Hi Jen,

I can feel this pain of yours as it's so close to what I have experienced in the past. In my case, the feeling of loneliness when with others who didn't resonate was far greater than any feeling of isolation I would get by myself. In fact, I often feel very good when by myself.

What really helped me in these situations was to sit and be isolated from the crowd, then to reconnect with the feeling of being whole that I've felt before when by myself. That I am already complete. Then, there was no need to engage with others to try to fix things - sometimes I would literally sit in parties with people chatting all around me and close my eyes and be alone. Yes, their opinions of me often became more extreme, but that just catalysed the process of me moving on. In the meantime, I don't connect with nearly so many people, but the few I do resonate much more strongly.

I've found sometimes it's right to not engage when I know it will be met with ignorance. Other times it feels right to call it out. How are you calling out the emotions? It's really important to communicate this well. If a pattern of blame and projection is normal for those around you then even when you express an emotion without projecting they can often still go into that pattern of feeling blamed.

I've found that being very clear that I'm expressing an emotion just for the sake of expressing and am not throwing the responsibility for my wellbeing onto anyone else makes a huge difference - though sometimes people can be confused by it initially. What also really helps is sticking to 'I' sentences, just making it about you and not about their behaviour. Alternatively, find the essence of the energy of the situation and call out that instead of the surface emotion.

Your fight response is a natural mechanism of response to pain. There's a key in trauma responses which I'll go into in the next post - basically the solution lies in the energy of the response. So, how can you turn the energy of anger into something more empowering, without throwing it onto others and making them responsible for your wellbeing?

Warmest wishes,

Rich