S2 EP234 – Inner Peace, Global Harmony: It Starts with Me

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. How important is world peace to you, and how important is your inner peace? I think most people would love to have both, as I would, and I’ve seen over and over that the external reflects the inner. When people in a relationship take responsibility for creating their inner peace, the relationship becomes more peaceful. 

This is as true on the planetary level as it is on the relationship level. Imagine the peaceful world we would have if each person learned how to take responsibility for their own peace. Peaceful people don’t create wars. Peaceful people don’t have a need to conquer and destroy. Peaceful people express their love and joy to others, regardless of religion, race, or gender. Peaceful people are not greedy and don’t have a need for the power and control that enormous wealth gives to them. Wealthy peaceful people receive great joy in sharing their wealth in ways that help people, animals, and our planet. So, it seems to me that learning to create inner peace is vitally important, not only for our own mental health the health of our relationships, but also for world peace.  

I work with many people who deeply desire the benefits of inner peace and joy that result from being devoted to the path of love, yet remain entrenched on the path of fear and control. Why is this?

There is a simple yet profound reason why people who want to be on the spiritual path of love remain stuck on the earthly path of fear despite years of working on themselves. They are unconsciously attaching their worth, happiness, peace, and joy to outcomes.

It took me a long time to learn this – to learn what it really means to accept whatever is in the present moment, and sometimes I still struggle with it. I have found for me that controlling behavior falls by the wayside when I accept the present moment, and this acceptance is often not easy. I don’t like accepting when a person I care deeply about doesn’t see me and projects their own self-judgments and other forms of self-abandonment on to me. I don’t like accepting that there is nothing I can do about another person’s intent. I don’t like accepting that there are many people who lack the empathy and compassion to want to be loving, peaceful people. I don’t like accepting what’s going on politically in our world. But for my own inner peace, I need to accept all of this and more. For me, acceptance of what is, and inner peace go hand in hand.

It’s a lack of acceptance over what you can and can’t control that creates a lack of inner peace. 

The moment you attach your well-being to an outcome, you then will try to have control over that outcome. When you attach your happiness and well-being to externals such as success, sex, approval, attention, money, a different job, getting love, being in a relationship, getting out of a relationship, having a baby, getting a house, living in a different place, recovering from an illness, acquiring things, and so on – you will then attempt to have control over getting what you believe you need to feel happy and peaceful.

But inner peace isn’t about externals – it’s about being present in this moment with the love and peace and truth and grace that is the energy of the universe. It’s about being connected with your soul within and your soul all around you and being guided by the love and truth of your true soul self.

Peace and joy are experiences of being in the present moment, not in the past or the future. Trying to control outcomes is the opposite of being in this present moment.

When your intent is to control others or outcomes, you are no longer in the moment, no longer connected to your higher power, no longer trusting the outcome to your guidance. Once you attach your happiness to an outcome, you lose your experience of the love, peace, and joy that is God.

Until you understand that your happiness is the result of being present in the moment with spirit and being loving, caring, compassionate, empathic, honest, and a person of integrity with yourself and others, you will not find your peace and joy. As long as controlling people, events, and outcomes is more important than oneness with all that is, you are not devoted to the spiritual path. You can go to church or temple, meditate, pray, chant, and do many other spiritual rituals, but until being a loving human being, moment by moment, with yourself and others, is more important than controlling others and outcomes, you are kidding yourself if you think you are devoted to the spiritual path. If you are attaching your happiness and self-worth to anything other than being fully in this present moment, with love, joy, and gratitude, you are not devoted to the spiritual path.

You cannot serve two gods. That is, you can’t be focused on controlling others and outcomes and at the same time be devoted to being a loving human being. You can’t be trying to control others and outcomes, and be loving in the same moment.

Many people I work with consider themselves spiritual people, yet they are using spirituality as just another way to control others and outcomes. Anything can be used as a form of control, even prayer and meditation, depending upon your intent.

Devotion to the spiritual path means that your happiness comes from being present in this very moment with the source of life and love. It means that your intention in this moment, and each moment, is to fully manifest yourself as a kind, loving, compassionate, and creative person. It means that you choose to be mindful of your inner experience, moment by moment, and that you immediately notice when your thinking is off course and is causing a lack of inner peace.

Being devoted to the spiritual path means that you are as conscious of your own feelings and needs as you would be with a baby whom you deeply love.

