Notice what opens your heart and soul.

Notice what opens your heart and soul. Nature, your garden, your child, your pet? Your grandchild, your creativity, music, art, laughter? Walking, running, sharing, loving? Sexuality, sensuality, affection, holding? What melts the wall, enlivens your being, tickles your tummy, and fills your heart? Notice, and make time for that which opens your being.
By Dr. Margaret Paul

Inner Bonding Daily Inspirations by Margaret Paul

Daily Inspiration

Joy comes from being openhearted to receiving the love that is God and sharing that love with others. Today, open your heart by moving into gratitude for all that you have and all that you are, choosing to make love more important than control. By Dr. Margaret Paul

"God has no hands but these."

"God has no hands but these."
We can each choose to be the hands of God by learning how to lovingly manage our pain so that we don't inflict pain on others.

Margaret Paul

Who is in charge in this moment - your loving Adult or your wounded self?

Daily Inspiration

Who is in charge in this moment - your loving Adult or your wounded self? Are you connecting with Spirit and bringing that love and truth to your Inner Child, or are you stuck in your mind trying to figure everything out? Challenge yourself to move beyond your mind and into love and truth. By Dr. Margaret Paul

Our addictions - to busyness, substances, activities - cover up our feelings of loneliness, heartbreak and helplessness over others

Daily Inspiration

Our addictions - to busyness, substances, activities - cover up our feelings of loneliness, heartbreak and helplessness over others. Yet, when we are willing to feel these feelings with compassion toward ourselves, they move through us and we are lighter. Today, take time to stop your addictive behavior and compassionately feel the feelings you are trying to avoid.  

By Dr. Margaret Paul

"I Don't Know How To Give Her What She Wants From Me." By Dr. Margaret Paul October 08, 2012

I was having a Skype session with Andrea and Lawrence. Married for 18 years with two teen-age children, their marriage was strained. When I asked Lawrence how things were going between them, his answer was the same as always: "Fine." When I asked Andrea the same question, she got a pained look on her face. "Things are okay, but not great. I'm lonely with Lawrence so much of the time. We just can't seem to connect."
Lawrence became defensive. "I can never do things good enough or right enough for you. You are always unhappy about something."
"Lawrence," replied Andrea, "I tell you all the time what a great father you are and what a great provider you are. You are a good, kind and loving person. But I need time and connection with you. I get connection with my girlfriends, but not with you, and this makes me feel very sad."
"Margaret, I don't know how to give her what she wants from me. I don't understand what she needs." Lawrence looked distressed and confused.
Lawrence agreed to have one-on-one sessions with me.
Like so many of the people I work with, Lawrence had some severe trauma in his childhood, with no one to help him handle it. His beloved mother died in a car accident when he was six, and his father turned to alcohol. His way of managing the overwhelming feelings of heartbreak, loneliness and helplessness was to disconnect from his emotions and stay in his mind. A brilliant man, he became a high achiever. Focusing on success kept him so busy that he didn't have time to feel what was going on inside him. After awhile, the feelings seemed to fade away.
Now, as an adult, he was completely out of touch with his feelings, and very afraid to open to them. The idea of feeling what was buried within him terrified him.
Because he could not connect with himself – with the feeling child within – he could not connect with Andrea, and this is what she was sad about. She loved Lawrence, but this wasn't enough. She needed to feel him to connect with his heart. But he was afraid to share his heart – afraid to feel the deep pain that was lodged there.
Because Lawrence cared about Andrea and her feelings, he was finally willing to face his fear of feeling.
"Lawrence, feeling your feelings is about being present in your body rather than focused in your mind. Right now, take a deep breath and put your focus into your body. Get very present inside your body. Are you aware of any emotions?"
"I feel sad and scared."
"What are you sad and scared about?"
"I'm sad that I don’t know what it means to connect and that Andrea is sad about this, and I'm scared that I can't do what she needs me to do and that this is hurting our marriage."
"Lawrence, right now you ARE connecting. You are connecting with your feelings and sharing them with me, which allows me to connect with you. Andrea has often said that she wishes you would let her in. This is what she means – what you are doing right now. You CAN do this! How does it feel to be sharing your feelings with me?
"This feels good. But I don't know how to do this on my own. I'll never remember to feel my feelings."
I shared with Lawrence that I completely understood this, as when I first started to practice the first step of Inner Bonding – being aware of my feelings and wanting responsibility for them - 28 years ago, I also had difficulty remembering to be aware of my feelings. I was very aware of others' feelings, but never my own. I bought a wonderful little gadget called a MotivAider, which buzzed against my body however often I set it to buzz, and it reminded me to check in with myself. I wore this for over a year until I had trained myself to be present with my feelings.
Lawrence got a MotivAider and started practicing tuning in to himself. Andrea reported that, even in just a week, she felt much more connected with Lawrence.
In time, Lawrence got comfortable enough with his current feelings that he was able to open to the buried pain within him, with deep caring and compassion for himself. He learned that he could manage and release these past painful feelings, as well as current painful feelings. He also learned that his feelings held much important information for him regarding how he was treating himself and others, and how others were treating him. His fear of feeling was healed as he learned to compassionately learn from his feelings, rather than avoid them.

Daily Inspiration

What question governs your waking moments? Are you unconsciously governed by the question, "How can I have control over feeling safe?" Or, are you consciously guided by the question, "What is loving to myself and others?" The first question leads to anger, blame, withdrawal, numbness, resistance, compliance and defensiveness. The second question leads to connection with your spiritual Guidance and the loving evolution of your soul. By Dr. Margaret Paul

"It's Not Fair!" By Dr. Margaret Paul October 01, 2012

"Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian." - Dennis Wholey
 
"It's not fair!" yells eight-year old Calvin when his six-year old sister gets a bigger piece of pie.
How early we learn to think life should be fair! This concept that life should be fair seems to have been handed down from parents to children through recent generations. This is an ego-based concept not at all rooted in reality.
Rather than telling Calvin the truth that life isn't necessarily fair, his parents reinforce this false belief by scrambling around to make the pie pieces even. This will definitely not be helpful to Calvin as he grows up and encounters many seemingly unfair situations. Why do parents work so hard to try to make things fair? Why not say to their children, "Right – life isn't fair. It's never going to be fair, so let's accept that and move on." Parents often try hard to be fair in order to avoid conflict, rather than being honest with their children.
I say 'seemingly unfair' because I have a completely different concept of 'fair.' To me, 'fair' has nothing to do with the earthly level but rather with the soul level. What seems unfair on the earthly level is likely exceedingly fair on the soul level.
What I mean is this: I believe that our real journey on the planet is a soul journey, and that each soul needs different lessons to evolve toward love and wholeness. The person who is born rich and is given everything has different lessons to learn than the person who is born poor and has to find his or her own way. It is our ego wounded self who believes that things should be 'fair' on the outer level, but I believe that things are always fair on the inner, soul level.
I didn't always think this way. I was born poor and nothing was ever handed to me. I used to envy those who were born rich – whose parents could send them to the best schools, whose parents role-modeled behavior that led to success. I used to envy people who had easy marriages when mine was so hard. Now I know that my journey is just right for me to learn what I came to this planet to learn. I no longer worry about what is fair.
Now, when my client says, "It's not fair!" because her spouse had an affair, or because all her friends are pregnant and she isn't, or because his best friend inherited millions and he's struggling financially, I hear each one of them being a little child, wanting to believe that life should be fair. It's so much easier to say "It's not fair" than to face life's challenges head on, with deep compassion for ourselves for the heartbreak of life, and for the helplessness over others and outcomes, and with a willingness to be on the learning journey of the soul.
Next time you hear yourself say, "It's not fair!" stop and notice what this is protecting you from feeling. Is there something or someone you are feeling helpless over? Is stating, "It's not fair!" a way to avoid compassionately acknowledging the reality of this? Do you feel heartache or heartbreak or grief, and is the belief, "It's not fair!" a way to avoid feeling these very difficult feelings of life?
It takes courage to be on the soul journey of evolving in our ability to love ourselves and others. Acceptance for the lack of fairness in life is part of this journey.

http://www.innerbonding.com/show-article/3301/its-not-fair.html

Daily Inspiration

What would bring you lightness of being today? Notice your frequency at this moment - is it heavy or light? If it is heavy, notice what you are thinking to create the heaviness. What thought would bring you joy and lightness of being? By Dr. Margaret Paul

Is This Love or Emotional Dependency? By Dr. Margaret Paul

One of my clients, whose ex-girlfriend recently broke up with him, asked me the following question:

"I think I still love her, but is this love or just emotional dependency? Many times I ask myself if falling in love comes from the wounded self because (for me at least) it feels as if I can't live without the other person. When I give love from the heart, I don't expect anything back, but when I ‘fall in love’ I think this is a different energy."

Falling in love can come from two different inner states. When you fall in love from the wounded self - the ego self - you are in love with how the other person loves you. You are handing over to the other person the responsibility for your self-worth and wellbeing, and if he or she does a good job of attending to you in the way you want to be attended to, then you may say you are "in love." However, it is not so much the person you love, but how he or she loves you. When it feels as if you can't live without the other person, it is emotional dependency. The part of you that is "in love" is really a child or adolescent who is needy for love because you are not giving love to yourself or to others. There is an emptiness inside that you expect someone else to fill, because you are not taking responsibility for your own feelings of self-worth. You are attaching your worth to another's love, which is why you can't live without that person.

When you fall in love as a loving adult, instead of as a wounded, needy child or adolescent, your need for the relationship is totally different. As a loving adult, you have learned - through the consistent practice of Inner Bonding - how to fill yourself with love and define your own worth. Instead of needing someone to fill you and make you feel lovable and worthy, you already feel worthy and full of love. You experience this inner fullness because you have learned how to take full responsibility for your own feelings and needs, and you have learned to fill yourself with love from a spiritual source. This fullness overflows and you want to share this love with another person, another loving adult who is also filled with love. Your desire is to share love rather than to get love.

The kind of person you will pick will be totally different when a loving adult is choosing, than when your wounded self is choosing. The people we pick have a similar level of woundedness and a similar level of emotional health. Obviously, the more you have done your Inner Bonding work to bring love within, and the more you have learned to take loving care of yourself, the more you will be attracted to someone who also does this.

When you pick someone from your wounded self, you will pick someone whom you believe wants the job of filling you up. The problem is that the other person may be attempting to fill you up in the hopes that you will also fill up him or her. Two people who each want to get love rather than share love will eventually find themselves very disappointed with each other. They will each blame the other for not loving them in the way they want to be loved. When relationships break up, it is often because one or both partners are not taking responsibility for their own feelings and self-worth and are blaming the other for their resulting unhappiness.

If you are so attached to someone that you feel you can't live without that person, try learning to give to yourself and others what it is you want from this person. Your job is to become the person to yourself that you want the other person to be. Then you will be able to be "in love" rather than "in need." You will be able to love another person for who he or she is, rather than for what this person can do for you. Instead of needing to get love, you can give love from the heart for the joy of it, and feel filled in the giving.

Emotional Dependency or Emotional Responsibility By Dr. Margaret Paul

Emotional dependency means getting one's good feelings from outside oneself. It means needing to get filled from outside rather than from within. Who or what do you believe is responsible for your emotional wellbeing?
There are numerous forms of emotional dependency:

• Dependence on substances, such as food, drugs or alcohol, to fill emptiness and take away pain
• Dependence on processes, such as spending, gambling or TV, also to fill emptiness and take away pain
• Dependence on money to define one's worth and adequacy
• Dependence on getting someone's love, approval or attention to feel worthy, adequate, lovable and safe
• Dependence on sex to fill emptiness and feel adequate

