S2 EP239 – You Matter: Your Feelings, Needs, Truth, and Voice Matter

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Many of us grew up in households where we absorbed the false belief that we don’t matter – that our feelings and needs don’t matter, and that our perceptions, our truth, and our voice doesn’t matter.

I grew up in such a household. My feelings of fear and anxiety from being raged at and judged didn’t matter. My shock, shame, and humiliation from being sexually abused didn’t matter. No one in my growing up years ever asked me how I felt about anything, so of course I believed that not only did my feelings and needs not matter, but that I didn’t matter. Added to that was that I was told I was a mistake. My mother went to the doctor to get birth control a few months after my parents were married and found out she was pregnant with me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t wanted – it was that I came too soon for them.

Believing that I didn’t matter – that my feelings and needs and voice didn’t matter, led me to stay in a long marriage where I didn’t matter – where my feelings, views, perceptions, truth, and voice weren’t important to anyone in my family, and of course, I thought this was normal and allowed this because I firmly believed that I didn’t matter. I had well-learned early in my life to dissociate from my own feelings, so of course my inner child didn’t feel that she mattered to me. I had learned early in my life to take care of myself physically, but I had no idea that I needed to take care of my feelings and needs to feel that I mattered, that I was as important as everyone else. All I knew to do was to ignore my own feelings and needs and take care of everyone else’s.

I had learned very early from my narcissistic parents that their feelings mattered, not mine, and that I was there to make them know that their feelings mattered to me, always hoping that my feelings would matter to them. It never happened.

If you are a sensitive and empathic person, then it’s very easy for you to tune into others’ feelings and needs, and if growing up you were taught that your parents’ or other caregivers’ feelings and needs were more important than yours, then you likely became a caretaker. This sets you up for a caretaker-taker relationship. At the beginning of a relationship, narcissists know well how to make you feel important. They know what to say and how to treat you to make you feel that your feelings and needs are important to them. And once you are hooked in and in love with this person who finally makes you feel that you matter, a narcissist changes, becoming angry, demanding, blaming, discounting of your views and needs, and dismissive of your feelings.

If you stay in this relationship, you reinforce your deep false belief that your feelings and needs don’t count. You continue to caretake the taker, hoping to get back the happiness and connection you felt at the beginning of the relationship. For me the honeymoon period lasted about 3 weeks, and I spent the next 30 years trying to get back the joy of those three weeks. The problem was that sometimes, by giving myself up enough, I would temporarily feel that connection again, which reinforced my compliant, caretaking behavior.   

I know that many of you listening can relate to this. 

It wasn’t until I met Dr. Erika Chopich and we co-created Inner Bonding that I started to learn to take responsibility for my feelings and needs. And it’s taken me years of my feelings mattering to me to believe, know and feel that my feelings, truth, and voice matter. And being a very empathic and sensitive person, I still struggle to make my feelings and needs matter with people I care about in my life. It’s so easy for me to jump right into caring about them and not even check in with my own feelings and needs, which then makes my inner child feel unimportant. Fortunately, I immediately feel depressed when I do this, and I now know that the depression is the way my inner child – my inner guidance system, is letting me know that I’ve abandoned myself, and then I can do something about it.

As an empath, when I love someone, it’s very challenging for me to not make others’ feelings and needs more important than mine. I’ve been doing this my whole life and it’s automatic, so I need to be very aware of my own feelings and needs. It’s not a matter of not caring about others’ feelings and needs. As Erika has role-modeled for me, it’s a matter of balance. It’s a matter of staying tuned into both me and others, so that I can make an appropriate decision regarding what I attend to in any given moment.

You matter. Each one of us matters, but you will not feel and know this until your feelings and needs deeply matter to you. 

There are many articles that speak about self-care, but few understand that the heart of self-care is learning how to listen to and take responsibility for your own feelings. 

There are many articles that talk about different aspects of physical self-care but rarely much about emotional self-care. They imply that taking physical self-care is enough. 

