normal…  Thanks a lot for inquiring!

 Nothing really has changed. I’m still sad about the whole thing and depressed most days.

I am sorry to hear that. Are you going to therapy? I think you would need as much support as possible. It would be great if you could surround yourself with supportive people, rather than isolating yourself and staying alone with your thoughts…. Do you have friends (or one good friend) whom you can talk to and confide in?

Dear Andypandy,

I am very sorry about your wounding and the resulting PTSD. It could be that PTSD (if you’re still suffering from it?) contributed to a very strong reaction of sadness and hopelessness after she left you. But from your last post, it seems you’re getting stronger and have resolved to get over it sooner than later.

I don’t know why I have been feeling this way and I think it is the way that she refused to communicate, never gave a reason and how she could walk away so easily after everything we had done together.

As anita said, she probably didn’t feel such a strong attachment to you as you felt to her, and that’s why it was easy for her to leave you. Ever since February 2021, up until your breakup, she was pretending to love you, while she was already involved with someone else. It shows her not too stellar character and selfish motives. But it seems you take her betrayal as a sign that something is wrong with you:

Not knowing why she chose someone else means I constantly feel unworthy and the fact it went on for so long makes me feel I was just used.

You feel unworthy – as if it’s your fault that she used you like that and betrayed you. It wasn’t your fault – no one deserves to be treated like that.

I think if you could accept that her betrayal is not your fault, and that it doesn’t tell anything about you and your worthiness, it might be easier to deal with it.

Dear Addy,

thank you for you empathy, I appreciate it.

Maybe yeah I guess… and also I felt like she’s just doing too much for me, So I didn’t felt it right and I felt pressured and after that I started to question myself if I really love her.. So that’s why

So yeah with my 1st girlfriend I wasn’t very vulnerable

Right… so it seems to me that she felt inferior in your relationship, specially since you’ve never or rarely shared about your own weaknesses and vulnerability. So you were the “perfect guy”, and she probably felt inadequate. She was trying to impress you, was doing things that you liked and was probably afraid to tell you that she doesn’t really enjoy those activities that much.

You say you also felt pressured because she did too much for you. So you had an impression that she is trying too much, trying to be someone else, not being authentic. I guess her reason was that she was afraid of rejection, so she tried to mold herself into something she isn’t, so you wouldn’t reject her.

But you’ve noticed that she’s not really enjoying the activities that you enjoy, but is only pretending. You’ve noticed that she’s not honest with you, that she’s faking it, and not being authentic. And you didn’t like that about her. So you stopped being attracted to her, and eventually left her. Does this roughly describe what happened?

with later two girlfriends yes.. but like after spending few months…

So you were more vulnerable with your later two girlfriends. You did share some of your “imperfections” and self-doubts. And how did they respond to that?

You said that you start feeling trapped very soon after the initial elation about the girl. So when you shared those weaknesses or yours, being authentic, several months into the relationship – at that point did you already start feeling trapped in the relationship?

Dear Lukas,

you’re very welcome, and thank you for your blessings. You are very kind!

I am already working on a business plan for exactly that, with the foundation being capitalistic – in a sense that its the base for the company to be healthy, to not write red numbers, but do not have it as an ultimate goal, which I currently feel like is the case with the company I am owning a big share of. I already communicated my intentions to sell everything off and start anew.

Good to hear that you’re already working on a new business model. So your plan is to sell your share in the company you’re owning together with your brother, and start alone?

About your brother, you wrote that you’ve changed your attitude towards him:

At the same time I tried to look deeply into my brothers existence and understand his suffering to gain compassion and understanding, both of these things helped me tremendously already. As a third practice I now ALWAYS hug my brother when I see him and listen to him thoroughly when we talk, to give as much attention as possible in order to not just practice on my cushion, but to also live what I try to practice.

That’s so sweet! To try to understand your brother and really listen to him, and have compassion for him. Do you still feel jealous at him sometimes? I am not asking this to judge you, just to check how things are now…

There is a book in german roughly translated to “Lead, shape, move: Values and wisdom for a globalised world” by the dalai lama on ethical business and it inspired me a lot, maybe you can find it as an English translation

I’ve looked it up and found an interview with Dalai Lama about ethical business. And the interview is on another really cool website, called bthechange dot com, if you want to check that one out as well.

Thank you so much for your kind words once again!

Dear Lukas,

I didn’t know that you too were successful financially because of this that you said earlier:

My Partner is way better off in the Deal financially, which is fine, He is the Real founder of the Company, He put in a lot of money, but it makes me angry and it makes me feel underappriciated, so i guess the Anger is fueld by my jealousy. Im jealous of him being better of and thus i can never “overtake” him in this regard and will always stay behind and He will be better of always, this makes me jealous.

But it seems that both you and your brother are successful, running a multi-million dollar company, with the difference that he is somewhat more successful, and a part of you is jealous of that.

Another part of you is blaming and judging your greed, because you say money doesn’t make you happy (“it doesn’t make me happy, there is no value in this“). This part doesn’t value outer accomplishments and wants to be humble and selfless:

I don’t really strive for outer accomplishments, most people call me very humble and this sometimes even confuses me more, that there indeed is greed in me

So I believe there is an inner conflict in you: on one hand you want achievement and success, on the other you’re judging yourself for it. And probably the judging part comes from your “Buddhist-like” parents, who were humble but were perhaps subtly judgmental towards “materialistic” people?

I feel like I have been making a lot of progress in letting go and at the same time accepting what is there, anger, greed, and ill will and I feel like its ok, its fine to be there

This is great development that you’re not judging your anger, greed and other “lesser” feelings any more, but simply observe them and let them be.

but at the same time I help it being transformed, or I try to

In order for those feelings to be really transformed, I think you’d need to address the possible underlying issues, such as the inner conflict I’ve mentioned. I think that striving for material success isn’t a bad thing in itself, but if you only strive for that, that’s when it becomes a problem.

There are many humble and selfless people who are also materially successful. Being humble and being rich doesn’t necessarily exclude each other. It seems to me that you might have adopted the belief that humble and rich doesn’t go together, which could be the cause of your inner conflict?

Dear Hello,

you are very welcome! I am so glad that our words helped you and strengthened your resolve to do the right thing: leave your controlling and manipulative husband. I wish you success in finding a new place for yourself and in the divorce process itself.

And I wish you too many blessings and Godspeed in your journey ahead!