S2 EP323 – Intention Matters More Than Words

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Inner Bonding Podcast. I’m Dr. Margaret Paul and today’s episode is again about intention, because this is such an important topic related to how we treat ourselves and others. Be sure to stay to the end because I’ll be sharing how you can support your awareness of your intention.

Inner Bonding is unique regarding healing modalities in that we make it easy, or easier, to determine and understand your intention, because we have only two intentions to choose from, the intention to control and the intention to learn about loving yourself and others.

This moment by moment choice is one of the most important distinctions in communication, and one of the biggest reasons conversations either deepen connection or completely break it down. It also is the most important choices regarding how you treat yourself and how you feel.

Most people believe that communication problems are about what is being said, but the real issue is almost always about intention, which is more about the energy than the words.

Regarding how you treat yourself – is your intention to have control over avoiding painful feelings by ignoring your feelings or numbing them with various addictions, or is your intention to learn about what your feelings are telling about how you are treating yourself and about what’s happening with others and with life situations?

The intention to avoid responsibility for your feelings will eventually lead to more pain, such as anxiety, depression, shame, anger, and emptiness. The intention to learn about what your feelings are telling you will lead to learning to be more loving to yourself and to others. Big difference – all determined by your intention!

In your relationships with others, is your intention to get love, attention, validation, or approval, or is your intention to connect and share your love with others. When you listen to another person, are you just waiting for the other person to stop talking so that you can say whatever you want to say, or are you listening to see, hear, and understand the other person?

We can’t hide our intention because it will always come out in our energy and our tone of voice, which is why our intention is more important than our words. People feel our intention to control or to learn more than they hear the content of what we are saying. And even though they might not be conscious of this, they will automatically react to our energy.

If your intention is to be heard rather than hear, to defend rather than learn, or to be right and win rather to resolve conflict, the other person will feel it, even if you’re saying it softly and with a smile. If your intention is to listen, understand, and connect, that will also be felt.

This is why two conversations can sound the same on the surface but feel completely different. Intention sets the emotional tone for communication.

Needing to be heard can come from two different intentions. The loving adult needs to be heard when you are offering information, such as what time the dinner reservations are, or what time you will be home from work, or where the kids need to be picked up. But needing to be heard can also come from the wounded self with an intention to control getting validation, approval, attention, or agreement.

That means that you’ve handed your feeling self, your inner child, your soul, to the other person, making your sense of safety and worth dependent on the other person’s response.

When people feel pressured and pulled on to take responsibility for your feelings, they often stop listening or withdraw. Ironically, the more you are needy to be heard and validated, the less likely you are to be heard or validated by others.

What your inner child really needs is to be heard, seen, and validated by you. It’s only when your intention is to be loving to yourself and then share love rather than trying to get love that true connection with others can occur. And again, it’s not in the words – it’s in the energy. When you have been ignoring your own feelings, your energy is needy, coming from an emptiness inside, while when you’ve been taking responsibility for your feelings – learning what they are telling you and taking loving actions for yourself, you are coming from fullness within. The energy of emptiness is completely different than the energy of fullness, even if the words are the same.

Become aware of your intention and developing your loving adult is why I created my 30-Day Inner Bonding Love Yourself video course. If you’re looking to learn to shift out of the intention to control and into the intention to learn, this is something that will greatly benefit you. You can learn more in the description below.

There is a huge difference between the energy of complaining about something and the energy of being open to being helped. Many of us have had the frustrating experience of someone complaining but not wanting any help. For example, let’s say your mother calls you frequently complaining about your father, but if you say anything to try to help, she gets angry. She doesn’t want help – she just wants you to validate her feelings and sympathize with her. And you feel drained after these conversations.

But then, in a session with me, if you tell me about your mother complaining to you all the time, are you doing the same thing as your mother, or do you want my help? Again, this is about your intention. Most of my clients don’t want to pay me to complain – they actually want help, so you might describe what your mother does with an energy that says, “I don’t know what to do. Please help me.”

Most people are happy to be of help, but don’t want to be drained by your neediness. They might stop listening to you or even wanting to spend time with you if they feel they are being used to meet your emotional needs. It’s not up to them to make your feelings matter – it’s up to you.