When you do not take responsibility for defining your own adequacy and worth or for creating your own inner sense of safety, you will seek to feel adequate, worthy and safe externally. Whatever you do not give to yourself, you may seek from others, or from substances or processes. Emotional dependency is the opposite of taking personal responsibility for your emotional wellbeing. Yet many people have no idea that this is their responsibility, nor do they have any idea how to take this responsibility.
What does it mean to take emotional responsibility, rather than be emotionally dependent?
Primarily, it means recognizing that your feelings of anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, anger, aloneness, jealousy, irritation and so on (what we call in Inner Bonding 'wounded feelings') come from your own thoughts, beliefs and behavior, rather than from others or from circumstances. Once you understand and accept that you create many of your own feelings, rather than your feelings coming from outside yourself, then you can begin to take emotional responsibility.
For example, let's say someone you care about gets angry at you.
If you are emotionally dependent, you may feel rejected and believe that your feelings of rejection are coming from the other's anger. You might also feel hurt, scared, anxious, inadequate, shamed, angry, blaming, or many other difficult feelings, in response to the other's anger. You might try many ways of getting the other person to not be angry, in an effort to feel better.
However, if you are emotionally responsible, you will feel and respond entirely differently. The first thing you might do is to tell yourself that another person's anger has nothing to do with you. Perhaps that person is having a bad day and is taking it out on you. Perhaps that person is feeling hurt or inadequate and is trying to be one-up by putting you one-down. Whatever the reason for the other's anger, it is about them rather than about you. An emotionally responsible person does not take others' behavior personally, knowing that we have no control over others' feelings and behavior, and that we do not cause others to feel and behave the way they do - that others are responsible for their feelings and behavior just as we are for ours.
The next thing an emotionally responsible person might do is move into compassion for the angry person, and open to learning about what is going on with them. For example, you might say, "I don't like your anger, but I am willing to understand what is upsetting you. Would you like to talk about it?" If the person refuses to stop being angry, or if you know ahead of time that this person is not going to open up, then, as an emotionally responsible person, you would take loving action in your own behalf. For example, you might say, "I'm unwilling to be at the other end of your anger. When you are ready to be open with me, let me know. Meanwhile, I'm going to take a walk (or hang up the phone, or leave the restaurant, or go into the other room). An emotionally responsible person gets out of range of attack, rather than trying to change the other person.
Once out of range, the emotionally responsible person goes inside and explores any core painful feelings (feelings that result from others and circumstances rather than from your own thoughts and actions) that might have resulted from the attack. For example, perhaps you are feeling lonely as a result of being attacked, and helpless over the other person. An emotionally responsible person embraces the feelings of loneliness and helplessness with understanding and compassion, holding them just as you would hold a sad child. When you acknowledge and embrace the core feelings of loneliness, heartache, heartbreak, and helplessness over others, you allow them to move through you quickly, so you can move back into peace.
Rather than being a victim of the other's behavior, you have taken emotional responsibility for yourself. Instead of staying stuck in feeling angry, hurt, blaming, afraid, anxious or inadequate, or in the core painful feelings of loneliness, helplessness or heartache, you have moved yourself back into feeling safe and peaceful.
When you realize that your feelings are your responsibility, you can move out of emotional dependency. This will make a huge difference within you and with all of your relationships. Relationships thrive when each person moves out of emotional dependency and into emotional responsibility, and Inner Bonding is a powerful process for doing this.

Moving Beyond Emotional Dependency By Dr. Margaret Paul

Are you ready to be your own person? Are you ready to move beyond neediness and into emotional freedom? Are you ready to stop needing others to make you feel that you are okay? Are you ready to learn to fill yourself with love and define your own worth?

I hope so! Being emotionally dependent is not fun!

When you are emotionally dependent, you set yourself up to be a victim of others' choices. If others are loving and caring, then you feel good, but if others are rejecting, you feel bad. You place your emotional wellbeing into others' hands, rather than taking responsibility for your own feelings and defining your own worth. Do you really want to go on living this way when there is another, far more fulfilling way to live?

I, like most people, grew up being emotionally dependent. I spent years feeling the anxiety that comes from needing others’ approval to feel lovable and worthy. I spent years feeling the inner aloneness that comes from self-abandonment. And I spent years in therapy trying to find out what was wrong and what to do about it. Yet I never learned, in all my reading and all my therapy - and all the years I spent in school getting my Ph.D. in psychology - that the cause of all my problems was self-abandonment.

As I look back on my growing-up years, I see that there was not one person in my life that wasn’t role modeling self-abandonment. Both of my parents were deeply emotionally dependent, as were my grandparents, aunts and uncles, and family friends. Nothing in books, in the media, or in school ever taught me how to attain emotional freedom - how to take loving care of myself so that I was not emotionally dependent on others’ approval, love and attention. I was run by my desire to have control over getting approval and avoiding disapproval.

Life is totally different, now that I know that it is not only my responsibility to give myself the love and approval I used to seek from others, but it is my right and my privilege. I was taught that it was selfish to take loving care of myself - that being a good person meant sacrificing myself and taking care of others instead. I was taught that my good feelings about myself had to come from others' approval. I was told that if I loved and valued myself, I was being arrogant. "Who do you think you are?" Wow, what awful conditioning many of us experience.

I, like you, am a child of Divine Love, here to fully express the love, gifts and talents that I am. Within me - and you - is an incredible soul, the spark of the Divine within me, the part of me - and you - that is created in the image of God. It is my privilege, and yours, to take loving care of this soul - to nurture a healthy body as the house for my soul, to choose the thoughts and actions that create peace and joy within, to not indulge in thoughts and actions that create distress, and to making loving myself and others my highest priority.

When you choose the intention to learn to be loving to yourself and others, rather than the intention to control getting love and avoiding pain, you will learn how to move beyond emotional dependency and into emotional freedom. It is your moment-by-moment intention that determines your level of emotional dependency or your level of emotional freedom.