It means that you immediately strive to attend to your feelings and meet your needs, just as you would with a baby whom you deeply cherish. It means take loving action on your own behalf, just as you would with a baby who you adore. It means that you are devoted to bringing love to yourself just as you would with a baby whom you deeply value. Just as a loving parent does not leave a baby alone in a room and go to the market, you do not abandon your own feelings and needs when your devotion is to the spiritual path of love and peace.

Being devoted to the spiritual path means that sharing your love and caring with others is more important than getting love, sex, approval, attention, validation, compliance, or agreement from others.

God is the energy of love, compassion, wisdom, truth, joy, and peace. These feelings and experiences are available to you when your heart is open to learning about being a loving person with yourself and others and devoted to taking loving action for yourself and others.

The challenge in truly being on the spiritual path is in letting go of outcomes. This does not mean that you do not want certain outcomes – it means that you are not attaching your present sense of inner worth, peace, and happiness to those outcomes. You can continue to strive for all that is important to you, yet also be present in this moment with the peace and joy of spirit. When loving is your highest priority, you will pursue your goals with the utmost integrity. Achieving your goals will be the icing on the cake but not the cake itself. The cake itself is defining your worth and creating your happiness through your gratitude, love, kindness, and compassion rather than through reaching a particular goal.

Obviously, this isn’t easy. It’s taken me years of practice to be in the present with the love, peace, and guidance of my higher soul most of the time. And even with all this practice, sometimes my peace is suddenly gone. What happened? 

Has that ever happened to you? You’re in a happy and peaceful state when suddenly, in a second, you’re feeling upset, hurt, angry, grumpy, sad, anxious or depressed. Instead of being in your peaceful loving adult state, connected with your guidance, you are in your ego wounded self, seemingly stuck there, having to climb your way out once again.

What actually happened that robbed you of your peace?

I have discovered that both my own thoughts and actions can trigger my wounded self, as well as what others’ say and do and others’ moods. In close relationships, we are affected by each other’s’ actions and energy. However, while it’s always easy to believe that it is another’s actions or outside events that trigger our wounded selves, this isn’t always the case. It may be a combination of both.

Let’s take an example. You and your partner spent a lovely day together hiking – something you both enjoy doing. You got along great the whole day and you are feeling happy and peaceful on the ride home. You get home and your partner discovers that his or her credit card is missing. You had used the credit card and then remembered giving it back to your partner, but your partner doesn’t remember getting it from you. He or she is suddenly really angry at you, blaming you for the loss of the credit card.

It is at this point that you either get triggered into your wounded self or stay connected as a loving adult. If you get triggered into your wounded self, then maybe you scurry around looking for the credit card. Or maybe you yell back, trying to get your partner to stop yelling. Maybe you get parental, trying to talk him or her out of being angry. Maybe you apologize, even if you do not believe that it was you who lost the card. Or maybe you withdraw in anger, muttering to yourself about how your partner always ruins things.

The problem is that in your wounded self, you do not attend to how it feels inside to be yelled at and blamed, you do not take loving action on your own behalf, and you are not able to access any information about what to do about the lost credit card. You completely abandon yourself to try to control your partner and avoid responsibility for your feelings and actions.

I used to get very triggered into my wounded self when someone I’m close to got angry or judgmental and critical, or didn’t see me or hear me or understand me or discounted me. I would immediately feel wounded by their behavior, unaware of what I was telling myself or how I was treating myself that caused me to lose my peace.

Now, when I stay connected to myself as a loving adult, I don’t take their behavior personally. I might actively listen and let them know I understand how they feel. I might peacefully walk away, lovingly disengaging from the conflict, waiting to deal with it until he or she calms down, and access my guidance for the loving actions. I don’t subject subject myself to the verbal abuse, nor do I try to control it in any way. I simply attend to my own feelings and take loving action, getting myself out of range while keeping my heart open. When I respond as a loving adult, I continue to feel peaceful inside. Not easy, I know. It takes practice to not automatically start trying to control.

However, it’s not just another’s unloving behavior that causes your loss of peace. It’s anytime you get triggered into your wounded self that you lose your own peace.

Sometimes I would get triggered by my own controlling thought about time or money or things happening at work. Now I’m quite firm with my wounded self regarding letting go and being in the moment, fully accepting and allowing this present moment.

What triggers you into your wounded self?

