S2 EP314 – Why Affirmations Might Fail Without Inner Bonding

“Welcome back to Inner Bonding Podcast. I’m Dr. Margaret Paul and today’s episode is titled Why Affirmations Might Fail Without Inner Bonding®. Be sure to stay to the end because I’ll be sharing more about the secret to making your affirmations work for you.

As you might already know. In Inner Bonding there are only two intentions to choose from in any given moment. Either your intent is to control getting what you want and avoiding pain, or your intent is to learn about loving yourself and others.

The same applies to affirmations: Your intent in stating an affirmation is either to control the outcome, or to commit to loving yourself and others through your loving actions. Affirmations that are commitments to loving actions have power behind them, while affirmations stated with an intent to control will likely get you nowhere.

To have the outcomes we want, we can’t just put out what we want without committing to doing all we can do to make it happen. Author Marcy Blockowaik, in No Glass Ceiling, said “Action is the gas in the tank. Without it, the car will not run.”

Loving actions are the gas in the tank. So be honest with yourself – how often do you state an affirmation, and then take no action on it? How often do you know what the loving action is, but you don’t take it, or you don’t know what loving action to take? How often to you allow fear to get in the way of taking the loving action on your own behalf and on behalf of others?

Little or no progress will be made without loving actions. You can pray, meditate, visualize, do affirmations, write lists, read books, and believe in the Law of Attraction, but without the loving action, nothing changes, because just as a car can’t run without gas, life doesn’t run well without loving actions.

When I don’t know what the loving action is, I open to learning with my spiritual guidance, asking simply, “What is the loving action in this situation?” Even if you are not aware that you have a higher source of guidance, sincerely asking this question will give you ideas of what you can do that would be loving to yourself or to others.

So what’s stopping you? What fears and beliefs are programmed into your ego wounded self – your wounded inner child or adolescent – that stop you from taking loving actions?

Listen to this list – are these some of the things you say to yourself that might be stopping you?

• What if I make a mistake – that it’s not the right action to take?
• What if I really go for it and I fail?
• I don’t deserve to be loving to myself.
• What will people think?
• What if others get their feelings hurt or get mad at me for the actions I take?
• What if I end up alone?
• Who do you think you are? You have no right to take care of yourself. A good person puts others first.
• Putting yourself out there is dangerous – better to keep the status quo.
• I will be too vulnerable.
• What if I’m not hearing my guidance correctly?

…and on and on goes the ego wounded self.

In order to take loving action, it has to become more important to you to be all you came here to be – to fully manifest your gifts, talents, and ability to love – than to maintain the illusion of safety that your ego wounded self may have. The wounded self will always tell you that it is not safe:

• To trust your feelings – your inner guidance
• Or to trust your spiritual guidance
• Or to go against tradition
• Or to take loving care of yourself
• Or to make mistakes or fail
• Or to put yourself out there

You wounded self might tell you:

• You are selfish if you do what you want to do rather than what others want you to do, or
• If you fail, you are a failure, or
• It is not okay to make mistakes. Everyone will know that you are stupid if you make mistakes.

If you are defining your worth by outcomes rather than by who you are in your heart and soul, you might get stuck. How are you defining your worth?

One of the wonderful things that I love about the book “Mindset” by Dr. Carol Dweek, is how she shows the vast difference in defining yourself by outcomes or defining yourself by effort. Over and over, it is the people who are devoted to putting forth their fullest effort who receive deep joy and satisfaction from what they do. Those who are devoted to controlling outcomes and trying to be safe are often unhappy people, even if they do succeed. Children who learn to connect their worth to how smart they are, are often afraid to put forth effort, while those who are encouraged to make effort and let go of outcomes, are often the most successful, creative, and joyful adults.

You will take the loving action when making effort is more important to you than outcomes, and when you make it okay to fail without failure defining your worth or intelligence.

Before we move into the next point, this is exactly why I created my 30 course, Unlocking Your Inner Wisdom. If you’re looking to be able to connect with your higher guidance to access loving action, this is why I created this course. You can learn more in the description below.

Our relationships are also greatly affected by our intent to control or to learn about love. When it comes to loving actions in our relationships, do you know that loving actions can create loving feelings?

Sometimes we just don’t feel loving toward someone. Yet we know that there is a loving action called for in the situation.
 
 For example:

•  You know that your partner wants to be celebrated on his or her birthday, but you don’t like buying gifts or putting on parties.
• You see that your partner is hurting and needing some comfort and compassion, but what you really want to do is relax in front of the TV.
• Your toddler gets up crying and the last thing you feel like doing is getting up to comfort him or her.
• Your partner is angry and blaming toward you, and you know that under the anger is pain and fear, but the last thing you feel like doing when he or she is angry is offering comfort and support.

What do you do?

Do you take the loving action anyway, even if you don’t feel loving? Isn’t this being inauthentic and controlling?
 
 No, and here’s why.
 
 The chances are that the reason you don’t feel loving has to do with some fear or false belief from your wounded self, such as: 

•  Doing what my partner wants me to do makes me a wimp.
• I shouldn’t have to give myself up.
• It is more important to not be controlled than to be loving.
• It is not loving to me to give in.
• I’m too tired. It’s not loving to me to have to get up – again.
• It’s not fair. I shouldn’t be the one to have to do this.
• What about me? When is it my time to get taken care of?
• Why should I be kind when my partner is being mean? I will just end up getting taken advantage of.
• If I open my heart, I will be weak, and my partner will have the upper hand.

What the wounded self believes is loving is entirely different than what the loving adult knows is loving.

When your wounded self is in charge, you have no way of knowing whether taking the action that someone wants you to take is loving or caretaking.
 
 When your deepest desire is to be loving with yourself and others, then your loving adult is in charge, which means that you are connected with your spiritual guidance. If you are in doubt, you can check in with your guidance and ask, “What is the loving action right now?”
 
 There is nothing inauthentic or controlling about being loving with someone even when you don’t feel loving, because your lack of loving feelings is coming from your wounded self. The wounded self never feels loving! When your intent is to be loving, even when you don’t feel loving, offering comfort and support can actually create loving feelings within you.
 
 It is important to understand that just as our feelings often come from our thoughts, they also come from our actions. Taking loving actions on our own behalf, even when we don’t feel like it, and taking loving actions toward others, even when we don’t feel like it, can lead to feeling full, powerful, and peaceful inside. Far from being weak, controlled, and taken advantage of, we move into our personal power and emotional freedom – being truly who we are rather than being reactive to others.
 
 We are in personal power and have emotional freedom when we listen to our guidance rather than our wounded self, regarding what are loving actions.

If today’s episode resonated with you and you’re ready to learn to access the loving actions through connection with your spiritual guidance, and be able to take the loving actions, I invite you to check out my 30-Day video online course, Unlocking Your Inner Wisdom, where I walk you step by step to at-will spiritual connection. You’ll find the link in the description.

Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings.