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S2 EP126 – What Voice am I Hearing – My Guidance or My Wounded Self?

Episode Summary

Discover how you can know the difference between the truth that comes from your spiritual guidance and the lies that come from the programmed mind of your ego wounded self. It’s easier than you think to learn to discern the difference! 

Transcript

Hi everyone, Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding podcast. Today, I want to address an issue that many struggle with, which is, when you are wanting to know what is loving to you and in your highest good, how do you know if what you are hearing is really from your higher guidance?

My clients often ask, “How do I know the difference between the lies coming from my wounded self and the truth coming from spirit? How do I know, when I think I am receiving information from spirit, that I’m not just making it up?”

These are important questions.

Knowing the difference between the truth that comes from spirit and the lies of the wounded self is a learning process, a process of discernment. But it is actually easier than you think. It has to do with your feelings and your heart.

Our feelings come from two different places. There are wounded feelings and the existential feelings of life. We feel our wounded feelings when we are operating from false beliefs. Our feelings of anxiety, stress, depression, hurt, anger, irritation, annoyance, guilt, shame, emptiness, aloneness, and fear – when there is no real and present danger, are the result of believing the lies of our wounded self. We can feel these feelings in many parts of our body – our stomach, heart, throat, head, arms, or legs. These painful feelings are letting us know that  are operating from our ego wounded self.

The deeper existential feelings of life are totally different than wounded feelings. These feelings are expansive rather than contracting. Whether we are feeling the painful feelings that come from difficult life circumstances – sadness, sorrow, loneliness, heartbreak, grief, or helplessness over others – or the wonderful feelings that come from being in truth – happiness, peace, love, joy, bliss, delight, rapture, lightness of being – our heart feels soft, full, open, and expansive as opposed to empty, heavy, tight, and constricted.

Dr. Erika Chopich, co-creator of Inner Bonding and I had a conversation about this. Here is Erika’s response when I asked her how she knows the difference between the voice of her wounded self and the voice of her spiritual guidance.

“The difference is in your body. It’s what happens in your body that lets you know. My wounded self is from the neck up and causes my face and body to be tense. My higher self, my guidance, is in my heart and all through my torso. The wounded self is a shapeshifter. It can mask as your higher self and it can say whatever it wants to seduce you into doing the wrong things, so I have to be mindful of where that is coming from in my body. If it’s from the neck up, and you’re thinking it through and you’re using your intellect, you’re probably coming from your wounded self. When it comes from my higher self, my guidance, it’s a beautiful warm almost chocolate pudding like feeling in my heart that spreads through all my torso. That’s how I know it’s my higher self – my God connection.

My wounded self wants to babble at me all day about what’s wrong or how I’m supposed to fix it or what I’m supposed to be doing. That is not guidance, that’s seduction. The wounded self thinks it will make me safe or thinks it will make me healthier or thinks it’s protecting me all the time from anything external, like unloving people. It just wants to have control over things because if you have control, you’ll be alright. Control is from the neck up, not from the heart. The very existence of the wounded self is about control.

When you learn, as a loving adult, to quiet your wounded self and embrace your higher guidance, that is a very relaxed state. When in the wounded self you might be in a panic state. When you are a loving adult connected with your higher guidance, you are peaceful, easygoing, moving with the river.

The wounded self is like paddling as fast as it can in the wrong direction and you feel that tightness in your stomach and you feel the tightness in your facial muscles, and that’s not a good place to be at all. It’s your job to tune into your own signs. Some people clench their fist, or they’ll clench their jaw, or they’ll actually grind their teeth together. I’ve seen people grinding so hard that the muscles in their temples are flexing. That’s pretty much an indicator that their wounded self is in charge. Sometimes their eyes look like fire. It’s kind of like when a horse gets really aggressive and throws its head up and shows the whites of it eyes and lays its ears back. That is a wounded self look, and sometimes people in their wounded self also do that.”

I asked Erika if the two voices sound different to her.

