S2 EP250 – Free Will: What do we Control?

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. I’ve been thinking a lot about what we actually have free will over, and about how the essence of our free will is about our ability to choose our intention in any given moment.  

A lot of people talk about intention and think they understand it, yet the way my higher guidance has helped me understand it is quite different than what people generally think about intention. 

Very early in my work, I had an awakening moment regarding the true understanding of intent. And this understanding has been evolving for the many years I’ve been a psychotherapist. And it’s this deeper understanding that I want to share with you today, because it’s this understanding about the essence of your free will to choose your deeper level of intent in any given moment that will make all the difference in your life, as well as the lives of those you love and what happens on our planet.

What I learned many years ago is that there are only two intentions to choose from – the intention to control trying to get love and avoid pain, or the intention to learn about loving yourself and others. This is where some confusion can come in. The confusion comes in over what it really means to learn about love and evolve as a loving human being, and what we can and can’t control.

Let’s first be clear about what we can’t control, which is other people and the outcome of things. We might be able to influence others and outcomes, but that doesn’t mean we have control.

What we do have control over is our intention, and this more than anything affects what happens with our relationships and the outcome of things. But confusion occurs when don’t understand what love really is, and that we can’t attach our happiness and wellbeing to others and outcomes, because once we attach what we believe is being loving to an outcome, now we are trying to control

Love, real love, has no agenda, other than to evolve the very essence of the love that is God. But often people say they are open to learning about Inner Bonding and learning to love themselves and others, but consciously or unconsciously, they have another agenda, such as:

“If I become more loving, then my partner will be more loving to me.”

“If I’m loving, I will finally get my parent’s approval.”

“If I learn and practice Inner Bonding, then my partner will be more turned on to me.”

“If I learn to love myself, my frequency will go up and then I will be able to manifest more abundance.”

“If I learn to be loving, I will have more friends.”

“If I learn to love myself, then I will get into heaven.”

There is nothing wrong with wanting any of these outcomes, and these might very well be the outcomes of learning to be more loving to yourself and others, but the irony of this is that if you are learning Inner Bonding and learning to be more loving with any of these agendas or any other agenda, then your intent is to control. And controlling isn’t loving. 

I hope you can begin to understand the deeper level of this. Our soul came to here to the planet for one primary reason – to evolve in our ability to love and share our love through our various gifts – period. Not to get something. Not to get more love, or more money, or more fame, or more attention, or approval, or more sex. Love isn’t about getting anything external. So can you see that if you are learning Inner Bonding and learning to love yourself and take responsibility for your feelings and wellbeing with any attachment to the outcome, then your intent is actually to control? 

When I talk about your free will to choose your intent, moment by moment, I’m referring to choosing either the intent to control getting love and avoiding pain, or the intent to learn about loving yourself and others. You can have an intent to learn about a lot of things, even the intent to learn about Inner Bonding, but this doesn’t mean your intent is to learn about loving yourself and taking responsibility for your feelings and your wellbeing. My reference to intent is not an intent to learn about the lottery numbers or how get ahead at work. It’s not about learning about a topic, unless learning about that topic is what is loving to you without an agenda. For example, I love learning about health and nutrition because it’s loving to me to do all I can to create a healthy body for my soul to live in, so that I can continue my journey of evolving my soul in my ability to love. If I had an agenda, such as losing weight, then my desire to have a healthy body might fall by the wayside if I don’t lose the weight. But if it’s just about being loving to myself and I’m deeply devoted to that, then it will be easy for me to eat well. Stabilizing my weight is the outcome of this, but not the agenda. It’s the result of loving myself, not the motivation.

A lot of people talk about being on a spiritual path and “awakening”, but over and over, I don’t experience many of them as being full of the love and joy they would be feeling if their intent was to learn to love themselves and others in order to evolve the love that is God.

Numerous people seek my help after learning NVC – Nonviolent Communication, which is an excellent course. But what’s missing from the teaching is an understanding of intent. You can communicate your feelings and needs perfectly, but if you are communicating them to control, the other person might be resistant or get irritated. If you are communicating them to learn, then there would be a genuine inquiry attached to your expression of your feelings and needs regarding wanting to understand things between you rather than get someone to change.

Years ago, when my kids were young, I took a course in Parent Effectiveness Training, where I learned about “I” messages. Again, it was an excellent course, and again, it lacked any understanding of intent. So when I used “I” messages with my kids, before I understood anything about my intent, they felt controlled and did not respond well. And my intent in sending my “I” message WAS to control, so their reactions were appropriate given my intention. Eventually I learn to say my “I” messages with an added genuine intent to learn about the good reasons they had for doing what they were doing, and their reactions were much more open and caring. 

I haven’t experienced or heard of any other form of therapy or personal growth or spiritual growth that addresses intention on this deeper level, nor do I know of any process other than Inner Bonding that stresses developing a spiritually connected loving adult and enables people to quickly heal the false beliefs that are limiting them. 

Janet sought my help because she was having problems in her 15 year marriage. She had had many different forms of therapy and had attended many workshops and courses, yet the problems continued. In my first session with her, she bombarded me with questions such as, “In a marriage, shouldn’t you be able to expect your partner to meet your needs?” and “Shouldn’t I be able to expect my husband to not do things that might be hurtful to me?” Janet was an attorney and certainly knew how to ask questions with a harsh and demanding voice.

It was evident that these questions were not coming from her loving adult with an intent to learn. Her wounded self was in charge, interrogating me.

“Janet,” I asked, “What do you think your intention is right now?”

“Oh, I’m open to learning,” she said. “I’m a very curious person.”

“I know you think you are open to learning, but your energy is closed and demanding, which indicates that your wounded self is in charge. Between wanting to control something, and wanting to learn something about loving yourself and taking responsibility for your feelings, which is most important to you right now?”

“I want to learn to love myself. I want to learn how to do Inner Bonding right.” she said.

“And why do you want to learn to love yourself and do Inner Bonding right?’ I asked.

“If I can learn to do this right, then maybe my husband will love me and be turned on it me,” she answered.

“So, Janet, you want to learn Inner Bonding in order to gain some control over your husband, rather than learning to be a more loving person because you want to be on the soul’s journey of evolving in your ability to love. You have an agenda, which is to have control over getting love from your husband, rather than loving for the sake of loving. Anytime we have an agenda, our intent is to control.”

Janet did not want to hear this. A very bright woman, she had lived her life in her mind, except when she felt hurt by another person, and then she completely believed that her feelings were someone else’s fault. She had no idea that her hurt came from her own self-abandonment of taking others’ behavior personally and having unrealistic expectations from others, especially her husband.

Janet’s wounded self didn’t not want to be unmasked. The attorney in her started to defend and argue with me, and I pointed out that she had no intent to learn about what I was saying to her. Finally, she started to cry and said in a little girl voice, “But I don’t know how to love myself.”

“Right,” I said. “Your young, wounded self certainly doesn’t know how to love your inner child. And you didn’t learn anything about loving yourself and taking responsibility for your own feelings from your codependent parents. That’s why you need to develop your spiritual connection. Your spiritual guidance is your role model for loving yourself and others. When you have a true intent to learn about loving yourself, you will be able to access this information from your higher self. But you won’t have access to your guidance if your intent is to have control over getting love from your husband. The frequency of the intent to control is too low to access guidance.”

“So what should I do,” she asked. “How do I change my intention?”

I can’t even begin to tell you how often I get this question. 

“Janet,” I said, “your intention is your highest priority – what’s most important to you. Only you can decide whether it’s most important to you to be on the earthly journey of trying to have control over getting love and avoiding pain, or it is most important to you to be on the spiritual journey of becoming a more loving human being. There is no right or wrong choice – it just depends on what’s most important to you, but there are consequences to trying to control. As long as you are focused on getting your husband to be turned on to you, your intent is to control, and he may be resistant to being controlled. It’s likely hard for him to be turned to you when you are needy and trying to control him.” 

As bright as Janet is, it was very hard for her to understand this. She was a beautiful, sexy looking woman, so why wasn’t he turned on to her? What was wrong with him? Janet didn’t want to know that her self-abandoning controlling behavior was a turn off to her husband. She just wanted to find a way to get him to validate her by having sex with her.

Fortunately, her husband also decided to work with me, and over time, was able to express to her what happened inside him when he felt pulled on and controlled by her. He was able to let her know that he didn’t want responsibility for her feelings of being lovable by having sex with her. He wanted her to be able to be with him already feeling full of love, not coming to him needy of love. 

Janet hung in and eventually learned to connect with her higher guidance and bring love and validation to herself. This completely changed her energy from tight, closed, harsh, anxious, and controlling to open, peaceful, happy, and loving. Her husband, who did love her, was now also attracted to her. What she had wanted for years was now the outcome of changing her intent to loving herself, rather than trying to have control over getting love. 

And here is the subtlety of intent. If Janet had been attached to the outcome, her energy would have continued to be controlling, but by letting go of the outcome and focusing on learning to love herself by taking responsibility for her feelings, the outcome she wanted naturally occurred. Of course, this doesn’t always happen, but regardless of the outcome about anything external, learning to love yourself by taking responsibility for all feelings leads to inner peace, inner fullness, and joy. You can’t lose out by learning to love yourself! 

The gift of being able to choose our intention is the greatest gift we have been given. Choosing, moment by moment with our own free will, the intent to learn about love, or the intent to get love and protect against pain, is the most powerful choice we have in life – the one that makes the most difference.

But I hope you can see by now that intention can be subtle. And it’s not just about the conscious choice of intent – it’s also about the actions that follow. 

You might think you are choosing the intent to love yourself and others, but if you don’t open to learning about what this means and then follow the learning with loving actions, then you have not truly chosen the intent to be loving. Your intent means nothing without taking loving actions.

A true intent to learn and love propels us into loving action. When you are open to learning, you move through the 6 Steps of Inner Bonding and take loving action in Step 5. If you do not take the loving action, then you need to be honest with yourself – you were not intent on truly loving yourself and others, and you were not fully open to learning about the truth and the loving action in Step 4 of Inner Bonding. 

When your intent is a deep and abiding desire to learn to be more loving to yourself and others, that intent will fuel the loving actions that you need to take. Choosing the intent comes first and is vital to eventually taking the loving actions. Without choosing this intent, the loving actions will never follow. If the action is attached to an external result, then the action is manipulative rather than loving.

For example, if you had a true and deep desire to be healthy and fit, what would you do? What loving actions would you take? You would read many books on health and nutrition. You would stop eating sugar and junk food and start eating pure real organic food. You would stay tuned into your body to learn about how different foods affect you. You would begin a consistent exercise program. You would practice Inner Bonding to deal with stress and bring about inner peace. These and other loving actions would naturally follow from your deep desire to be healthy.

However, if you SAY you want to be healthy but do not take the loving actions, then you need to get compassionately honest with yourself and admit that protecting against pain with your various addictions and habits is more important to you than being healthy and fit. The lack of loving actions indicates that being healthy and fit is NOT yet your highest priority.

You can change everything in your life by truly changing your intention. When you have a deep and true intention to love yourself, loving actions will follow.

When your intent is to learn to love yourself and share your love, you will find yourself open to learning about loving yourself in all areas of your life – physically, emotionally, spiritually, organizationally, relationally, and financially. Loving yourself means taking responsibility for your feelings, which means taking loving care of yourself in all these areas so that you don’t cause stress for yourself in any of these areas of life. 

Hopefully, most of you now know that part of taking loving care of your feelings is not eating foods that cause inflammation, anxiety and depression, such as sugar, over-processed foods, other junk food, factory-farmed foods, and foods with industrial seed oils. Taking loving care of yourself physically certainly is part of taking emotional responsibility for yourself. 

Likewise, not taking organizational responsibility can lead to stress if your home or office is cluttered or dirty, or you are always late, or you pay bills or taxes late. And not taking financial responsibility by over-spending and putting yourself in debt will likely cause stress – unless poverty is the issue. Of if you have plenty of money but you are overly controlling with your money and don’t let yourself enjoy it or be generous with it, this might also cause stress. If you don’t take relationship responsibility by giving yourself up in relationships – caretaking others, or you get angry or withdraw, you are abandoning yourself and causing yourself stress. If you don’t take spiritual responsibility by consistently opening to learning with your feelings – your inner source of guidance, and your higher guidance, you may feel alone and empty. 

This might seem like a lot, but when your intent is to be loving to yourself and others, and you practice Inner Bonding and develop your spiritually connected loving adult, learning to access and heal your false beliefs, you will naturally find yourself taking loving care of yourself in all these areas without a lot of extra effort. 

Of course we all want to be able to manifest what we want, and here again is where it’s so important to understand the deeper level of your intent.

Most people have heard of the Law of Attraction, which states that like attracts like. Many people on a spiritual path are attempting to think the thoughts that create inner peace and joy and to manifest their dreams, and they are attempting to avoid the thoughts that create anxiety, depression, stress, and fear. Yet many people – including people who have studied “A Course in Miracles” and the Abraham/Hick work, or have watched the movie, “The Secret,” find that it’s not working for them.

