S2 EP143 – It’s Going to be Okay

Episode Summary

Sometimes we get stuck in our wounded self and we can’t see how to get back into our loving adult. Often, once we get triggered into our wounded self, it is sometimes a challenge to get back in an intent to learn. But we do always have a choice, and in this podcast, we offer you some choices that may help you.

Transcript

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with Dr. Erika Chopich. I’m delighted that Dr. Erika’s healing from the stroke is far enough along that she can speak her own words. Again, Erika came up with the topic we are speaking about today – that even when things are very challenging, it’s so important to listen the quiet voice that says, “It’s going to be okay.”

So here’s Erika:

Sometimes it can feel like your wounded self has you by the throat. You feel the energy rising and you feel the frustration and you feel like your loving self and your guidance are all but gone. But the truth is, everything is temporary! The intense frustration, anger, or rage you can feel at any given moment over any situation, feels like it’s permanent and always bearing down on you, but that is not real. Just waiting for a few precious moments will lower the intensity of your reaction and will lift you from the depths of despair. Even despair or depression is temporary. If you just back up for a second it will begin to lift on its own. You can help this process by reaching for all the love that’s within you – that is for you and about you. This quickly connects you to your higher self and it’s in the realm of the higher self where you’re free to release whatever has you shackled in the moment.

When you feel the most downtrodden or your jaw is set with anger and resentment, the one phrase you can use that will open the door is “It’s going to be OK.” Those five words are freeing and protects your inner child at the same time, because you’re reassuring your child that this is not a permanent situation. Whenever I’ve been extremely stressed, I hear those words in the back of my mind, “It’s going to be OK,” and that buys me enough space and enough breath to at least inch forward into the light and back onto my path again.

I recently had an event in my life where I used this very technique to help me through a difficult time. My mare, Princess Leia, had begun to colic. I was in the pasture with her, and she laid on her side heaving and sweating and in pain. I know how deadly colic can be. Your horse can pass within an hour, and here she was in front of me doing the very thing that scares horse owners the most. And just like a whisper in the back of my mind I heard the words ‘It’s going to be OK.” It wasn’t directed at the situation. The words were directed towards me! It was a reassurance that I could handle the situation and that I could bring her safely through the hellfire that she was writhing in. Yes, Princess Leia did make it through and so did I without extreme trauma to either of our bodies or extreme threats to what we love mos

I’m so grateful that Erika is well enough to join me speaking her own words of wisdom!

Sometimes, when we get stuck in our wounded self, it is hard to wind our way out of it. I love Erika’s wisdom of saying “It’s going to be OK,” and since she taught me this, I use it a lot. And I’ve also found some other ways that take me out of a low frequency and put me into a higher frequency so that I can connect with my guidance.

The subtlety of these choices is that I need to be consciously doing these things because it is loving for me to do them, rather than as a form of control. It’s possible for your wounded self to choose these same behaviors as a way to avoid responsibility for your feelings and avoid learning from your pain. When that is the intent, then these choices will not raise your frequency, which means you will not move out of your wounded self. So please be honest with yourself!

I can often move out of my wounded self by:

Focusing on gratitude from my heart for what I have

Thinking about what I want, not what I don’t want – not as a form of control but because it feels good in my heart to do so

Thinking only positive thoughts based on love rather than fear

Staying present in the moment with my guidance – letting go and letting God

Not attaching my wellbeing to outcomes and letting go of trying to control outcomes

Speaking up for my feelings with others in the moment that I feel them

Making sure I’m not taking anything personally

Tending with compassion to my heartbreak, loneliness, grief, and helplessness concerning others

Keeping my body clear and free of anything that lowers my frequency

Spending time in nature

Dialoguing with my guidance

Being with my animals

Listening to inspiring music

Smiling!

It’s all about letting go of control, and choosing love, moment by moment, and doing all this for the sake of love itself rather than as a form of control. It’s about choosing love as my highest priority, each moment, rather than trying to have control over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe. It’s about remembering to hear the quiet voice of your higher self saying, “It’s going to be Ok.” But instead…

Do you tend to focus on what is not good, rather than what is good, and ruminate about it?

Do you tend to go along being happy and positive until someone does something unloving, and then you don’t take care of yourself and feel depressed?