If you abandon yourself by judging yourself, ignoring your feelings or numbing your feelings with addictions, then it’s likely you will be looking to others to give you what you are not giving to yourself.

If you are coming from the intent to control, you might frequently interrupt the other person, or talk over them, or be rehearsing what you want to say instead of listening to them. You might feel impatient with them and frustrated when they are talking instead of listening to you. And even if you are quiet, you might not be present, listening to them and connecting with them.

If both people are trying to be heard, then who is listening? You can’t connect with yourself or the other person when your intention is to control.

How do you feel when someone is needy with you? What do you do? Since you can’t help someone who is in their wounded self and not asking for help, the best thing you can do is spend a few minutes active listening to them, such as saying to your mother if she is complaining about your father, “I hear you mom. And I hear how hard this is for you.” But you don’t need to listen to the point of getting drained. You can change the subject, or get off the phone, or in some other way disengage. Letting yourself be drained isn’t loving to you or to the other person. If you keep listening to complaints, you are enabling the other person.

Active listening doesn’t mean agreeing, and it doesn’t mean giving yourself up. It means being present and open with both yourself and the other person and staying tuned into when you start to feel drained. You can’t active listen from your wounded self as a means of control. Active listening is something you do from your loving adult, and your intention is to be loving to both yourself and the other person.

Active listening is a great skill to learn. It gives the other person the chance to move through pain and hopefully get to a place of openness. It means letting them know that you hear and understand them. When you are active listening, you let the other person finish and you don’t correct their experience. You don’t make it about you. You don’t rehearse a response. You are present with empathy and compassion, encouraging them to tell you more, to help you understand. You let them know that you understand why they feel as they do.

Often, when people feel heard, their nervous system settles, and they become more capable of being open to learning from their own feelings or even listening to you.

If someone you care about is in a bad place and needs to get it out before they can open to learning, you active listening can help them release what’s in the way of their learning. Your intent to learn means that you want to understand them, as long as they are not just going on and on venting and dumping on you. As a loving adult, you can tune into their intent. Are they just venting, dumping, and complaining, or are they venting so that they can then open to learning about themselves?

Or are they blaming you and complaining about you? If they are, then their intent is to control you. When this is the case, it’s best to disengage, saying that you are willing to talk about what they upset about when they are open to learning.

Do you complain as a form of control to get someone to change? What happens when you do this. Does the other person get defensive or shut down? How well does the intent to control work for you? If they are afraid of you, they might comply, but the price you pay is forgoing love and connection. You can’t share love and connection when your intention is to control.

There are times when you do need to be heard regarding your feelings and experience. There are times when you really need someone to understand the effect their behavior has on you, or what you are dealing with in your life. But again, it’s about your intention.

Needing to be heard becomes healthy when you are coming from your loving adult, connected with yourself. As a loving adult, and you are not demanding validation or demanding to be right. You are open to learning with the other person and willing to hear what they need to say as well.

Being heard with empathy and compassion is important for healing from trauma. We are social beings and we don’t heal alone. Sometimes we need to be heard because we need to forgive, or we need forgiveness. When the intention is to heal rather than to control, then needing to be heard is healthy.

It’s not always easy to be honest with ourselves about our intention. Intention can be subtle, and it takes practice to develop your open, curious, emotionally responsible loving adult. But the more you are aware in the moment of your intention to control or to learn about love, the more conscious choice you have.

The inner shift from controlling to learning will completely change the direction and outcome of a conversation.

Today we explored the difference between controlling and learning. One comes from fear, and the other comes from a desire to be loving.

Control creates stress, while being open to learning creates safety. Control blocks connection while learning invites it. When you lead with learning, you don’t lose your voice, you strengthen it. And when you speak from a grounded, loving adult place, your words carry truth rather than demand.

If you found today’s episode valuable and you’re ready to learn to shift your intention, I invite you to check out my Love Yourself 30-Day video course. It’s designed for anyone who wants to improve your relationship with yourself and with others and it teaches you the Inner Bonding process. You’ll find the link in the description.

Thank you for joining me today, and I’ll see you in the next episode. And I’m sending you my love and my blessings on your healing journey.