“No,” she said, “I don’t notice a difference between the voice of the wounded self of the voice of my higher self. They’re both sort of monotonic to me and it’s my job to figure out which is which. I guess some people have two different voices. I don’t and that’s what makes it so sneaky, so that’s why I call it the shapeshifter, because my wounded self is perfectly capable of emulating my higher guidance. Sometimes it’s a louder voice than my higher self, but not always. It can be seductive and quiet but still wrong. It’s what’s going on in my body that tells me the difference.”

“For me,” I said, “it feels like the voice of my wounded self is coming from my mind, and the voice of my higher guidance is coming through my mind. Do you have that?” I asked her.

“For me it flows through my heart chakra and my third eye from my guidance. It has a feeling of flowing in my heart, while the voice of my wounded self feels choppy and kind of ballistic in my body, and my body will be tense. Those are signs that lets me know which voice it is. When it’s my wounded self, everything that’s active is from the neck up. My brain is churning, sometimes my eyes are twitching, darting back and forth, and sometimes my jaw is clenched and I’m tense and anxious. Nothing feels right and I gotta fix it quick. There’s a sense of panic. I gotta fix this and I gotta figure it out and I gotta fix it now. I gotta make it right or I won’t have any peace. That’s seductive so the lack of peace is a big clue that you’re listening to your wounded self.

“When I’m hearing my higher guidance and operating from my loving adult, my body is relaxed and flowing. The connection to God is unmistakable. My breathing slows, my face softens, my eyes soften, everything slows down into a gorgeous flow down a beautiful river, and all feels right with the world.

“When I’m in my wounded self, I don’t want to know that. The wounded self likes to stay hidden. That’s how it preserves itself and that’s why it is a shapeshifter. It’s tricky and can easily trip you up. Sometime the wounded self is focused on judging something external, but often what’s happening is the wounded self is judging yourself, such as telling yourself that you’re not lovable.”

“So,” I said, “a clear indication that you’re operating from your wounded self, along with the stress in your body, is that you’re being self-judgmental or judgmental toward others, which, of course, is a form of control. My loving adult never judges. She’s always loving and accepting toward me and others.”

“Right,” said Erika. “With the wounded self, things are always good or bad, right or wrong. With your higher connection, it’s just what it is. It’s very open, it’s very flowing, and it’s all good, it’s all good. “

I asked Erika to talk some more about what she means when she says, “It’s all good,” because people often say, “Oh it’s all good,” but what does that mean?

“When I’m saying that when I’m connected to my higher self, to my loving adult who is deeply and profoundly connected to my guidance and to God, there’s nothing negative going on at all. There’s nothing negative in my body and in my spirit or in my feelings. It’s all good so it all feels good inside. It feels right. And when it’s the wounded self masquerading as my higher guidance or masquerading as my loving adult. which it’s very good at, then there’s still something wrong. So when my wounded self is saying it’s all good, it doesn’t really mean it. It’s all good except for maybe this one thing over here, but I can deal with it if I can just fix this one little piece. then it’ll be perfect. That’s the wounded self masquerading as the higher self.”

“I think that happens a lot to people on the spiritual path,” I said. “It’s that spiritual bypass where they think they’re being a loving adult.”

“Yes,” said Erika. “They think they’re connecting to God but it’s superficial. When you’re connected to God there’s a lot of depth. It’s all around you and in you and part of you, but when it’s your wounded self masquerading as a loving adult, there’s a shallowness to it. You say it’s all good to look spiritual, but you don’t actually feel it. It just gobbledygook. The wounded self shapeshifts into something that sounds spiritual but it isn’t, and you know it because you don’t feel peaceful. The idea that you can hold a crystal to your heart chakra and believe this will connect you to God is superficial. It doesn’t open the door for you. That’s something you must do with your loving adult. The crystal doesn’t open the door to connection. It doesn’t magnify it. It’s just behavioral. It doesn’t open your heart to God. You must do that through your own intention as a loving adult to connect with your higher guidance. Then you can enjoy the frequency of the crystal. The idea that somehow holding the crystal to your heart chakra will open you to the garden and all will be well is intensely superficial. It’s a product of the thinking of the wounded self. People are always looking for something external that will do it for them, and that’s the shapeshifting wounded self. Many believe something external will do it for them – a book or a course or a church or incense to raise the frequency. There is nothing wrong with any of these but it’s not what will do it for you. It’s an internal process regarding your intention.”

