Dear Katrine,

*I submitted my post before seeing your latest reply

I didn’t want to move since that was my spot and I didn’t want him to drive me out of that one.

OK, I didn’t get the situation and how things were arranged. So you had fixed spots or something?

i stayed put and tried to talk with the people around me.

That’s good that you tried to talk to others, and weren’t paralyzed by his proximity. Have you tried talking to him?

Him joining my room and not the one with the two girls(my friends and colleagues) was a bit weird to me.

It is weird, because he is sending you mixed signals: on one hand, he behaves as if he liked you and wants to be close to you, and on the other, he told you that he isn’t interested in a relationship with you. That’s why I said that his behavior is ambivalent. What are you feeling about him now? How much are you affected by the way he is behaving at the moment?

Dear Katrine,

I have a lot of inner child wounds to attend to and heal and not be such a hypocrite. It just harder to tell when it’s myself because i know my intentions but other people don’t.

I think you’re being too hard on yourself. Perhaps you did behave like that with him a month ago, but in the meanwhile you’ve made a move, you confessed how you feel, you came clean. You took the risk and made yourself vulnerable – something he hasn’t done yet. He never said “I like you too, but I’m afraid”, has he?

He is showing interest on one hand, but rejecting you on the other. Which is not the case with you any more. So please give yourself some credit for the progress you’ve made in recent time! You are NOT being a hypocrite, because you have done something which he hasn’t done – being vulnerable and expressing yourself in spite of fear of rejection.

You might still have a lot of work related to your wound of rejection, but please give yourself credit for the steps you’ve already taken. Don’t minimize your own achievements! Be proud of yourself! That’s the path to embracing your own worth.

Dear Katrine,

I wished him a happy birthday continued with my work and when I finish my shift he was playing pool with friends I looked at him smile and said bye. Being respectful and tried to show that I wasn’t affected by his present.

Perfect! You definitely should be proud of yourself!! You were friendly and respectful, but not clingy, not expecting anything from him, or resenting him or anything like that. His behavior also seems more normal – he wasn’t just sitting there, staring at you and not saying anything. He talked to you a little and then left to play pool when his friends arrived, right?

maybe self compassion is the way to go, looking at this situation with the guy as a learning opportunity instead of a failed romance.

Yes, self-compassion is the key to healing and growth. And yes, this was a big break-through for you and also a great learning opportunity. In one of my previous posts (on page 6) I suggested to you to reframe this experience and see it not as a failure but as lessons learned. Because I think it was a success for you personally and your personal development, even though he didn’t say yes. So I would actually view it as a victory, not as a failure.

Dear Katrine,

Yes, I will focus on this as a learning opportunity. I have noticed that i have started self sabotaging again, i get more defensive and push people away but that’s understandable with everything that has happened.

It’s great that you are observing yourself and noticing when you slip, or are tempted to slip, into the old patterns. I think one of those old patterns is to start judging and criticizing yourself, and not giving yourself credit for the achievements you’ve made. Recently you’ve criticized yourself for being a hypocrite, telling yourself that you are behaving the same way as he is – when in reality, you have broken your pattern of avoidance and emotional unavailability.

The good thing is that in spite of succumbing to the voice of the inner critic from time to time, you are also able to snap out of it pretty quickly, and see that this was a learning opportunity and not a failure. This is super important! To observe yourself and when you notice that your inner critic is rearing its ugly head, to tell him: “STOP! I am not listening to you. You want me to stay stuck in the past, blaming myself for my past mistakes, believing I can never change. But that’s not true! I am able to change and I have already proven it! I am making progress, I am changing my patterns, and I am not going back to my old ways! With every day, I am becoming more of my true self!”

You can also tell yourself: “I am not perfect, I make mistakes, I won’t always react in the best way possible. But it’s okay to slip up. We are allowed to make mistakes. If I fall down, I’ll get back up and keep walking. And that’s what really matters.”

I don’t know how this sounds to you, but perhaps it would help you to be more compassionate with yourself. It could be an antidote for those situations when you start criticizing yourself and minimizing the progress you’ve made.

What do you think?

Dear Katrine,

Yeah the inner critic didn’t do anything good for me anyhow so new approach can’t hurt.

Yes, some people think the inner critic is useful because it drives them to action, motivates them to change themselves. But it is never the case, because the real change can only start from the place of self-compassion and self-acceptance. Never from the place of “look at you, you suck, you better do something about it!”

Trauma work really is a lot hard work so i have to take breaks and rest as well.

What kind of trauma work are you doing at the moment?

Dear Katrine,

Exactly, I would feel so guilty if I didn’t critisize myself then I wouldn’t move forward.

OK, so now that you realize that criticizing yourself won’t really help, maybe you can stop yourself when you notice it. Just notice it and tell yourself something like: “This is my inner critic, I am not listening to him. He thinks he is helpful but he is not, he only makes me feel worse. My inner critic doesn’t help me change. Loving and accepting myself does.”

I am learning to identify triggers. If I am reacting to something in the past or present. Trying to stop myself from self sabotaging, putting up walls, isolating myself.

Also trying to learn healthy coping mechanisms and self soothing so I don’t end up reacting instead of responding. It’s hard work and sometimes you just new to go out and not focus about healing but also living.

It is hard work because you want to be mindful of yourself and not just react from your wounds. I think the most important is to remain mindful as much as possible, i.e. to observe yourself as you go about your day. If you notice you react to something strongly, you can make a mental note of it that it’s your trigger. You can then later explore it (or share it here on the forum): what is it that you reacted to so strongly, what feelings came up, and what is the negative core belief behind it.

I know it’s hard to be mindful all the time, and specially to remain relatively calm (or rather, not too reactive) when we are triggered. Because that’s when our thinking brain shuts down….

I’ve recently been watching Dr. Nicole Lepera’s youtube videos, and she has a really great video on the topic of triggers. The title is “Here’s what to do when you’re triggered“.

She gives 3 key steps: (1) Breathe deeply, (2) Observe yourself as you are getting upset/”freaking out”, (3) Don’t judge yourself for the strong emotions you’re feeling, i.e. practice self-acceptance.

If you do that, a part of your thinking brain (the observer) will remain active, and it will help you not to be completely overwhelmed by the strong emotions you’re experiencing. I don’t know if you’ve tried this technique already?

It’s hard work and sometimes you just new to go out and not focus about healing but also living.

Right… Well, living involves triggers, and triggers cause us pain because they take us back into our childhood wounds. So if you just “live”, you’ll experience a lot of pain, until you heal that pain. But if you are mindful of yourself (i.e. observing yourself and noticing your triggers, e.g. as shown in Nicole Lepera’s video), you’ll experience less pain. So I think that being mindful while living/going about our day is actually well worth it…