Loving, Listening, and Letting Go..

[aeolianchaos]

I do believe you need to come to a place where your self esteem is more important than anything. You are "Painfully shy" because you hide in fear. Your W even said it. You need to step to the edge of "Fear" and really open up and be someone who is in touch with himself.

I appreciate what you are saying, but I'm not painfully shy at this point. It was something that I did a considerable turn from after working on my bigger issue (burnout). I actually make a point of going out and connecting with other people every day because I know that it's important for me. I look forward to it. I enjoy it and feel good about it.

A lot of things, for me, turned around before my W ever walked out. Because I was already working on myself rather intensively as a recovery from my own bad situation. But, I think that the insecurity stems from an assumption - an assumption that I will be rejected or that people don't care what I have to say. To that degree, confronting it is the healthy and growing thing to do.