Dear Anita,

“– there is an old, strong core emotional experience within you: feeling alone and disconnected, as in I am alone, there’s no one with me/ for me, no love for me. This core experience makes you intolerant of normal fluctuations in the level of emotional connection with the people in your life. It is as if you expect the same level of connection at al times, an unrealistic expectation born out of the core experience I mentioned in this paragraph. You emotionally overreact to normal disconnections by feeling acutely alone/ disconnected (lonely).”

• “there is an old, strong core emotional experience within you: feeling alone and disconnected, as in I am alone, there’s no one with me/ for me, no love for me.” -I can see this. In anxious states my go to is “I am alone.” In a lower vibrational state I feel loneliness in a negative way, but in the past months of trying to find wholeness within myself, reading/hearing that “I am alone” doesn’t scare me. I am alone but I have me, and when I am in my higher vibrations I am content with this. Before I met N, I lived alone for 2 years, it was hard but I did get to a place with being okay alone. My relationship with N, through me off, but I feel like I am finally reaching that place again. Not sure if this is the whole solution to this deep core experience, but it feels better than the loneliness I felt in the relationship.
• “This core experience makes you intolerant of normal fluctuations in the level of emotional connection with the people in your life” – I don’t like the word “intolerant” because it makes me feel like it is impossible, but I know that is not what you meant. I would call it “very sensitive of normal fluctuations ….”
• “It is as if you expect the same level of connection at al times, an unrealistic expectation born out of the core experience I mentioned in this paragraph.” -I see that I have expected this, and that at a lower vibration I do expect this. But I do know it is unreasonable. When I wrote “But something interesting I’ve noticed is that these soulmates can sometimes be distracted with other things and lead me to not feeling that connection at times,” I was saying I acknowledge there is not always a connection, but that I have the ability to see it. I saw it last night with my roommate, but that does not make me doubt my connection to her in general. What was so disappointing in the relationship with N was how often this disconnect was, it was becoming the majority of our relationship, just as it is a big proportion of my relationship with F. I see him disconnected but I feel I am becoming more and more just ok with it.
• “You emotionally overreact to normal disconnections by feeling acutely alone/ disconnected (lonely).” – I am being careful to tell the difference between sharing my truth here and not be defensive. I am not offended I appreciate it all but I also want to honor who I believe I am. I have done this 100%, and probably still will until I release something that I am holding onto in my heart, but I do not believe I am always this way. Although, This was very present in my relationship with N, obviously. Why it was triggered with him is definitely something to explore, although like I mentioned before, the ratio of connecting to him versus not, was definitely out of balance.

“but it is also true that your expectation to be 100% connected with another person at al times in all ways is very unrealistic, and no boyfriend/ no person can fit the bill.”

• I agree. I try to use connecting with others in the world to fill a hole deep inside about feeling connected. I know there is nothing outside of me that can make me feel whole/connected and that needs to come from within, but how? I believe I am moving in the right direction but sometimes this retroactive awareness feels like a big lag. I want to say it is to feel connected to myself.. but then that raises the question Do I not feel connected to myself?, I have not considered this and it isn’t raising any current emotions or thoughts.

“This craving for 100% alignment/ connection at all times is born out of that core experience of acute loneliness.”

• I wrote the above before reading this. Loneliness is the problem so feeling connected to myself is the answer?

“– I believe that these thoughts are coming from the core experience I mentioned above, that of acute and prolonged childhood/ adolescent lack of needed connection aka loneliness. Dancing you felt connected to those you danced with, then suddenly, you were afraid to lose the connection.”

