Brian wrote in an email to me just now:

-- Does it make a difference that my current happiness is grounded in
myself and is not tied to anybody else?

That is the only true happiness. Nobody else can make you happy. Linking
your happiness to others only leads to unhappiness, because it is nobody's
responsibility to make you happy or keep you happy. That's your job!
Other people come and go... so if your happiness is dependent on them, it
comes and goes too. But you're ALWAYS there with you, and so will your
happiness if it is based upon yourself.

I wonder if, the more that I become grounded in myself and happy within my own core, the more okay I will be with letting others go. In a previous post I mentioned that I am overly afraid of losing people. Could it be that this has been made worse because I have traditionally tied my happiness so strongly to the happiness of others?

In always putting others above myself, I am nothing when they move on. I am terrified for them to leave, to face this void. I have no core of my own to fall back upon. I didn't always have it, anyhow. Recently I have building one. I am becoming happier on my own, more true to myself.

Always with the core.

Interesting also that my emotional core is becoming stronger at the same time that I am building up my physical core. I wonder if that is more than coincidence.