Dear Neil,

I had been reading what you had been talking to the page over the last few days. One thing kept coming to me as I kept reading your posts and that was pressure. A pressure on yourself, a repeated and continuous pressure;, an inability to forgive, an inability to let go of the past. Sample these

I want to be the person I want to be but I’ve reached a stage where I am totally spent and exhausted.

I want to be compared to the premier league dads and to earn that right, there’s a journey to travel

The big challenge then is to rationalise what we are feeling, identify why and as you said to me, forgive yourself. But how can you ever forgive yourself?

The expectation I had of myself was higher and in not living out the dream, much sadness and sabotaging emotion and feeling has ensued. I expected better of myself

I told myself that each day has to make a difference.

Each day where I don’t take action- no matter how fearful it is, is a day wasted.

I know I will have mountains to climb but if I want peace and inner fulfilment, well, it isn’t going to happen in this version of my life anyway

As Brandy has written, what you probably need is slow things down. When you talk to yourself like that, I feel that is setting yourself up for more disappointment. I believe acceptance is key. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself.

You sure have the means to do what you probably need

If we just observe ourselves and take a back seat and listen to how we feel, respond and then have the mindfulness and courage to explore that, we never stop growing.

Small steps and keep moving forward. We all have so much to be grateful for in this life and the secret is how we remain mindful and in tune with what we do have instead what we don’t

The person who did those things doesn’t exist, it was a version of ourselves in construction that did them and we weren’t complete yet so how inevitable is it that there’s going to be an adverse effect. If we drove a half built car and crashed it because we didn’t fit the brakes yet, we wouldn’t feel guilty- we’d identify the problem, fix it and move on.

Last thing. It is something that I read somewhere (can’t recall the source). None of these things are going to work unless you work, unless you persistently and consistently support yourself.

Take care.

Hope to read more from you.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Prash.