S2 EP208 – The Potency of Your Intention
Episode Summary
Learn to practice awareness of your intent so you can move out of your painful feelings and into your inner peace. Discover the power and potency of your intent in creating loving relationships.
Transcription:
Hi everyone, Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Today I’m speaking to the importance of being aware of your intention, and how potent and powerful your intention is regarding your relationships and in causing both pain and joy.
How often are you aware of your intent? Those of you who have been practicing Inner Bonding know that the basis of the Inner Bonding process is the intent to learn about loving yourself and others.
It is the intent to learn that moves you out of your left-brain wounded ego self and into the connection with your right brain so you can connect with your essence and your higher guidance. Choosing the intent to learn is the bridge from the left brain to the right, from our programmed thinking to our ability to access truth, love, compassion, and joy.
We all have the ability to choose to learn at any moment, but the challenge is consciously remembering to make this choice. One of the challenges with making this choice is that the wounded self doesn’t want you to make this choice. The moment you truly choose to learn about loving yourself and others, and to open to learning about what a loving adult would do in any particular situation, the wounded self is temporarily off-line and no longer in charge. The choice to open to learning about loving actions and connecting with your guidance is what creates the loving adult, and in those moments when the loving adult is in charge, the wounded self is not operating.
Since the wounded self is afraid to be off-line, it does all it can to make you forget to choose the intent to learn.
While it is not hard to choose to learn and grow, it is hard to remember to make this choice, because of the fear of the wounded self. It wants you to continue going to your automatic, unconscious choice to protect against pain with controlling behavior – the choice we all learned when we were very young.
Therefore, it takes awareness to move into the intent to learn. It takes vigilance to be conscious, aware, and present enough to consciously choose your intent rather than allow your wounded self to automatically take over.
This is the challenging part. How do you remember to stay open to learning when your wounded self is determined to stay in charge?
The answer lies in practicing Step One of Inner Bonding – being present and aware of your feelings. Your feelings are always instantly letting you know your intention. When you feel scared, alone, anxious, depressed, stressed, angry, hurt, empty, jealous, and so on, you know that your wounded self is in charge. Your wounded self is thinking thoughts and taking actions that are causing these painful feelings.
But what do you believe about your painful feelings? One of the problems with staying in Step One is that the wounded self generally has false beliefs about the wounded painful feelings – the painful feelings that come from the self-abandonment and false beliefs of the wounded self, such as, “It’s wrong to have these feelings,” or “There is nothing I can do about these feelings so it is best to ignore them,” or “I can’t handle these feelings,” or “I’m not the cause of these feelings – they are coming from people, events, or the past.”
If you have these beliefs, then you are likely doing all you can to avoid feeling your feelings – ignoring them, numbing them out with various addictions, judging yourself for them, and making others responsible for them.
The truth is that these painful feelings are valuable information that you are in your wounded self, thinking thoughts and taking actions that are not loving to you, not in your highest good, and not coming from a source of truth.
When you are willing to feel your feelings – and choose to take responsibility for them – you will then move into the intent to learn. Therefore, awareness of intent and awareness of feelings go hand in hand. Your painful wounded feelings let you know that you are in the intent to control others and outcomes and avoid pain. This knowledge gives you the choice to change your intent to learning about loving yourself – about what actions a loving adult would take for yourself and others. The moment you shift your intent, you will actually start to feel better, because even just choosing the intent to learn moves you out of your wounded self and into your loving adult.
All of this takes a lot of practice. I hope you start to practice, and then keep practicing!
Clients often ask me a question such as the following:
“What’s the difference between protecting or controlling from your wounded self or from your loving adult? Isn’t the loving adult supposed to protect the inner child?”
Yes! But the loving adult protects by taking loving care of yourself and controlling what you can control, which is yourself. The wounded self protects by trying to control others and outcomes, as well as trying to control your painful feelings.
Here is an example of the difference. Let’s say that you have an actual child, and someone is being mean to your child. The wounded self tends to be very reactive, so as your wounded self, you might tell the person to stop, or yell at the person, threaten them, or even hit them. Your intent would be to control the person.
As your loving adult, you might first let the person know that it isn’t okay to treat your child that way, and if they didn’t stop, then you would take your child away, and you would help your child to not take personally the other person’s unloving behavior. You would control what you can control, which is you.