• Does another’s wounded self trigger your wounded self? Does another’s anger, blame, irrational behavior, withdrawal, or resistance, trigger you into your reactive behavior
  
• Do your own thoughts of loss trigger you into your anxiety – thoughts about loss of money, loss of love, loss of approval, loss of health, or thoughts of future hardship or rejection
  
• Does reading about challenging events or seeing them on TV, such as politics, the stock market, gas and food prices, or violence, trigger the scary thoughts that plummet you into your anxiety or depression
  
• Does actual loss – of a loved one, of money, of a job, of health – trigger the feelings of helplessness or loneliness that you avoid feeling with your addictive behavior?

It is so easy to believe that it is these situations that are triggering your wounded feelings, but in reality, it is your thoughts about not being okay – or that you can or should control someone or something – that are the real triggers.

I encourage you to start paying attention to what triggers you into your ego wounded self. By noticing your triggers, you can begin to respond differently, eventually learning to stay in your peaceful loving adult, regardless of what is happening externally.

A common trigger for many people are events with family or friends. It’s easy to feel time stress or stress over fears of rejection or judgment. My client, Judith, was under this kind of stress when she was on a Zoom session with me.

“OMG, I’ve got so much to do!” she said. “How am I going to get all this done?” 

“What happens if you don’t get it all done?” I asked.

“People will be upset with me,” she said.

“So are you stressing yourself out in order to meet others’ expectations of you, instead of loving yourself so you can be peaceful as you prepare for this event?”

She looked at me stunned. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. And that’s what’s making my stomach hurt. I’m not staying present with me at all, or even thinking at all about what’s loving to myself. I just keep thinking that I have to do everything right so that my husband and my kids and my parents and my friends who are coming for Thanksgiving won’t be upset with me.”

“So you are focused outside yourself trying to meet others’ expectations instead of tuning into what you want and what feels right and loving to you – is that right? And that’s making your inner child feel abandoned?” I asked her.

“Yes! My inner child is completely left out and she doesn’t like that at all. And I don’t blame her. I’m not loving myself at all. This isn’t fun. I wonder why I do this?”

“There must be a good reason. When did you start to feel that you had to abandon yourself and focus on meeting others’ expectations?” I asked her.

“Oh that’s clear. My mother always had rigid expectations of me and got angry with me when I didn’t meet them. She still does this today,” she said.

“So are you telling your inner child that everyone is like your mother and that you have to meet all their expectations so they won’t be angry with you and disappointed in you?” I asked her.

“Yes, that is what I’m telling myself. And I know this isn’t true. It’s really just my mother who gets angry, but she gets angry anyway, even when I think I’m meeting her expectations! Wow! I’ve been doing this forever and it always completely stresses me out! Today I’m going to tune into what I want rather than what I think others want.”

“How does that feel?” I asked her.

“It feels great! It feels freeing and exciting! My inner child is excited about getting to do what she wants rather than forcing myself to do what I think others want. And I feel peaceful inside rather than stressed.”

Take a moment to think about how often you make your choices based on others’ actual or imagined expectations. This is a form of control and is the opposite of loving yourself. When you put on a family event or go to an event, see if you can shift your intent from getting others’ approval and avoiding their disapproval, to loving yourself by tuning into how you feel and what you want, and what it would look like to take loving care of yourself so that you can be peaceful and gracious at the event.

It’s takes courage to love yourself rather than trying to meet others’ expectations, but the rewards are great. There is no peace or joy or freedom in trying to meet others’ expectations.

I encourage you to give yourself the gift of becoming fiercely and relentlessly devoted to learning to be a loving adult for your inner child and with others. You might be very surprised at what happens. When I focus on what is loving to me and in my highest good, I’m also supporting the highest good of all. You might find that when you genuinely listen to your own feelings, wants and needs, and take loving action on your own behalf, others are often actually appreciative rather than upset. Many people can feel the energy of people-pleasing and feel controlled by it and may even go into resistance to you. But there is nothing to resist when you are genuinely loving yourself and sharing your love with others. This is the road to inner peace and planetary peace.

Events such as birthdays and holidays are supposed to be a time of celebration when friends and families get together to share food, fun, gifts and love. They are supposed to be a time of giving, caring and connection when we celebrate important and meaningful events.

Yet they are often stressful rather than fun and peaceful, and the underlying issue is your intent. As long as Judith’s intent was to control how people felt about her, she was stressed. When she shifted her intent to loving herself, she felt peaceful and excited about the event.

Your intent determines your behavior and many of your feelings. 

