S2 EP256 – Can You Love Others? Healing Barriers to True Connection

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Today I’m talking about what it really means to love others, what might be in the way of fully loving, and how to heal barriers to loving others. 

Most of us didn’t have good role models of what love really looks like, and there is often confusion about what love really is. Author and speaker Wayne Dyer stated that (Quote) “Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.”(unquote) 

Please fully take in this quote. Can you do this? Can you fully support those you say you care about in doing what they want and being who they are, with no expectations that they satisfy you, and no agenda for them to change?

Let’s take some examples of situations that might be challenging for you.

• Your partner wants to do something on a weekend that doesn’t include you.
  
• You want to have sex and your partner doesn’t.
  
• You want your partner to come to bed at the same time as you, but your partner doesn’t want to.
  
• You want your child to go to college, but your child doesn’t want to.
  
• You want your child to work hard and get good grades, but your child doesn’t care about grades. He or she is bored with school.
  
• You want your child to be a doctor, but your child wants to be a beautician.
  
• You want your partner to be social, but your partner is not interested.
  
• You want your partner to spend evenings with you watching TV, but your partner would rather pursue his or her hobbies.
  
• You want your partner to be interested in processing conflict with you, but your partner will have nothing to do with processing.
  
• You want your partner to read the same books you are reading, and your partner isn’t interested.
  
• You want your friends to call you more often, but they don’t often reach out.
  

What else comes to mind that might be challenging for you?

These are just a few of the situations that I often run into with my clients. Do you find yourself feeling angry and resentful when your partner or child or friend does what he or she wants rather than what you want? If you do, then you are not being loving to them.

In these situations that I just talked about, to be loving to them, you would need find ways to take loving care of yourself in the face of your loved one’s choices. In these situations, being able to be caring with them means that you need to be caring with yourself and meet your own need for attention and validation, rather than expect them to meet your need. 

Do you try to create intimacy with your partner and others who are important to you without first checking inside to see if you are connected with yourself? Do you believe that if only someone would love you and connect with you, then you would feel happy and full inside? Are you looking for someone else to complete you?

Author Thomas Moore said that (Quote) “Intimacy begins with oneself. It does no good to try to find intimacy with friends, lovers, and family if you are starting out from alienation and division within yourself.” (unquote)

One of the major reasons that many relationships don’t work is because partners are alienated and divided within themselves, which comes from abandoning yourself rather than loving yourself.

What does Thomas Moore really mean when he says that “Intimacy begins with oneself”? What does it mean to be intimate with yourself?

In order to take care of your own feelings and needs when others don’t do what you want them to do, you need to first learn what it means to be loving to yourself. 

My work with Inner Bonding is all about helping people learn how to love themselves so that they truly love others and experience the intimacy and connection that we want and need.

Loving others and experiencing intimacy with them is about feeling emotionally close and connected with them. It is about connecting from your heart rather than from your head. You can connect intellectually with others from your mind, but emotional intimacy is about a heart connection.

The same thing is true on the inner level. You cannot be intimate with yourself when you are focused in your mind rather than in your heart. Inner connection, and the resulting inner intimacy, occurs when you open your heart to your feelings with kindness, compassion, and a desire to learn about what your feelings are telling you.

“Alienation and division with yourself” occur when you disconnect from your heart and your feelings with some form of self-abandonment, such as judging yourself, turning to addictions to avoid your feelings, focusing in your head, or making someone else responsible for your well-being, worth, or sense of safety.

Years ago I used to wonder why I could not maintain intimacy with others. I had no idea about all the ways I was abandoning myself. I had no idea that my main intention was to avoid my feelings and avoid responsibility for them, and to have control over how others felt about me and treated me. I didn’t realize how much I was judging myself and how awful that made me feel. I didn’t realize that turning to my various addictions – food, anger, judgmental-ness, caretaking, or withdrawal – made me feel anxious and alone inside. I thought these painful feelings were being caused by others’ unloving-ness toward me.

It wasn’t until I started to practice Inner Bonding that I understood what I had been doing my whole life up until then. As I diligently practiced the Six Steps of Inner Bonding, I gradually learned to stay present in my body, mindful of my feelings, and to want to take responsibility for my feelings rather than avoid them. I gradually learned how to lovingly manage the deeper painful feelings of life that I had been avoiding my whole life – the loneliness, heartbreak, and helplessness over others that plagued my childhood, and that I had learned to avoid with my self-abandonment.

Starting from my atheist upbringing, I gradually learned to connect with and trust my personal spiritual guidance. I gradually learned to see my true soul self through the eyes of my spiritual guidance, which enabled me to love and value who I really am.

I gradually become connected and intimate with myself.

As this occurred, I found that I was able to deeply love and connect with others. What a joy! I can’t think of anything more rewarding and profound in life than the emotional intimacy and connection that occurs with others when I’m connected with myself. Sharing love with others is truly the greatest joy in my life, and it can occur only when I’m deeply loving myself and connected with myself.

When you were growing up, did you learn to protect against the pain of not being loved by disconnecting from your body and living from your head? You may have learned to not be present in your body with your feelings as a way to avoid feeling unbearably lonely, helpless, and heartbroken. This survival mechanism worked well as a child, but as an adult, it may now be causing inner aloneness, emptiness, anxiety, depression, and disconnection with a partner or others. 

When you are focused in your head, others can’t feel your presence, and therefore they can’t connect with you. You likely can’t feel your love for them, and you likely can’t feel their love for you. 

How do you know when you are living in your head rather than in your body? The first thing to tune into is your intent and be really honest with yourself. Is it more important to you to avoid the loneliness, heartache, and helplessness of rejection, of others’ closed hearts, of others’ meanness or anger, of others’ trying to take advantage of you, or it is it more important to you to be loving to yourself and others?

Unless you have learned how to manage the deeper existential feelings of loneliness, helplessness over others, heartache, heartbreak, sorrow and grief, your intent is likely to avoid feeling these very painful feelings by staying in your head and turning to various addictions.

In order to be present in your body with an open heart, open to love, compassion, peace, truth, and joy – the gifts of spirit – you also need to be open to the painful existential feelings of life. As I have often said, pain and joy are in the same place in the heart. If you are intent on avoiding the painful feelings of life, then you will keep your heart closed to the wonderful feelings as well, which limits your ability to love yourself and others.

When your intent is to avoid the existential painful feelings, your ego wounded self is in charge. Your wounded self’s job is to protect against these painful feelings, which you needed to do as a child. Your wounded self has learned to do this with substance and process addictions, and with staying in your head rather than in your heart. The wounded self would rather feel alone, empty, anxious, depressed, guilty, shamed, jealous, and so on – the feelings we create with our own thoughts and actions – than open to the painful feelings of life. The wounded self would rather be the one in control – the one creating the pain – than take the risk of feeling the pain of others’ choices or of loss and other painful events.

Central to being able to move into your heart and love and connect with others on a feeling level is knowing that you can manage the painful feelings of life.

The good news is that learning to manage these feelings as a loving adult is not hard! While it was impossible as a child, now it is relatively easy. However, you cannot do it without a spiritual connection.

What allows you to manage these feelings is compassion. But compassion is not something you generate within your body; it’s a feeling you open to and invite in. Compassion is one of the gifts of spirit and you feel it only when you are open to learning about what is loving to yourself and to others – which raises your frequency high enough to access the gifts of spirit.

The next time someone is mean to you, try putting your hands on your heart, opening to spirit, and inviting in compassion for the heartache. Breathe into it with deep kindness, gently and tenderly letting your inner child know that you truly understand and care about your hurt heart. You might be amazed at what happens regarding your ability to love and connect with your partner and others when you learn to lovingly manage the painful feelings of life!

Part of loving yourself and others is being willing to risk being honest with both yourself and with others. Yet many people are afraid to be open with their partner or with others. If this is true for you, what are you afraid of? When I ask my clients this, they often respond by saying things like: 

“He will be so angry if I tell him that.”

“I’m afraid of losing her if I’m honest with her.”

How often have you said to yourself, “I can’t say that because he or she will get angry, shut down, get hurt, or leave”?

How do you feel when you are not open with your partner or others about your feelings, needs, wants, and actions? I have noticed that when I don’t speak my truth, I feel angry or depressed inside. My inner child really hates it if I allow fear to stop me from being fully authentic. My anger or depression is my inner child’s way of letting me know that I am abandoning her.

When your partner or others react to your truth with anger, withdrawal, hurt, or threats of leaving, they believe that their controlling behavior is working for them. Because you are either willing to lose yourself rather than lose them, or you are willing to lie or withhold the truth, they can continue to react with their controlling behavior without directly experiencing the consequences of their behavior on the relationship. Obviously, none of this leads to being able to love others and share love with others.

If you are afraid to be open with your partner, this system likely started early in your relationship.

Think back to the first time your partner reacted with anger or withdrawal to something you said or did. See of you can remember what you thought at the time. The chances are that what you did NOT think was, “If this happens again, then this is not the right person for me.” Since you are still with your partner, it is likely that you thought something like, “I’d better be more careful about what I what I say,” or “I can’t let him or her know about this again.” Your partner’s anger or withdrawal, and you giving yourself up or withholding information, began the system that may still be operating today.

What are you not telling your partner or others? Are you not saying:

“I feel pulled on by you much of the time to fill up your emptiness and it’s draining to me.”

“Your anger, blame and judgment is so hurtful to me that I’m thinking of ending this relationship.”

“I no longer feel a connection between us because we can’t seem to talk about anything without getting into an argument. I want a relationship with someone who is open to learning with me.”

“I’m no longer sexually turned on to you because we are not emotionally connected.”

Think about what you would say to your partner or others if you were to be completely honest. Think about what you are avoiding by not speaking your truth.

Is it worth it to you to continue sacrificing your integrity and authenticity to control others? Is it worth it to you to lose yourself rather than risk losing them? Is it worth it to you to operate from fear rather than loving yourself and them enough to be honest and authentic?

Many of us learned to not tell our parents a lot of things to avoid their upset and resulting punishment. We learned to behave in ways that avoided disapproval, and we may carry this pattern into our adult relationships.

The problem with this is it erodes the possibility of closeness in your relationships. The more you control by not being open, and the more your partner or others control with their reactive behavior, the more the walls build between you. I’ve worked with many people who didn’t have the courage to tell the truth until they were ready to leave a relationship. When they finally spoke their truth, their partner or friend often reacted with, “I wish I had known this earlier in our relationship.”

I know that it takes courage to be honest, yet without honesty, you can’t share love. Not being honest isn’t loving to yourself or to others.

Knowing what is loving to yourself and others isn’t always easy. For example, what about when another’s choices have a direct negative effect on you? Some situations arise that are not so clear regarding supporting someone you care about – like when your partner’s or child’s behavior puts you in a bind.

What are some of these very challenging situations that might arise for you? Situations such as:

• Your partner does not take care of him or herself physically – eats poorly and gets no exercise – which is leading to illness. You love your partner, but you don’t want to be stuck taking care of a sick person who is ill as a result of their own lack of self-care.
• You have a family member who is irresponsible regarding money, and you know this person will run out and expect you to take care of him or her.
• You have a child who refuses to go to college or get a job. Your child just wants to stay home and play video games and expects you to continue to take care of him or her.
  

In these kinds of situations, you need to go inside and decide what is in your own highest good and the highest good of the other person. Is it in your highest good to just accept the situation, or is it in your highest good to leave the person or ask them to leave? Is it in your highest good to continue to support someone who refuses to take care of themselves, or is it in your highest good to let go of the relationship, even if the person ends up on the street or commits suicide?

Obviously, these are hard questions to answer, and there is never one right answer. The answer lies in your own heart regarding what you can live with and what you can’t live with – what is truly in your highest good and the highest good of all. Once you accept that you can’t control the other person, then, with your higher guidance, you might be able to access the information regarding what would be in the highest good of all.

In these kinds of situations, loving yourself by taking responsibility for your feelings and accessing what is in the highest good of all is essential for making the choice that is right for you. 

As you learn to love yourself through your Inner Bonding practice, you will discover that loving yourself and others is what heals feelings of emptiness. 

We all love to feel full inside, which is one of the reasons why eating too much is such a challenge for a lot of people. Yet, as soon as the food digests, many people go back to feeling empty, searching around for more food or something else to fill them up again. Feeling empty feels so awful and alone that many people find numerous addictions to fill that empty aloneness. They scramble around to find substances, processes or people to fill the empty and alone place within.

Yet no matter how much food you eat, or alcohol you drink, or things you buy, or sex you have, or attention and approval you get from others, the emptiness and aloneness keep returning. You need more food, more alcohol, more things or more sex, more attention and approval in the never-ending cycle of addiction. This is what life is like when you believe that you need to fill your emptiness externally.

The underlying problem is the belief that you will get filled from getting something. While you can feel momentarily filled through getting something, you will never feel the full feeling of love and joy that comes from giving love to yourself and others.

There is a wonderful thing that happens when your desire is to give something – whether it is time, caring, support, kindness, attention, approval, or money. The desire to give opens the heart, which allows love to fill your being. Love, like compassion, is not a feeling that is generated from within. Love is the energy field in which we live. It is always here to fill and sustain us, but it cannot enter a closed heart. When you open your heart through your desire to give – both to yourself and to others – love naturally flows into your heart and fills you up.

For example, Tommy often felt empty and alone inside. As a result, he drank too much and was overweight. In addition, he would attempt to fill his emptiness through porn and Internet sex. He was always hoping some attractive woman would give him the attention he believed he needed to feel okay.

Tommy consulted with me because nothing was working to fill his emptiness, and he was tired of feeling this way. As we worked with Inner Bonding, it became apparent that Tommy was raised to believe that getting something – money, sex, attention, approval – would make him feel lovable and worthy. Yet no matter how much he got, he never felt worthy or lovable enough. In addition, Tommy had no spiritual belief system, no sense of anything greater than himself. He did not experience the energy of love that he lived in. He made people, things, and substances his source because he did not believe in a spiritual source of love.

I asked Tommy to start to notice what made him feel good inside. He reported to me that he felt good when he played with his nieces and nephews, and when he was supportive of his employees at work. Tommy then made the connection between giving something and his good, full feeling. I asked Tommy to begin to focus on giving kindness, time, and attention to himself and to others.

As Tommy practiced focusing on giving instead of getting, he discovered that his addictions to food, alcohol and porn were diminishing. He noticed that whenever he reverted to his old devotion to getting, he would find himself right back in his addictions, but when he focused on giving to himself and to others, he would feel fulfilled. He realized that whenever he focused on getting something externally, he was abandoning himself and he felt empty and alone inside. He saw that when he attended to giving to himself and others, he no longer felt alone and empty inside. Tommy also experienced that there is always a spiritual source of love here for him when he opens his heart to himself and to others.

Next time you feel empty and alone inside, focus on what you can give to yourself and to others and notice how quickly the empty place within becomes filled with the peace, love, and joy that is always here for us.

Most people have a deep desire to feel safe, and at the same time want to feel connected with the people in their lives. Yet, many people never feel a sense of both safety and connection.

Growing up with various forms of abuse and disconnected parents, I didn’t feel safe or connected with either of my parents.

I kept searching for safety and connection in my relationships with others but never felt it for very long. Then, when Erika and I created Inner Bonding with spirit’s help, I learned to create inner safety and inner connection with my essence and my spiritual guidance.

However, while Inner Bonding provides the inner safety and connection with self and spirit that is necessary for healing, it’s not the whole story. We need safety and connection with at least one other person to deeply heal. Our wounds happened in relationship, and they need to be healed in relationship.

The very best way of achieving this level of healing is in a loving relationship. This is one of the most powerful benefits that a loving relationship can provide. But sadly, many relationships don’t provide this, because when partners get angry or withdraw, they take away the safety that each needs to heal.

By each of you doing your own Inner Bonding work and creating inner safety and connection, you can each move toward creating the safe space that you both need to heal on a deeper level so that you can truly love yourselves and each other. The more you develop your loving adult, the less you get angry or withdraw, which eventually leads to both of you feeling safe to lovingly share yourselves with each other.

It’s truly an amazing journey when two people can provide this healing space for each other. There is nothing more profoundly fulfilling than being able to hold each other in love, allowing each of you to feel and release the deep old pain of the past, as well as any unreleased current pain.

When you can do this for your partner and your partner can do this for you, you will not only create a deep level of intimacy, but you may feel unconditional love for the first time in your life. There is nothing more healing than being held in love while you release both old and current pain, opening the space for the sharing of love, joy, and laughter.

The more you practice Inner Bonding and learn to show up for yourself, the more you can show up for your partner, and the more you and your partner show up for each other, the easier it becomes to show up for yourself. The more you love yourself, the more you are capable of loving your partner, and the more you and your partner share love, the easier it becomes to love yourself.

This beautiful healing and loving circle starts with learning to love yourself.

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 heal your relationships with my 30-Day online video relationship course: Wildly, Deeply, Joyously in Love.

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.