The same thing happens on the inner level. When someone does something that is upsetting to you, you can either try to control them and get them to change, or you can focus on what is loving to you and take loving care of yourself. When you try to control the other person, you are protecting yourself from your wounded self, and when you take loving action on your own behalf, you are protecting yourself from your loving adult.
The confusion comes in when your intent is to protect with controlling behavior rather than to love yourself.
When your intent is to love yourself, you will naturally protect yourself in appropriate ways by taking loving care of yourself, but when your intent is to protect, your wounded self will take over to try to control others, outcomes, and your own feelings.
More confusion can come in when the wounded self is masking as the loving adult and saying things like:
“I’m taking loving care of myself by getting angry at my partner and letting them know they can’t treat me this way,” or “I’m taking loving care of myself by rewarding myself with this donut,” or ‘It’s loving to me to relax with a bottle of wine in the evening. After all, stress is harmful and this is how I de-stress,” when what is really happening is that the wounded self is using anger, food, or alcohol to control another person or your own feelings by numbing out, trying to protect against painful feelings, rather than taking loving care of yourself in the face of these feelings.
Sometimes we do need to control others to protect them or ourselves. For example, you protect small children by not letting them run in the street. You are controlling them for their health and safety, and it is an adult’s responsibility to exert this control.
If someone is attacking you physically and you know self-defense, then it is certainly loving to yourself to do all you can to protect yourself from being hurt.
Again, it’s all about intent, and the challenge is to not allow the wounded self to convince you that the intent behind numbing or controlling behaviors is to love yourself rather than to control others, outcomes, or your own feelings.
Things get clearer when we consistently open to learning with our higher guidance about what is loving to ourselves and to others. If you were to ask your guidance if the donut or the bottle of wine is in your highest good – and you were connected with your guidance and truly wanting to be loving to yourself, then you would know that avoiding your feelings with addictions isn’t loving to yourself. It’s not that it’s never loving to have a donut or drink wine, but when it’s being used to avoid your feelings, then it’s controlling rather than loving to yourself.
Being aware of your intent, and learning to discern another’s intent, is vital for creating loving relationships.
April, my client who was going through a divorce, asked me “How do you know when your partner is really open to learning?”
April and Ron had consulted with me because of the problems in their marriage. April took to Inner Bonding with a deep commitment to learn and heal and believed that Ron was doing the same thing.
However, as time went on, it became apparent that Ron had no intention of taking responsibility for his own feelings. This was confusing to April. How could he be doing Inner Bonding, yet not make any changes?
“April, just because Ron says he is doing Inner Bonding, doesn’t mean he is actually doing it. Unless he has a deep intent to learn about loving himself and taking responsibility for his own feelings, he is not actually doing Inner Bonding. From what you are telling me, he continues to blame you for his feelings and withdraw. You need to either accept him as he is and stop expecting change or let go of the relationship.”
Looking back, April was now able to see the signs that Ron was not actually open to learning.
(quote) “I think that one of the signs that Ron was not open to learning was that he could never acknowledge a mistake. He was totally uninterested in looking at any mistakes he had made and virtually never apologized for anything that happened. I think that people who take responsibility for their feelings and actions generally are interested in knowing when they misinterpret something. But he always had to be right.
“He would pray and meditate every day and try to move through the deep pain he was in, but he could not get that he was causing it, because that would mean – in his mind – he was doing something wrong. My part is that I always had more compassion for his little boy than I had for my own little girl, so I was trying to take care of him instead of myself, hoping that eventually he would be able to be present with me in a loving way.” (Unquote)
People can pray and meditate with the intent to get rid of pain rather than to learn what they are doing to cause their pain. In fact, many spiritual people do just that – use prayer and meditation as a spiritual bypass to try to feel better without taking responsibility for their feelings.
April went on to say, “I think he confused blaming me with compassion for himself – that he thought that blaming me showed he was standing up for his little boy. He was never treated with compassion growing up and had little or no compassion for me.” (unquote)
When people practice Inner Bonding, they often develop compassion for themselves and for others. Because Ron was not actually practicing Inner Bonding, he stayed stuck in being a victim of his past.