• A lack of needed connection from where? in childhood it makes sense this would be my parents, but as an adolescent… You know what, this makes me think of my dads restrictions on spending time with my friends. They would all be hanging out and invite me, I would want to go and my dad would say no you already hungout with them this week, or he would make me come home much earlier than the rest of them. Because I wasn’t allowed to go to so many events, I stopped getting invited. I then started to sneak out to go hiking with my friends or whatever, and I would then get grounded and miss out on seeing friends for weeks. It also doesn’t help that I was homeschooled and in a private christian school for 4 years, 4th grade-half way through 7th grade I was thrown back in to public school, where my friends were. I wasn’t allowed to watch the popular shows my friends did and that created a loneliness, my friends didn’t understand my humor (realizing the connection to N here) since I had humor from my church ok’d tv shows that public school kids did not understand.
• At least My after school club soccer team was a good place for me to be social. Although I wasn’t allowed to hangout with all the girls and depending on the friend I had limits of time with them. I also had to call and ask my parents whenever we were gonna watch a movie and 7/10 times they said I couldn’t watch it, it was so embarrassing. It was lonely…
• This brings me to a current realization that my roommate actually helped me see. She has really good male role models in her life, her dad is emotionally open with her and did a good job teaching his son to respect his mother and sisters. She has many male friends who are good friends, to which I have none. I realized I lack truly healthy male figures in my life, which makes the way I interact with men unhealthy. My dad told me men were for dating only, causing me to date friends in highschool and after, friends that could have just stayed friends but I thought that was the only way to keep them in my life. And my mom was obsessed with male attention, from dads on my soccer team to my own personal friends in middle/highschool that came over. I have realized I care so much about how men see me, and I think this bled into my relationship with N as well, now that I think about it. My desire for compliments… To be fair he really did not give me much to work with and to my credit I was secure enough to not need comments from him for a long time before it started to bother me. I have never really had a male figure in my life believe in me or have my back. This lack of positive male energy makes me hyper aware about what men, specifically, think about me. This is a working observation I don’t know how is fully affecting my behaviors but I know it must be.

“Connected, you have a good time; disconnected, you have a (very) bad time.”

• This reminds me of times when I have avoided certain parties or environments with people I didn’t connect with. Sitting to lunch with someone I cam connecting with makes a good time, but yes sitting at lunch with someone I don’t connect with is very energy consuming for me… the small talk and pointless chatter, what is the point of that.

“Within your core experience of loneliness there is a belief that you are responsible to connections coming to an end”

• Ooh this is very interesting. It feels like a weight off my shoulders to say it is not my fault. But I also know that it is not, with N I knew it was him disconnecting from me. But there are times I definitely blame myself.

“No, N is not the most genuine, loving, caring man (we’ve discussed it and you agreed: he’s chronically numb, partly or to a large extent because of his chronic consumption of weed.. which makes him numbly-patient), and no man can be what you need him to be, so this entire debate is likely to reoccur in future relationships.”

• I am feeling the impulse to stay positive after reading that you wrote “this entire debate is likely to reoccur in future relationships.”  The reason I don’t think it will is because I am on a trajectory of working to feel whole within myself and not seek a partner to fill the hole. Something I was not aware of before N. I have learned that if I don’t do the work to process past pain, then my pain will decide my future and that would be the entire debate reoccurring. I don’t want a partner to “be what [I] need him to be,” because I don’t want to seek a partner out of needing. I am happy to be alone for as long as it takes to be whole enough inside to attract a partner who is the same. Two whole people.

“(1) A very cold version of your father (F)= a harsh disconnect. (2) You have experienced panic attacks following past disconnects, and you were alone in those.”

• F was certainly a reason I feel disconnected. When you say “you were alone in those” do you mean I was alone in the panic attack?

“But what happened was that about the time you started to physically develop into a woman (still a girl), he projected your cheating mother into you and treated you accordingly. By projecting a cheating woman into his 13 year-old daughter, he created a huge disconnect within you, a disconnect from your own self. For how can you be you when he placed the image of another person (your mother) into the mental space that you need to occupy.. so to be you?”

• I really appreciate the time you took to formulate this analysis Anita.

“There’s a lot more healing that can take place in regard to this core experience, and it’s an exciting prospect, in my mind. How do you feel about it?”

• I think it is exciting as well. The bees knees lol. Interesting how closely related my desire to be seen, needing to see myself, see hatch, and then needing to feel connected to myself. It makes me feel we are really getting to my “core experience” and therefore approaching the solution 🙂
• I want to feel connected to myself, and I do think I am on the path to doing this. I clearly want it and think my constant curiosity about myself shows me that I am trying. I feel more connected to myself when…. this is a good journaling prompt.  I feel this after I finish a piece of art and see what literally came out of me onto canvas. I feel this when who I feel I am, aligns with what others say… this one seems dangerous because it relies on others. I feel this when I acknowledge hatch.

Pondering Seaturtle