Transcript

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul and Dr. Erika Chopich here with the Inner Bonding podcast. Today we want to share a recent challenging experience we had and what it looked like to show up as a loving adult, as well as what it looks like to show up as a loving adult in various aspects of your life.

We recently had a severe polar vortex that challenged our ability to stay safe and to keep our horses alive. Growing up in Los Angeles, I had no experience in this kind of weather, and I had no idea what do to. Fortunately, Dr. Erika Chopich, my Golden Girl best friend, co-creator of Inner Bonding, and housemate, brilliantly figured out exactly what to do!

I was constantly amazed at her genius in organizing for this extreme cold, with the wind-chill temperature going down to -37 degrees Fahrenheit! Whew, so cold! Frost bite happens rapidly in these low temperatures, so Erika had to figure how to keep us warm, the barn warm enough, and our shop where my art studio is warm enough, without water and pipes freezing. Horses colic and can quickly die if they don’t have water, so it was essential that they had access to water.

When we moved in here almost 10 years ago, Erika insisted that we get a stand-by generator that would cover all these buildings. I didn’t even know what a generator was, but I trusted that Erika knew what she was talking about. And I’m so glad I did! As the news kept saying that there was a good possibility the grid would go down, it’s the generator that gave us some peace of mind.

Erika knew we needed extra help in the barn for the two days of the extreme cold, so the first thing we did is put out a call for help to our local Facebook community, and we received incredible help! What a blessing to have such caring people in our community!

Then Erika covered all external pipes with bubble wrap, towels, and then a plastic bag, all wrapped with duct tape. Erika told me to bring down all the blinds to keep the heat in, and to trickle all the faucets in the house, barn, and shop, to keep the pipes from freezing.

Erika put the heat up a bit in our shop and garage to make sure the pipes would weather the cold.

She coated the horses and put extra fleece blankets under their coats, and she kept them in the barn for the two days with the doors closed. Horses that are used to very cold temperatures and used to being outside all the time grow very heavy coats, including on their ears so they don’t get frostbite, but ours are not used to all that cold, so we had to keep them mostly inside.

Erika had to figure out a way to clean out the stalls without opening the barn doors so we wouldn’t lose whatever heat we had in there, which she was able to do with a lot of help and wheel barrels. She also arranged to have snow removal on the street – we live on a private street that doesn’t get city removal – so that the helpers could get in.

Erika, having grown up on a farm and learned to drive a tractor when she was eight years old, is an expert with the tractor. I’ve never seen anyone who can do what she does with a tractor. She cleared the snow by our garage, and she cleared a path going to the barn, and she cleared the paddock so that when the horses could go out, they would not slip on ice.

Erika made sure that our helpers in the barn had heavy clothing and supplied hand warmers. She also brought out a basket of healthy snacks and water so that the four helpers didn’t get too worn out. There is also a coffee and tea bar in our barn.

She didn’t miss one detail in caring for us, the horses, and our helpers!

And she did all this still recovering from long COVID and from the stroke she had 8 months ago. How did she do this? She is going to let you in on how.

(Erika) My early training as a paramedic firefighter and my later training in flight school taught me a consistent lesson: separate the emergencies. Most people become overwhelmed at a time like that when they look at how much has to be done and how much can go wrong. Looking at the big picture overwhelms our thinking and kicks in our emotions to the point where order or organization become beyond our reach. Separating the emergencies and dealing with them one at a time is how you get through this.

The other aspect that I’ve relied on my entire life during challenging situations is that I happen to have a  laser beam focus. Imagine a laser beam, like a lightsaber from Star Wars, coming from your third eye and focusing directly on the task at hand. This is my laser beam focus. In psychology terms it means that I’m able to compartmentalize my feelings. I am temporarily pushing them to the side, all the feelings of anxiety, fear, panic, and overwhelm, so that I can use my intellect to maintain my focus and tend to the task at hand – physically, emotionally, organizationally, and spiritually.

The trick with doing this is to remember to go back after the crisis has passed and then deal with the feelings that you set aside. If you don’t do this, you might be setting yourself up for a depressive episode later. Because of my skill level in Inner Bonding, it is easy for me to go back and revisit the feelings I had during the crisis and work them through with the six steps to resolution and finally peace. Being able to compartmentalize your feelings can be a great source of power and force for you emotionally. Not reacting with fear and panic, but rather putting your feelings in a closet during that time, actually saves a lot of wear and tear on your emotional well-being, The ability to do this comes from The Force, which is your higher self or spiritual guidance. If you know the six steps of Inner Bonding, it’s easy to heal anything that becomes disruptive to your peace later.