Are You Emotionally Dependent? By Dr. Margaret Paul September 17, 2012

Every few weeks I do a free webinar. People can listen on their computers or on the phone; they can write in asking questions or they can ask me directly on the phone. Here is one of the questions a woman – I will call her Susan - asked in a webinar on emotional dependency:
"When we are in a relationship and we have made our needs clear to our partner, is hanging on in the hope they will follow through with promises to meet our needs a sign of emotional dependency?"
The answer is – it depends on what needs you are taking about. There are some needs we have that can only be met by another person, and there are other needs that we need to learn to meet ourselves.
'Needs' Coming From Emotional Dependency
"I need your attention."
"I need your approval."
"I need for you to have sex with me when I want sex."
"I need you to make me feel lovable and worthy."
"I need you to make me feel secure."
"I need you to make me feel important."
"I need you to fill my emptiness."
"I need you to make me feel special."
"It is your job to make me happy."
These 'needs' are coming from self-abandonment. When you don't give yourself the love, attention and approval you need, and you don't define your own worth and learn to fill yourself up with love, then you may be needy of another making you feel that you are okay. When you are disconnected from your own feelings and from your personal source of spiritual Guidance, when you harshly judge yourself, or when you avoid your feelings with various addictions, then you will feel empty and needy inside and may pull on others to fill you and make you feel okay.
Needs That Can Only Be Met By Another

• If we are taking responsibility for ourselves and filling ourselves with love, we then have love to share. We need others with whom to share love.

• Once of our primal needs is for connection with others. But we can't connect with others unless we are connected with our own heart and soul, and with our source of spiritual guidance. While we can connect intellectually from our minds, emotional connection occurs only through the heart and soul. Without emotional connection with a partner, family and friends, we can feel very lonely.
  
  Most of us have a need for touch and affection, which is different than sex. While affection and connection can often lead to mutually-desired love-making in a committed relationship, touch and affection without a sexual agenda is important for connection.

• We also need others with whom to learn and grow. We can grow by ourselves to a limited extent, but the deeper level of learning and growth occurs in relationship with another who is open to learning.

• We need to have fun with others – to have companionship. So we need others who are available to spending time with us.

• Finally, we need to know that the other person would never deliberately set out to do us physical or emotional harm. We need to feel safe that the person has our highest good at heart, and will be honest with us, in order to have a trusting relationship.

These are the needs you can request from your partner that are not signs of emotional dependency:
"I need for you to want to spend time with me - sharing love and affection with me, connecting with me from your heart and soul, being open to learning and growing with me and playing and having fun with me. I need for you to be honest with me and to care about the effect your behavior has on me. I need to know that you support my highest good."
These are very different needs than the first list. So I would say to Susan, who asked the question: "Susan, I would guess that the needs you are talking about are from the first list, since we generally don't ask for promises for the second list. When we are connecting with ourselves and taking loving care of ourselves, we can generally sense whether or not the other person is capable of love, connection, caring, empathy, openness and honesty. These qualities are either forthcoming or they aren't. Someone cannot 'promise' to give us these things.
So look within first and see if you are giving yourself the things on the first list. Then you will be in a position to share with someone the things on the second list.

Is There Such A Thing As Sexual Addiction?

By Dr. Margaret Paul

In a recent article in CNN.com Blogs, (http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/29/new-book-questions-the-myth-of-sex-addiction/?hpt=hp_bn12) psychologist David Ley states in his new book, "The Myth of Sex Addiction," that there is no such thing as sex addiction—that the term is just an excuse for bad behavior. I disagree with that position. In my view, the label of ‘addiction’ doesn’t excuse anything. That’s because my definition of addiction is anything we do to avoid taking responsibility for our feelings and the resulting behavior. Since my definition centers around choice, it is not about an illness that is ‘happening’ to you, and therefore cannot be used as an excuse.
In my experience, addictions are a result, not a cause. While they can cause many severe problems and even death, the underlying cause is the avoidance of responsibility for one’s own emotions, and sex addiction is no exception.
Let’s take an example:
Henry and Alicia have been married for 18 years. Alicia grew up in a household where looks and sexual desirability were highly admired. She learned early to attach her worth to whether a man desired her, and to try to fill her emptiness through male attention. Early in their marriage, Alicia attached her worth and happiness to whether or not Henry wanted to have sex with her. She had also learned in her family to get angry and blaming when she didn’t get what she wanted.
Henry grew up in an alcoholic home with two very controlling parents. He not only learned to turn to alcohol to avoid his feelings; he also learned to resist what Alicia wanted by shutting down. This was his way of not being controlled by her.
Both Alicia and Henry were addicted: Alicia was addicted to sex as a way of getting validated, and to anger to get her way. She was unwilling to take responsibility for defining her own worth, bringing herself joy, and learning to fill her own emptiness through her spiritual connection. Henry was addicted to alcohol to numb his feelings, and to withdrawal as his way of having control over not being controlled. Alicia was angry and hurt much of the time over Henry not wanting sex with her, and Henry was angry and hurt much of the time over Alicia wanting to use him sexually to fill her emptiness and validate her worth.
Both Alicia and Henry were addictively avoiding their deeper feelings of loneliness and heartbreak over their childhood and over their marriage with each other. By avoiding their painful feelings with their addictions, they were both abandoning themselves, and then wanting the other person to give them what they were not giving to themselves. By abandoning themselves with their various addictions, they were causing their anger, depression, anxiety, guilt, shame and emptiness, which then led to more addictive behavior.
Their addictions were not the primary cause of their pain, but the result of their self-abandonment.
SELF-ABANDONMENT is THE underlying cause of sex addiction and other addictions. Alicia and Henry’s addictions are the result of avoiding learning how to fill themselves with love from their spiritual source, so that they are not empty and needy of something external to fill them up and take away their pain.
While the above scenario is about a relationship where the woman is sexually addicted, it is far more common for the sex addict to be a man. I chose the example of the woman being the sex addict to show that both sexes can suffer from this addiction.
Addictions are not an excuse for bad behavior. Rather, addictions indicate a lack of courage to face painful feelings head on—to learn from them with love and compassion rather than avoid them with various addictions.

What Does it Mean to be a Spiritual Person?

By Dr. Margaret Paul

People often confuse spirituality with religion. People can be both religious and spiritual, but it is also possible to be religious without being spiritual, or to be spiritual without being religious.

You go to church every Sunday and you say your prayers every day. Does this mean you are a spiritual person?

No.

You practice yoga and meditate every day. Does this mean you are a spiritual person?

No.

You belong to spiritual group and are devoted to following the teachings of the group. Does this mean you are a spiritual person?

No.

What, then, does it mean to be a spiritual person?

Being a spiritual person is synonymous with being a person whose highest priority is to be loving to oneself and others. A spiritual person cares about people, animals, and the planet. A spiritual person knows that we are all One, and consciously attempts to honor this Oneness. A spiritual person is a kind person.

So, you can go to church every Sunday and say your prayers every day, without caring about loving yourself, others and the planet. You can practice yoga and meditate every day without being conscious of what is loving and what is not loving in your thoughts and actions. You can belong to a spiritual group and devotedly follow the teachings, yet still be judgmental toward yourself and others in your daily life.

There are many people who do not practice a religion, who do not meditate, pray or belong to any group, who are very spiritual people. These people naturally do caring things for others. They think about how they can help. Their thoughts are kind rather than judgmental toward themselves and toward others. When you look at them, you see kindness in their eyes.

There are many religious people who are anything but kind. We all know of religious people who are extremely judgmental, righteous, and outright mean. Can you be both religious and spiritual? Of course! But only when you are operating in your religion from your heart rather than from the learned dogma of your mind.

Years ago I very briefly attended a "spiritual" group. People would meet in an auditorium to hear the leader of the group speak. The second time I attended I heard a number of parents yelling at their children and judging them to try to control them. These parents were being anything but kind with their children. That was the last time I attended the spiritual group. The focus of the group was surrender to God, but love was rarely in the picture! They obviously had a very different experience of God than I did.

My experience of God is that God is the energy of Love that created us and sustains us. In my experience, "God is Spirit" (John 4:24) and "God is love" (1 John 4:16). Anything that is not of love, peace, joy, truth and kindness is not of God. Praying to God does not mean that you are allowing the spirit that is God - the love, peace, joy, truth and kindness that is God - to guide your thoughts and actions. Practicing yoga or meditating does not mean that you have invited the love that is God into your heart, or that you are turning to that ever-present love to learn about what is in your highest good, and the highest good of others and the planet.

If you want to be a spiritual person, then let kindness be your guiding light - kindness toward yourself, toward others, toward animals, and toward this beautiful planet that is our home. Recognize that we all have the spark of love that is God within us, and learn to honor that love so that you can know and experience the Oneness of all that is.

Practicing Inner Bonding and learning to be kind to yourself inevitably leads to kindness to others. Inner Bonding is a powerful spiritual path.

  

http://www.innerbonding.com/show-article/1280/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-spiritual-person.html

Authenticity, Transparency and Integrity

By Dr. Margaret Paul
March 04, 2012

http://www.innerbonding.com/show-article/3064/authenticity-transparency-and-integrity.html
Do you know how to discern when someone is being transparent and authentic and when they are being duplicitous?

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We seem to be living in a time when authenticity and transparency are not highly valued. We have only to look at government and many government agencies such as the FDA, politics, the military, big corporations, some religious leaders, drug companies, insurance companies and the media to see that manipulation and lies are the norm. Many of us have naturally come to mistrust much of what is being said in the media.

People become inauthentic when they have something to hide, and they are transparent when they are coming from integrity.

How can you know when someone is being authentic and transparent, or lying and manipulating? The answer is to learn to trust your feelings.

I rarely watch presidential debates because I can feel how much lying and manipulating is going on. I can’t stand watching commercials – especially food and drug commercials – for the same reason. Same with a lot of the news. I get a yucky, creepy feeling in my body that feels so bad I have to not listen.

Obviously, the intent to control is far more important to all these people and organizations than the intent to be loving to themselves and others. I often wonder - how can they live with themselves? It’s so obvious that power and greed have taken them over and they have completely lost touch with their loving essence. Perhaps they even believe they are being loving to themselves by trying to control everything and everyone.

Having worked with some of these people, I know that they are not happy, peaceful people. Their inner emptiness is so huge that they have to get more and more stuff and attention to stave off their pain. A friend of mine recently worked with a well-known financial success guru. He had been very excited to be hired to work with him, and I was interested in hearing how it went. “It was a disaster,” he told me over lunch. “The guy has no depth at all. Everything about him is superficial. He couldn’t take any of my suggestions due to his ego. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

Interesting. Many people I know have taken this man’s workshops, but I’ve never been drawn to do so, because his energy in his videos has felt awful to me. I’m so glad I trusted myself!

There is an energy – a frequency - to authenticity, transparency and integrity that feels clean and light. There is also a frequency to inauthenticity. Sometimes it’s hard to feel it because the person may be very charismatic and sound so sincere. This is why it is very important to move beyond the external and let yourself be aware of the feelings in your body. Since people cannot hide their intent, if you trust your feelings you will be able to pick up the frequency of manipulation and duplicity. When watching politicians, I can hear my inner Guidance saying things like, “He gives me the heebie jeebies.” “Her energy makes me sick.” “Oh Yuck!” (My inner Guidance doesn’t mince words!)

On the other hand, when I feel tingles and shivers, I know that I’m hearing the truth. I also feel an expansiveness inside when someone is being authentic, as opposed to the constriction I often feel when someone is being inauthentic.

I have a much harder time picking all this up when it is someone I believe I know well and care for. This is likely challenging for all of us. When you love someone and connect with their essence, it’s often hard to be aware of when they are in their ego wounded self, being manipulative and deceitful. Sometimes we need others who are not so involved to help with this.

I encourage everyone to work towards trusting your feelings about others, as well as becoming truly authentic and transparent yourselves. It’s a much easier way to live than trying to hide.

Do you get drained or fulfilled in giving to others? Discover why!

Giving To Others: Draining Or Fulfilling?

By Dr. Margaret Paul
February 27, 2012

Giving to others can be one of the most fulfilling experiences in life, or it can be one of the most draining. What makes the difference?

The difference has to do with WHY you are giving to others.

Giving From A Full Heart

When we give from a full heart, we are giving because we are so filled up with love that it is overflowing, and we receive great joy in giving to others.

