Making Bad Choices With Rain Phoenix: A Reader's Self Esteem Is Tanked By Sudden Radio Silence From A Good Friend

PLUS: Let Rain solve your issues - whether you think they're too hyper-specific, petty, silly, heavy, dark or trivial. I'll start off here with my current problem of hiring yet another active addict.

Hello!

I love this day. Because I get to talk to all you old and new people, from AJPTers who have been following this site for over a year, to past readers of SASSY magazine, JANE magazine and xoJANE, some of whom are just finding us and each other again here decades after being unceremoniously torn asunder! And a special welcome to those of you who came here thanks to our tight-knit highly-valued “Oldster Magazine” connection. For all of you: I will be sending out an It Happened To Me story tomorrow you won’t want to miss. So look for that for sure, whether you care about today’s featured subject matter or not.

Speaking of today’s excitement, we have another installment of Another Jane Pratt Thing contributor Rain Phoenix’s unconventional advice column. This is one of only two places on AJPT where anonymity is fine (the other being this recurring feature called Extra Safe Space), so that you can fully go for it in your questions without worrying about repercussions from the people you’re writing about. (I don’t care about anonymity myself because my proverbial cats are already all out of the bag, with multiple proverbial generations of kittens, so I ask Rain my relationship questions as myself in the comments - as I will today - and you certainly can too. Up to you!). If you like the anonymous route, send me your questions to Jane@AnotherJanePrattThing.com to pass along to Rain (just put in the subject line that your email contains a question for Rain and if you want me to not even read yours first, say For Rain Only and I will pass it along without even glancing).

One thing that I think makes Rain so good at giving relationship advice is her extraordinary life experience. Another is her complete lack of judgment. There’s not anything you could ask her that she would not carefully look at strictly in terms of how best to help you with it. You can get a sense of all that from her past stories:

When I Was 20, My Brother River Died.

Rain Phoenix's It Happened To Me: My First Boyfriend Slept With My Second Boyfriend — And I Walked In On Them. I was 16.

Making Bad Choices With Rain Phoenix: A Reader Worries "I Think I Hooked Up With My Best Friend's Husband."

Anyway, Rain’s a genius at many things. She always gives me new and practical insights - and does it again in her answer below - even when the question is not one I personally relate to. I’m thrilled she is here helping you and me. And I’m beyond thrilled you are here too, if that wasn’t already abundantly clear.

Love love,

Jane

PS Do you often read advice columns for the juicy questions and then skim through the expert answers? Do you get irked when the columnist foists you onto some other expert, like “See your doctor,” shirking responsibility and making you feel like the burden you thought you were for asking in the first place? Maybe that’s just me. Here’s Rain….

By Rain Phoenix

Today’s Reader Letter:

Hi Jane!

I’m so happy to see that you have another online publication. Janexo got me through a lot in my 20s.

I know you mentioned Rain is taking questions on relationships. If that is still so I’d love to ask her a question:

Hi Rain,

How do you come to terms with friends ghosting you? I had a friend and everything was seemingly great. We were close and would hang out pretty often and we would communicate with each other pretty openly. Then all of a sudden radio silence. What hurts is I can see through social media and through the discord for the various communities we are a part of is that she makes plans with other mutual friends and hangs out with them. Even made plans to go to a festival with other people....a festival we originally talked about going to together.

People have told me to take her silence as an indication that she doesn’t care anymore.

It just hurts. I don’t understand why she couldn’t tell me if things were bothering her. The idea of asking what I did to make her not want to be my friend anymore just makes me feel lousy and pathetic. I don’t want to chase after people who don’t want me in their lives. It just......hurts. I feel like my self esteem is tanked. All the bad feelings of being bullied in elementary school come back. I feel unlovable.

How do I work through something like this?

I appreciate any insight you could share

Much love,

Crocus

P.S. Thank you for all of the beautiful music over the years. “What’s Left” by the papercranes was the first song I ever bought on itunes and put on my ipod nano. That and “minor” are still on repeat in my household.

Rain’s Letter Back:

Crocus,

Thank you for your question. I’m also grateful for your kind words about my music. I regret the delay in replying.. I wasn’t ghosting you, promise! I hope this response serves to be of benefit in some way.

I think it’s fair to say no one likes being ghosted. From what I understand you’re feeling hurt about the loss of a friendship. A sudden change in a relationship can be really jarring, especially when you’re on the receiving end of the sudden change and there seems to be no indication as to why. Or even if there is a reason, being ghosted feels like it prevents us from pinpointing exactly what that reason is which can be very painful.

“We tend to insist others make changes believing it’s their fault when we’re feeling discomfort.”

When situations feel acute like that, I try to remember, we always have choices. There are probably more than three choices, but these are a few I came up with. We can blame the other person. We can be self-reflective. We can let it all go and wait to see what happens. The latter is extra tough because we want answers! I also think blaming the other person is unsatisfying long term, because we rarely find closure. I advocate for choosing self-reflection because there’s more agency. We can examine the difficult experience, gain deeper insight and uncover relationship patterns that haven’t served us. The hardest part is allowing the other person their own timeline of self-discovery.

We can wish, hope or pray, but we cannot insist they do the same. It’s my experience that we humans have the tendency to insist others make changes believing it’s more likely their fault when we’re feeling discomfort. Self reflection can help us to reverse engineer that tendency. It’s not the easy route but, if we hold ourselves accountable, the outcome can be very empowering. I don’t know if this has helped at all. Whenever I’m struggling with what to do, how to help or even how not to be upset during challenging times, I read this Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche quote.

“Trying to change the world without changing our mind is like trying to clean the dirty face we see in the mirror by scrubbing the glass. However vigorously we clean it, our reflection will not improve. Only by washing our own face and combing our own unkempt hair can we alter the image. Similarly, if we want to help create conditions that foster peace and well-being in the world, we first need to reflect these qualities ourselves.” ~ Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

If you’re looking for inspiration and tools to practice with, I recommend the book Change of Heart, also by Chagdud Tulku. It was written as a support to people with any kind of belief system, but clearly steeped in Buddhist philosophy. That said, you can use the meditations without adopting the beliefs.

I hope you find this helpful in some small way. I really appreciate the opportunity to share about what has been a support to me in difficult times. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Best, xxx Rain