All first responders are gifted at utilizing The Force in this way. Imagine having a paramedic tend to you after an accident who was shaking with anxiety, fear of the unknown, or emotionally reactive to your situation. Their help would be of little value to you if they did not have the gift of compartmentalizing their feelings. The problem occurs when the first responder forgets to go back and deal with the traumatic feelings they had at the time, setting them up for PTSD.

At no other time in my life was this lesson clearer to me than when I was a young student glider pilot. I was newly soloed and not yet licensed. I was bringing my beautiful glider in for a landing and as I entered the pattern at the glider port for my landing, I was going through my checklist. I checked the rudder, the ailerons, and to see that my controls were full and clear. Then I reached down to deploy the spoilers that extend from the wing to spoil the lift and control my rate of descent. They would not open! I tugged harder on the lever, and nothing happened.

I was already on the downwind leg of my approach and there was no going back. It was not like I could power up and go around again. The landing was inevitable no matter what I did. Without being able to control the rate of descent, I would either overshoot the runway and land in the orange Grove at the end of the runway, or I would land short and possibly crash into the field. My mind was racing as I tried to free the jammed armature that was holding my spoilers closed. I tried steep turns right and left as quick as I could, and I tried to yaw the craft violently left and right, but nothing would loosen the armature that I so desperately needed. I felt panic rising inside of me and pushed those feelings to the side to focus on the emergency at hand. I had only read the night before what to do in case of the emergency of a spoiler failure.

I radioed down to the glider port controller and asked him to get my instructor on the radio. I also advised him of my situation and told him he needed to clear the field of all aircraft. My instructor responded quickly and as he watched me approach his position, instructed me to lower my right wing because there was a crosswind. I immediately recognized that he was slightly dyslexic and giving me instructions that would increase the difficulty. I needed to lower my left wing, not my right wing. In an instant I pushed my instructor’s voice aside as I knew his instructions were incorrect. I had to rely on my own knowledge and my own ability and my own instincts and The Force in order to save my own life. Ignoring your flight instructor’s instructions is opposite of what you’re trained to do, yet I had no choice but to block out the sound of the very voice that could give me assistance and comfort. I had to trust my knowing instead of my instructor.

This is a time when many pilots are in the deepest trouble. The stress load is so great and so profound that sometimes  a pilot, as the ground rushes up towards them, will simply take their hands and feet off the controls and give up, because the situation is  so impossible. From out of nowhere, I smelled perfume, and I heard a voice in my head shouting to me, “Don’t give up! Fly that plane all the way to the ground! Do not let go of the controls!” I don’t know whose voice it was to this day, but it might have been my favorite aunt.

I used my laser beam focus to yaw my plane sideways, meaning that I turned the plane 90 degrees to my quickly approaching runway to create enough drag so that my glider would begin to descend. And just before touching down I violently yawed it back in alignment with the runway so I would not crash end over end. This took tremendous focus and tremendous compartmentalization as my heart was pounding in my ears and I was growing very fatigued.

After touching down, I had no way of controlling the high speed of the glider because the brakes are attached to the spoiler apparatus. Using The Force, I held the wings level until the inertia bled from the wings and my plane simply rolled to a stop. I used The Force to stay focused and avoid the accident and I landed the plane safely without a scratch on it or me.

What saved my life that day was my ability to focus like a laser saber from Star Wars, and my ability to compartmentalize my feelings, all coming from The Force – or the higher self.

You have this ability within you,  and you also have the ability to deal with the intense emotions afterwards by utilizing the six steps of Inner Bonding.

(Margaret) In order to show up as a powerful loving adult, as Erika did in our recent polar vortex challenge and in her life-threatening glider experience, and take personal responsibility for ourselves, we need to be taking responsibility in numerous different areas – physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, relational, and organizational.

Erika was able to take amazing physical, organizational, emotional, spiritual, and relational responsibility during both these big challenges.

