Nice

For your chronic pain, I recommend reading "The Mind Body Prescription" by Dr John Sarno. Saved my sanity and my career 7 years ago.

I started with the app and then after about half a year stopped using it and started exploring further. I think headspace and waking up are good. But after a while I wanted to go deeper

This has to do with commitment. What are you committed to?

+1 to therapy. Also, consider reading The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron.

I made a huge improvement to my shyness and self esteem by doing a few awareness workshops in my country (not US). And now doing therapy to boost other areas of my life which I want to improve.

It's not your fault, it's how you (and I) were raised. I am a sensitive person. Since my parents didn't know much about it, they didn't teach me how to get by, how to make contact with people, how to respect myself and still be out in the world. The message I got was that I am shy and I need to "get over it". This didn't help but made things worse. Only in my 30s did I start fixing it and healing my pains. Very much worth it.

Good luck

To lose weight, we need to eat less. Eating too much is an emotional coping mechanism. We eat to escape difficult feelings we have, either related to specific events or "hanging in the background". Why not everyone is overweight? Everyone has emotional issues, but different people cope differently. Some smoke, some drink, etc you get the idea. So to really free this coping mechanism we have two options: 1. Replace it with another coping mechanism - could also be a healthy coping mechanism like talking to close friends when I'm feeling down, or writing in my journal. 2. Deal with my emotional issues by going to therapy, a support group etc. This would have to deal with what troubles me in life, my fears.

After I've gotten better control over my emotional situation, then comes the HOW of eating less. My answer, which got me to lose 24 pounds in 6 months and keep my weight for years later is -- eat only when hungry. stop eating immediately if you're no longer hungry. At first this seems trivial, but it's not. You will need to notice your feelings of hunger and become more sensitive to when you are hungry, when you are full. And to only eat when hungry. This method is super effective, you need nothing more. You can eat any food you want as long as you do so only when feeling hungry.

From a human perspective, you are caring for your customers, which are the people who care the most about your product - hey, they use it all day. I think you are amazing for caring so deeply, and I admire it.

From a business perspective, your company has finite resources. It has to decide to invest in getting new customers or in retaining existing ones. This decision would depend on several things such as churn rate of current customers, potential customers, value of locking in more customers up front.

Your concerns are valid. Keep empathizing with your customers. But also be aware of the big picture of the company from a business perspective.

I see two parts to handling this tendency, which I have much less of today compared to a few years ago.

1. Finding an outlet and 'healing the wound'. Negativity is there for a reason. Things happened during life that made it necessary or even a viable strategy to solve some situations. If suppressed, or even managed (see #2), it will resurface either as anger/rage or physical illness. To really heal it I went to therapy and to group sessions with the firm goal of expressing my daily as well as lifelong anger and frustrations. One book which I like and can help start the healing process is "Letting Go" by David Hawkins.

2. How I express myself with others. Sometimes I really don't want to express this negativity, so I can use tools from the coaching world. I'll give a few examples: - assume good intentions. Be it with people you know or complete strangers, if you notice yourself being negative, first STOP. Then imagine the party you are negative about having the best intentions possible, and then re-write the mental story. For example, if you get cut off by another driver and notice you are angry at them, STOP (mentally) and consider that they are having a really shitty day and weren't paying attention. They made a mistake, a really honest one.

- ask questions to find out the other person's intentions. If you notice negativity in you about a person you know, consider asking them clarifying questions about the situation that brought about the negativity. For example, if a friend ghosts you, yoi might call a few days later and say, 'hey, did you see my text a few days ago? I was kinda bummed you didn't answer. Is everything ok between us?'

I hope this helps.

Find what gives you meaning right now.

A profound shift in thinking came to me after reading Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning. Specifically - meaning chooses you.

When I started out as a programmer, I was so excited about learning how to code, how different languages work, memory management, and other concepts like that. My meaning then was becoming a good programmer. A few years later that changed. I see meaning in utilizing my skills to build product that matter to people.

Maybe programming was your passion in its own right, and maybe that's no longer true. What helps me is stopping to look for meaning in the same place I am used to, and re-ask the question - what do I want to be doing? What is important to me? What will give me meaning? And then go and do it for a while and see what happens.

My best wishes and good luck to you, friend.

Wow. Amazing