S2 EP241 – The Power of One: Inner Shift, Global Uplift

Transcription:

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. I’m always excited to share a podcast and this one especially warms my heart. Today I’m talking about the fact that you have more of an effect on the world than you might realize.

Goethe said. “Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.“

What would happen if we each learned to take full responsibility for our own feelings and needs – learning to attend to our feelings with compassion for ourselves, and extending that compassion to others? What would happen if each of us were conscious enough to sweep in front of our own door – which means you would be conscious enough not to dump your woundedness on the rest of the world?

I love to imagine the possibilities!

• Large corporations – such as the mass market food industry and factory farms, the drug companies, insurance companies, the oil industry, the banks, to name just a few – would not be harming the planet with their greed. Instead, they would use their creativity, talent, and resources to create health and wellbeing for everyone. Degenerative diseases would likely be mostly a thing of the past if keeping our environment, our food, and our water clean was a high priority for all industry.
  
• Child abuse, domestic violence, and crime would be things of the past. When we learn to take loving care of ourselves, we cannot harm others.
  
• All forms of discrimination against race, sex, gender, and religion would no longer exist. As you learn to see and value your own soul, you would be able to see and value the souls of others. You would know and experience your oneness with all of life
  
• Homelessness and starvation would not exist. When we each learn to take loving care of ourselves, we find ourselves extending our love out to others, and we cannot emotionally or spiritually cause or tolerate this kind of suffering in our fellow human beings
  
• Addictions to alcohol, drugs, food, and sex would be things of the past. When we learn to love ourselves and take responsibility for our feelings and needs, we don’t need to turn to addictions to numb out our feelings or attempt to fill our emptiness with substances and processes
  
• Most relationships and marriages would flourish, since people would be loving themselves and others instead of abandoning themselves, and self-abandonment and the resulting controlling behavior is the main cause of failed relationships
  
• Most of the health care problems we now have on our planet would likely be non-existent if each person was taking loving care of their mind, body and soul. When people take responsibility for their physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing, they are far more likely to attain or regain their health
  
• All people would have an equal opportunity to pursue their true calling and manifest their gifts and talents
  
• There would be far less loneliness in the world. When we learn to lovingly connect with ourselves, we can then lovingly connect with others. People would not feel so alone when facing the painful challenges of life, such as loss of loved ones, or loss of health or limb. There would always be caring people to turn to for comfort and support
  
• Worrying about finances would also be a thing of the past, since if we each took responsibility for ourselves, we would then extend our compassion and support out to others. We would create a sense of emotional and financial safety that few feel now
  
• Creativity in the arts and sciences would flourish
  
• We would all have a lot more fun – and a lot more time for fun!

These are my fantasies of what the world would be like if each of us learned to compassionately take full responsibility for our own feelings and needs and extended our compassion out to others. What are your fantasies?

Instead of looking to see if others are sweeping in front of their doors, why not just focus on your own? Why not become a role model of personal responsibility for your own well-being? This is the very best choice we can each make for the planet.

As people learn to develop their loving adult who takes responsibility for their feelings and needs, they naturally want to share their love and caring. Acts of caring and service become a joy.

Dr. Erika Chopich is a wonderful role model of what it is like to bring service into one’s everyday life. The following story illustrates this.

Years ago, Erika spent a December weekend in Denver with a good friend of hers, attending an event that interested both of them. They were having a snack in a restaurant after the event, warming up from the freezing cold weather, when Erika looked out the window to see a man lying on the sidewalk next to his wheelchair. She ran to a waiter and asked him to call an ambulance. The waiter casually replied, “Oh, this happens every night. These are homeless men who lie on the ground over manhole covers to keep warm. If you look over there, you will see another man doing the same thing on another manhole cover. 

Having worked with the homeless around the country with a non-profit she created, called Hope America, Erika was appalled. She immediately ordered burgers, buffalo wings and water to take out to the two men.

When the food was ready, she emptied her pockets, gave her stuff to her friend, and asked him to keep an eye on her.

As she approached the first man (not the one in the wheelchair) she immediately saw that he was a drug addict. “Can you use some food, friend?” she asked him. “I sure could,” he answered. After giving him food, she moved on the next man, the one with the wheelchair. She could clearly see that this man was very ill. When she asked him if he wanted food, he looked up at her and asked, “What day is this?”

“December 17th,” she answered.

“It’s getting close to Christmas,” he said, with tears running down his cheeks. “You must be the Christmas angel.” Erika’s eyes misted up.

“You must be cold,” she said. All the man had was a thin blanket. She did not see how he could last the night. “Yes, I’m very cold,” he answered.

