Hi Seaturtle

Happy Birthday btw! 🎂🎈🎁🎉 I hope you have a really good party. It sounds amazing! 😊

I think sometimes upbringing and societal expectations can make people uncomfortable with relaxing. I know that it used to make me feel that way. Relaxing is really important though. Perhaps you could experiment with different things and see what you like best? I learned that usually whatever I choose to do, is usually what I want to do in that moment. I found it helpful to make peace with that. There is 100% nothing wrong with watching a movie.

But if you would like to do something productive to fill some time, reflect on your interests and core values. I’m sure that you will be able to come up with some ideas. I found it helpful to have a list of ideas of things to do for when I get bored.

How did your parents handle it when you or they were bored?

I think wanting negativity to leave your body is part of letting go. It’s important for grounding yourself, but I guess tempering that with patience and self compassion is important. If you were bullying yourself for not being able to move on quickly for example. That could be another example of false self because our inner critic picks up patterns from other people. It can be difficult to let go of things.

There can also be compulsions to ruminate on things that hurt us. In psychology there is an idea that people are drawn to what is normal for them. So for kids who are abused, their state of “normality” is abuse. These once children, now adults can go on to psychologically abuse themselves to maintain a state of “normality” once they have been removed from an abusive situation. I don’t know if that makes any sense? It is possible to change these patterns and it involves a lot of relaxation techniques, practising healthy boundaries, communication and self-compassion.

It is difficult to say because it varies from person to person, situation to situation. Any confrontation even polite, if the person isn’t receptive might not help. But it can be worth it if it involves setting a boundary that is healthy for ourselves. It really is down to you to decide what is best.

I will add that the person who I change the topic of conversation with isn’t receptive to discussing these things and has severe depression. I just repeatedly change the topic of conversation over and over otherwise we would be talking about what is depressing them the whole time.

When there are other people it’s easier because I can just talk to someone else when I’m mentally checked out.

Another good one when you are interrupted is, interrupting back and say “Sorry I was actually saying…” and continuing on with what I was talking about. In my culture, in groups people are often talking over each other, so it’s quite loud and tends to be lots of people talking over each other. No one says sorry at that point, but no harm is meant. 😂

Everyone has their personal choices. I think if you try and help someone and they don’t have good boundaries it can set the tone for that being the entire relationship. I prefer friendships to be two sided as opposed to one sided. It’s very difficult to change things once that has happened. It can be painful to not receive support from a friend. If someone has good boundaries it’s easier because you help each other and it’s not one sided.

Wishing you all the best! ❤️🙏