S2 EP128 – Who Gets the Last Cookie?

Episode Summary

Do you receive joy from others’ joy? Or does being competitive get in the way of sharing the last cookie? There are many experiences that create momentary happiness, but there is only one experience that is truly the greatest joy in life.

Transcript

Hi everyone! Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding podcast. Today I will be talking about the topic of “Who gets the last cookie,’ which is about caring about others’ happiness and feeling joy for their joy, while also taking loving care of yourself.

Again, Dr. Erika Chopich, co-creator of Inner Bonding, suggested this topic, and here is what she said about it:

“Growing up in a home with a lot of Kids and being very poor, cookies were rare in our home, and usually brought to us by grandma or other caring relatives. Inevitably, the package would willow down to the last cookie. If it was just me and another sibling, the solution was easy. You just break it in half. But there’s always a bigger half, and you know, kids always fight over the bigger half. It would give me joy to give a little brother or little sister the bigger piece of the cookie and watch them light up. I never felt slighted in any way because I was having so much fun watching them wiggle with delight.

“When more kids were around, there were the inevitable contests of ‘rock paper scissors’ to see who got the last cookie. My mother had a unique way of settling this dilemma of what to do with the last cookie that survived in our family for generations. She said that whoever took the last cookie would be old and unmarried for the rest of their lives. Somehow in her mind that was the way to settle a child conflict, so nobody wanted the last cookie. Inevitably, one of my younger brothers would sneak in and steal it later, but what I learned from all that ritual was that the joy was never in consuming the cookie. The joy was always in watching them and watching their little faces light up and watching their delight in something so rare as a cookie in our poor home.

“That family ritual had a lasting impression on me. To this very day I get much more joy and pleasure and uplift from watching somebody else succeed or grow or experience joy in front of me or laugh with delight, than I do even in my own experience with a cookie or something else delightful. I think that also influenced my desire to be a chef because I enjoyed supplying people with endless desserts and great food, because in my home food was love. It never was about what I could get. It always was about what I could give, and I feel sorry for people who’ve not had that experience.

“In life for me bringing joy to other people, whether it’s a cookie or my sense of humor or my love or my caring, is the deepest joy I know. It’s never about what I can grab or manifest for myself. It’s always what I can offer. When I can give, it elevates me, it inspires me, it makes me laugh, it makes me joyous and I very rarely ever have a thought of ‘hey what about me? What about mine?’ It rarely occurs to me because I learned early that the joy was in my giving, not my getting, but it has to be balanced against the concept of caretaking. I never in all my life denied myself anything but delighted in the sharing of what I already had.

“When I got first got Leia, my haflinger mare, she was so badly abused and beaten that there was rarely any joy in her. It was always about survival for her, but when she began to heal and realized that she had a great capacity to learn, I started to notice that when she would learn a new behavior, she would light up with a smile and her eyes would shimmer and her ears would perk, and she would suddenly be confident and happy. The other day I was teaching her a figure eight pattern on the ground and when she had the aha moment and she knew she understood and that she got it, I could see the joy within that horse that she had just accomplished something new, and I got such deep joy out of watching her take that next step in her growth and in her confidence level into her coming into her realizing all that she can be. It wasn’t about me at that moment. It was entirely about her spirit, her essence, and her incredible ability to love life.

“Of course, she earned a horse cookie for that behavior, and I still give cookies away as freely as I do hugs!

“There is a 6-year-old girl who visits our barn regularly and has taken on the task of grooming one of the minis, Yoda. Yoda is very regal in his manner, and he is a multiple show winning jumper and every little girl’s dream horse. As Annie has grown in her skill and her connection to Yoda, I noticed a profound exchange between them the other day. She was grooming him, which they both love, and she tapped the back of his leg and Yoda immediately responded by lifting his hoof and I stood there in amazement, watching a 6-year-old carefully and skillfully clean his hoof. I was so delighted that I could barely breathe. Later that same morning, I watched as she ran alongside of Yoda, leading him over his jumps for his daily exercise, and noticed how he would do anything for that little girl, and she would do anything for him. They managed to develop a beautiful and mutual partnership that benefited both of them. Watching them grow together and develop such a deep bond together is my cookie.”

Erika obviously receives great joy from others’ joy, and this is a major aspect of love.

Take a moment to think about what you believe is the greatest joy in life.

Is it:

Getting love or approval?
Having lots of friends?
Being financially successful?
Being famous?
Being married?
Having children?
Having great sex?
Winning competitions?
Traveling?
Having power over others?
Having a big house?
Winning the lottery?
Getting the last cookie?

Research indicates that none of these create lasting joy. They may bring you temporary happiness, but not long-term deep joy. In fact, the pursuit of any of these may be in the way of the greatest joy in life.

The greatest joy in life is the experience of sharing love – and a part of that is feeling joy for others’ joy.

When you were a child, did you ever have the experience of having made something special or having saved your money and purchased something special for one of your parents, and you were so excited to give it to them that you could hardly stand it? And how did you feel when your parent or caregiver received your gift with joy and excitement? Did you feel a wonderful fullness in your heart? This is an experience of sharing love. You felt joy for their joy.

If your parent or caregiver didn’t receive it with love, how did you feel? Were you crushed?

Being together with someone, feeling safe, and sharing love energetically from open hearts – even without words – is without a doubt the most fulfilling experience in life. Getting love, or getting any of the items or experiences I previously mentioned, doesn’t compare to the joy of sharing love.

Love is not something we manufacture within our body. We can’t make ourselves feel love and joy within, or love for another or joy for another’s joy. Love and joy are gifts of spirit that enters your heart when your heart is open, and it open when your intent is to love yourself and others.

The more you practice the Six Steps of Inner Bonding, the more often you are able to keep your heart open to learning and loving, and the more often you are able to share love with others whose hearts are also open – and experience the greatest joy in life!

One of the challenges you might have with this is that our ego wounded self loves to mask as loving and caring when it actually uses caring as a form of control. Whenever you have an outcome in mind, it means that your wounded self is in charge trying to control the outcome by acting caring. The loving adult cares for the joy of it while the wounded self acts caring to get something back.

Many people have the ability to truly care and receive joy when caring from the heart. Yet even very caring people sometimes find themselves using caring as a form of control.

Take a moment right now to think about a situation in which you were caring – at home, at work, with a friend, or with someone you don’t know such as a salesperson or a waiter. Are you willing to be completely honest with yourself regarding why you were caring? If you are, then go inside and notice if your caring had any outcome attached to it. Is there something you wanted from the other person? Is there some reason you were caring other than caring for the joy of it?

You might want to ask yourself these questions:

Was there some part of you that was trying to control what the other person thought of you? Were you behaving in a caring way to get attention, approval, validation, love, time, or sex?
Was there a part of you hoping that your caring would result in monetary gain? Were you acting caring in the hopes of getting the other person to trust you enough to participate in some way that would bring you more money?

None of us like to think of ourselves as manipulative, yet we all have an ego wounded part of us that wants control over getting what we want, and we may have learned to use our caring as one form of control.

While caring as a form of control may seem to work at times, it will never bring you joy.

You might receive approval or sex or money or the last cookie, but something will always seem to be missing from your life. Getting what you believe you want may feel good for the moment, but it will never bring you the deep joy that results when you are caring from your heart with no agenda or attachment to outcomes.

When we are caring from the heart, we become, as Mother Teresa said, “God’s pencil.” We are giving to others just for the sake of expressing what is most beautiful about life – caring about each other. Giving to others from an open heart fills the soul with joy, and then we get to feel joy from their joy.

You can express this pure caring only when you are also caring about yourself through your Inner Bonding practice. If you are not giving yourself the attention, validation, and love that we all need, then you will covertly be trying to get this from others. Others will pick up the “giving to get” energy and may not feel your “caring.” In fact, others may even become resistant to receiving your caring because it feels controlling to them – and it is.

We can be caring purely for the joy it brings us only when we are taking responsibility for ourselves – for thinking and behaving in ways that lead to inner safety and a deep sense of self-worth. When we are not doing this for ourselves, then we need this from others, and we will be unable to be caring without strings attached.

It is in primary relationships with mates, children, and parents, that our giving to get has the most negative consequences. No one likes to be controlled by others, so when you give with an agenda, you may encounter anger or withdrawal. Your loved ones might not even know why they are angry or withdrawn. They just know that something feels bad inside them when you are “caring” about them.

While the outward behavior may look exactly the same when you are caring with an agenda or caring for the joy of it, energetically these two intentions feel totally different to others. If others are not responsive to your caring, you might want to honestly look at your intent in being caring.

One of the things that often gets in the way of receiving joy from others’ joy is the issue of competition. Many of us were trained from the time we were young that our worth was in winning and being better than others. We were taught to compete for the last cookie rather than experience the joy of others’ joy. Many of us were taught that success was achieved through competing and winning. Of course, this might be true in sports, but it doesn’t have to be true in life.

How would things be different if you had been taught to achieve success through creativity rather than competition?

Wallace Wattles, the author of the 122 year old book, The Science of Getting Rich, wrote that “The more men who get rich on the competitive plane, the worse for others; the more who get rich on the creative plane, the better for others.”

How many people do you know who, having achieved financial wealth through competition, are inwardly peaceful and joyful?

When you are focused on achieving success through competition, you are coming from a belief system that centers around the concept of lack. You believe that resources are finite so you must fight for them. Fighting for them means that you might need to take from others to give to yourself, such as grabbing the last cookie. Rather than enhancing others’ lives through your work, you might need to use others to achieve your goals. When reaching your goals through competition is your guiding force, the means justifies the end and personal integrity is lost in the process.

The competitive thoughts that originate in the lower ego wounded mind come from the beliefs that have been programmed into us, such as:

There isn’t enough to go around
It’s a dog-eat-dog world
First come, first served
Get it while you can
Nice guys finish last
The means justify the ends

These programmed beliefs might lead you to take advantage of others whenever you can, to take more than you give, and to relinquish caring in both personal and business matters.

The wounded self generally believes that we can get what we want only through controlling others, rather than through devoted self-expression. Through many forms of controlling others, such as being judgmental, righteous, angry, threatening, lying and so on, the wounded self attempts to achieve its goals. The cost of behaving in these competitive and controlling ways is that there is no possibility of love, inner peace, or joy, and no possibility of connection with spirit. People who attempt to achieve through competition are often not able to get their frequency high enough to connect with the love, peace, and joy of spirit, and they certainly are not able to experience joy from others’ joy. They can bully their way into material success, but true joy will likely elude them.

There is another way of achieving success. This can occur when you choose to learn to control your intention, which results in being able to control your thoughts and actions, which can lead to creating what you want in life.

When we choose the intent to learn about loving ourselves and others, rather than the intent to control others, we open our access to creative thought. Creative thought is the thought that comes THROUGH us from our spiritual guidance when we are open to learning about what is most loving to ourselves and others. Creative thought does not originate in the mind – it comes through the mind.

Shifting from controlling others to true self-control regarding your intent, thoughts, and actions, leads to a shift from false beliefs to truth – from the ego wounded self to the loving adult. The loving adult knows that:

Thought is creative. Nothing comes into form without first being a thought.
The universe is creative and abundant, and we can tap into the abundance through our own creative thought.
Creative thought comes from self-control, which means choosing to take full responsibility for whether we choose thoughts from our wounded ego mind, or from the truth of our spiritual guidance. This is what we do have control over – our intent to learn truth from spirit, or our intent to operate from the fears and beliefs of our wounded self and attempt to control others.

The wounded self is incapable of self-control. Operating from fear, it continually thinks thoughts that create distress. It will often do anything to get the last cookie. We achieve self-control only when we choose to shift our intent from controlling to learning about loving ourselves and others.

When you shift your intent and choose to create success through your creative thoughts and actions that come from integrity, you may not only achieve success – you may also discover your peace and joy!

How often have you grabbed the last cookie with an energy of control or needing to win? How often did this bring you deep joy?

When you do your Inner Bonding work and learn to know who you are – that you are a perfect spark of the Divine with nothing to prove regarding your self-worth, you will start to experience the joy of sharing love and the joy of others’ joy.

I hope you join me for my 30-Day at-home Course: “Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships.”

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