I think it’s obvious from what Erika said that our feeling are the indicator of whether we are operating from truth or lies.

Discernment comes when we are present to our feelings. If you are feeling heavy, tight, and constricted and you are unaware of it, you will not get the message that your feelings are trying to give you. It’s especially important to tune into your heart. Truth opens the heart. Lies close it.

This is why Step One of Inner Bonding is “Being mindful of your feelings.” Our feelings are here to guide us, to let us know when we are operating from truth and when we are stuck in lies. The feelings of the heart, as well as the feelings in the rest of your body, are a very accurate guide.

When we are operating from truth – the truth of spirit – the heart feels full of love and inner peace. We feel a deep sense of fullness and wellbeing. We laugh easily. Love overflows and we want to share it with others. We feel like our life is good. We are with the flow, and we feel a sense of oneness with all of life. There is a generosity of spirit that flows from us, and, as Erika shared, all is right with the world.

Even when we are dealing with life’s challenges, when we are connected with the truth of spirit, our heart is open and full of love and compassion for the core pain of loneliness, heartbreak, grief, and helplessness over others and outcomes.
 
It’s vital be aware of what’s happening in your heart. When you are aware of feeling tightness in your heart, along with a feeling of aloneness and emptiness in your heart, you know that you are in your wounded self. The heart closes when we are in our wounded self and when we are operating from the lies of the wounded self. If you are not aware of your feelings, you do not know that you are receiving a message from spirit through your heart. A tight, closed, empty heart is spirit’s way of letting you know that what you are thinking and believing is a lie from your wounded self, and that how you are behaving is not in your highest good. An open, full, loving heart is spirit letting you know that what you are thinking and how you are behaving is loving to you and to others, and is in your highest good.

When you tune your feelings out with various addictions, you have no way of knowing the difference between lies and truth, between the false beliefs that come from your own limited mind and the truth that comes directly from spirit. When you immediately go to food, drugs, alcohol, busyness, TV, anger, withdrawal, compliance, resistance, or any other addictive process, you effectively close your heart and cut off your feelings, which cuts off your discernment of lies and truth.

So, a major way of knowing the difference between the lies coming from your wounded self and the truth coming from spirit and knowing when you think you are receiving information from spirit and not just making it up, is to tune into your feelings, and especially to your heart. Your heart doesn’t lie!

Tori asked me the following question in one of my webinars:

“I have been getting your emails for a while and I’ve read your book. And so I’ve been working with the Inner Bonding process. One of the challenges that I’m having is wondering when I’m truly hearing from my inner child and wondering when it’s my wounded ego that’s speaking.”

What I said to Tori is:

If what you’re hearing is making you feel stressed or tense or scared or upset, that’s coming from your ego wounded self. The feelings themselves are your inner child, which is your inner guidance, letting you know with the stress or fear that your wounded self is in charge.

Your inner child will feel peaceful when your higher guidance is in charge. Often, the voice of guidance is a subtle voice that may pop into your mind. There’s a difference in experience between the words that come from your mind, which is your ego wounded mind, and the words that come through your mind from your guidance. It takes some practice to discern the difference between words that pop in from your guidance, and words that come from your ego wounded mind.

If the words that are popping into your mind make you feel hopeful or peaceful, or give you some relief, they’re from your guidance. But if the words make you feel stressed or tense, they’re from your ego wounded self.

Tori then had another question: “What if I don’t hear anything?”

What I told her is when we don’t hear anything, it’s generally because our frequency is not high enough. We’re not open enough. You might not truly be in the intention to learn about loving yourself. It’s your intent to learn about loving yourself that raises your frequency and opens you to your guidance – along with keeping your frequency high by not eating sugar, processed foods, and junk foods. So when you’re not hearing anything, you might want to check out your intention. Are you asking because you want to control something, or get rid of feelings, rather than because you truly want to know the truth and what’s loving to you?

