Dear Robi:

Good to read again from you, as always!

“I guess things are hardly ever the way we expect them to be“- for as long as we keep expecting what is unrealistic to expect, lol.

“I’m now writing from a cafe in the centre of Warsaw”– sounds exotic, I’ve never been there, wanted to.

“I came here on Friday to spend the Easter holidays with my girlfriend. What a fast month this has been.. such contrast being again back here… This is great though! I stepped out of my comfort zone and again realised there isn’t much to be worried about. Actually, there’s nothing to be worried about. The only truly worrying situation was the one I was in – not taking action and not fully trusting myself. Almost sounds like a cliché – a bumper sticker I might one day stick to the bottom of my car“- not a cliche to me. I do wish you copied some of this into a plaque to put on the wall, or if small enough, to carry with you wherever you go.

“I understand why I wouldn’t trust myself… Now in my 30’s I see this version collapsing. Finally!“- C o N g R a T u L a T i O n S,   Robi!

“Now, there are a few issues“- of course, there always are, sooner or later (nice to have breaks from issue though).

“Growing is great! I feel empowered and I seem to deal with my work life a lot better than I did before!…  The thing is.. I don’t really like being an English teacher. I think I like teaching… I just don’t like teaching English… I feel like I’m working for peanuts… I jumped from being so anxious to feeling undervalued… I’m not going to quit my job.. but I’m now thinking of better options. There’s something burning inside of me! There’s a part of me that keeps telling me I can do a lot better and I want to listen to my inner voice… here I am now introspecting and writing it down. I needed this so much. I needed to zoom out but also zoom in. Now I feel like I want to learn more about honouring my authentic self… I feel like I need to expand more… I haven’t yet found my own way of expression – my voice, my fingerprint / the way I show up in the world“- Empowered, you want more of it, more power. The feeling of power-within is intoxicating, isn’t it? And then, from that feeling of personal power, envisioning how much greater life can be. . you underestimate how great it already is. The here-and-now seems inferior when you imagine greater things.

Please do listen and honor your authentic self and keep that something-inside of you burning, but turn the fire down so that you don’t get consumed in it. Don’t get carried away with the feeling of power. Keep yourself grounded in reality. And do look for better paying, less exhausting, more meaningful (for you) options.

“Luckily,  I know a few things… I want to have my own way of doing things… I’ve recently heard someone say: ‘In modern society the opposite of courage isn’t cowardness, but conformity’ – this really resonated with me. I guess I’m that kind of guy.. who doesn’t want to join the masses – I don’t feel like having some meaningless job… I want to be again in tune with my inner child and with the desire and vision I know I once had…“- your inner child is excited, empowered and hopeful, and he needs Robi-the-adult’s guidance. Robi-the-adult needs to pace the child-within, to teach him to have his own way of doing things.. in realistic, reasonable ways.

No adult can get to a place of non-conformity without conforming in some ways. It is not one or the other. Dare to conform where and when needed, dare to not conform when it’s possible! And it is possible for you to not conform in someways, every day. Take advantage of these every day opportunities. No such opportunity is too small to bother with!

“Thank you so much for giving me this space! Sending you a big hug Robi“- you are very welcome, thank you for coming back here, and a big virtual hug back to you! Take care of yourself, be good to your girlfriend and to yourself!

anita

Dear Robi:

“I’ve started a new second job here in Alicante – in a beach bar…“- reads like fun, great environment!

“Is the grass always that much greener?“- it used to be that way for me, but I am finally living where I like to live, and I don’t care- at all- to go anywhere else, not even for a visit. I used to live by the beach for decades and didn’t feel at home there. Now I live in the woods, and the grass is literally greener here than anywhere else, lol.

“Now, I’m here in Alicante having 2 jobs but feeling lonely“- as adults, we re-live the emotional experience of difficult childhoods. As a child you were lonely=> as an adult you are lonely (until you change within, heal enough).

“I don’t need those parties and the alcohol to cover my wounds anymore, therefore I’ve ‘lost’ most of my friends (or drinking buddies ) too“- congratulations for losing your drinking buddies..! Looking at the title of your thread, you are indeed growing up!

“I live in Alicante with a friend of mine in a room I don’t like and I feel lonely. I miss my girlfriend… I feel a bit trapped to be honest.. trapped in a cage I myself created… And.. did I say friend? I’m not even sure about this anymore…”– you have to find friends in Alicante, true friends who don’t regularly drink.. Maybe in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), if such exist there?

“Now.. I’ve recently started this new job. It’s actually pretty nice… Still I have doubts. I am not sure I want to stay here. Part of me feels like I’m forcing myself to stay here – like I’m making my life harder. Honestly here I don’t seem to yet find more clarity. Very often I’d like to go back to Warsaw. Being away from my woman hurts.. She’s been here for a few days visiting me last week and she’ll be back in 4 weeks…“- she visits you quite frequently. What does she say about your dilemma (whether to stay in Alicante or move back to Warsaw)?