Physical self-care is very important, and I agree with all the tips offered, but it’s not nearly enough without emotional self-care. All these tips do let you know you matter, but if you are giving yourself up in any of your relationships, or allowing others to diminish you, not valuing your feelings, your needs, and not speaking your truth, you will still not feel that you matter.

One tip often offered is “Getting enough sleep and having a regular sleep schedule.” And this is very important, but I have many clients who get plenty of sleep and have an excellent sleep schedule yet suffer from anxiety, depression, shame and low self-worth until they learn the kind of emotional self-care that heals these feelings.

Another tip I’ve read about is to “Make your bed.” Of course, it’s good to make your bed, and most people as part of being a loving adult do make their bed, but this has nothing to do with emotional responsibility for pain and joy.

Another tip is like exercising or stretching. Again, this is fine physical self-care, and sometimes exercise can temporarily help with anxiety and depression, but it’s a temporary fix. It doesn’t go to the deeper level of how you are emotionally abandoning yourself that is the most common cause of feelings such as anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, anger, emptiness, aloneness, despair, jealousy, and so on. It doesn’t do anything to heal the false beliefs that are fueling your self-abandoning behavior – your self-judgment, ignoring your feelings, numbing with addictions, and making others responsible for your feelings. It also doesn’t address the lack of physical self-care of eating junk food, leading to an imbalance in the gut microbiome that creates toxicity in the body and brain, often leading to anxiety and depression So there is no actual healing of the causes of your painful feelings with tips like this.

Other tips are activities such going outside for a walk, and taking time for yourself, and taking one day to not read the news or listen to the news or discuss politics, and to putting your phone on do not disturb, as well bubble baths with a glass of wine, music and a book, dancing and singing, hydration, a cup of coffee in the morning, hanging eucalyptus in your shower, and a few other physical tips.

All of these are good ideas to relax and take good physical care of yourself, but I hope you notice that none of this has anything to do with the deeper level of emotional self-care that is necessary to heal. They are band-aids, and they do nothing to heal false beliefs and the resulting fear, anxiety, depression, and low self-worth. They are fine to deal with momentary situational stress but will do little for ongoing anxiety or depression.

The question, then, is about whether or not you want to learn to take responsibility for your feelings and needs.

Many people feel their feelings – and then stay stuck with them, wallowing in them, numbing them, judging them, or blaming someone else for them. None of this lets your inner child know that he or she matters to you. 

My client Miles was stuck. His financial situation was scary and there was constant conflict with his wife and two children. He was in deep despair, and he felt angry and very much a victim of life. He had little self-worth, and his inner child didn’t feel important at all, which was creating the despair.

“Miles,” I asked, “Do you want to learn to take responsibility for being the one causing all of this? Do you want responsibility for causing your despair?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Miles, please don’t give me the ‘right’ answer. Go inside and see if you really do want responsibility for yourself and your feelings.”

Miles paused a minute, and then quietly said, “No, I guess I don’t. I just want something to change.”

If Miles really wanted responsibility for himself and his own feelings, he would be doing much more regarding his financial situation. He would be attending to his feelings and practicing Inner Bonding instead of blaming his wife and children for the problems. He would be noticing the thoughts creating his anger and taking action on his own behalf. He would be putting his higher guidance in charge of his choices and actions rather than his resistant wounded self. He recognized that since he wasn’t doing any of these things, he didn’t really want responsibility for his feelings, his finances, and his wellbeing. I suggested that he consciously own this choice. It is probable that he would not move into personal responsibility until he owned that he was choosing to resist and abandon himself, rather than learn to love himself and take responsibility for his feelings. As long as he was abandoning himself, he would try to control is wife into making him feel that he mattered.

It was a long road for Miles to learn how to make himself matter. Fortunately, he stuck with it and eventually was able to manifest a better financial situation and is on the road to healing with his family.

My client Rachael was also stuck. She was stuck in a narcissistically abusive relationship. Things would go fine for a few days, and sometimes even for a few weeks, and then her husband Jonathan would explode in verbally abusive and threatening behavior that was very scary to Rachael. She loved the good times but the bad times were eroding her health and wellbeing.

“Rachael,” I asked, “Do you want responsibility for your own health and wellbeing?”

“Well, I think I do,” she replied.

“What do you think is causing your health problems?”

“I’m just so stressed due to Jonathan’s rage.”

“So you want to believe that Jonathan is the cause of your problems?”

“Well, yes. If he didn’t get so abusive, I would be fine.”

“So you’re saying that he has to change for you to be okay. How is that taking responsibility for your own wellbeing?” I asked her.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“What if Jonathan never changes? What if there is nothing you can do to get him to change? What would you do?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“Rachael, responsibility for your own health and wellbeing means one of two things: either you learn to handle Jonathan’s rage without scaring yourself and stressing about it, and without taking it personally and thinking you can change it, or you leave the relationship. You are doing neither. You are very busy putting your eyes on Jonathan and trying to have control over getting him to change, which is never going to happen. Are you prepared to stay and completely accept his rages?” I asked.

“No,” she answered. “They are awful.”

“Are you prepared to leave the relationship?” I asked.

“No, I love him,” she answered.

“Then how are you taking responsibility for yourself?” I asked her.

After a few silent moments, Rachael came into her truth.

“I guess I don’t want that responsibility. I just want him to change.”

It took time for Rachael to accept that narcissists don’t change, because they don’t believe that they have any problems. It was hard for Rachael to accept that Jonathan believed she was the problem and that he had the right to rage at her and blame her for his feelings.

Eventually Rachael accepted that for her own health, she needed to leave Jonathan. Even though she loved Jonathan’s essence, she could no longer tolerate his wounded self and was no longer willing to stay in an abusive marriage. Through her Inner Bonding work, she had started to know that her feelings and needs mattered, and that she wanted to be around people to whom she mattered.

The soul essence of all of us is lovable, but a relationship won’t work if you can’t tolerate your partner’s wounded self. Rachael finally accepted that Jonathan’s wounded self was not tolerable to her, and that he wasn’t going to change. Rachael finally decided that she wanted responsibility for her own feelings, needs, and wellbeing.

Wanting responsibility for your own feelings, needs and wellbeing means that you want to let go of responsibility for others’ feelings, and you want to stop trying to get others to change, and you want responsibility for yourself. It means that you want to let go of the fantasy that someone will do it for you, and you want to open to your Divine guidance and show up as a loving adult. It means you want to develop your relationship with your higher guidance so that you know you can rely on it to help you learn to be the loving adult you want to be.

Take a moment now to look inside and be honest with yourself. Do you really want this responsibility? Are you willing to do whatever you need to do to feel that you matter – that your feelings, needs, truth, and voice matters? Are you willing to consciously think and behave in ways that make your inner child feel important, valued, loved, lovable, and worthy? 

If not, then you might need to accept that your life as it is, is as good as it gets. If you do want the responsibility, then you will get unstuck and likely discover your peace and joy, and your inner child will finally feel valued and worthwhile because you are loving yourself rather than abandoning yourself.

It’s been through my Inner Bonding practice that I discovered that my inner child – my inner source of guidance, lets me know by feeling depressed that I was ignoring my feelings, needs, and truth, and that I wasn’t speaking up for my truth.

Our feelings are our inner guidance system, letting us know if we are loving ourselves or abandoning ourselves, and letting us know what’s happening with others and situations. Our feelings are an incredible instant feedback system regarding what is good and right for us and what is bad and wrong for us.

For example, our physically painful feelings let us know that something needs attending to regarding our physical body. If you put your hand on a hot stove, the burning feeling immediately tells you to remove your hand. If you didn’t feel the pain, you could badly burn your hand. So the instant pain is vitally important information for your wellbeing. There are some people who can’t feel physical pain due to a genetic issue, and life is quite dangerous for them.

