(Afterward) Untangling emotional insecurity
Previously:
I couldn’t stop wondering, What had I done to cause her to ghost me? What should I have done instead? What can I do to make her like me again? ……
But these were the wrong questions.
The right questions: How can I feel okay regardless of how others behave?
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was severely emotionally insecure.
When I worked with an extraordinary counselor on the issue, it came out that I literally believed the only way I was going to feel loved was if this particular girl liked me back.
This is emotional insecurity: fear of emotional scarcity.
What came out of my unconscious was, “I won’t be able to feel loved unless she loves me.”
This explains why I freaked out when I didn’t hear back from her.
It also explains why I was so concerned about “What did I do wrong?” and “What can I do to make her like me again?”
Wrong questions!
Even if she liked me back and we dated, I would’ve still been anxious that she might break up with me.
So the right question was, How can I feel okay regardless of how others behave?
I would have to untangle my emotional insecurities.
Working with an extraordinary counselor helped a lot with this. He helped me dialogue with my unconscious. When combined with good philosophy, somatic (body-based) therapy modalities can be used to improve one’s instincts:
On this blog, I write about what I think a better philosophy of social interaction looks like.
update: here’s how i do this for my clients
Untangling the fear of being disliked
Thanks to Stag Lynn, Epistea Residency, CFAR, Alex Zhu, Kaj Sotala, Damon Sasi, Anna Salamon, and many others for support.
Thanks also to <girl> for exposing the zero-day exploit in my psyche.