I have a lot of people in my life, who are very close and not going anywhere soon, who unfortunately also consistently behave in a manner that leaves me feeling disheartened, upset, and demoralised about my own skills and capabilities. They wound me. And I am struggling to recognise where fault lies or action can be taken because I do not want to continue to be wounded and I do not want to make my life harder or smaller by pushing them away and out of it. But I am left again and again feeling alone, abandoned and ashamed of having tried to reach for the light and having striven to be seen and heard and felt and appreciated, only to be warned that I "probably wont succeed" or I "might get hurt in trying to". And I am so fed up with feeling sad and having my whole day derailed and my plans made a mess of by people I love showing their love by smothering my light. How do I stop this from happening? How do I protect myself from these woundings? How do I protect my energy and my peace and my drive to succeed?

I am in a conundrum and a dilemma with myself, or parts of myself. I am trying to be more of an artist and less of a drone, and last week you saw me do lots of art as an act of service to myself. This week I am struggling to find a suitable activity or game to play that I will enjoy, that will be good for my soul / inner child and will be healthy for me. The current expression of that is a yes/no to purchasing a video game on my laptop. If I were in the UK I would have lots more of my stuff to play with and enjoy and explore and make use of without having to spend money to do so (I already own video games on a PS2 I love and have Warhammer minis to paint etc). But here in Italy where I am for the next three weeks I do not. So do I buy the game for £16 or do I tell myself to wait. Fear is standing in the way and fear says "you do not have an income, you cannot afford to buy a video game you might not use more than a few times. you must be frugal until you have an income" And fear is decidedly a BUMMER, but I cant seem to look past it and find a way to spend the money, nor can I find anything else to do that is free and enjoyable. I am stuck. Any advice?

I’ve noticed some shadow, recently. Part of this has been around overworking and over giving. Another part of this has been around not asking for what I need and want, out of not feeling enough and fear. I’ve also been ignoring my own tiredness and need for rest - that’s led to me acting out this weekend. I am also exploring possibility of shadow around not marketing myself enough.