Right then, without a thought, Erika took off her brand new down jacket and gave it to the man. Then she gave her gloves to the first man. She walked back into the restaurant shivering. The waiters and other customers were lined up at the windows watching her.

The previously cavalier waiter came up to her and apologized. “I guess we have gotten so used to seeing them that we forgot to care. From now on, I will make sure they get water and our leftover food. I will keep an eye on them for you.”

Erika could see in the eyes of the other people that they were stunned that she had given away her jacket. But perhaps her act of kindness opened a place within some of them, as it did in the waiter. Perhaps they would think more about what they could offer someone who had so much less than they did. 

The next morning Erika saw the man with the jacket sleeping peacefully, a slight smile on his face.

Shortly after returning from Denver, Erika met with a friend for lunch. Right after the lunch, Erika told me that her friend was in financial trouble and in danger of losing his house. “I want to be his Christmas miracle,” she said. After going to the bank to cash a check, she drove back to town to where her friend worked. Taking him aside, out of earshot of others, she held up an envelope and said gently, “There is $2000 dollars in this envelope. This is not a loan. This is a gift.” You can imagine his tearful gratitude.

Erika had realized that if she had loaned him the money, she would have temporarily solved the immediate problem but would have added stress to an already precarious situation.

This is the way Erika has lived her life. She always notices when someone is in need. Whether it’s baking bread to welcome a new neighbor, or clearing a driveway of snow when she knows a neighbor is out of town, or stopping on the roadside to help when there is an accident, or picking up a stray dog and finding its owner, or giving encouragement to friends and family, or being a role model of integrity and compassion for the people who work for us, or giving a friend money when her dog has cancer and needs treatment, Erika does service as a way of life.

There are so many little ways each of us can be doing service. Something as simple as joking with the check-out person at the market can bring a smile to a weary face. Erika always brings smiles to the faces of checkers in markets, even when she was wearing a mask. To the waiter in Denver, the homeless men had become invisible, but to Erika, the men were people in need. If we look around us with a desire to serve, the invisible will readily become visible.

With COVID, Erika created a small community of the young people who helped us with the horses and the ranch. Having been trained in infection control, she trained them to be very safe. They all wore their masks and kept social distance in the barn, but they played music, danced, and enjoyed the only in-person social time they could have. Most of them were so grateful that not only did they have a job, but that their job helped so much with loneliness. They learned much about caring from Erika and became more caring with each other.

One of my favorite quotes, which I’ve previously mentioned in a podcast, is the quote about joy by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”

The more we do our inner work and learn to fill ourselves with love to share with others, the more joy we feel, and the more we are connected with each other and with our higher guidance. Laughter and joy can be infectious, so the more you learn to embrace your true soul self and your higher guidance, the more joy you can spread in the world.

Years ago, when having a dialogue with my guidance, she said to me, “Your challenge is to learn to stay open-hearted, no matter what.”

I took this very seriously and worked for many years to learn to keep my heart open, no matter what – even in the face of fear and even in the face of others’ unloving behavior.

Now I can do this most of the time, and it fills me with joy!

What I’ve learned about joy is that when I fully take my eyes off what others are doing and stay open and connected with my own feelings and my guidance, spirit fills me with joy. This is an experience of Grace, and I feel completely blessed by this profound joy. 

This may sound easy, but it took me many years to learn. 

The problem for me was that I would get myself into a great open-hearted place, but as soon as someone close to me was angry, blaming, shut down or in any way disconnected from me, my eyes were on them rather than on me. My wounded self would get triggered by their wounded self and I would be reactive – getting angry, shutting down, quote ‘speaking my truth,’ so they didn’t think they could quote ‘get away with’ treating me this way.

But whenever I reacted in any of these ways, I lost my connection with myself and my guidance, and with it went my joy.

I had been taught, like so many of us, that I had to be strong and stand up for myself. I learned to do this really well, but it didn’t seem to lead to joy.

I had also been taught to stay open to learning with them – rather than with me. I thought that this openness with them would help to resolve things, but again I lost my joy in the process.

One day, while out walking and doing my Inner Bonding, my guidance came through loud and clear with a new instruction for me. It was one of those moments of Grace and clarity that shifted everything for me. It was like a bolt of lightning struck me and I saw clearly what needed to happen to maintain my joy. Here is what she said to me:

“My dear one, the most important thing for you to do is stay connected with yourself when someone else is disconnected. To do this, put your hands on your heart and get fully present inside – with me and with your inner soul – your inner child. Bring compassion to the feelings of sadness, loneliness, and heartbreak that you feel when someone important to you disconnects from you and themselves. Let go of thinking that you need to say anything at all to them. You don’t need to get them to see anything. You don’t need to try to get them to stop. You don’t need to focus on not letting them get away with treating you badly. All you need to do is get fully present with me and with your feelings, with compassion for your painful feelings.”