Do you tend to get off track when externals happen – such as our Princess Leia colicing, or someone being angry at you – and go into freeze mode, getting stuck in fear; or ruminating about how the other person doesn’t care about you?

Do you tend to get off track when the people you love, such as parents or children, are having problems, such as financial, relationship, or health problems?

Do you tend to get off track due to your own financial situation, or when health issues come up, or when something traumatic from the past gets triggered?

We all need to be vigilant regarding raising our frequency back up when we get triggered into our wounded self.

It’s like our wounded self takes over as soon as something bad happens unless we get right back into thinking “It’s going to be ok,” or doing something else that raises our frequency.

I find that if I take measures to raise my frequency right away, just as soon as I can feel it go low, it is much easier to go back to operating as my loving adult. If you let too much time pass, it’s easy to sink further and further into your wounded self, making it much harder to come out of the rabbit hole.

Keeping my frequency high and staying in my loving adult is a moment-by-moment choice.

However, even with all the work I’ve done with my Inner Bonding practice, there are times when it’s challenging to shift from my wounded self into my loving adult.

Have you ever had the experience of going along fine, feeling peaceful inside – and then something happens that triggers you into your anxiety, anger, stress, hurt, fear, depression and so on? Of course, it seems like it is the external event that triggered you, such as someone yelling at you or blaming you, or issues with money or children or pets or work, or rejection, engulfment, or other control issues. Suddenly, instead of happily flowing along in your open-hearted loving adult, your heart is closed and you are stuck in the peanut-size part of your lower left brain that is the home of the wounded self.

The stress in your body is triggering thoughts that are creating even more stress, and you feel stuck in your anxiety or other painful feelings.

It is possible to move from your close-hearted wounded self, back into the peace and open heart of your loving adult, and it has to do with your intent.

A very important choice you can make, once you are aware of your stressful feelings, is to decide that you really want to learn about what you are telling yourself, what you are believing, or what you are doing or not doing that is causing the stress. You can move into the intent to learn from the place within you that wants responsibility for your feelings.

Along with opening to learning about loving yourself, you can also choose to be present in the moment. The wounded self is always focused on the past or future, but the loving adult is in the present moment. If there is a lot of stress in your body, doing the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), or other releasing techniques, or doing some strenuous exercise such as running, can help move the stress out of your body and get you present in the moment. Other than what I’ve previously mentioned, other activities may also help you get present, such as deep breathing, gardening, prayer and meditation, or even mundane activities like doing the dishes or cleaning the house.

For some people, doing a creative activity, such as art, writing, singing, or playing a musical instrument, can move you into your loving adult state.

Asking someone for help – someone who can really listen to you so that you can sort things out – may help, too, as long as you really want the help rather than wanting someone to change or to fix things for you. Also, stepping out of your own problems and reaching out to help someone else will almost always get you open-hearted and present in the moment.

Once you feel open and present in the moment, do the Six Steps of Inner Bonding. Too often, once people feel better, they forget to do the learning that they need to do so that they don’t keep getting triggered into their wounded self. Once you are calmer, utilize the situation that just occurred to explore what you were telling yourself or how you were treating yourself in response to the external event that triggered your stressful feelings.

The more you practice Inner Bonding every time you are triggered into your wounded self, the less you will get triggered by external events.

We cannot heal our wounded self from our wounded self. We can heal the wounded self only when we have a deep intent to learn about our wounded self.

We cannot learn about and heal our fears and false beliefs when we are judging ourselves or others. When we are judging, we are acting from our wounded self. When we are compassionate toward ourselves and others, we are operating as our loving adult.

Sometimes, it’s very helpful to take our wounded self lightly.

A powerful way of learning about and healing our wounded self is to be able to see our protective, controlling behavior with lightness and humor. You will discover that you make rapid progress in healing your wounded self when you can compassionately laugh at yourself rather than judge yourself for your wounded stuff. It’s important to not take ourselves too seriously when we are on the healing journey. The wounded self wants to take itself very seriously because it is scared and wants us to think that it is powerful and real. Yet the wounded self is an illusion. It has no actual substance because it is based on the lie of the core shame false belief that we are not good enough, and the lie of having control over others and outcomes. Only that which is true has substance.

The wounded self wants us to believe that it has substance, so it takes itself very seriously.

