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Many of us know that we need to be loving to ourselves, but what does this actually mean? Since most of us had little or no role modeling regarding loving ourselves when we were growing up, it’s often challenging to know what loving ourselves looks like. It’s through my work with my inner . . . → Read More: What Does It Mean To Love Yourself? Are you aware of the system you have created with your partner that may be causing you pain?
I have worked with couples for 44 years, and one thing I can tell you for sure: relationships are a system, and each partner has an equal part of the system. People come together at their common level of woundedness – their common level of self-abandonment. In many relationships, each partner is very aware of the other person’s end of the system, but completely unaware of their own end. They tend to trigger the other person’s wounded self with their own wounded self, but they often don’t recognize their own wounded self. Here is an example of this:
Allison asks: “How do you suggest telling someone they’re doing something that hurts your feelings and to ask them to stop? My husband recently accused me of finding a way to blame my depressed feelings on him. He believes that I wake up in the morning feeling depressed and then try to find something to pin it on. My experience is that if he says something that bothers me and I don’t say something right when it happens or if he tells me I’m being defensive and I shut down, that I often wake up feeling resentful the next day, but when I tell him that I’m upset he gets defensive and tells me I have a problem.” Continue reading “How Can I Get Him To Stop Hurting Me?”       What was valued and approved of in your family as you were growing up?
When you were growing up, how did you learn to define your worth? Here are some of the things my clients have said to me:
Are you focusing on getting your partner to change to avoid a painful choice that you might need to make? If you find yourself often focused on healing others or hoping you can get others to change, it is likely that you don’t think of this as an addiction. I define an addiction . . . → Read More: Addiction to Getting Others To Change Is being duped something you avoid at all costs, or are you willing to be duped in order to keep your heart open?
No one likes being duped. It feels awful to realize that someone has pulled the wool over our eyes – that we were so naïve we didn’t see that we were being duped, lied to or taken advantage of.
However, since this painful experience happens to most of us at one time or another, we each have a choice – will we make protecting ourselves from being duped our highest priority, or will we make being open and loving more important than whether or not we get duped? I have found in my work with clients that the fear of being duped or taken advantage of is often in the way of being loving to themselves and others. They are so afraid of being taken advantage of that they close their heart, keeping their walls up to protect themselves from the possibility of being duped. Continue reading The Fear of Being Duped  Comments are closed  Relationships  bad faith, being lied to, closed heart, duped, Inner Bonding, karma, love, Margaret Paul, open heart, share love, soul, soul's journey, spirit, spirituality, taken advantage of, truth Dealing with critical people, especially a parent, is a challenge for all of us. Here are some options for dealing with a critical mother.
Having a critical mother is a big challenge. I know, because I grew up with an extremely critical mother. I can certainly relate to Lori, who asked the follow question:
“Dr. Paul, my question is about what to do to take care of myself with my mother. She comes to visit me every so often, brings her husband along, and goes out of her way to put down everything about my life and the city I live in when she is here. It is heart breaking because I am a loving person and choose to keep my heart open, yet she goes out of her way to hurt me by putting down my life. I want to be me, and be loving and giving, yet it hurts a lot to be open with her. Can you provide some Inner Bonding thoughts on this? Thank you so much!” Continue reading “How Do I Deal With My Critical Mother?” Comments are closed Parenting compassion, Criticism, emotional connection, Inner Bonding, inner child, intent to learn, judgmental, Margaret Paul, projection, Self Help, self-abandonment |
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