S2 EP313 – Personal Growth Requires Loving Actions

Welcome back to the Inner Bonding podcast. I’m Dr. Margaret Paul and today’s episode is titled Personal Growth Requires Loving Actions. Today I’m talking about the part of us that can take loving actions and what can help us do this. Be sure to stay to the end because I’ll be sharing how you can tap into the information you need to know what loving action to take in any given moment.

Part of Inner Bonding is about developing our loving adult, our loving inner mother and father who takes loving care of our inner child. The part of us that takes loving action is our father aspect housed in our upper left brain.

If you’re stuck in your life, it might be because you don’t have a loving adult father aspect. The was the case with Diana, a participant at one of my 5-Day Inner Bonding Intensives. “I’m really stuck,” Diana said when she was working with me. “I can’t figure it out. I have no problems taking the loving action for my kids and at work. I’m really responsible with everything and everyone except for me. I can’t seem to take loving action for me. I can’t stop eating junk. I can’t get myself to bed early enough to get enough sleep. I can’t get myself to exercise. I do a great job of nurturing my inner child in a lot of ways on the inner level emotionally, but not on the physical level. I know that my adult is strong enough to take these actions, but I don’t take them, and I don’t know why.”
 
 I asked Diana to go inside and ask her little girl who she wants to take these actions for her. After a few minutes of silence, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “I want a father to do it.”
 
 Diana had grown up without an attentive father. Her father had abandoned the family when she was an infant, and her stepfather had been mostly physically absent and emotionally withdrawn. She kept trying to get her husband to give her the attention that she never received from a father, but he was withdrawn as well.
 
 “Tell us more about wanting a father,” I said to her.
 
 As the tears fell, Diana’s little girl spoke from her heartbreak. “I want a father who cares enough about me to make sure that I eat well, and that I get to bed on time, and that I do whatever I need to do to be healthy. “
 
 “So, it sounds like you don’t feel that you have an inner father that cares about you, is that right?”
 
 Diana’s eyes lit up. “That’s exactly right! I have a great inner father in the world. I earn very good money, I’m on time, I take care of bills. But when it comes to me, I’ve never realized that my little girl needs a father! I just thought she needed a mother. My relationship with my mother was so bad that I just assumed that I needed to mother myself. It never occurred to me that I needed to father myself. I can do that! I can be the concerned and caring father that my little girl needs and set limits on what she eats and make sure she exercises and gets enough sleep. Oh, I feel so relieved! This is what’s been missing!”
 
 We all need both an inner mother and an inner father. Our loving adult needs to be both for us to feel loved. The inner mother is the nurturer and learner. The inner mother tunes into our feelings, which is step 1 of Inner Bonding, then moves into the intent to learn, Step 2 of Inner Bonding; then explores our beliefs, Step 3, and dialogues with our higher guidance for the loving action, Step 4. Once we discover the loving action, the inner father takes over, taking the loving action for us, with others, and in the world. We can nurture and learn all day, but without the inner father taking the loving action in Step 5 of Inner Bonding, the first four steps get us nowhere.
 
 Many people on a growth path get stuck on Step 5 of Inner Bonding – taking the loving action. Without the loving adult father part of us that takes action for us, we may stay stuck in many ways, such as not earning enough money, not cleaning up our space, being late all the time, eating poorly and not exercising, not reaching out to friends, or not creating balance in life.
 
 We develop our inner father by asking our higher wise self to show us and tell us what it looks like to be a loving father and asking our higher guidance to bring through the strength to take the loving action. With practice, you can become a loving adult father to yourself even if you never had one. 

What was your father or male caregiver like?
 
 Was he warm, caring, and accepting? Did he stand up for you and protect you when that is what you needed? Was he an adequate provider? Did you feel valued, respected, and cherished by him? Did he treat your mother with love, caring, and respect? Did he play with you and spend special time with you? Was he interested in the things that interested you and the things you did? Did he take care of himself physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, organizationally, and in his relationships? Could you feel his love for you? Was he firm and consistent in his parenting without being harsh, controlling, or indulgent?
 
 Or:
 
 Was he emotionally gone most of the time? Was he physically gone most of the time? Was he an alcoholic? Was he physically, verbally, or sexually abusive to you, to other siblings, and to your mother? Was he a nice guy but he ignored the fact that your mother or siblings were abusing you and he didn’t stand up for you or protect you? Was he a gambler who lost the money that was necessary to feed you and take care of the bills? Did he run around with other women? Did your parents divorce and he was completely uninvolved with you? Did he abandon the family? Did you grow up without a father? Did your father die when you were young? Was he there for others but completely abandoned himself – giving himself up to your mother or others? Did he take poor care of his physical wellbeing? Was he a person you could not count on to keep his word? Did he get angry or sulk when things didn’t go his way?

Did your mother or other caregiver play the roles of both father and mother to you or did your father or other caregiver play both roles?
 
 Now, take a moment to think about how you treat yourself. Are you a good father to yourself? Do you speak up for yourself with other people? Do you provide well for yourself? Do you value, respect, and cherish yourself? Do you take loving action on your own behalf? Do you follow through on your commitments to yourself and others? Do you take care of your health and physical wellbeing?
 
 Or:
 
 Do you ignore or discount yourself like your father or father figure ignored or discounted you or himself? Do you judge yourself like your father or father figure judged you or himself? Do you gamble, drink, or indulge in other addictions like your father or father figure did? Do you fail to provide for yourself financially like your father or father figure did? Are you unfaithful in your relationship or use sex or porn the way your father or father figure did?
 
 Whether you are a man or a woman, you need to be both mother and father with your inner child. In the Inner Bonding process, your mothering aspect stays in touch with your feelings, moving into a compassionate intent to learn about any distress or pain, dialoguing to learn about what you are thinking or doing that may be causing your distress, and opening to learning with your spiritual guidance about the truth and the loving action toward yourself.
 
 The fathering aspect then takes the loving action. Without loving action, your inner child will feel abandoned – just as you might have felt as a child.

Before we move into the next point, this is exactly why I created my 30 Day course, Unlocking Your Inner Wisdom. If you’re looking to learn to have access to your higher guidance for truth and loving actions, this is something I walk you through step by step in the 30 days. You can learn more in the description below.

Sometimes, you might find that you have an easy time taking loving actions in some areas of your life, but not in others. My client, Aaron, works hard and earns a very good living for his family. He loves his work and feels a deep satisfaction in designing beautiful buildings for people. He is a person who is well organized, on time, and follows through on what he says he is going to do. Aaron has a wonderful loving inner father when it comes to financial and organizational responsibility.

However, Aaron has no inner adult father when it comes to physical responsibility. He eats poorly, is overweight, doesn’t exercise, and often gets to bed too late to get all the sleep he needs. He is often tired, and his doctor has warned him that he is on a fast track to a heart attack. Yet Aaron has made no changes in his lifestyle.

He also has no loving adult inner mother when it comes to emotional responsibility. He is easily irritated and often dumps his irritation on his wife and children. When he is not working, he feels a deep emptiness inside, which he covers over with working late, with food, and with TV. He’s also demanding of time, attention, and sex from his wife. Instead of taking time to notice what he feels, he avoids taking responsibility for his feelings with his various addictions. He has no spiritual practice or spiritual belief system to help him with his feelings or with accessing loving actions.

Aaron’s wife has become more and more distant, preferring to spend her time with the children and with friends. Aaron’s neediness and emptiness feel overwhelming to her. She is no longer attracted to him.

Are you like Aaron, taking responsibility in one or two areas of your life but neglecting the others? Happiness, peace, and joy are the results of choosing to be a strong loving adult in all areas of your life – physical, financial, organizational, emotional, spiritual, and in your relationships.

You can be taking full physical, organizational, and financial responsibility, but if you are not taking emotional, spiritual, and relationship responsibility as well, then you are not being a loving inner mother and you will not find your inner peace and joy.

Lisa is having this challenge. She said:

“I know that taking action is a big area of weakness for me. What do you think helps most to strengthen and develop the loving adult? Is it just a choice driven by willpower to be loving? Does it take ‘hitting bottom’ in order to muster the fortitude? Is self-compassion a strong enough motivating force? I’m obviously struggling in this area.” 

It’s not a matter of willpower, nor do you need to hit bottom to muster the fortitude to take loving action. Self-compassion is very important, but that in itself isn’t generally a strong enough motivating force.

It’s really all about your intention. 

I remember the day, many years ago, when I was struggling with the same issue. I was also struggling with why I was even on the planet and what was the purpose of life. I had been doing Inner Bonding for only a short time and taking loving action seemed like a herculean effort. I remember the exact moment all that changed for me. 

While I was sitting cross-legged on my bed feeling lost and alone, it occurred to me to ask my higher guidance what the purpose of life is; my guidance answered rapidly and clearly: 

“The purpose of life on your planet is to evolve in your ability to love. This has to start with learning to love yourself. Love is what everything is all about. Each of you is a spark of the whole, which is God-that-is love. God-that-is-love is not static. The energy of love that is God is ever evolving, and as each of you evolve in your ability to love, so God evolves.

You are here to evolve in your ability to love and to fully manifest the gifts you have been given. You can do this only when you learn to see and deeply cherish the essence of you – the spark of God that is within you. When you get how magnificent you are – and when you get how magnificent the essence of each of you is – then you become highly motivated to love yourself and share your love with others.” 

I was blown away. I knew in my heart and soul that what my guidance was telling me was true. I could feel the truth of it in my whole being.

That’s when I started to learn to see my essence through the eyes of my guidance, and as I learned to deeply value my own soul, I became highly motivated to take loving actions on behalf of my soul – my inner child – just as I had always been motivated to take loving actions for my children. 

We all have false beliefs about not being good enough – beliefs that we absorbed as we were growing up. It’s hard to take loving action on your own behalf if you don’t believe you are worth loving. When you practice Inner Bonding and start to learn to see your wonderful essence through the eyes of your spiritual guidance, that’s what will motivate you to move into the intent to learn with your guidance about loving yourself. And that will give you the strength to take the loving action.

“If today’s episode resonated with you and you’re ready to develop your strong inner loving mother and father and connect with your spiritual guidance, I invite you to check out my 30-Day video home-study course, Unlocking Your Inner Wisdom. It’s designed for anyone who wants evolve in your ability to love yourself and others and helps you develop a clear connection with your spiritual guidance. You’ll find the link in the description.

Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode. I’m sending you my love and blessings on your learning and healing journey.