Even with all the problems in the relationship, April was totally committed to staying and working them out. She was, therefore, shocked when Ron suddenly left her for another woman.
(quote)”Yesterday, as a result of a column that someone gave to me, I connected with my deepest grief about Ron’s leaving. The column was about the challenges of the journey to real intimacy with someone you are so deeply connected to that you cannot leave no matter how hard it gets. I realized that doing that journey had been my deepest passion – going through whatever it takes to heal and reach that place of true soul level marriage. I loved Ron enough to do that and I believed that he really loved me. As I thought about this, I realized that Ron bailed out of this journey long ago. When we first met, he told me that he wanted to reach the deepest possible intimacy with his partner. Several years ago, when he was in a wounded and withdrawn state, I asked him how this squared with his desire for real intimacy. He responded, ‘I gave up on that long ago.’ At the time I thought this was just his wounded self speaking, but now I realize that this was true. That is part of why we were so stuck. We reached a certain point and then nothing ever got better between us. I still wanted it more than anything else, but he no longer did. Realizing this reduces the pain of losing him, because it helps me realize that what I thought was our relationship, the journey towards having what I so deeply wanted, ended long before he left.
“I asked myself what I wanted to get as a result of this deep, intimate soul journey and of course the answer was to be completely able to give and receive love. I understand now, with the help of Inner Bonding, that this journey can be with myself, and with God as my soul’s partner. I would love to do this with someone else as well, but that person will have to have a real commitment to learning. I will never again deceive myself about whether it is there.” (unquote).
April finally understood that she could discern another’s intent if she was truly open to learning about loving herself rather than caretaking the other person.
Being aware of your intent is vital for communication between partners and others to be effective. Communication between partners often gets confusing, and there is a very good reason for this. Most of the time, the words we use have far less impact than the energy behind the words. Therefore, what you say is often not what the other person hears.
The energy behind a communication is determined by our intention. In all communication, either your intent is to control your partner, or your intent is to learn about yourself and your partner. The difference in energy between these two intentions is what frequently creates the confusion in communication.
In one of my sessions with Joshua, he complained about the fact that his wife, Joan, often gets upset with him over seemingly minor issues. A recent conflict had occurred over a book she was reading. He had asked her why she was reading that particular book, and she had responded to him with irritation.
“Joshua,” I asked, “why were you asking her about the book?”
“I was just curious,” he said.
“Go deeper,” I said. “Was there anything about the book that was threatening to you?”
“Well…yeah. It was a book about women and codependency,” he answered.
“And what was threatening to you?” I asked.
“I’m afraid of Joan pulling away from me,” he said.
“So, which intent do you think was operating at that moment – the intent to control her or the intent to learn about yourself and her?” I asked him.
“I guess to be honest, I have to say that I was wanting to control her. When I think back on it, I think my tone of voice may have been blaming. Joan always tells me that she hates how much I try to control her, and I always think she is wrong about that. But I think I was trying to control her,” he confessed.
“And she responded to your intent to control with irritation, which is her intent to control, and which is what is happening frequently in your relationship, right?” I asked.
“Right. So what would I have said if I was open to learning?” He asked.
“It’s not so much the words as it is the energy behind the words,” I said to him. “The energy behind the words, ‘Why are you reading that book?” is totally different when the intent is to control than when the intent is to learn. The same words can be said with a blaming, shaming edge, or with real caring and curiosity. It is your intent that determines the energy behind the words. Joan was not responding to the words themselves, but to the blaming and shaming energy behind the words. This is what is causing the confusion for you regarding your communication with her. The exact same words can communicate two totally different things, depending upon the intent. And the chances are that if you had not felt threatened by the book, you might not have even questioned her about why she was reading it.”
“Yes, I can see where that is probably true,” he said. “Okay, I got it. I’ve been trying to control her and that is what she is responding to, not to the words I’ve been using.”
Joshua started to notice his intent. Every time Joan got irritated or distant from him, he noticed that his intent was to control. It was a big challenge to shift out of trying to control her, since he had been doing this most of his life in all his relationships, but Joshua was very motivated to change. He knew that if he didn’t, he ran the risk of losing his marriage. He started to focus on taking loving care of himself and his own feelings instead of trying to change Joan.
