Dr. Margaret Paul, co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® self-healing process, is the author/co-author of several best-selling books, including:
- Do I Have To Give Up Me to Be Loved By You?
- Do I Have To Give Up Me to Be Loved By You?…The Workbook
- Healing Your Aloneness
- Inner Bonding
- The Healing Your Aloneness Workbook
- Do I Have To Give Up Me to Be Loved By My Kids?
- Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By God?
Dr. Paul’s books have been distributed around the world and have been translated into many languages.
Dr. Margaret works with individuals and couples throughout the world – on the phone, via the web on http://www.innerbonding.com, in workshops, and in multi-day group intensive programs.
Discover why you may be sabotaging and punishing yourself with your self-judgment and self-rejection.
Would you love to manifest your dreams and have the life you want? Most people would unhesitatingly respond with a resounding “YES!” Yet, do you sometimes find yourself sabotaging yourself in achieving this? Georgette finds herself in this position and wants to know how to stop.
“My inner parent took over the job where my biological and step-parents left off. She’s negative and critical to the point that I find that I’m consciously sabotaging myself — just to be sure I get what I deserve. (?) It feels as though I would be out of integrity if I don’t punish myself. That message stuck with me from very early in childhood and I continue to struggle with it. By virtue of the fact that this struggle even exists seems to validate the negative assessment that I’m worthless. I’m 60 years old and this life-long habit is still fresh and active, even though the original perpetrators of the vile message are long dead. In my brain, and even my heart, I know that I am not worthless — no one is. But emotionally, it feels so real. Is this message something that will ever be overcome? I’ve done so much personal work, and have assisted many others in dealing with similar issues, yet I can’t seem to unravel it within myself. Any insight and direction would be so much appreciated. Thank you.”
Georgette, the question you need to ask yourself is, “What feelings or outcomes am I trying to control or avoid when I judge and punish myself?”
Your parents were trying to control you when they were critical of you, and you absorbed the messages you heard as a child into your wounded self. The wounded self is the part of us that learned various ways of trying to control our painful feelings and the outcome of things regarding others and events.
Because we could not manage very painful feelings when we were little, we needed to try to control as part of our survival.
The problem is that your wounded self is still in charge, and still trying to control. As long as your intent is to control your feelings and outcomes, you will continue to sabotage yourself with self-judgment. Your wounded self is not actually trying to sabotage you – she is trying to protect you from getting hurt, but the way she tries to protect you ends up sabotaging you. So it’s not working.
When you shift your intent from controlling to loving yourself, you will eventually be able to stop judging yourself. When you decide that being loving to yourself – and learning about what that means – is more important to you than avoiding your painful feelings, then you will gradually be able to stop sabotaging yourself.
The painful feelings most of us learned to avoid when we were little are the core painful feelings of life – loneliness, heartbreak, grief and helplessness over others and outcomes.
The wounded self is so averse to the core painful feelings of life that it ironically creates other painful feelings such as anxiety, depression, guilt, shame or anger in order to avoid the deeper feelings.
When you learn to connect with a loving spiritual source of comfort, and compassionately embrace these feelings, then you will no longer need to avoid them. When you accept your helplessness over others’ feelings and actions, and over the outcome of things, and learn to take loving care of yourself in the face of challenging situations, then you no longer need to attempt to control. This is what will allow you to let go of the self-judgment/self-rejection that is sabotaging you.
The Inner Bonding process is wonderful for developing your spiritually connected loving adult self who is capable of managing your painful feelings.
Connect with Margaret on Facebook.
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, and recommended by actress Lindsay Wagner and singer Alanis Morissette. 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 and Skype Sessions Available. Join the thousands we have already helped and visit us now!
Posted in Self Improvement & Personal Growth
Tags: controlling behavior, heartbreak, Inner Bonding, loneliness, Margaret Paul, self-abandonment, self-judgment, self-rejection, self-sabotage, spiritual guidance, spirituality, wounded self
Are you ready to discover the way to happiness? Are you ready to discover what Epictetus knew over 2000 years ago?
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” ~Epictetus, AD 55-135
It’s hard for me to imagine that Epictetus, Greek sage and philosopher who was born a slave in what is currently known as Turkey, knew what many people are still trying to grasp – that “Suffering occurs from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power.” (from Wikipedia, quoting Epictetus).
I guess it’s true that ”there is nothing new under the sun,” and that we just keep having to learn the same lessons over and over.
I know his teaching to be completely true, because I used to worry about all kinds of things I couldn’t control and I suffered with much anxiety. When I finally let go of the illusion of trying to control others and outcomes, and focused instead on what I can control – me – that’s when life became so much easier and happier.
Control is such a big issue with most people. We want to convince ourselves that if only we say things right, do things right, pray right, judge ourselves enough, achieve enough, earn enough, acquire enough, say enough affirmations – then we can control how people feel about us and the outcome of things… and then we will be happy.
