Dear Earth Angel:

I value your thinking, my goodness, you are a good thinker. And I appreciate your values.

Your questions for me today:

1. “How do I know which situations to defend myself in and which ones to avoid?”- if you are physically attacked, of course, defend yourself, run away from danger or fight the danger, whatever needs to be done. As far as people saying things that offend you: avoid the company of people who have already said things that offended you in the past (including the company of your parents, best you can). When you hear someone saying something offending to you, you can choose to leave or to confront them right there and then, depending on what is being said. For example, if someone expresses a general belief that women should not be outgoing, you might want to let it be and leave soon after because there is nothing you can do to change what people believe. On the other hand, if someone says to you: “Shirley, you should not speak your mind because you are a woman!”, better you say something like: “I will speak my mind, whether I am a woman or a man!” And walk away after that.

2. I am not clear about the question.

3. “How do I become more self reliant?” what specific self reliance are you referring to?

4. “How do I stop trying to get entangled in the views of others that will never change?”- Answer is in # 1 above.

“..and work on improving myself?”- keep attending the therapy you are attending. Keep the yoga and meditation routine, and the drafting of a schedule is a good idea too, as it does work for you.

5. “When I am in an argument .. how do I remove myself from the situation?”- I answered the second part of this question before, repeatedly. Regarding the first part- avoid arguments, it drains your energy and is not useful. Assert yourself and leave the situation whenever possible, don’t stay there for an argument, a back and forth verbal fight, that is.

6 & 7. “How do I know that my actions are not being influenced by the expectations/stereotypes imposed on me by others and the choices I make are my own?.. How do  I work on disengaging myself from the stereotypes and what’s truly me?”- you can make a list of all the expectations and stereotypes that you disagree with, that are not truly you. Then when you are considering a particular behavior, look at your list and evaluate your considered action: is it in line with any of the expectations/ stereotypes you listed?

You wrote next that your inner critic “must have resulted from always doubting myself”- I don’t think so. I think that your inner critic, like my inner critic, is a mental representative of your parents. When we are young children, there is no mental separation between the young child and the parent. The two are one mental unit. As the child grows, that parent/s in real life takes its place in our brain as that inner critic. I think that we doubt ourselves because of the inner critic overly zealous job of criticizing us.

My advice: notice the criticism and the distress it produces in you, when it happens, then counter the inner critic thought with a thought that is true to reality and relax best you can into the latter.

anita