My client Yvette is married with two children. Yvette grew up in a family where she was trained to define her self-worth through other’s approval – that is, Yvette believes that if others value what she does, she is okay, but if they don’t, then she is unworthy and unlovable. Therefore, Yvette’s almost constant intent is to have control over getting love and approval. She does this by trying to do everything perfectly – the house has to be perfect, the food has to be perfect, and she has to get perfect gifts. She believes that if everything is perfect, she can have control over how others feel about her, and she will get the approval she believes she needs to feel worthy.

The problem is that trying to do everything perfectly creates a lot of stress. Whatever means we use – whether it perfection, compliance, anger or blame – we will always be stressed when the intent is to have control over getting love and approval.

Because Yvette does not know how to define her own worth, she feels empty inside until she gets approval. Once she gets the approval, she feels a moment of fullness, which rapidly disappears, and she then needs to fill up again with more approval. Others around her feel her pull for approval and may also feel stressed in the face of it. They may like what she does for them, but they may not feel loved by her giving to them to get their approval, and the event is anything but fun and peaceful.

My client Deena is also married with children. Deena also grew up to believe that her worth was based on others’ approval. However, Deena has done enough Inner Bonding to learn to define her own worth. Because she is no longer dependent upon others’ approval to define her worth, she is free to express herself in ways that are loving to herself and others. Rather than worrying about what anyone will think of her, Deena joyfully goes about decorating, cooking and buying presents because it’s fun for her to do so. For Deena, birthdays and holidays are an opportunity to express herself and her love for others. Because she is defining and expressing her own worth, she feels full and peaceful inside. 

Because Deena receives such joy from expressing herself and giving to others without needing anything in return to feel worthy, others feel loved by her giving. Regardless of what’s happening with others, Deena is able to peacefully and joyfully enjoy the event.

We all have a choice each moment to decide who we want to be – a person who is trying to have control over getting love and approval, or a person who is giving love to ourselves and others. Who we decide to be determines much of how we feel. If our intent is to get love and approval, then we may think that others determine all of our feelings, but it is really our own intent that is responsible for much of how we end up feeling.

Why not start now noticing your intent and practicing Inner Bonding? Why not do all you can right now to create inner peace and contribute to world peace?

If we all learned to create inner peace, I believe we could create world peace. When we operate as a peaceful loving adult, we do not harm others, harm animals, or harm our beautiful planet in any way.

I love this prayer by Dr. Jane Goodall, world renowned primatologist and anthropologist, for world peace. It sums up what we would be doing if we were operating as spiritually connected loving adults.

We pray to the great Spiritual Power in which
we live and move and have our being.
We pray that we may at all times
keep our minds open to new ideas and shun dogma;
that we may grow in our understanding of the nature of all living beings
and our connectedness with the natural world;
that we may become ever more filled with
generosity of spirit and true compassion and love for all life;
that we may strive to heal the hurts that we have inflicted on nature
and control our greed for material things, knowing that
our actions are harming our natural world and the future of our children;
that we may value each and every human being
for who he is, for who she is,
reaching to the spirit that is within,
knowing the power of each individual to change the world.
We pray for social justice,
for the alleviation of the crippling poverty
that condemns millions of people around the world
to lives of misery – hungry, sick, and utterly without hope.
We pray for the children who are starving,
who are condemned to homelessness, slave labor, and prostitution,
and especially for those forced to fight, to kill and torture
even members of their own family.
We pray for the victims of violence and war,
for those wounded in body and for those wounded in mind.
We pray for the multitudes of refugees, forced from their homes to alien places
through war or through the utter destruction of their environment.
We pray for suffering animals everywhere,
for an end to the pain caused by scientific experimentation,
intensive farming, fur farming, shooting, trapping,
training for entertainment, abusive pet owners,
and all other forms of exploitation
such as overloading and overworking pack animals,
bull fighting, badger baiting, dog and cock fighting and so many more.
We pray for an end to cruelty,
whether to humans or other animals,
for an end to bullying, and torture in all its forms.
We pray that we may learn the peace that comes with forgiving
and the strength we gain in loving;
that we may learn to take nothing for granted in this life;
that we may learn to see and understand with our hearts;
that we may learn to rejoice in our being.
We pray for these things with humility;
We pray because of the hope that is within us,
and because of a faith in the ultimate triumph of the human spirit;
We pray because of our love for Creation, and because of our trust in God.
We pray, above all, for peace throughout the world.

Wow, I barely got through that without collapsing into tears – it’s so powerful.

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. 

And, I invite you to 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 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.