The primary reason for this difficulty is being unconscious about their true intent. If their true intent is to control, then they are operating from their wounded self with their subconscious false beliefs governing their thoughts and behavior. And it’s their subconscious false beliefs, resulting in untrue and unloving thoughts, that are limiting their frequency and ability to connect with their source of love. Like frequency attracts like frequency, and controlling has a low frequency. 

They can’t stop thinking the untrue thoughts that create pain and misery when their intent is to control. Even knowing that they may be attracting that which they don’t want with their negative thinking, they can’t change it because they can’t become aware of their limiting false beliefs causing the lies of their wounded self, when their intent is to control.  

My client Cole, in his early 60s, had been on a spiritual path for many years. He had attended meditation retreats, had years of therapy, and read all the latest self-help books. Yet his life was stuck. His marriage of five years was heading for divorce. His business was not getting anywhere.

Cole was a deeply discouraged man when he first consulted with me.

“Nothing has worked so far, so I really don’t have much faith that Inner Bonding is going to work for me either.”

Within the first couple of sessions, it became clear to me that all of Cole’s work had been coming from his ego wounded self. He was deeply intent on having control and not being controlled. His behavior in his relationships with both his wife and his employees was righteous and judgmental, and sometimes compliant on the one hand, and resistant on the other hand. He was a caretaker with his wife, thinking this was loving, but his agenda was to get love and approval from her. He wanted control over how others felt about him, while also having control over not being controlled by others. Because of his caretaking, he thought of himself as being a kind and caring loving adult, yet all his behavior was coming from his wounded self with his desire to control and not be controlled. Unconsciously, control and resistance were his gods. It was his intent to control that was causing Cole to be stuck.

As I’ve said, there is a huge energetic difference between an intent to control and to control not being controlled – coming from the wounded self – and an intent to learn about loving yourself and others – coming from the loving adult. No matter how often you try to think positively, if your underlying intent is to control, you will end up feeling stuck. It is also not enough to attempt to surrender control, as even this can be a form of control. As I hope you now understand, if your goal in believing you are surrendering control is ultimately to have control over getting something externally, rather than to be loving to yourself and with others, you will end up feeling frustrated with your efforts.

On the other hand, when your intent is to learn with your higher guidance about what is loving to you and to others, you will be able to heal your false beliefs and learn to think and behave in ways that are deeply in alignment with your true soul self. When you are consistently intent on learning about love, you will not only find the peace and joy that are the natural results of living in alignment with your soul, but you will also have a much better chance of being able to manifest your dreams, as long as your worth and happiness is not attached to manifesting.

Manifestation may occur when you are in alignment with love, but if your goal is control over manifestation, it will elude you.

So, if you feel stuck in your life and if you feel frustrated, sad, alone, angry, depressed, and anxious, look to your intent. The chances are that control is your priority, rather than learning about loving yourself and sharing your love with others.

Certainly you can create financial success through intimidation, but at what cost to yourself? How many people do you know who have achieved great financial success with controlling, intimidating behavior, and are filled with inner peace, love, and joy? I work with many of these unhappy people who can’t understand why they still feel so empty inside, and who are having relationship problems.

My client Joe consulted with me because he was having problems in his relationship with his second wife, Marcia, after just a year of marriage. “I just don’t know if I love her,” he said. Joe, a very successful entrepreneur and investor, left his first wife for the same reason.

Joe is one of those people who has achieved huge financial success through smart investing and by being a bully with his employees, intimidating them into doing what he wants. Now, after having achieved the financial success he wanted, his wife recently found out that he was having multiple affairs and threatened to leave him, which is why he sought my help. Joe is one of the most unhappy people I’ve ever met, constantly complaining about his wife, his ex-wife, his children from his previous marriage, and his employees.

Joe cannot feel love for his wife or even for his children because he is completely emotionally self-abandoned. With all his success, he still feels inadequate and seeks validation through multiple affairs. There is no love in Joe to share with others because there is no love for himself. Whether Joe will shift his intent and practice Inner Bonding remains to be seen.

Look around you at some of the very wealthy people in our society. How many do you see who are filled with love, joy, lightness of being, and generosity? When they make control and money their gods, they are completely out of alignment with their soul, their true self. 

Is it worth it? Not to me. And I hope not to you either.

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 home study Course that teaches Inner Bonding: “Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships.”

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.