Dear takeflight:

I agree: what you are feeling is normal because the fuel for the little crush is in your big need to connect. You want to connect but you are afraid of being judged, that is rejected, criticized, disapproved.

You are carrying disapproval from your early years, as a child, I am assuming. You took in the disapproval you experienced as a child and you carry this disapproval (as I have) in your brain, like an audio recording. And when you hear something that was said to you or about you, you hear your recording above anything that is really being said.

Sometimes people do criticize you and sometimes they don’t but you incorrectly think that they did.

Everything that we see and hear goes through our brain, so everything we project, sometimes accurately and at other times inaccurately. The louder our own disapproval of ourselves, the more often we inaccurately project it, that is hear it when it is not said and see it where it is not meant.

Your strong need to connect is in conflict with your fear to connect.

I experienced this most of my life.

What do you think so far? Were you disapproved of, made to feel that your feelings are wrong, that you should not feel as you were feeling? were you criticized as a child?

Hope to get your reply.

anita