When we move into a true loving adult state and can see the wounded self through spiritual eyes – eyes of compassion and truth – we can see that the wounded self is just an illusion that we created as children to try to feel safe. It is the false self, the ego self, and it isn’t in charge when we shine the light of the truth of who we really are.

As you progress on your Inner Bonding healing journey, remember to lighten up regarding your wounded self. Remember to laugh with deep compassion at the controlling behavior of your wounded self. When you can feel delight at discovering another false belief, another protection, another form of control – when you can bust yourself with humor – you will find it much easier to become aware of the wounded self and move into truth. Humor is a great ally on our healing journey, and so is remembering to tell yourself that it’s going to be ok.

It’s especially important to remember that we have a choice to control and avoid, or to learn and love in our relationships. All of us have triggers that set off our fear or anxiety and may lead to our reactivity in our relationships – our anger, defensiveness, withdrawal, compliance, or resistance.

Take a moment right now to think about what, in your relationships, triggers you into your fear or anxiety.

Are you triggered by:

Another’s anger, annoyance, criticism, judgment, or rejection?
Another’s withdrawal or resistance?
Another’s unhappiness, whining, or complaining?
A partner leaving on a trip?
A partner coming home late and not calling?
A partner looking at another attractive person?
Another’s lack of consideration?
Another’s messiness?
Another’s forgetfulness?
Someone always being late?
When you feel unseen or invisible to someone who is important to you?
When you feel unjustly accused?

While you might not be aware of it, we all have at least a second to choose how we want to respond to the trigger – and most times more than a second. We often go on automatic pilot and unconsciously choose our programmed protective controlling behavior, but we have the choice to open to loving ourselves and others by taking a second or two to breathe, tune in, and become conscious of this moment of choice. This is what I call the sacred pause – the old “count to 10” before responding.

If you choose to take a breath and tune in, you are giving yourself a chance to respond as a loving adult rather than automatically reacting from your wounded ego self. You have a chance to love yourself by bringing compassion to yourself, by choosing the intent to learn, or by disengage from the situation. You have the chance to love yourself by speaking your truth if that is appropriate and asking your higher self about the loving action toward yourself and the other person in this situation. With practice, you can learn to do all of this in the time. It takes practice to take a deep breath, and to remember to say, “It’s going to be ok.”

The challenge is remembering to love yourself by taking the sacred pause and remembering to tune in to yourself and your higher guidance. It is hard to remember to do this when your fight or flight reaction is triggered. However, when it is very important to you to love yourself and others, you will remember to respond as a loving adult rather than from your wounded self, and you will practice and practice until you remember more and more of the time.

When you forget, accept it rather than criticizing yourself. It is VERY hard to remember to consciously choose your response when your body is in the stress response of fight or flight. Each time you do remember, notice how wonderful you feel – regardless of what the other person is doing. Notice that your painful feelings come more from your reactivity than from the other person’s behavior. Notice how free and empowered you feel when you respond as a loving adult, loving yourself rather than abandoning yourself in reaction to your fear and anxiety. Notice how great you feel when you remember to tell yourself that it’s going to be ok.

When you don’t remember, take some time to go over the situation and decide how you wish you had responded. If, each time you forget to take the sacred pause and consciously choose your intention, and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, you decide how you wish you would have responded, and you practice it, you will find yourself responding as a loving adult more of the time.

It is very challenging to remember when you are tired, hungry, ill, or overly stressed from things other than the fear and anxiety that is being triggered. Be easy on yourself. Give yourself lots of leeway to mess up without any self-criticism. This is one of the greatest challenges you will ever face, so don’t get discouraged when you keep forgetting. Just keep trying, congratulating yourself when you do remember, and rehearsing what you want to do next time. Slowly, with lots of practice, you will become conscious of the moment of choice – the sacred pause.

When I first started to practice Inner Bonding, each time I forgot to take the sacred pause and choose to be a loving adult in my relationships, I would write out the wounded dialogue, tuning into when I got off course. The I would open to learning with my guidance about what would have been loving and I would write it down. Then I would rehearse it like a play, training my higher brain to be a loving adult. For me, this was a very powerful way to create my loving adult.

Now, most of the time, it’s easy for me to remember to stay open to learning, and to stay in faith that everything will be okay.

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: