Dear Anita,

That’s great, I’m glad this format works for you – it’s really helpful to quote your response and then talk about the thoughts that these bring up.

You can give her an example or two of judgments you are afraid of and hear how she responds – this is a very good idea. From the top of my head, I have visited my father a few times recently, and following his stroke and brain damage, he can become agressive with me, which triggers a lot of feelings from childhood. I notice that following these visits, I have a peak in anxiety and am hyperaware, I opened up to her about this and she was so comforting and supporting. Explaining that I am safe with her and to not be hard on myself for having these feelings. But I will of course take your advice and bring up specifically what we here have mentioned, that I would like to share more, but have a deep fear of it being rejected. Thank you.

express yourself authentically and in a contained way, so that you are true to yourself – very good advice, I feel I am being genuine, but I will try hard to notice when I am expressing myself, that I still being true to myself. I think this ties in with the above point as well, to be honest about how I am feeling.

I read from members who do sound this way, but you don’t, not to me – thank you Anita, it is nice to receive these words of confirmation from you.

I vote for you being a lot kinder to yourself – agreed 🙂 I’m not quite sure why I am so hard on myself sometimes, I envy those who can be completely comfortable with themselves and even love themselves.

Coldness and cruelty deserve judgment and criticism, not your wonderful longing for love – thank you again for this, I feel sometimes in this modern world, that there is a lot of stigma surrounding people who might be percieved as wanting love etc, like this might be seen as weakness. But you are right, it is a lovely thing to be passionate about love and connection.

As another thought, Kate and I had a nice weekend, but she unfortunately had an anxious moment when we were out with friends, I think the empath in me noticed it almost straight away without prompting, and I made every effort to comfort and support her. She was so thankful and since then, she has talked about how safe she feels with me and how amazing I was with her. I just feel that seeing that worry or fear in someone I care about, I have the strongest urge to make sure they feel safe, supporting and not alone.

Dave