My clients often think they are open to learning, and here is when the wounded self can get tricky, because often their true intent is to get rid of stress and other painful feelings.

We live in a challenging time, and often we tend to think of stress as something that occurs because of outside events, such as having financial problems, relationship problems, health problems, or from having too much to do. Certainly, events such as these are challenging, but they are not the actual cause of stressful feelings.

Stress, like many other painful feelings, is your inner guidance’s way of letting you know that you are thinking thoughts or taking actions that are out of alignment with what is in your highest good, or that you are trying to control something that you cannot control – such as how people feel about you or the outcome of things. Stress may also be letting you know that something in your body is out of whack – you are on medications or substances that are affecting your brain and causing the stress, or you have eaten foods such as sugar, processed or pesticide-laden food that is causing brain toxicity, leading to feeling stressed.  

When you are operating from your wounded self and trying to control something over which you have no control – such as others’ feelings and the outcome of things – your stress is letting you know that you are hitting your head against a wall and not accepting reality. The opposite of stress – inner peace – is the result of accepting what is, learning to take loving care of yourself in the face of what is, and practicing gratitude for the big and small blessings on this incredible journey of life – even in the face of all the challenges. And as many of us have experienced, gratitude offers us a stress-free way to manifest what we want and works far better than trying to control others and outcomes,

Wallace Wattles is the author of the 122-year-old book, The Science of Getting Rich. Since this is an old book, he uses the term ‘man’ rather than also including women, and I will read it the way he wrote it. He stated that “Man may come into full harmony with the Formless Substance [this is what he calls God] by entertaining a lively and sincere gratitude for the blessings it bestows upon him. Gratitude unifies the mind of man with the intelligence of Substance, so that man’s thoughts are received by the Formless Intelligence through a deep and continuous feeling of gratitude.” He stated that when you frequently contemplate the mental image of what you want, “coupled with unwavering faith and devout gratitude,” you set in motion the creative forces of manifestation.

Your stress is letting you know that you are doing the opposite of this – you are using your thoughts to create what you don’t want and to try to control others and outcomes rather than to co-create with spirit.

The major challenge here is about being in faith that all of this is true. You might know that this is true from the perspective of your loving adult, but your wounded self likely doesn’t believe it. It is very easy for the wounded self to come in with thoughts of bad things happening, which moves you out of faith and gratitude and into stress. It is very easy for the wounded self to focus on how to try to have control over others and outcomes, which will always create stress. It is very easy for the wounded self to turn to junk food and other substances that bring the body out of balance and cause stress. It is even easy for the wounded self to try to use Inner Bonding and gratitude as a way of controlling God! It is so important, when opening to learning and moving into gratitude, to make sure that your intent is to be loving to yourself and others, WITH NO OTHER AGENDA, rather than using Inner Bonding as just another way to attempt to control others and outcomes.

You might think it’s strange to say that stress is your friend, but it is because it instantly lets you know that you are off track in your thinking or behavior. It instantly lets you know that the voice you are hearing is the voice of your wounded self.  Instead of ignoring your stress or pacifying it with various addictions, which will ultimately cause more stress, why not do Inner Bonding and attend to it with a deep desire to learn about how you are off track? That will open you to the voice of your higher guidance.

When you really think about it, it is strange that our society tries so hard to get rid of stress and other painful feelings with medications and addictions, instead of learning what it is trying to tell us. When you really get that painful feelings such as stress is your guidance’s way of telling you that your wounded self is in charge telling you lies, you will open to learning about what you are telling yourself or doing that is creating much of your pain. By doing an Inner Bonding process and learning from your feelings rather than ignoring them, you will gradually learn to discern the difference between the voice of your wounded self and the voice of your higher guidance.

I hope you join me for my 30-Day course Unlocking Your Inner Wisdom, and learn to connect with your spiritual guidance.

You can learn so much about loving yourself and creating loving relationships from my recent books:

And we have much to offer you at our website at https:www.innerbonding.com.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings.

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