***How To Reassure Your Inner Child

By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.August 22, 2016

Are you afraid that if you practice Inner Bonding, you will have to feel painful feelings that you have been avoiding your whole life with your various addictions?

Most people who have done even a little bit of Inner Bonding know the power it has to heal false beliefs and move them into truth. They know that they can develop their loving adult and discover the loving actions on their own behalf. They know that they can learn to be a loving advocate for themselves, for their inner child.

Why, then, do many people resist the practice of Inner Bonding?

Some people resist doing Inner Bonding because of a fear of ending up alone. Especially heterosexual women may believe that they will become too healthy or too powerful and there will be no men who will be attracted to them.

There is another common reason why people may resist the practice of Inner Bonding: the fear of feeling the deep core painful feelings of loneliness , heartbreak, grief and helplessness over others.

As you know, Step One of Inner Bonding is the willingness to feel and attend to your painful feelings.

There are two kinds of painful feelings - our core feelings that are a result of life, and our wounded feelings that we create ourselves, through our own thoughts, beliefs and behavior .

Many people would unconsciously rather suffer from the stress of their wounded feelings of aloneness, emptiness, anxiety , depression, anger, guilt or shame than experience their core painful feelings of life. Many people would rather be the cause of their own feelings - even if they don't want to acknowledge that they are causing them - because it makes them feel more in control. Many people want to avoid the existential feelings of loneliness, heartbreak and helplessness over others, at all costs, because it makes them feel so out of control. In addition, these feelings may be associated with the infant terror of dying if no one came to attend.

Yet loneliness , heartbreak, grief and helplessness over others are feelings that may come up daily. Whenever you want to connect with someone and that person is not available you may feel lonely. When someone you love is angry, critical, judgmental, withdrawn or resistant, you may feel lonely, heartbroken and helpless over him or her. If you have a lot of love to share and no one with whom to share it, you will likely feel lonely. If you are unwilling to feel your loneliness , heartbreak and helplessness over others and learn how to manage these feelings rather than avoid them, you will find yourself in resistance to practicing Inner Bonding.

The reality is that that there is far less suffering when we are willing to embrace our authentic pain with deep compassion and learn how to release it to Spirit, than when we try to avoid it with all of our addictions. Yet over and over many of the people I work with find themselves avoiding attending to their deeper feelings like the plague.

I have found that the feelings of loneliness and helplessness over others are very important feelings to feel. These feelings have much information for us. Loneliness lets us know that someone is closed and emotionally unavailable, and that we need to take care of ourselves. Helplessness over others tells us when we need to let go of others and, again, take care of ourselves. When we open to these feelings and accept what they are telling us, we become empowered to take loving action on our own behalf. If we fight these feelings, we never get the message they are trying to tell us, and we may keep hitting our head against someone's wall, or not taking the action we need to take for ourselves. In addition, when these feelings are very scary for us because we have never learned how to manage them, we may continually avoid them with our various addictions.

So, in order to consistently practice Inner Bonding, you need to be willing to feel your deeper authentic painful feelings. You cannot be in Step One without this conscious decision.

Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her 30-Day at-home Course: "Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety , Depression , Shame, Addictions and Relationships."

Learn to connect with your spiritual Guidance with "Frequency: Your Spiritual Guidance & The Art of Manifestation ," A 30-Day at-home Experience with Dr. Margaret Paul.