As Joshua became more aware of his intent, he was able to consciously shift his intent from controlling to learning about taking care of himself and sharing his love with Joan. As his intent shifted, the energy of his communications with Joan shifted, and their relationship greatly improved. Joshua was thrilled with the deeper understanding and intimacy that was growing between them.
In any interaction with another person, there are always two levels of communication: intent and content.
Your intent refers to whether, in this moment, your deepest desire is either to control or to love, to avoid or to learn.
Content is the issue you may be discussing – time, money, tasks, communication, sexuality, parenting, relationships with family and friends, food, health, and so on. The content is the topic of discussion while the intent is the context, or container, within which you are interacting.
Discussions over issues easily disintegrate into arguments when one or both people are operating from the intent to control.
Issues cannot reach resolution unless both people – or all involved – have an intent to learn. In fact, even more issues get created when one or more people involved in the discussion are choosing control rather than learning, because now the controlling behavior itself – anger, judgment, blame and so on – becomes an issue.
I hope by now you understand that you have no control over another’s intent, and that attempts to get another to open are generally met with resistance. Trying to get another to open, even with niceness or kindness, is just another form of control. Most people who want to control also do not want to be controlled and will go into resistance if they feel someone trying to control them, even if it is just to get them to open up.
The key to not creating more issues when you feel you are open to learning and the other person is not, is to accept your helplessness over another’s intention. If you completely accept that there is nothing you can do to get another person to listen to you, hear you, understand you, care about you, agree with you, accept you, or do what you want, then you will not pursue the discussion. You will not continue to hit your head against a wall when you have no hope of the wall coming down. When you accept that you are powerless to change another’s intent, you will stop trying to do so. You will no longer pursue discussing content until all involved are open to learning.
We stay in dysfunctional discussions and arguments when we do not accept the truth – that we have no control over getting another to open, agree, understand, care, accept, and so on.
We stay in these difficult interactions because we deny our powerlessness over others. We convince ourselves that if we just say the right thing, in just the right way, the other person will finally hear us and care about what we feel and want. Because of this illusion, we can exhaust ourselves in fruitless arguments that leave us even more frustrated and lonely than before we began.
It is very important to remember that while we have no control over another’s intent, we have total control over our own intent. When we are willing to let go of our focus on content and instead become aware of intent, then we are in a position to choose the loving action for ourselves. It is far more loving to ourselves and others to disengage from combative discussions until both people are open, than to argue, lecture, convince, judge, plead, cry, blame, or criticize in an attempt to change another’s intent.
However, walking away can also be a form of control if the intent of walking away is to punish the other person. The energy you will have if you walk away in anger and blame is entirely different than the energy of disengaging and walking away because it is the loving thing to do for yourself and for the other person. When you are walking away as a loving adult, you can simply say, “Let’s talk about this later, when we are both open.”
Often, in my workshops and intensives, when I make the statement that it is more loving to walk away from a combative discussion than continue to argue, someone invariable says, “When I walk away, my partner often says, ‘You always run away rather than stay and resolve things.’ What do I do then?”
If someone blames you for peacefully disengaging, then the other person is still trying to control you.
He or she hopes to hook you in with the blame. The best thing to do is not respond at all. Anything you say will be a defense or explanation and you will be right back into the fray. It is very important to keep your adult present with your intent to be loving, so that you don’t get hooked back into the argument.
A good time to reenter the discussion is after each of you has done your own Inner work and are open to learning with each other. You will be surprised how easily conflicts get resolved when both people or all involved are open to learning.
Remembering to tune into the intent, rather than getting stuck in the content, when one or both are not open to learning, will keep conflicts from escalating into fights.
I hope you can begin to feel and understand the power and potency of becoming aware of your intent, and of practicing choosing the intent to learn about loving yourself and others.
If you enjoyed this podcast, I would really appreciate it if you tell your friends about it, and if you give it a review wherever you heard it.
And I invite you join me for my bi-monthly masterclass and receive my live help, which you can learn about at https://innerbondinghub.com/membership.
I invite you to heal your relationships with my 30-Day online video relationship course: Wildly, Deeply, Joyously in Love.
And you can learn so much about loving yourself and creating loving relationships from my recent books and from our website at https://www.innerbonding.com.
I’m sending you my love and my blessings.
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