Organizational responsibility concerns how we manage our time and space. Are you organizationally challenged? Who is in charge of organizing your time and space, and getting things done, or managing a critical situation – your wounded self or your loving adult? What happens when your wounded self is in charge of organizing time, space, and getting things done? What part of you is in charge of making sure you are physically safe? What part of you is in charge of paying your bills, keeping your mail up to date, getting your taxes in on time, keeping your space free of clutter, and getting places on time, practicing Inner Bonding to lovingly learn from and manage your emotions, eating well and exercising to stay healthy? What part of you is in charge of how you treat other people? What part of you is in charge of your finances?

You are not taking organizational responsibility regarding time if you:

• Don’t think ahead, as Erika did, to make sure you are physically safe.
• Are often rushing to get things done.
• Are often late to appointments.
• Rarely have time for yourself.
• Have no balance between work and play.
• Don’t have much time for family and friends.
• Often feel overwhelmed and anxious regarding getting things done.
• Procrastinate.
• often pay bills and taxes late.

The wounded self, being a child or adolescent part of us, often does not have a very good sense of time and might not care about a safe and peaceful space. The wounded self might not care about your health, or about being caring toward others. When the wounded self is in charge, numerous problems can occur:

• The wounded self often thinks there is much more time than there is. Therefore, you are often late because your wounded self doesn’t understand how to measure time.

• On the other hand, the wounded self might be very afraid of others’ judgment regarding being late, and might be anxious and rigid regarding time, always rushing and having to be early.

• One aspect of your wounded self might be very resistant to being controlled by another, judgmental aspect of your wounded self. You might find yourself in resistance to doing the things you tell yourself you want to do, or getting the things done that you need to get done. Procrastination sets in. When the wounded self is in charge, you might often feel that you just don’t have enough time or energy to get things done, or you might often forget what it is you need to do.

• The wounded self might be very resistant to being controlled by others. When this is the case, you might find yourself procrastinating regarding getting ready for appointments, or getting important things done such as bills or taxes. You might find that you feel a subtle sense of satisfaction when you keep others waiting, even though you might experience anxiety regarding their upset with you. You might also find yourself forgetting appointments or commitments.

• The wounded self might be putting off doing things for safety, such as making sure furniture is secured to the wall when you live in a place that has earthquakes. When I lived in L.A., I was often appalled at how many people didn’t secure their refrigerators, TV’s, and bookcases. What Erika did to secure our safety and the horses’ safety during the polar vortex was nothing short of heroic. There is no detail that she left out.

Taking organizational responsibility is part of taking emotional responsibility – part of lowering your anxiety level regarding time, space, safety, and getting important things done. Erika created peace rather than anxiety for us by all she did as a loving adult to keep us and our animals safe.

“Well,” you might be thinking, “all well and good to say I need to be more organized and more of a loving adult in all these areas. I already know this, yet I can’t seem to do anything about it. I’m stuck. What do I do to change this?”

Changing from your wounded self being in charge to your loving adult being in charge ultimately relates to intent. Being able to choose our intent is the essence of free will. We each get to choose what is most important to us in any given moment. You will stay stuck when your wounded self is in charge and your intent is to:

• Resist being controlled.

When not being controlled is more important than loving yourself, you will stay stuck. The adolescent part of us is often in resistance to being controlled – even by ourselves. “You can’t tell me what to do,” is the refrain of the adolescent, or maybe your wounded self is operating as your resistant two-year-old! Whether you are resisting being controlled by yourself, another person, your guidance, or chores such as paying bills, the result is the same.

• The intent of your wounded self might also be to get away with things in the hopes someone else will do it.

The adolescent wounded self loves to believe that we can get away with things. This part of us gets a dark satisfaction out of doing as little as we can, especially if we can get someone else to do it for us.

The sad thing is that the grim pleasure and dark satisfaction of resisting control and getting away with things does not hold a candle to the real peace and joy of being a loving adult and taking loving care of ourselves. The wounded self cannot see that by resisting responsibility, we are deeply limiting our full ability to manifest our gifts and the profound satisfaction and fulfillment that comes from fully expressing who we are.

All this changes when our intent changes. When you decide that loving yourself is more important than resisting control and getting away with things, you move out of the wounded self and into the loving adult. It’s your intent to be loving and compassionate with yourself and others that gives you access to The Force – your higher guidance – and changes everything.

“How do I change my intent?” is a question I frequently hear.

You can’t change your intent until you become aware of and own your present intent. If you think you want to be loving to yourself, but you really want to resist control and you are unaware of this, you will stay stuck. So the first thing you need to do is become conscious of your intent. Pay attention. Notice. When you can notice yourself resisting control and actually own it by saying to yourself, “Right now, it’s more important to me to resist being controlled and get away with stuff than it is to be loving to myself. I choose this,” then you can also choose to be loving to yourself. But you don’t even have that choice available until you are conscious of what you are choosing.

However, you can also resist awareness of your choice, which means that it’s more important to you to resist being a loving adult, than it is to be loving to yourself and others. Until you remember by tuning into your true soul self, that you are here on this planet to evolve in love, compassion, and empathy, you might not have the motivation to become conscious of your intent.

If you want to start learning to show up as a loving adult, then start with noticing your intent. If organizing your time and space, and making sure you are safe, and getting things done on time, and being healthy, and showing up in challenging times is a problem for you, then you might want to notice that controlling and not being controlled is more important to you than being loving to yourself. When controlling and not being controlled is your deepest intent, then it will be very difficult for you to heal your resistance to being a loving adult. Even if you do manage to change your behavior for a period of time, unless you change your intent, it is unlikely that the behavior change will be permanent.

Many people read books and take classes on time and organizational management, on healthy eating, on financial and relationship skills, and on healing painful feelings, yet often slide back into their old patterns. This is because our deepest intent always governs our behavior. As long as your wounded self is in charge – with its intent to control and not be controlled – you will not be able to permanently change your behavior.

Behavior changes easily when intent changes, but it is changing your intent that is challenging.

Being in control and resisting being controlled is what seems safe to the wounded self. One of the reasons it is often so hard to shift your intent from controlling to loving is that the wounded self believes that being loving to yourself and others may lead to even more problems. The wounded self does not understand that your spiritual guidance knows much more than your wounded self about being safe, nor does the wounded self understand that when your intent is to be loving to yourself, your spiritual guidance is able to guide you in what is safe for you and in what is in your highest good.

How important is it to you to become a loving adult?

Author Napoleon Hill wrote that

“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.” 

How strong is your desire to be a loving adult?

This is an important question to ask yourself. Do you have a strong, keen ‘pulsating desire’ to be a consistent loving adult, that transcends everything? It’s time to be honest with yourself about what is REALLY important to you – more important than learning to be a loving adult and evolving in your ability to love.

Do you ever hear yourself say to yourself, “Sure, I want to be loving, as long as_______________what?” What would fill in the blank for you? What are the exceptions? What is ACTUALLY most important to you?

If you have been struggling with learning to be a loving adult and taking responsibility for yourself, it is likely that your wounded self has very different agendas for you. If these agendas are unconscious, as they often are, then they can easily get in the way of being a compassionate loving adult with yourself and others. 

The challenge in becoming aware of what is more important to you than being a loving adult is to take off all judgment of these agendas.

If these agendas – such as having control and not being controlled, or getting away with things, or getting love rather than being loving, or avoiding pain with various addictions, or attaching your worth to achievements or money – are more important to you than being a loving adult, then there must be a very good reason why this is so, and the only way you can understand and eventually release these agendas is to be in a compassionate intent to learn about why they are so important.

Many of the people who consult with me believe that the most important thing to them is being a loving adult. But for most of them, the deeper desire isn’t there – and this desire is what is necessary to do the level of Inner Bonding work required to be a consistent loving adult.

For me, the thing that brought the profound desire was my deep knowing that my reason for being on the planet is to evolve in my ability to love – which has to start with loving me – and to fully manifest my gifts on the planet. To me, everything else pales in importance.

Go inside and consider what is really and truly most important to you. Then use Inner Bonding to learn more and free yourself from any subconscious or unconscious motives and agendas.

I hope you remember that you came to this planet to evolve in your ability to express your love, compassion, and empathy – starting with yourself – and to express your love by sharing your gifts with the planet. I hope you remember that you came here to schoolhouse earth to heal the separateness of the wounded self and experience the Oneness with all of life that is the result of practicing Inner Bonding. Remembering this changes everything!

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

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

• Diet for Divine Connection: Beyond Junk Foods and Junk Thoughts to At-Will Spiritual Connection

• The Inner Bonding Workbook: Six Steps to Healing Yourself and Connecting With Your Divine Guidance

• 6 Steps to Total Self-Healing: The Inner Bonding Process

• And, How to Become Strong Enough to Love: Creating Loving Relationships Through the Six-Step Pathway of Inner Bonding

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

I’m sending you my love and my blessings.