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
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?”
Discover what you may need to address before deciding whether you can be friends with an ex partner.
Elise writes:
“My partner and I separated a year ago. My partner now wants to finalize the relationship but work on being ‘friends’. I am having difficulty connecting as just ‘friends’, it seems to trigger all my old wounds of rejection and abandonment. Do you have any advice?”
Elise, the fact that your old rejection and abandonment wounds are getting triggered is a great opportunity for you to become aware of how you are rejecting and abandoning yourself. This is the real issue in the present. Old rejection and abandonment wounds get healed when we learn to give ourselves the love, compassion, gentleness, tenderness, caring and understanding that we didn’t receive as children.
Dating provides many opportunities to learn and grow. Discover some of what you can learn that will be very valuable for you.
Franklin writes:
“I am a 68 year old male who was married for 27 years and now divorced 15 years. I have fallen in love with a woman after only three months of dating, but she is disengaging by being incommunicado. I am mystified since things were going so well then suddenly she is not available. What to do?”
Franklin, as hard as it is, there is nothing you can do about her disengaging from you. You need to be very compassionate toward your own heartbreak. Generally, people do this when they get scared of intimacy. There are two major reasons they get scared: Continue reading Challenges of The Dating Scene
Are you aware of the vast difference between expressing gratitude from your ego wounded self or from your loving adult self?
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”~Eckhart Tolle, Author of The Power of Now
How often do you feel genuinely grateful for what you have in your life?
There is a big difference between acting grateful and feeling genuine gratitude in your heart.
Our ego wounded self, which is the part of us that wants control over our feelings, others and outcomes, loves the idea of acting grateful as a way to have control over manifesting abundance. The wounded self wants to believe that rattling off affirmations and statements of gratitude will give it this control. Continue reading The Foundation for Abundance
Are you conflict-avoidant? Does conflict terrify you? Discover how to heal this.
Angela writes:
“I avoid conflict as much as possible because I cannot handle the anxiety it produces in me, as if I am going to die, even when I am in the presence of other people that are in conflict. I am aware that I abandon myself many times because I do not stand or fight for what I believe is right for me. I know we are going to encounter conflict in our daily life, it is part of it and I do not want to keep on feeling small at the presence of conflict. I want to be able to speak my truth, ask for what I need or stand for what I believe is right. How can I transform this, that is, how can I handle the anxiety and approach conflict in a more centered way?”
I completely understand what Angela experiences, as I used to feel the same anxiety, feeling like I was going to die. It took me many years to understand what I needed to do in conflict to no longer fear it. Continue reading Staying Centered in Conflict
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