We are not giving to get anything back because we don’t need anything back. We don’t need anything back because we have taken 100% responsibility for loving ourselves – for thinking the loving thoughts and taking the loving actions that make us feel worthy, lovable, peaceful and joyful within.

When I am giving from a full heart I don’t need others to give me approval for giving. The giving is its own reward, as long as I am certain that my giving is loving to myself and others. My fulfillment is not dependent upon others’ approval, but on how I feel about myself. I am receiving fulfillment from being the kind of person I value.

When I am taking loving care of myself, I’m not available to being used or drained by others. If I feel that others are latching on to me like a vampire and trying to suck the life out of me, then I lovingly disengage, as my primary intent is to be loving to myself – and it is not loving to myself to allow myself to be used and drained. It is loving to me to fulfill myself through giving to others, as long as this feels good inside. If it doesn’t feel good, then it isn’t loving – either to me or to others. Giving to others who just want to take is enabling them to continue to avoid responsibility for themselves. It is not loving to me or them to support them in being needy victims.

It is loving to me to give to others who utilize what I give them to heal, learn and grow. It is incredibly fulfilling to help others who genuinely want to help themselves, but it is draining to give to others who have no intention of helping themselves. If you are giving from a full heart but you feel drained in the giving, this is telling you that you are enabling someone rather than being loving to yourself and to them.

Giving From An Empty Heart

When you are not taking responsibility for your own self-worth, inner peace and joy, then there is likely an emptiness within you. When you give from an empty place, you may feel drained rather than fulfilled in the giving.

You might want to see if you identify with either of these reasons for giving to others:

• Are you giving to get attention, approval, validation, time or sex?

When this is the case, you are giving to get, rather than giving from a full heart. Others may feel pulled at and manipulated by your giving, and may pull back. Your giving may feel controlling and invasive and they may withdraw and go into resistance, not wanting to connect with you. You might end up feeling resentful and drained in your giving.

• Have you been taught that you are a good person only when you are sacrificing yourself – giving yourself up to giving to others? Are you giving out of fear, obligation or guilt?

You may be giving to get others to see you as a good person, rather than giving from a full heart, where you have already defined yourself as a good person. When you do this, you have abandoned your responsibility to define you own goodness and worth, and you are making others responsible for your definition of your sense of worth. This kind of giving will never lead to fulfillment.

When you learn how to take full responsibility for your own feelings of worth, peace and joy, then giving to others who can benefit from your giving will be one of the most joyful of life’s experiences.

http://www.innerbonding.com/show-article/3056/giving-to-others-draining-or-fulfilling.html

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“I Feel Overwhelmed” By Dr. Margaret Paul

I often hear from my clients that they feel overwhelmed. Generally, feeling overwhelmed means one of three things:

Overwhelmed by their feelings
Overwhelmed by time pressures
Overwhelmed by how to do things ‘right’

The feeling of overwhelm is generally caused by how we are treating ourselves and what we are telling ourselves.

Peter

In my Skype session with Peter, he told me at the beginning of the session that he felt overwhelmed.

“Peter, please breathe into your feeling of overwhelm and get present with it…….do you want responsibility for being the one causing this feeling?”

“Yes, but I don’t think I’m the cause. I think it’s because I have so much to do and I don’t have the time to get everything done.”

“Is this what you are telling yourself, which is causing you to feel overwhelmed?”

“Yes, but it’s true.”

“Peter, lets go a little deeper with what you are telling yourself. What are you telling yourself will happen if you don’t get everything done?”

“People will be upset with me.”

“And what does it mean if they are upset with you?”

“It means that I’m not good enough.”

“How do you think your children would feel if you said to them, “You have all this to do and not enough time to do it, and if you don’t get it done people will be upset with you, and their upset means that you are not good enough, so get to work.”

“I would never say that to my children.”

“But this is what you are telling yourself – the little boy within who is your feeling self. So of course he feels overwhelmed, just as your children would feel if you said this to them. Peter, please open to your higher self and ask what the truth is.”

“……………My higher self is saying that I always manage to get things done and that putting pressure on myself just makes it harder. And he says that I am a loving soul – and that is the basis of my worth, not whether I get things done or whether or not people are upset with me.”

“So, while it may be true that you have a lot to get done, everything else you have been telling yourself is not true – and this is what is causing your overwhelm. Ask you higher self what else you can say to yourself that will release the overwhelm.”

“My little boy inside needs to know that I will love him even if we don’t get everything done. I’m telling him that right now, and he feels so much better!”

Janna

Janna was feeling overwhelmed by her feelings of loneliness and heartbreak after her boyfriend broke up with her; she had been over-eating and eating junk to numb the feelings.

“Janna, breathe into these feelings and see if you can get totally present with them……now focus in your heart and invite into your heart compassion for these feelings – kindness, gentleness, caring. Imagine that you are sitting with your hurting child within, embracing her with deep compassion. Just keep being fully present with these very painful feelings with compassion, until you feel ready to release them to Spirit.”

It only took about five minutes before Janna felt ready to let the feelings move through her. Each time the painful feelings came up, Janna embraced them with compassion and allowed them to move through her rather than getting stuck in her. Her desire to over-eat vanished, as she no longer felt overwhelmed.

I hope the next time you feel overwhelmed, you fully embrace this feeling with compassion, so that you can either learn about what the overwhelm might be telling you, or you can manage the underlying painful feelings with deep kindness toward yourself.

http://www.innerbonding.com/show-article/3018/i-feel-overwhelmed.html

Are you Inspiring or Gloomy? By Dr. Margaret Paul

"You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy." --Julia Child, 1912-2004, Chef, Author and Television Personality

What is your primary intention with others – to share uplifting, caring energy, or to get sympathy?

Getting Sympathy

When you are complaining, whining, and being generally gloomy with others, what do you want? Are you trying to connect with them through getting their sympathy? Are you trying to fill some inner emptiness through getting them to feel sorry for you? Have you been programmed to believe that the only way to connect is to share misery and complaints? Do you compete for having the worst complaints – the worst illness, the worst rejections, the worst unfairness, the worst day? Do you ever think to yourself when hearing another’s complaint, “Big deal, that’s nothing. Wait until you hear what I’m going through.”