What is within our power? Primarily, it is within our power to determine our own intent – either to learn about loving ourselves and others, or to protect ourselves against pain with some form of controlling behavior.
Such a paradox! Our controlling behaviors, designed to protect us from pain, are actually what cause much of our pain. When we try to control – by being perfect, by judging ourselves, by getting angry, by giving ourselves up – we make ourselves miserable. When we choose the intent to learn about loving ourselves and others, then we learn to behave in ways that create happiness.
Given that this knowledge was available in AD 100, why are we still struggling with this?
There is a very good reason.
One of the hardest feelings for any of us to feel is helpless. It’s a really tough feeling. Most people will do anything to avoid feeling helpless over how other people feel about them, and over the outcome of things. So they avoid the feeling with a myriad of controlling behaviors. And the controlling behaviors do seem to work – not by affecting how other people feel about them or controlling the outcome of things, but by temporarily protecting them from the intolerable feeling of helplessness. Do you feel helpless when you get angry and blame someone? Generally not. It’s likely that you convince yourself that getting angry and blaming is powerful – even though the other person may resist you, or walk away, or get angry back. While you are angry and blaming, you are successfully avoiding the feeling of helplessness, so this behavior appears to work to control a feeling that you are afraid to feel.
Other controlling behaviors also work to block out painful feelings – feelings such as loneliness, heartbreak and grief. Many people are so afraid of these painful feelings of life that they will behave in ways that create misery, rather than risk feeling these feelings. They will avoid their pain by judging themselves, turning to various addictions, and making others responsible for their feelings of worth and safety. As long as their controlling behaviors work to cover over their helplessness, heartbreak, loneliness and grief, they believe these behaviors are working for them – even though, in truth, it is causing them to feel anxious, depressed, shamed or angry. They are willing to sacrifice their happiness to avoid their pain.
As Epictetus stated, happiness lies in letting go of trying to control what we can’t control, and controlling what we can. One of the things we can control is whether or not we learn to manage the core painful feelings of life. We all have this choice, and the Inner Bonding process is an amazing way of learning this. Once you are no longer afraid of these feelings, then you will be able to let go of controlling what you can’t…and you will find your happiness.
Connect with Margaret on Facebook.
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, and recommended by actress Lindsay Wagner and singer Alanis Morissette. 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 and Skype Sessions Available. Join the thousands we have already helped and visit us now!
Posted in Self Improvement & Personal Growth
Tags: anger, blame, controlling behavior, Epictetus, grief, happiness, heartbreak, helplessness, Inner Bonding, loneliness, Margaret Paul, personal development, personal power, Self Help
Do you find yourself getting hurt over and over in relationships? Discover why.
Do you find yourself falling hard for someone and then ending up feeling rejected and not good enough when it ends? This is the problem that Sabrina is having:
“Why do I fall so hard for men? How can I get over this without pain and the feelings of dreadful rejections and feeling less than?”
Sabrina, imagine that you have an actual little girl whom you pay little attention to. Along comes a man and you hand your little girl over to this man for him to love her. While he is loving her, she might feel a little okay (although she will feel rejected by you since you are abandoning her). Since she doesn’t get love and attention from you, she attaches hard to this man. But after a while he becomes tired of taking care of her and leaves.
Now she is doubly devastated. You originally rejected her and now he has rejected her. How can she possibly feel good about herself? Of course she feels less than.
The same thing happens on the inner level. The part of you who falls hard is an abandoned inner child – your feeling self – whom you are constantly rejecting. Even your question indicates rejection – your want to ‘get over this without pain.’
It is not possible to get over this without pain until you decide that you want responsibility for learning to love yourself. That little girl in you needs love, and if you are not going to give it to her, then she will fall hard for someone who will give it to her – at least temporarily. How can you not be in pain and feel rejected and worthless when you continue to abandon yourself by making a man responsible for your feelings of worth and safety?
Until you decide to learn to love yourself rather than continue to reject yourself, you will continue to fall hard and continue to suffer the pain of rejection and unworthiness.
So, of course, what I recommend is what I always recommend – learn and practice Inner Bonding! The six-step roadmap of Inner Bonding is the process for learning to love and value yourself and create your own inner safety.
If You Loved Yourself…
If you loved yourself, then you not want to abandon yourself to a man. You would be taking responsibility for your own feelings of worth and safety, so you wouldn’t need him to do it. You would find yourself wanting to share love with a man rather than trying to get love. When you are filled with love and want to share it, you do not ‘”fall hard” the way you do now. “Falling hard” is what the ego/wounded self does when she thinks she has found someone to love her.
When you learn to love yourself, you will attract a different kind of man – a man who also wants to share love with you. Right now, because you are abandoning yourself, you attract men who also abandon themselves. They will ‘love’ you with an agenda attached, which is that you give them the love they are not giving to themselves. They are just as needy as you, and two needy people create a codependent relationship that often eventually becomes dissatisfying. When you don’t fulfill his expectations to make him feel loved, safe and worthy, he may drop you and move on to find someone else to meet his needs. That’s when you feel hurt, abandoned and rejected.
I suggest you learn to put your whole focus on defining your own worth, and learn to bring love from Spirit to your little girl. When she feels very loved by you, you will stop falling hard and getting hurt.
Connect with Margaret on Facebook.
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, and recommended by actress Lindsay Wagner and singer Alanis Morissette. 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 and Skype Sessions Available. Join the thousands we have already helped and visit us now!
Posted in Relationships
Tags: codependent relationships, Inner Bonding, inner child, loving yourself, Margaret Paul, neediness, Relationships, self worth, self-abandonment, self-love, self-rejection
Do you find that as soon as you really like someone – whether as a friend or as a partner – you ‘lose your cool?’
Relationships offer us more opportunities for personal growth than just about anything else in life. But sometime the opportunities are very challenging!
For example, Larry asks:
“Whenever I feel a real connection with someone, whether it’s for friendship or a love interest, I lose my cool completely, can’t function and I end up losing them. What can I do?”
Larry, I’m certain that many people can identify with your experience. Let’s look at the underlying cause of this.
The bottom line that leads to losing your cool is self-rejection/self-abandonment.
Imagine that you have an actual little boy, and every time he makes a friend, you say to him, “If your friend doesn’t like you, then you are unworthy and unlovable.” Your little boy would be so anxious that he could not be himself. He would be trying so hard to impress his friend that he would ‘lose his cool completely.” He would not be able to function and would end up losing the friend, which would reinforce his sense of unworthiness.
If you said this to your little boy, you would be lying to him, because his worth and lovability would have nothing to do with whether or not someone liked him. If you were a loving father, you would let him know that he was intrinsically worthy and lovable because of his inherent qualities, such as his kindness or curiosity or empathy or aliveness or natural sense of humor. You would let him know that he is worthy just for being himself. And if he knew this, he would not worry about whether a friend liked him, because his worth was not on the line.
Larry, on the inner level, you are rejecting your own inner child. You have not defined your own inherent worth, and instead you are giving your inner child away to others to define. This creates huge stress. You can’t be yourself because you have to try to control whether or not the other person likes you. Then, because they likely feel pulled on by you to approve of you, they pull away. Most people do not want responsibility for another person’s sense of worth. Most people feel resistant and repelled when they sense that you are not being yourself, and instead are trying to control how they feel about you.
What To Do?
Larry, you need to decide that you want responsibility for defining your own worth and lovability. You need to start to tune in to how stressed you feel when you put pressure on yourself to impress someone. You need to open to learning with a higher power to learn to see yourself through the eyes of love rather than the eyes of self-judgment. You need to tune into the self-judgments you level at yourself that make you feel unworthy, inadequate and unlovable.
You will not be able to stop ‘losing your cool’ in relationships until you develop a loving and connected relationship with yourself – your true self. And you can’t bring the truth of who you are to your inner child, nor the love he needs from you, without a connection with a higher source of love and truth.
Larry, I suggest you learn and practice the Inner Bonding process, which is what will develop this inner connection. The consistent practice of Inner Bonding develops your loving Adult self, the part of you who can connect with your higher power and bring the love and acceptance to your inner little boy that you need. Until then, you will likely continue to abandon yourself through your self-judgments, which will continue to create the stress that results in losing your cool.
Connect with Margaret on Facebook.
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, and recommended by actress Lindsay Wagner and singer Alanis Morissette. 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 and Skype Sessions Available. Join the thousands we have already helped and visit us now!
Sometimes we are clueless regarding the subtle ways we are trying to control, while being very aware of a partner’s controlling behavior.
Tara asked me the following question:
“Dear Dr. Paul, How do you reach your spouse if they are narcissistic and shut down emotionally? He does not say anything when I explain inner bonding, intent or control – just stares. Even if I declare my love for him and my wish to be closer, he just nods his head! He is the son of narcissist father and borderline mother who both stepped out of his life when we married, He sees no reason to forgive anyone and he is not only defensive – he is offensive!!! Any conversation he must be in control. Help!!”
Tara, I’m going to make the assumption that you knew some of these things about him before marrying him, or that you got swept off your feet by the narcissistic charm and didn’t take the time you needed to really know him before marrying him. View full post »
Posted in Relationships, Self Improvement & Personal Growth
Tags: changing others, controlling behavior, covert control, disconnection, Inner Bonding, Margaret Paul, narcissism, narcissist, overt control, self-abandonment
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