Hello! So about half a year ago I started taking action in my fledgling business, I have been “trying” to get it going for years but I was really just putting myself in an educational bubble where I would take courses and learn things thinking that when I finally started for real, I would get it all right.

For years I also had this mindset that if I could succeed at my business, my life would be all rainbows and sunshine and happiness while also thinking if I failed at it, we would lose everything and end up in a cardboard box…so I really had this over-dramatized view of life and I think I also felt like if I succeeded I would finally be worthy…my worthiness being dependent on business success. And this kind of thinking was really a buffer for me for years….it was like the meaning of life was this business so I kept cycling around and around on whether I would succeed or fail while really not taking any actions.

Through scholars I learned that I needed to be taking action and I started doing a lot of things that totally freaked me out and making progress in my business. I had enough insight to know that I needed to change my mindset around the business so I went about changing it but I was maybe more combating it or just buffering away from it…and I didn’t have enough insight to see that I was basically transferring the same overly dramatized buffering onto another thing: my new friend.

I made a new friend through my son’s school and I really like her. However, I decided that I could succeed or fail at the business, I would be alright either way (which felt like a relief after all these years of feeling like my worthiness depended on it) but being friends with my new friend would make my whole life worth LIVING! THAT would make me worthy. And I got totally obsessive about her in my mind…. So now I have done a lot of thought work about the whole thing but I still struggle with how I can fully release this whole dynamic…I know it’s completely ridiculous but I feel way too attached to the friendship, like if she didn’t want to be my friend anymore, I would just DIE.

Whereas with my other friends I feel like I would be sad but I would be ok. I think I’ve spent a lot of my life over-dramatizing things in my life, I really think that was my go-to buffer instead of food or alcohol, etc. And since it’s all thoughts, I don’t know what to do. How do you move past a thought buffer….So I feel stuck! Any help would be so nice. Thank you.