You might want to take a moment right now and take an honest look inside to see what your hope is in being gloomy rather than cheerful. What are you not giving to yourself that you want from others? Are you ignoring your own feelings, and then hoping someone else will give you the attention and caring you want? Are you avoiding taking responsibility for the choices you make that lead to you feeling badly? What is your investment in seeing yourself as a victim? Do you believe that getting momentary sympathy from another is what will make you feel okay about yourself?

Being Caring and Inspiring

Imagine what might happen in your life if you “never allowed yourself to say anything gloomy,” as Julia Child suggests.

In order to do this, you need to give yourself the caring and compassion that you keep trying to get from others with your complaining, gloomy behavior. Just acting cheerful, when you really feel awful inside, isn’t going to do much for you or for your relationships. Most people can easily pick up inauthentic behavior, so a superficial Pollyanna attitude is not going to be well received.

The real issue here is whether you are loving yourself or abandoning yourself. When you abandon yourself – by judging yourself, ignoring your feelings, turning to various addictions to avoid your feelings, and making others responsible for your feelings of worth and lovability – you will feel gloomy. While it’s easy to believe that your misery is due to something external – finances, relationships, unmet expectations – much of the time these feelings are coming from your own self-abandonment. If you are abandoning yourself and then acting cheerful, it is likely that the intent of your cheerfulness is the same as the intent of your complaining – to get something from someone else to make you feel better.

To be truly caring and inspiring to others, you need to be genuinely peaceful inside, and this comes only from taking loving care of yourself – of your emotions, your physical wellbeing, your spiritual wellbeing, your financial wellbeing, and your sense of integrity.

In order to never allow yourself to say anything gloomy to others, you first have to stop indulging yourself in saying gloomy things to yourself, which means that you need to become aware of the overt and subtle ways you scare yourself and judge yourself from your programmed ego wounded self. As long as you indulge yourself in thinking scary and judgmental thoughts, you will be creating your own misery, which you then may dump onto others with your whining and complaining.

Imagine how wonderful our relationships and our world would be if all of us took responsibility for our own feelings instead of making others responsible.

Daily Inspiration

Become conscious of where your focus is. Is it in your mind, trying to figure things out and control things, or is it in your heart, staying connected with your own feelings and with the love and truth of Spirit? What is in charge, your mind or your heart, your fear or your love? By Dr. Margaret Paul

Do You Isolate?

By Dr. Margaret Paul
November 14, 2011

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If you tend to isolate, and you believe that isolating protects you from getting hurt, you might be surprised to learn of the harm you are causing yourself.

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In my counseling practice, I often have clients who tend to isolate as a way of protecting against their fears - especially their fears of rejection and engulfment. They are so afraid of being disliked, disapproved of, attacked or having demands made on them, that they choose to avoid relationships, rather than learn how to deal with these challenging situations.

These people have never developed a loving Adult self, who knows how to take loving care of them when others are angry, rejecting or demanding. They believe they prefer loneliness over the challenge of relationships.

Yet, time and again, I see the devastating effects of constant loneliness. We are social beings, meant to live within the safety and connection of family and community. While, to people who isolate, it seems safer to avoid relationships, the research shows that a lack of community has a very negative effect on health and wellbeing. Far more single people are unhappy than married people, and people without friends die earlier than people with friends.

"People in long-term marriages are much happier than people who aren't....People who have more friends have lower stress levels and live longer." The Social Animal, David Brooks, pp196-197

If you are a person who isolates, can you learn to feel safe without giving up being with people?

Yes, you can. You will feel safe when you learn how to take loving care of yourself, especially in the face of others' anger, disapproval and demands.

This means that you need to learn a number of very important things:

• You need to learn to define your own worth, so that you are not reliant on others' approval to feel good about yourself.
• You need to learn to not take others' behavior personally. While others' blaming, attacking, disapproving, rejecting, demanding or needy behavior can hurt your heart, it is very important to know that it is not about you, and not about there being anything wrong with you.
• You need to learn to manage the loneliness and heartbreak of others' unloving behavior. It's one thing to feel lonely when you have chosen to isolate - since you are in control of it - but quite another to feel the loneliness of others' closed hearts and accept your helplessness over their choices. Yet closing your own heart is not the answer.
• You need to reach a point in your life where you know that being open-hearted and loving with yourself and others is why you are on the planet, and that there is no way of avoiding the loneliness and heartbreak of loving someone who is not open-hearted with you. This is why learning to manage the very challenging feeling of loneliness and heartbreak - and your helplessness over others' choices - is so important. Without knowing how to do this, you will likely be too afraid to love.

This is where the Six Steps of Inner Bonding come in. Practicing Inner Bonding is what will heal the fears and false beliefs that keep you isolated and afraid, by developing your loving Adult self, who is capable of taking loving care of yourself in the face of others' unloving behavior.

This is what will free you from isolation.

It takes great courage to learn how to take loving care of yourself - to speak your truth and take loving action in your own behalf, risking others' disapproval and rejection rather than giving yourself up to control how others feel about you, or isolating to avoid the challenge.

Do you have the courage to open your heart and learn how to love yourself? Do you have the courage to open your heart to others and risk rejection or loss? No one can ever make it "safe" for you to do this; truly loving is, in a sense, one of the least safe things we do on the planet. It is also the most fulfilling and joyful experience we ever have.

Today, make sure you are regenerating your energy. Spend time in nature. Do something creative. Give love to someone who receives it lovingly. Receive love from someone who gives it lovingly. Laugh with someone. Play with someone. Play with an animal. Connect with Spirit. Make sure your battery is getting recharged rather than depleted. By Dr. Margaret Paul

Does Crying Make you Feel Better? By Dr. Margaret Paul

Discover that some crying makes you feel better, while other crying doesn't, or may even make you feel worse.

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A recent study indicates that crying does not make people feel better. But there is a problem with this study.

