S2 EP229 – God: Take it or Leave it

Transcription:

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Today I’m speaking about your relationship with your higher power, your spiritual guidance, or your higher self – however you see your source of love, truth, and wisdom.

A woman named Hilary wrote to me:

(quote) I am eating very clean and working out five days a week. I try to meditate every day. Despite this, I feel disconnected from and unloved by my higher power. I know this is just how I FEEL and not reality. I tell my little girl it’s not true, but I can’t seem to change this belief. I know connection will help me. I need some guidance from you to hear my guidance!

It’s wonderful that Hilary is eating well, exercising and meditating. But taking loving care of herself involves much more than that. The fact that she feels disconnected from and unloved by her higher power indicates that she is disconnected from her feelings and not loving herself – that she is operating from her wounded self.

Telling her inner child that something isn’t true is not at all the same thing as living from the truth. If she is abandoning herself by ignoring her feelings, judging herself, turning to various addictions – and even meditation can be an addiction if the intent is to bliss out and avoid her feelings or to control her higher power – or by making others responsible for her feelings, then she is operating from a closed heart. There is no way to connect with her guidance when her heart is closed.

It is unrealistic for her to expect to feel the love of her higher power when she is not being loving to herself. She cannot feel the unconditional love of spirit until her heart is open to loving herself.

This issue is about her intent. It sounds like her intent is to have control over getting love from her higher power, rather than to open to learning with her higher power about what is loving to herself and others and taking loving action in her own behalf. 

Are you codependent with your higher power? Are you expecting your higher power to do for you what only you can do for yourself?

Our guidance is spirit – the incredible energy of unconditional love and wisdom of the universe. It is always here for you, so when you feel disconnected from your higher power, it is you who are doing the disconnecting – not your higher guidance.

When your inner child feels YOUR love for yourself – because you are connected with your feelings, wanting responsibility for them, open to learning about your false beliefs and about how you are treating yourself that causes your inner child to feel unloved by you, open to learning with your guidance about truth and loving action, and taking loving action on your own behalf – which is doing Inner Bonding – then you will feel the love from your guidance.

It’s best for now, if you don’t feel the love of your higher power, to let go for now of even thinking about whether or not you feel loved by and connected with your higher power. Focus instead on whether or not your inner child feels connected with and loved by you as a loving adult. This is the path to connection with spirit.

Hilary mentioned meditation, and meditation is great – if your intent in meditating is to get connected with yourself and your guidance. So if you meditate, notice your intent when you are meditating. Do you have an agenda of getting love from your higher power? Do you believe that meditating will give you some control over how your higher power feels about you? If you notice that this is your intent, then you can consciously shift your intent to learning about loving yourself. This will make a huge difference in your experience of meditating and in your experience of connecting with your guidance.

Sometimes, it’s your false beliefs that create your disconnection from your higher power and lead you to believe that your higher power should be doing things for you, rather than you being able to access the information of how to take loving care of yourself.

What are your beliefs about your higher power?

Do you believe that your higher power loves you and is unconditional love? If you do, then it’s likely that your faith is strong, and you can feel the love and wisdom of your guidance.

Do you believe that God doesn’t exist – that there is no higher power, no spiritual source of love and wisdom? Do you believe that if God exists, then bad things like child abuse and murders and poverty and hunger wouldn’t exist? That he or she would have done something about bad things happening?

God being spirit, cannot stop people from being abusive or greedy. We have free will, which means that no one, not even God, can stop us from doing what we do. We each decide whether or not we want to be open or closed, loving or unloving, abusive or caring. Humans cause the poverty and hunger, the abuse and the murders, not the love that is God.

Often, when children are being abused, they pray to God to make the abuse stop, and when it doesn’t stop, they believe that God doesn’t exist or doesn’t care. They generally didn’t understand that the spirit that is God was always there helping to sustain them. 

Do you believe there is no God because there is no scientific evidence that God is real? Do you believe in hard evidence because it makes you feel safe, and because you believe that hard evidence is the truth? Do you have to see it to believe it?

If we could prove the existence of God, we would not need faith, and learning to have faith is a major part of our journey on this planet. Yet the proof is everywhere – every living thing and all of nature is proof that something created all of this. 

Are you afraid that you would feel duped if you believed in God and there is no God? Often the fear of being wrong and feeling stupid keeps people from discovering the truth for themselves. Yet it is only when you are willing to take the risk of opening and receiving a direct personal experience of your higher guidance that you will know the truth. 

Do you believe in God, but believe that you have been abandoned by God because you are unworthy, bad, flawed, unlovable, or unimportant? Do you believe that God uses you to help others but does not come to you personally because you are not worthy of love?

Do you believe that God is a person or a man who cannot possibly be unconditionally loving, so you have to earn God’s love? Do you believe that God is judgmental, or punishing, or too busy for you, or is indifferent to you, or that God is there for some special people but not for you, or that God loves everyone but you?

Do you tend to believe that God is like your mother or father, or how another caregiver was when you were a child: judgmental, punishing, too busy, indifferent, absent, or playing favorites?

You may tend to project your experience of your parents or other caregivers onto God, as well as to treat yourself as you were treated by your them and as they treated themselves. This perpetuates your experience that higher guidance does not exist or is not here for you personally. Until you heal your shame and false beliefs about love being conditional, you may continue to believe that your higher power couldn’t love you because you are not lovable enough. And you may have been taught that your only worth is in helping others – that you are nothing, so the love that is God will not come directly to you to help you and love you. 

If you do believe in God or a higher power, how do you conceptualize it? A man, a woman, spirit, energy, love, nature, the universe, light, the All, the Great Mystery, Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, or what else? There is no right way to experience guidance – it’s just about what works for you.

Do you believe that the responsibility for spiritual connection lies with you or with your higher power, or with both? If you believe that it lies with your higher guidance, then you might be expecting your guidance to do things for you rather than guide you into what is loving for you to do for yourself. This indicates being in a codependent relationship with your guidance.

Most people would love to have at-will Divine connection and know that they are not alone, and that they can always turn to their higher power for love, wisdom, and guidance. But this is exactly what your wounded self doesn’t want you to do, because then it loses its illusion of control. One way the wounded self sabotages your connection with your higher guidance is to make resistance to being controlled more important than loving. If you are projecting a controlling parent onto your concept of a higher power, then you might believe that your spiritual guidance is controlling, which can lead to resistance to opening to learning with your guidance for fear of being controlled.

For example, my client Anne was raised by two very controlling parents. Her parents were harsh, judgmental, and punishing. She could never be perfect enough to avoid their wrath.

When Anne first consulted me, she had a deep connection with God, but it was a one-way connection. She felt that she connected to God, but she did not feel that God connected with her. She would often send prayers regarding others’ wellbeing, as well as prayers of gratitude, and these were very fulfilling for her. Yet she never asked her guidance for information regarding her own highest good. She never asked for a two-way conversation with her spiritual guidance.

Anne was very tuned in to others’ feelings and needs and was very caring and giving with others. Yet she was rarely aware of her own feelings. Her inner child, feeling abandoned by her and unimportant to her, was often sad and angry. Yet Anne consistently forgot to practice Inner Bonding when she was feeling sad and angry. She claimed that she just did not know how to take care of herself.

In one of our sessions, we explored Anne’s resistance to taking loving care of herself.

“Anne,” I asked, “there must be some good reasons that you are so connected with God, yet you do not ask God how to take care of your own inner child. What do you think this is about?”

“I just don’t want God telling me what to do,” she answered.

“So even though you love God and pray to God, you believe that God is controlling?” I asked her.

“Well,” she answered, “I guess I do. At least my wounded self does. I know that God is love, but I guess I don’t actually believe that when it comes to me.”

“And does your wounded self believe that God is judgmental and punishing?” I asked her.

“Again, I know that God is unconditional love, but I do believe that God is judgmental and punishing when it comes to me,” she said.

“So, in the mind of your wounded self, God is just like your parents? You have projected your parents onto God?” I asked her.

“Yes! I think that is exactly what I do! I don’t want to hear what God has to say to me because I think that God is going to judge and control me like my parents did,” she said.

“And the last thing you want is to be judged and controlled,” I stated.

“Yes,” she said. “I hate it. I’m very sensitive to anyone judging me and trying to control me. I think this is the biggest issue I have with my husband. I get angry or just vanish if I think he is the least bit judgmental or controlling.”

“So the moment there is any judgment or other controlling behavior, your wounded self takes over and you just react. There is no loving adult,” I stated.

“Yes,” she said, “and I don’t want to keep doing this. I want to respond as a loving adult.”

“In order to respond as a loving adult, you need to open to learning with your guidance regarding what would be loving to you. But you are completely resistant to opening for fear of being controlled, which makes it impossible to be a loving adult for your inner child. This is what’s keeping you stuck in your healing process.”

“Yes,” she said, “I see this, but I don’t know what to do.”

“Anne, in order to learn to be a loving adult, you would need to decide that you are willing to risk being controlled by God. You cannot open to your guidance until you are willing to experience the truth that God is love, not a controlling being. I know that this is very challenging for you, given your experience of your parents, yet unless you are willing to open and learn the truth about God, you have no way of developing your loving adult.”

It took much courage and practice for Anne to establish a two-way communication with her higher guidance. Through diligent practice, her false beliefs gradually changed, and she was finally able to access information regarding the loving actions on behalf of her inner child. Not only did her relationship with her husband improve, but her lifelong sadness and anger gradually diminished.

George grew up with a controlling mother and a passive, absent father. Not wanting to be weak and dominated like his father, George chose a different path – resistance.

Resisting being controlled by anyone became George’s primary motivation. No one was going to invade him or take advantage of him. No one was going to hurt him. He shut down, closed his heart, and became a very lonely adolescent.

I started to work with George because his third marriage was falling apart. Stuck in his resistance, he could not connect with his wife – just as he had not been able to connect with his two previous wives and numerous girlfriends. When he started to work with me, he had every reason in the world for blaming his current wife for the lack of connection between them – just as he had blamed all the other women in his life. He was convinced he had just not yet found the right woman.

