Dear Lily:

Visiting the forest reads good to me. How fortunate are the trees and the forest animals for not having an inner critic, aren’t they?! It takes a long time to shrink that overactive, insane inner critic. In the laundry room, your inner critic told you that because a stick broke off on one end of a laundry rack, you are a bad person- how insane is your inner critic!

I mean, there is no correlation between a stick getting broken and you being a good or bad person. It wasn’t on purpose, and more sticks will break because this is the nature of things made of sticks.

Because of your inner critic being so insane and vicious, better be mindful in your actions, pay attention and when the critic tells you something, challenge it, ask it: what is the evidence that I am a bad person? And if it says: you broke a stick on that rack! You say: it was not on purpose, sticks break, they are not strong, they naturally break with use.

When will you be moving out of the dormitory? When you live with your new roommates, remain friendly but minimize conversations and interactions (from my understanding they are too busy and uninterested in socializing). Pay attention to their behavior and copy it- they say “good morning”, you answer “good morning”. You see them the morning after, say “good morning”, don’t add: how are you? or “what are you cooking for breakfast?” or any such thing. Later, let’s say,  one asks you: how are you, answer: find, how are you?” If she answers, “fine”, conversation over. If she tells you more about how she feels, reciprocate next time when she asks you how you are, and tell her a bit more.

Copy their behavior this way, I see it as best for you to do so.

anita