Here’s an idea: commit to stay where you are for the rest of 2024, and don’t spend any time seriously considering leaving for the rest of this year. Put off the considering to Jan 2025.

“There isn’t much communication with my parents anymore“- that’s not a bad thing. A good thing.

“While I was living in Warsaw I wanted to move here. Maybe I thought it would be easier for her to come over here and now realising that might take a long time… it hit me. Don’t get me wrong. There are good things. I feel like I’m growing and doing a lot of work on the inside…  I’ve grown a lot”- the term growing pains come to mind. Endure it and focus on the positives, every day.

“Take good care Anita, I hope you too are doing fine and all is good there where you are!“- thank you, Robi. I am fine.. and so are you, you are doing very well. Take good care of yourself, Robi!

anita

Dear Robi:

“With no exception, every time I’m heading there ( before the classes) I get a slight headache – which gets worse during my classes. This doesn’t happen when I work in the bar – although I’m basically in the sun for 8 hours running jumping around like Rocky Balboa“- teaching causes you anxiety which causes the headaches, I figure. Working the bar suits you much better.

“My girlfriend would like me to go back to Warsaw.. although she prefers not to say anything – she always encourages me to do as I feel“- a wonderful girlfriend!

“She’s running her own business there and lately it started getting better and better so leaving her business there and coming here doesn’t seem like the right thing to do“- I agree.

“These last days I’ve been applying for all kinds of jobs in Warsaw…  Let’s see if there will be any offers – then maybe I can weigh things and see what makes more sense“- yes, see what makes more sense depending on what work becomes available for you. If you find a good job that you can do in Warsaw, living close to, or with your girlfriend.. that reads logical and sensible to me.

“Very often after 3 or even 2 hours of teaching I get so tired that I just don’t have the resources. Whenever I have those headaches I feel like my body is telling me something“- your body doesn’t like teaching!

“Anyways, gotta go now – put my polo shirt on and look like a teacher“- I am visualizing Robi in a polo shirt and a headache.. I hope not. Rest well after the teaching!

anita

Dear Robi:

“My girlfriend recently said to me – ‘You are reliving an old postcard’“- I never read/ heard this saying, reliving an old postcard. I am positively impressed by your girlfriend!

“Now.. I woke up this morning with these thoughts. Pretty interesting thoughts I’ve had for some time now“- I am looking forward to reading your thoughts submitted 5 hours ago, all the way from Spain, at 12:18 pm local time:

“1) The mask I created a long time ago… to fool others I’m not shy, afraid and anxious. I was operating from a place of  very low self esteem. I had very low self worth…”-

– very insightful, Robbi, and your ability to understand it all so accurately tells me that you currently possess enough self-worth to be able to understand it all so accurately.

“Some of the old coping mechanisms (sitting in front of the computer playing games, watching all kinds of stuff ) have been replaced by smoking weed, going out partying, getting drunk and socialising…. operating still from the level of my mask. I was again, too scared to be myself fully… The mask started dissolving quite a while ago and speeded up the moment I met my girlfriend“- this is what crossed my mind before reading this part: that your attachment to your girlfriend is and has been a positive, healing attachment, hence the increased self-esteem and dissolving of the mask.

“I met my girlfriend and moved to Poland in 2021. There I gradually found a different version of myself – a more accepting self. I finally understood I’m okay the way I am and I don’t need to impress anyone“- here it is, right here: an increased self-esteem.

“Of course at times there were battles between ‘the old and the new’,  battles I still have now“- Of course, as always, mental-emotional healing/ improvement is a back and forth process where overall, and over time, you make significant progress.

“I know I’ve changed a lot – I feel like I woke up, I found my wounds, uncovered them, addressed them as much as I was able, confronted my family about the traumas I still carry with me today… “- your significant healing/ improvement is evident in the accuracy of your chosen words. This is all a pleasure for me to read!

“NOW. I feel like Alicante has been feeding the mask. Now I feel like it doesn’t quite feed who I am today… I feel lonely, away from my girlfriend, away from my family, not having friends and not really enjoying my postcard“- I am visualizing the Alicante postcard and I see.. there in that corner, a young man wearing a polo shirt and a mask. Is that you, Robi, underneath that mask?

“2) Missing, Feeling but disconnecting after a while.  I’ve experienced this for the last 2 and a half years since I met my girlfriend. I would feel close to her when we are together…  right before her or me leaving I would feel very sad… For a few days, I would miss her, I would feel connected to her.  A few days would pass and I would start disconnecting from her. I wouldn’t even feel like I wanted to talk to her and often my first impulse would be to ignore her messages – I would be almost annoyed by her contacting me. At times I would think of other women too.. although I’ve never tried anything and never really wanted to. When we meet again, it takes me a little time to ‘adjust’. I would be a little distant at first, maybe for a few hours or a day.. but then slowly I would get back into my ‘caring and loving mode’…. What do you think about this? I don’t know what to make of it. First thing that comes to my mind would be maybe something connected to my mother? Maybe something connected to abandonment?… Why do I disconnect like this? Am I protecting myself from getting hurt? Am I trying to protect myself from missing someone?”-

-you disconnect like this so to reduce your anxiety (separation anxiety, to be exact). It is an instinctual choice made by your brain-body, an automatic choice, a dissociation choice. It is natural and understandable: when away from your girlfriend, you are anxious about the possibility that you’ll never see her again, that the physical separation from her is permanent. This anxiety alarms your brain for a few days, and your brain shakes the anxiety off of it, so to speak, by dissociating, by not caring anymore.

The not caring not loving calm mode is much preferrable (and understandably so) to the caring loving anxious mode.

Once you dissociates and adopt the not caring not loving calm mode, you don’t want to talk to her and to take her messages because you (understandably) do not want your calm disturbed. At times, you think of other women, while you feel disconnected from your girlfriend, because .. you don’t feel connected to her. Again, it’s understandable.

When you understand the logic of all this, how instinctual it is (a choice made by the species you are born as: a social mammal, a human), and not a matter of your individual personal choice, you can see that it all happens because you love her.

“My mother used to take me to kindergarten every morning…”–

health line/ separation anxiety in adults vs children: “Symptoms of anxiety disorder in children and adults are similar. For children, separation anxiety is often associated with extreme fear or anxiety about being away from parents or caregivers. That can make a child less willing to participate in events or social experiences, like spending the night at a friend’s house or going to summer sleepaway camp. For adults, the anxiety is around being away from children or spouses”

anita

Dear Robi:

You are very welcome and thank you for your appreciation and grace (genuine grace, not a mask!)

Yes, seems like teaching is not working for you any more than a headache is working for you. Maybe it will change one day: another kind of teaching, a diferent situation, but for now, it is what it is (a headache).

anita

Dear Robi:

“It’s soo hot already.. the only reasonable time to train is either early morning or evening“-  the high today in Alicante was 28 degrees Celsius; tomorrow: 27. Humidity: 57%. (Temperature in Warsaw: 20 degrees Celsius, humidity: 28%)

“There are some news however! On Saturday the manager of that beach bar told me we won’t cooperate anymore… I will be left without the school job as well, next month“- no reason to stay in Alicante!

“On Monday..  my body felt like it’s been hit by a train – horrible headache and very dense mental fog… I was still in a pretty bad state when a friend called me and told him about wanting to leave Alicante, and how I really felt here.. Next thing you know, I felt like I just woke up in the morning full of energy“- your bod says: get me out of Alicante!

“I’m thinking maybe my body is showing me this job isn’t for me. Now.. finding out yesterday that I’ll be left without classes soon, I decided to buy myself a cheap ticket to Warsaw – for the beginning of June. I decided not to wait and get a very good price by buying one early. It’s funny because my girlfriend will be here for 8 days and she’ll be going back to Warsaw  the same day I will – but we’ll have different flights“- enjoy Alicante together with your girlfriend. Average Mediterranean water temperature in June is 22.7 degrees Celsius, so if it’s too hot on the beach, go into the water. (You know this already, I know).

“These days I kept applying to all sorts of jobs there (in Warsaw), every day. Let’s see… if I don’t yet have any work maybe go to Transylvania and spend some time ‘home ‘. Well that’s where I’m from and where my parents live“- it’s definitely a good idea to look for work in Warsaw. And, by the way, my father was from Bucharest, Romania, 5 hours and 25 minutes drive south east of Transylvania. I am.. half Romanian.

“but not sure it feels like home. Sometimes it does. I don’t know.. there’s something in me that wants to go there for a bit –  couple of weeks will be okay. Maybe It’ll be good.. maybe there are still things that need to be addressed. Maybe not. We’ll see. Still.. feels better than living here, paying rent out of my parent’s pocket and not really liking it“- better not stay in Alicante, of course. Going “home”.. better get more clarity about your purpose there: what would it be? Better not be motivated by nostalgia alone (selective memory, remembering the good; forgetting the bad). Looking at the title of your thread: better you don’t procrastinate- or press the Pause feature on-  becoming an adult, by going back “home”.

“Up until buying the ticket, I was looking forward to leave.. to go both to Poland and Romania.. but after buying it.. I started feeling some resistance. Is this a good thing? Maybe I could’ve thought about it more. It’s always like that!“- from psychology today, regret is “feeling a sense of loss or sorrow at what might have been”. I think that your regret is about the difference between how you wish things to be (nostalgia is part of it), and how things turn out to be. Fantasy/ wishful thinking/ remembering only the good and forgetting the bad, aka nostalgia, all go hand in hand with regret because..  Fantasy is always better than how Reality turns out.

This is why a lot of people spend the majority of their time Gaming instead of .. well, Adulting.

“Thank you… I hope you are having a good day and I’d like you to know that whenever you’d like to share anything, I would be very happy to respond with my best insights“- you are very welcome. You’ve already helped me with your amazing insights into your life, your mind, it teaches me about my life, and my mind, so, thank you!

“Now, I won’t be working out.  I’ll take a nap instead. I’ll have to do those 3 hours later on“- 7 pm in Alicante. I hope you are rested by now.

anita