The real issue was that George would not connect with himself or with any source of spiritual guidance. His resistance had become so entrenched that he was resisting the needs of his own inner child, as well as resisting being “controlled” by his spiritual guidance. The result of this was that he generally felt completely empty inside and then blamed his wife for not filling him up.

One of the problems in dealing with resistance is that it generally starts very early in life; it becomes as invisible and as ubiquitous as the air you breathe. It is the automatic reaction to anything that you perceive as control, whether it is from another person, from your own inner child, from the demands and judgments of your wounded self, or from what you may project onto your concept of a higher power. Your wounded resistant self will resist being tuned into your own feelings, fearing being controlled by your inner child. Likewise, you will resist messages from your guidance, fearing being controlled by a power greater than your wounded self.

This powerful level of resistance makes it impossible to be in a loving relationship. When you perceive another’s desire for connection and intimacy as a demand, you will automatically resist it. The more you resist, the more you will perceive your partner as the problem.

This is the situation that George was in when he first consulted with me. He realized that it would not benefit him to leave yet another marriage and search for the “right” woman. While he really believed that he was a nice guy, he was smart enough to realize that he had something to do with the problems in his relationships.

Though our work, George learned that there was a huge difference between being nice and being loving. George’s niceness was one of the ways he tried to control getting love while at the same time resisting being controlled by not opening his heart to loving. His niceness was a cover-up for his refusal to open to learning about loving himself and others. He was completely devoted to getting love from others while equally devoted to resisting being loving with himself and others.

His intention was to control getting love and avoiding pain, and resisting being controlled, rather than learning about loving himself and sharing his love with others.

George had ostensibly been on a spiritual path for many years. Yet he had never experienced a personal connection with a spiritual source of love and guidance. As much as he thought he wanted to, there was no way of experiencing the presence of love when controlling and resisting being controlled were his unconscious primary intentions.

For George, the shift in his intention did not come until he suffered a heart attack. The brush with death scared him enough that control and resistance lost their meaning to him, and learning about loving himself and others took on a high priority.

Fortunately, George is now practicing Inner Bonding – connecting with his guidance and taking loving care of himself, and his marriage is gradually improving.

Many people are confused about the kinds of things your guidance tells you. It’s not about the lottery numbers!

Your guidance is here to bring you the truth about your false beliefs and to guide you in what is loving to you and to others. Just as the wounded self likes to mask as a loving adult, it can also mask as your guidance. Your wounded self, acting as your guidance, might tell you things that scare you, but your guidance will never do that. Whenever you hear something that scares you, you need to know that it is your wounded self making things up to try to control something.

My guidance never imposes anything on me or tries to control me in any way. She answers my questions in a way that makes me feel calm and peaceful rather than scared. She never tests me, and she would never tell me disturbing things or try to jolt me into action. She is unconditionally kind, caring, comforting, supportive, wise, compassionate, loving and powerful. I would not know how to live my life without her.  

A client asked me:

(quote) I attempt to communicate with my higher guidance every day, but how can I be sure that what is being relayed to me isn’t just my own ego? (unquote)

We have been blessed with a fail–safe system of knowing what is right and true for us. Part of our soul exists within our body and often communicates through our feelings, and if you want to, you can call this part your inner child. The rest of our huge soul is all around us and communicates through thought and images that we receive when we are open to learning.

Imagine your soul as a huge bright energy – a spark of the Divine-that-is-Love. Imagine that your body exists within this energy and this energy exists within your body. 

When I receive a thought or image, I check in with my feelings to see if it feels right. When it does feel right, then I know it’s from my guidance. If something about it doesn’t feel right, then I’m suspicious that it is coming from my wounded self. I keep staying open, asking my guidance for clarity. When the thoughts and images I receive line up with what feels right inside, then I know I am on the right track.

It’s staying in touch with our feelings that lets us know when we are on or off track. When we feel peaceful and full of love inside, we know that we are taking loving care of ourselves. When we feel anxious, depressed, angry, shamed, empty, alone, or jealous, we know we are abandoning ourselves. Our guidance is here to guide us in what is loving to ourselves – this is what our guidance is here for. This is what our guidance tells us – what is loving to ourselves and others.

It’s truly wonderful to know that we are never alone – that our guidance is always here to guide and support us in our highest good. But remember, because your guidance is spirit, it can’t do it for you, so if you are codependent with your guidance and making your guidance responsible for you, you will not only be very disappointed, but you will be unable to connect with your guidance. And if you listen to your wounded self regarding your false beliefs about your higher power and believe that your guidance will try to control you, you will stay in resistance to being guided by your higher power – and you will continue to feel alone, unable to connect with your source of love and wisdom.

But if you take the risk of opening to learning with your guidance about what is true and what is loving to you, life will get so much better for you! 

I invite you to 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 learn to connect with your spiritual guidance with my 30-Day video home-study course, Unlocking Your Inner Wisdom.

And you can learn so much about loving yourself and creating loving relationships from my new book, “Lonely No More: The Astonishing Power of Inner Bonding” and from our website at https://www.innerbonding.com.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings.