S2 EP258 – Empowered from Within: The Power of Self-love

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Today I’m speaking about how very empowering it is to learn to love yourself. And I want to start this podcast talking about a very important aspect of self-love, which is self-compassion. 

What if there was one choice you could make that would change everything in your life for the better? Actually, there is. It’s the choice to move out of judgment and into compassion for yourself and others.

Compassion is defined as a deep caring for the feelings of others, often accompanied by a desire to help. There is nothing that feels more wonderful and comforting than experiencing another’s compassionate response to our painful feelings and experiences.

However, it’s interesting that compassion is rarely defined in terms of oneself. Yet compassion is one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves. In fact, when we give compassion to others but not to ourselves, we often end up feeling alone, worn out, and uncared for.

Jackie is a good example of a person who has compassion for others but not for herself. She is a very caring mother and wife. She listens compassionately to her husband’s work problems and does all she can to help him, even when she is having her own work problems. She is always there for her children, helping them with whatever problems arise, as well as for her co-workers. Everyone sees Jackie as a very loving person – and she is. So why is she often unhappy? Why is she often fatigued and depleted? The problem is that Jackie is out of touch with her own feelings.

Jackie is so focused on meeting everyone else’s needs that she never tunes into herself and her own feelings and needs. She is out of touch with when she is tired or when she needs time for herself. She has numerous ways of avoiding her sadness, loneliness, and anxiety. Because she has no compassion for herself, she often finds herself using food to fill the inner emptiness that is the result of not taking loving care of herself.

Richard, on the other hand, lacks compassion for both himself and others. While it may seem as if he has compassion for himself, he also is not tuned into his own feelings. It seems like Richard has compassion for himself because he does what he wants – buys what he wants, goes after what he wants, spends time the way he wants. But his choices come from his fears and his addictive need to fill up from outside with things and approval, rather than from love and compassion for himself. In addition, he is usually unconscious regarding the effect his behavior has on others. He keeps people waiting, doesn’t do what he says he is going to do, and becomes judgmental rather than compassionate in the face of another’s difficulties. Instead of caring when his wife is tired or needs help, he gets resistant and resentful that she isn’t there for him or is asking something of him.

A lack of compassion for oneself and others is a major cause of inner and relationship unhappiness.

In terms of personal growth, if you were to focus on making compassion a high priority – both for yourself and for others – you would find yourself progressing toward happiness, peace, and joy more rapidly than you can imagine.

We move into compassion for ourselves when we accept responsibility for our own feelings, and we know that we have very good reasons for our painful feelings or unloving behavior. Some of these good reasons are the fears and false beliefs that we have absorbed from our growing up years that create some of our painful feelings and our defensive behavior, and some of these good reasons are the challenging life situations that cause deeply painful feelings.

Moving into compassion is part of the Inner Bonding process and takes time and practice:

• Moving into compassion for yourself starts with noticing your self-judgments. Judgment is the opposite of compassion. When you judge yourself, you are telling yourself that you are wrong or bad for your feelings or behavior, rather than that you have good reasons. Each time you realize that you are judging yourself, consciously open your heart to compassion for yourself. When your intention is to be compassionate rather than judgmental, you will discover that it is not as hard as you think to shift from judgment to compassion.
  
• Moving into compassion for others is similar. Begin to notice your anger, irritation, judgment, resentment, or resistance toward others. These negative feelings are the opposite of compassion. Once you notice these feelings, you have the choice to open to caring, kindness, and understanding – to compassion.
  
• Each time you find yourself in judgment for yourself or others – instead of judging yourself for judging, move into compassion for the judgmental part of you. If you judge yourself for judging yourself or others, you will stay stuck. If you embrace with love and compassion the judgmental part of yourself, you will find yourself gradually becoming less judgmental and more compassionate.
  

Each time you are compassionate with yourself and others, it becomes easier next time. You will discover that focusing on compassion for both yourself and others will move you toward the peace and joy you are seeking. It all comes from your intention – to protect against pain with your controlling behaviors, such as anger, blame, and judgment, or to move into Inner Bonding and learn about loving yourself and others. When your deepest desire is to become a loving human being, opening to compassion is a powerful doorway to that path.

The main challenge in being loving and compassionate with yourself is that, in all of us, our wounded self doesn’t want us to become a loving adult because then it loses whatever control it believes it has.

One of the major purposes of the wounded self is to make sure you stay disconnected from your higher guidance so that it can keep the illusion of being in control of your life. While we created our wounded selves to try to feel safe by having control over getting love and avoiding pain, the wounded self gets addicted to having this illusion of control and doesn’t want to give it up. It is, therefore, invested in you staying separate from your higher self.

The wounded self has a list of thoughts and beliefs that it knows will scare you and create disconnection from self and spirit. When you are feeling great due to being inwardly connected with your source, the wounded self tends to enlist these thoughts to create disconnection, which is the only way that it has of maintaining its illusion of control.

What are the major areas that create this disconnection for you? Where are you most vulnerable to tumbling out of faith and connection with love and truth, and into anxiety, depression, guilt, shame or anger? What are the lies your wounded self makes up to create doubt and separation from spirit?

Some of the areas where your wounded self might get to you are about time, such as:

“I don’t have enough time to get things done.”
“There is never enough time in a day.”
“I have no time for myself.”
“My time is not my own.”
“I’m trapped doing things I hate doing.”

Another might be about relationships, such

“No one will ever love me.”
“I will always be alone and lonely.”
“I need a relationship to be happy.”
“I’m trapped in this relationship.”
“I will always have to do everything for myself.”
“I will never have someone to laugh and play with.”
“I will never be free to do what I want. I will always have to give myself up to be loved.”
“I will always end up getting hurt.”
“People don’t like me because there is something wrong with me.”
“It’s not my fault. She did this to me.”
“He should be here for me.”
“If he loved me, he would….”
“I can’t be happy while I’m in this relationship.”

Another common trigger might be around competence, adequacy, and lovability such as:

“I can’t do this.”
“I don’t know how.”
“I will never get this.”
“I’m stupid.”
“I should know how to do this by now.”
“I’m inadequate, not good enough.”
“Everything is always my fault.”
“I don’t deserve to be loved.”
“I have been hurt too much. I can never heal.”
“I am essentially flawed.”
“I’m ugly.”

And what does your wounded self tell yourself about money and success?  

“I will end up on the streets.”
“I will never be a success.”
“I will never have enough money.”
“I’m a loser.”
“Some people are lucky, but I’m not.”
“Things will never turn out right for me.”
“I’m trapped in a job I hate.”
“No matter how hard I try, I will never get anywhere.”

And how about around spirituality, such as:

“God loves some people but not me, because I don’t deserve love.”
“God is there for some lucky people but not me.”
“Spiritual connection is easy for some people, but I can’t experience this.”
“All this talk about God or spirit is a bunch of crap. There is nothing there.”
“I am alone, and I will always be alone.”
“God has it out for me. I am being punished.”

And finally, what about health, such as:

“Why do I always have to get sick?”
“It’s not fair that some people are just naturally healthy.”
“How come they get to eat whatever they want and they don’t get sick or fat?”
“If I keep doing this, I will get sick.”
“Life makes me sick.”
“I think I’m getting sick again.”
“There is no escape from illness and pain.”

You might want to make your own list of your most common thoughts that create fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, hurt or anger – the negative thoughts and judgments that create doubt and disconnection from your spiritual guidance. The more you tune in to what triggers you out of peace and into anxiety, the more choice you will have to get back into connection with love and truth.

Learning to be a strong loving adult starts with Step One of Inner Bonding, which is being mindful of your feelings and wanting responsibility for them.

Daniel Siegel, MD., said in his excellent book, “Mindsight,” (quote)“…becoming open to our body’s states – the feelings in our heart, the sensations in our belly, the rhythm of our breathing – is a powerful source of knowledge…. Bringing our sensations into awareness enables intuition to blossom and sometimes can offer lifesaving information… paying close attention gives our minds the power to change our brains.” (Unquote)

Once in a while I read a book that greatly impacts me, and ‘Mindsight’ was one of those books. I love it when research validates the experience I’ve been having with Inner Bonding for so many years.

What Daniel Siegel wrote that I just quoted, as well as in the following paragraph, is absolutely congruent with my experience of the power of Step One of Inner Bonding in learning to love yourself.

(Quote)”Mindfulness is a form of mental activity that trains the mind to become aware of awareness itself and to pay attention to one’s own intention. As researchers have defined it, mindfulness requires paying attention to the present moment from a stance that is nonjudgmental and nonreactive…. At the heart of this process, I believe, is a form of internal ‘tuning in’ to oneself that enables people to become ‘their own best friend.’ And just as our attunement to our children promotes a healthy, secure attachment, tuning in to the self also promotes a foundation for resilience and flexibility….It is here that we can see the connection between attunement and regulation: internal and interpersonal forms of attunement each lead to the growth of the regulatory circuits of the brain. When we have attunement – either interpersonally or internally — we become more balanced and regulated.”(unquote) P. 86, Mindsight

In other words, we create new neural pathways in the brain, both by attuning to ourselves through our Inner Bonding process and by connecting with loving others. By practicing Step One of Inner Bonding all day – staying present in our body and tuning into our feelings without judgment, wanting responsibility for our feelings – we gradually create the neural pathways for the loving adult becoming “our own best friend.

Creating new neural pathways in your brain, becoming non-reactive, balanced, and regulated doesn’t happen overnight. It takes focused practice in “paying attention to the present moment” for your brain to change. But it doesn’t take forever either. According to the brain research that Siegel refers to in his book, this process starts within weeks of practice and solid changes occur within months. This has also been my experience with myself and my clients. When you are devoted to your Inner Bonding practice – learning to stay present in your body and attuned to your feelings – and you follow through with the other steps of Inner Bonding when you feel anything other than peace and fullness inside, it doesn’t take years to heal.

However, growing emotionally and spiritually is an ongoing process. Once we become more balanced, non-reactive, and regulated, then we need to continue our practice to continue evolving as loving human beings. While I continue here and there to encounter issues from the past that need healing, most of my practice is focused on the present – understanding daily, on deeper and deeper levels, what it means to love myself and others

There is no end to learning about love. At times, when I receive a glimpse of the vast brilliance of the love-that-is-God, I see that this is not about ‘getting there’ but about being here, moment by moment, with a dedicated intention to learn about love. The more you practice the mindfulness process of Step One of Inner Bonding, the more you become consciously aware of your intention.

The more you consciously choose the intention to learn about loving yourself and others, the more you become connected with what you truly want and what is in your highest good. There is much power in knowing you want.

Alexander Graham Bell said, “What this power is, I cannot say. All I know is that it exists…and it becomes available only when you are in the state of mind in which you know exactly what you want…and are fully determined not to quit until you get it.” 

I hope you let this quote really sink in. It is a profound statement about the Law of Attraction, even though I doubt Alexander Graham Bell ever heard of this law.

He knew from personal experience that when you know exactly what you want and you are deeply devoted to manifesting it, you often succeed.

Knowing what you want might sound simple, but often it’s not simple at all. Let’s take the example of a woman who says she wants to meet an available man and get married.

It sounds like she knows what she wants, yet she keeps meeting and getting involved with unavailable men. If she really wanted to meet an available man, why would she keep getting into relationships with unavailable men?

The answer is because there is something she wants MORE than getting married – which is to protect against losing herself in a relationship. Consciously, she believes she wants to get married, but on the deeper level, she believes that the only way she can be in a relationship is to give herself up. She believes that if she stays true to herself, she will be rejected.

So what does she REALLY want? What she really wants is to be safe from her fears of rejection and engulfment – and she is getting exactly what she wants! As long as she gets into relationships with avoidant, unavailable men, she is safe from having to deal with her fears.

The challenge in knowing what you really want is to be honest with yourself regarding what is most important to you: to get what you say you want, or to protect against what you fear. If you say you want to be successful in your career, but what you really want is to avoid failure, then you will never take the risks you need to take to eventually be successful.

The second part of Bell’s quote is that you …”are fully determined not to quit until you get it.” Again, be honest with yourself – how determined are you? How long are you willing to persist? How much faith do you have that if you really want something and don’t quit until you get it, you will eventually get it?

The problem with persistence is that you are not going to be completely determined until you are completely clear on what you want, and you know, love, and value yourself enough to know you deserve it.

Alexander Graham Bell did not claim to know what a higher power is – he just knew that it exists. We don’t have to know what this power is to know it exists. It doesn’t matter if you believe it is God or love or spirit or divine intelligence or energy. What matters is that you can experience this power when you know what you want and are consciously open to learning with your higher guidance.

Not only will you frequently be able to manifest what you want when you know exactly what you want and are determined not to quit, but you can also experience the profound joy of knowing that you are being supported by this power – that you are not alone.

How wonderful is that! How wonderful is it to know with your whole being that you are not alone – that there is a power co-creating your life with you and guiding you in learning to love yourself? It’s truly wonderful! 

How do you express your love for yourself?

It’s become common knowledge that you need to love yourself, and that you can’t truly love others unless you love yourself. But many people have no idea what self-love really means.

Many of the articles on self-love stress actions like taking a hot bath, getting a massage, saying positive affirmations to yourself, finding your happy place, or cleaning out your closet. While these actions may be loving to yourself, they are not the essence of what self-love is about.

Think for a moment about what you wanted most from your parents when you were growing up. What would have made you feel most loved?

My parents did many loving things for me, yet I didn’t end up feeling loved by them. They attended important school events. We took camping trips and other vacations. They took me to see plays and musicals. They fed me well. All of that was fine, but it didn’t come close to what I needed to feel loved by them.

Here is my list of what would have made me feel loved by them. I wanted my parents to:

• spend quality time with me being interested in my feelings and wanting to deeply know me
  
• accept me as being very different from them and supporting me in my differences
  
• listen to me, truly hear me and see me, and trust what I saw, knew and felt, rather than being dismissive with me
  
• explore conflicts with me rather than trying to control me
  
• Role model taking loving care of their feelings so I could have learned how to do this
  
• treat me with kindness and respect rather than with anger, judgments and criticism
  
• speak up for me and take loving action for me when one of them or another family member was being mean or abusive to me
  
• be affectionate with me without pulling on me to fill them up
  

This is what my inner child now wants from me.

*It’s not enough to do nice and fun things for myself. The nice and fun things mean nothing if I’m abandoning myself by ignoring my feelings, judging myself, turning to various addictions, or making someone else responsible for my sense of worth and safety. They mean nothing if I treat myself the way my parents treated me.

Expressing my love to myself means that:

• I stay present in my body rather than in my head, and the minute I feel any distress, I attend to it.
  
• I listen to and trust my feelings – my inner guidance system.
  
• I define my own worth, seeing my essence based on the truth coming through from my spiritual guidance. I value my differences.
  
• I stay open to being held in the love of the Universe.
  
• I stay open to the guidance that is always here supporting my highest good and take the loving actions I’m guided to take.
  
• I speak up for myself with others.
  
• I don’t engage with people who treat me with less than love and respect.
  
• I treat others with love and respect, and I share my love with others.
  
• I ask for help when I need help.
  
• I focus on gratitude for all I have.
  

Self-love also means that I do other loving things for myself – making healthy food, getting enough exercise, working in my garden, spending time in my art studio, reading, spending time with loved ones and with my animals, supporting others and doing all I can to be helpful to others. Just as my parents did some nice things for me, but not the things I needed to feel loved by them, doing nice things for myself is great – but only if I’m also taking loving care of myself in these other ways. My inner child doesn’t feel loved by “nice” things if I’m not expressing deeper love to myself in the ways I listed.

Have you ever been confused about the boundary between loving yourself and also being loving to others? This is what Rosanna is struggling with. She asked me at one of my events: (quote)”How do I know where the boundary is between self-love and the selfless love I need to provide for my actual child? How much do I give? I know this is just a temporary situation when my child is young. Also same question for a relationship, where is the boundary between self-love and what you need to give to keep the relationship nurtured?” (unquote)

What I said to Rosanna is “Rosanna, would you feel good about yourself if you neglected your child?” Of course her answer was no. Therefore it’s loving to herself to be loving to her child.

I know that it’s sometimes hard to understand that when we are loving to ourselves, we are also being loving to others. A major aspect of loving ourselves is giving to others because it brings us joy to give. In fact, the more you bring love to yourself and fill yourself with love, the more you desire to share your love with others.

Rosanna asked: “…where is the boundary between self-love and what you need to give to keep the relationship nurtured?”

There is no boundary between self-love and loving a partner. If loving a partner feels like an obligation – like what you need to do rather than what you want to do – then what you are giving isn’t actually love. When you love someone, then you want to give to that person, and you want to keep the relationship nurtured because that’s what’s also loving to you.

If you feel like you are obligated to keep the relationship nurtured, then it’s likely you are trying to control your partner by caretaking. No form of control is loving to you, nor to your partner, and caretaking is certainly a form of control.

Sometimes the wounded self can convince you that you are taking loving care of yourself when what is really happening is that you are ignoring what genuinely makes you happy and is in integrity with your soul. For example, if your baby is crying at night and you are exhausted, your wounded self might say that taking care of yourself is to let your baby cry. But on a deeper level, if you really tune in to what makes you feel good about yourself and is in integrity with your soul, you will know that allowing a helpless baby to cry – no matter how tired you are – is not in integrity with your soul essence. While the wounded self says, “I need sleep,” the loving adult says, “I need to love my baby more than I need to sleep. I chose to have this child knowing that I would be sleep deprived, and I need to stay in faith with myself regarding my internal agreement to be loving to my baby.”

The way that I stay in integrity with myself is to constantly ask my spiritual guidance, “What would love do right now” “What is in the highest good of my soul right now?” I’ve learned that it’s never in the highest good of my soul to listen to my wounded self, who might say that I should just take care of myself without considering the effect my behavior has on others. Taking loving care of myself always means that I also care about others.

The more you learn to love yourself and share your love with others, the more personal power you will experience. This is the power of self-love!

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.