(Crying shame: Tears don't make you feel any better, study shows, By Cari Nierenberg, http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/29/7190543-crying-shame-tears-dont-make-you-feel-any-better-study-shows#.TjR9l8uTx0A.email).

The study indicates that:

"Shedding tears only improved mood in one-third of criers who kept tabs of their bawling behaviors, finds recent research."

The problem is that they do not differentiate between crying as a victim and crying to release the authentic pain of grief, loneliness and heartbreak. They do not differentiate between victim tears and authentic tears that release core painful feelings. It is likely that the one-third who benefited from crying were those who were releasing authentic pain.

Victim Tears

Crying as a victim is a bottomless pit and will never lead to feeling better. Victim tears are a protection again taking responsibility for yourself. This is a state of self-pity, rather than a state of compassion for yourself. When you are crying as a victim, your heart is closed to yourself. It is a state of self-abandonment.

It may be challenging to know when you are being a victim, but it's easy to know when another is being a victim. We've all had the experience of being with someone who is crying and wanting us to make them feel better. We feel a pull from them to fix them. When I'm with someone who is crying from this victim state, I don't feel drawn to hold and comfort them. I do have compassion for them, as they are in a state of deep self-abandonment, and I'm always willing to help if they genuinely want the kind of help that leads to personal responsibility. But it would not be loving to them for me to enable them by doing for them what they need to be doing for themselves.

If you find that crying doesn't make you feel any better, then it is likely that you are in a victim state. Crying from this state might even make you feel worse. This study found that:

"For the majority of cases -- 61 percent of them -- sobbers reported no change in mood compared to how they felt before moisture streamed down their cheeks. Thirty percent experienced a better mood afterward and nine percent felt worse."

You will move out of the victim state the moment you want responsibility for your own feelings.

Authentic Tears

Crying can help to release the deep pain of profound heartbreak and grief that is due to very painful life situations. Crying helps to move the energy of these painful emotions out of the body so that they don't get stuck and cause illness.

When you are crying as an expression of your authentic feelings, you are gently holding your heart with deep compassion toward yourself. Your heart is open to yourself, and to receiving comfort from a spiritual source of love, as well as from others.

While the crying of victim pain can go on and on, the crying of authentic pain is generally short. The pain may come in waves, and if you allow yourself to cry each time, it will gradually diminish.

The study states:

"...participants who sobbed with the greatest intensity -- but not for the longest amount of time -- enjoyed the biggest bang from their bawling: Their moods benefited the most from shedding tears."

It is likely that these were the people who were expressing authentic pain. It's interesting to me that only one-third of the people in the study benefited from their crying, which indicates to me that two-thirds of the people were crying as victims.

The study's conclusion that "Crying is not nearly as beneficial as people think it is," is, in my view, misleading. I would state instead that crying as a victim is not at all beneficial, and crying the authentic tears of grief and heartbreak is very beneficial.

I would also add that crying from a moved heart - moved by love, beauty, tenderness, caring and compassion, is very beneficial. This indicates a truly open heart - a heart that can experience both joy and sorrow.

The Power of Tears

Posted in Self Improvement & Personal Growth

“Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.” – Golda Meir

Do you have a lid on your tears? Do you also have a hard time laughing with your whole body?

Our tears are a God-given way of expressing sadness, just as laughter is a God-given way of expressing fun and joy. Both laughter and tears release stress in loving ways, rather than having to release it through anger or through holding it in your body, which can eventually cause physical pain and illness.

However, there are two kinds of tears, wounded tears and authentic, core tears.

Wounded Tears

Wounded tears are the tears we express when we are feeling like a victim. Wounded tears come from the pain that we are causing ourselves with our own self-abandonment. When we do not take loving care of our own feelings – instead ignoring our feelings, judging them, and avoiding them with various addictions – we might then project on to others that they are abandoning us and are the cause of our emotional pain.

Wounded victim tears are a manipulation of others, trying to make others feel guilty and responsible for you. The hope of wounded tears is that the other person will feel sympathy and pity for you, and give you the love and attention that you are not giving to yourself. Wounded tears are a way of avoiding personal responsibility for yourself – emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

Wounded tears are a bottomless pit. Because they are being caused by your own self-abandonment, your misery will not go away until you choose to take responsibility for your self.

When you are at the other end of another’s wounded tears, you might feel put off by them. This is a normal reaction to the manipulation and is not an indication that you are a heartless person. When you don’t feel moved by another’s tears, there is a good chance that it is because their tears are trying to make you feel guilty and responsible for them.

Authentic Tears

Authentic tears are the tears we express when we are feeling the loneliness, heartache, heartbreak, sadness, sorrow, or grief of life. The pain behind these tears is not from how we are treating ourselves, but from the painful events of life – the loneliness and heartbreak of childhood abuse, of the loss of a loved one, the loneliness and heartache of being at the other end of another’s meanness, the fear and grief over the loss of a job or loss of financial security, the heartbreak and grief of shattered dreams, the sorrow of seeing others’ suffering or seeing peoples’ unlovingness toward each other, and so on.

Authentic tears come from an open heart. When you are in the presence of someone who is in authentic pain, you generally feel moved to comfort them. If your own heart is open, you will likely feel their pain within you as you empathize with their feelings, and tears might come to your eyes.

It is vitally important to be able to express your authentic pain. When you put a lid on your authentic pain, the pain has to go somewhere, and it often goes into the muscles of your body, causing things like neck and back pain. The repression of authentic pain can cause so much stress in the body that your immune system is suppressed, which can eventually contribute to illnesses such as heart disease and cancer.

Authentic pain and true joy exist in the same place within your heart. When you put a lid on authentic pain, you also put a lid on authentic joy. If your life feels somewhat colorless, consider learning how to open to your authentic pain and you will discover your laughter and joy.

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is a best-selling author of 8 books, relationship expert, and co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® process – featured on Oprah. Are you are ready to heal your pain and discover your joy? Click here for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com/welcome and visit our website at http://www.innerbonding.com for more articles and help. Phone Sessions Available. Join the thousands we have already helped and visit us now!