I realized in that moment that I was very often outside myself when someone was acting out, trying to control them rather than take loving care of me. I saw that I needed to completely let go of any focus on what they were doing and only focus on what my inner child needed from me. 

In that moment, I let go of control over others on a very deep level.

Since then, I have been able, most of the time, to go inside the moment I’m at all triggered by anyone else. It generally just takes a minute to attend to the loneliness, heartbreak, or crushed or shattered feelings, with compassion – and the feeling releases.

What has happened as a result of this is that I’m now able to keep my heart open most of the time, and this results in profound joy! Sometimes my joy is so intense that I can hardly contain it! And I know that my joy, which “is the infallible sign of the presence of God,” is adding to the high frequency of our planet. I’m doing my part to uplift our world, and I hope you are motivated to do your part by learning to take responsibility for your feelings and move more and more toward inner peace and joy.

One of the things I love to do is walk every morning out in nature and do my Inner Bonding process. I’ve been walking almost every morning for at least the last 50 years and doing Inner Bonding on my walk for 40 of those years – since Erika and I created Inner Bonding. It’s on these walks that I receive the most information from my spiritual guidance.

Over the years, my guidance has deepened my understanding regarding how to stay joyful much of the time by deepening my understanding of three major choices that sustain joy.

One of these choices is gratitude. I had thought that I understood gratitude. I’d been practicing gratitude for many years, but some years back my guidance gave me a much deeper understanding of the power of true gratitude.

There are a number of reasons that people express gratitude, but as my guidance showed me, none of the following contribute to staying joyful.

• They express gratitude because they’ve learned that they ‘should’, that ‘it’s the right thing to do.’ For example, it’s ‘right’ to be thankful for your food.
  
• They express gratitude because they’ve read that expressing gratitude leads to manifestation.
  
• They express gratitude because they believe this is the way to get into heaven.

In other words, they express gratitude with an agenda in mind. 

Now, I feel grateful just because it makes me happy! No other agenda! It doesn’t matter whether or not it works to manifest or it’s the right thing to do. I express gratitude because it brings me joy to do so. The more I express gratitude, the more joyful I feel.

This reminds me of a story I read about a blind beggar in India, which I might have shared previously. This blind beggar was always joyful, and when someone asked him why he was so joyful, given that he was a blind beggar, he replied that he constantly felt grateful to God for his life and that his love for God filled his heart with joy. At the time, I didn’t fully understand the deeper meaning in this story, and now I do. The simple truth is that spontaneously expressing heartfelt gratitude – not rote gratitude which is what the wounded self does – fills my heart with joy.

My guidance also told me that staying in faith brings joy, and that staying in faith is about knowing that no matter what happens, I’m being supported in my highest good on my journey toward evolving my soul in my ability to love. Staying in faith that everything that happens is for the highest good of my soul’s journey here on this planet brings me great joy!

Finally, I learned from my guidance that I can’t feel my gratitude and stay in faith if I’m not present. It’s only in being fully present in this moment – with my feelings, with my spiritual guidance, with others, with my animals, and with the beauty of nature and other forms of beauty, that I can truly feel grateful for everything in my life. When I’m fully present, I feel how blessed I am – to have my health, my family, my work, my home, my gifts and talents, my delicious nourishing food, my laughter with my Golden Girl best friend Erika and our other Golden Girl who lives with us, my painting and ceramic studio, my animals, my time to play, and so many other wonderful things.

I can certainly focus on what I don’t have and what I wish I had, but then I’m not present with what I do have – and that certainly doesn’t bring me joy. If I’m in the past or future, I’m missing out on my life right now, and there is no way to feel grateful or joyful when I’m not in the present moment. So being present brings me to gratitude, and gratitude brings me to faith, and faith brings me to presence in a beautiful, ongoing circle of joy.

I hope that no matter what your circumstances are right now, you start to practice heart-felt gratitude, faith in the rightness of your journey on this planet, and being present in this moment. And you can get here by learning and practicing Inner Bonding therapy – learning how to lovingly manage and heal your pain, take responsibility for your feelings and needs, connect with your guidance, define the beauty of your soul, and share your love with others. 

You have the power to do this – the power of one. Your inner shift creates a global uplift. Your love and joy bring more love and joy to the planet. You just have to have the courage to face the fears and false beliefs of your wounded self and do the healing work you need to do. As Rumi said, “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

I would love for my fantasy of how our world could be to come true before my time is up on the planet, so please join me in creating a global uplift. I’ve read about the possibility of a future Golden Age, where life is like my fantasy of how our planet can be. I pray for it daily.

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 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, creating loving relationships, and healing 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.