David Herz, Coach

How do I stop overthinking in a relationship and maintain a long-lasting relationship?

You get busy with your major transformative purpose in life (it just makes you a better more interesting person), and then when you think about your relationship, you ask yourself “what could I do today to put a smile on his face.” Then you give up your expectations and accept whatever comes your way as a gift.

If, having done that, you find yourself at play with your partner, communicating what's so, happy to be coming home to this person, and he feels the same, you have decent grounds for a long-lasting relationship.

You also want to make sure you are aligned as to your visions of the future. Ask, have conversations about kids and religion and money. Make sure you know your deal-breakers, and his, and that you are both okay with living inside each other's visions.

From Quora:

My boyfriend is sad depressed because we can't see each other always, what can I say to him?

Tell him to get better and the rest should sort itself out. Maybe say something like this:

“Get the heck out of your head bucko. Enjoy the time we can be together. Instead of thinking about how we are apart and how sad that makes you, think about how you can make our next time together unforgettable, and do that for every time we will be together, and don’t think you will get a pass when we get married. Then you’ll have to come up with something every morning.

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Why do I always feel like an outsider in this world and life and like I just want the torment to end?

Because you are human and you are spending too much time looking inward.

Some people will always feel like outsiders. Your problem is that you give this importance, and are tormented because you feel it should be otherwise.

On the other hand, it sounds like you do want to engage with people and have meaningful human contact. This you can generate quickly.

I don't know why this comes up, but Tony Robbins, from one of his events sent people to a local mall to offer people hugs. My son has walked around with a “Free Hugs” sign attached to his shirt. If you're adventurous, or really want the torment to end without offing yourself, give it a shot.

But if you want to go more slowly, find any local agency that deals with seniors, homeless, under-fed, abused, and volunteer to deliver care packages, spend time, etc. You will quickly find there is a whole world of people out there who would be tickled for a little bit of your attention. Talk to your local religious leader: he will always know who could use a hand or an ear in your community.

You might not get rid of feeling an outsider where you think you want to be an insider, but you will certainly find meaningful interaction, love, laughs, tears, and the full range of things that makes humanity human.

And life will suddenly seem a lot more tolerable.

Every now and then you come across a quote that is worth sharing, and this is the one I found today:

New Seeds of Contemplation

by Thomas Merton

“What is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as “play” is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash--at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident,provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

“For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.

“Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.”

How do I move on from not taking an opportunity that was extremely important to me?

You get wiser and you create a framework to make sure you don’t make that mistake again. And then you start putting yourself in places where the kind of opportunities you want are likely to show up.

And if you want help with this, we should talk. To do that click here to schedule.

Disclaimer: I liked the picture, I have no opinion on the book; I've never even seen it before. If you read it, I'd be happy to know what you think about it.