I’m glad to hear that you feel comforted by the messages you receive. 😊

You can change being judgemental towards yourself and others, by practising giving yourself and others a little credit. It is not all of the time you see. It is not always easy to read such truths about yourself. But you have handled it with kindness. Another credit to you!

It is not your fault. These things tend to start in childhood. Anita shared from your old thread that you had a difficult childhood. I’m sure you know that children are like sponges and the environment they grow up in is really important for their development in so many ways. The voices of our parents tend to get mixed in with everything else and become part of our thoughts. This is why spending time with good people is so important. Everyone rubs off on us. We need to replace those old unhealthy messages from difficult times with good healthy messages.

Neuroplasticity is really helpful that way. We can train our minds slowly over time to think in certain ways if we practice regularly.

I’m sorry to hear that you are in pain up to your eyeballs every day. That must be really hard, especially when you have a physical job. It may interested you to know that there are links between anxiety and pain. Pain makes us more anxious and anxiety increases pain sensitivity. Yoga sounds like a very good choice to practice as it manages both pain and anxiety. I wish you good luck with it! I’m glad that you are making an effort to rest when you get back from work. It really is essential. ❤️

I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed a wonderful life raising your family. It does sound hard with one leaving home and the other one not far behind. Them not needing you as much anymore. And teenagers have famously awful moods. Have you been dealing with difficulties like this?

When it comes to your family, what does the catastrophising tell you?

This period doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You get some much needed time to yourself again. Some of which you can explore with your wife, I have heard people say it’s like getting to know each other again. I almost feel like after having children that you have to act in certain ways for the children because they pick up so much. I feel like it could be easy to lose sight of yourself and each other doing that over time.

My sister is a very passionate person too. I enjoy that trait in people! The difficulty is that no one can fix another person. They have to learn how to fix themselves. This is why changing our own beliefs about things that hold us back is so important.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