The same is true of our emotional feelings. Our emotional feelings are triggered by both external and internal experiences.

There are many life situations that can cause both painful and happy feelings. Here are some examples of some of the painful or happy feelings we have in response to life:

Some of the existential painful feelings are:

• Sorrow – over seeing people suffer
• Outrage – over seeing injustice
• Helplessness – over other peoples’ choices and the outcome of things
• Loneliness – when we want to share love, and no one is around or those who are around are closed
• Heartbreak and heartache – when people we care about do not care about themselves or about us
• Grief – such as when we lose a loved one or loved ones are harmed
• Fear – of real and present danger

Some of the positive feelings are

• Happy – when things are going well financially or in a relationship, or something is funny
• Relaxed – when on vacation or with close friends or doing something we love
• Proud – when we do well or someone we care about does well
• Excited – about doing something special
• Pleasure – from something that feels physically or emotionally good, such as food, sex, or approval
  

These are just a few of the many feelings we may have in a day in response to life. We can just enjoy the positive ones, and we need to learn to acknowledge and give ourselves comfort or reach out for comfort when we are experiencing the painful feelings of life, as well as attend to any loving action we need to take on our own behalf. 

While you may believe that feelings such as hurt, anger, anxiety, or depression are coming from other peoples’ behavior or from events, this is not true. We are causing many of our painful feelings by our own thoughts, beliefs, and behavior.

Some of the feelings we cause are:

• Fear – of what might happen, telling ourselves ‘What if…”
• Anxiety
• Depression, deadness, numbness
• Despair
• Guilt, shame
• aloneness
• emptiness
• Hurt feelings (as opposed to heartache, which we feel when others are unloving
• Blaming anger and resentment
• Annoyance and irritation
• Jealousy and envy
  

When we have these feelings, it’s because we are thinking and behaving in ways that are not true. Just as the painful burning feeling from your hand on a hot stove is telling you that you are doing something that is harming you, so these painful emotional feelings are telling you that you are off track in your thinking and behavior – that your wounded self is in charge, and you are abandoning yourself with the lies of the wounded self. The wounded self, having no access to a higher source of truth, always lies, and these painful feelings are letting you know that you are indulging your wounded self in lying to your inner child.

For example, if someone judges you and you feel hurt, it is easy to believe that it is their behavior that is causing your hurt feelings. Yet most of the time, it’s your thoughts coming from your false beliefs that are hurting you – beliefs such as “I’m not good enough,” or “I must have done something wrong” or “I’m not okay,” or “I’m not important. I don’t matter.” If you didn’t have these false beliefs and therefore you were not taking the other person’s behavior personally, you wouldn’t feel hurt. You might feel lonely in being with that person and helpless over his or her behavior. You might feel sorrow at being treated badly, or heartache if it is someone very important to you. But your feelings will not be hurt when you do not take another’s behavior personally.

If you are feeling hurt, your hurt feelings are telling you something important. They are telling you that you are thinking in ways that are not true. They are telling you to pay attention and stop doing what you are doing or stop thinking what you are thinking, because you are harming yourself.

You are also the cause of the most wonderful feelings, such as:

• Love
• Compassion
• Joy, and
• Inner Peace
  

These feelings are the result of thinking and behaving in ways that are in your highest good – that are in alignment with your soul. They are the feelings that come through you from spirit when your heart is open.

You will not receive the important messages that your feelings are telling you if you believe that your feelings and needs and truth don’t matter. When you ignore your feelings and don’t learn how to take responsibility for them, then you will continue to believe that you don’t matter.

You matter. We all matter. I hope you join me in practicing Inner Bonding so that you eventually know deeply within your soul that you matter – that your feelings, needs, truth, and voice matter.

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 newest 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.