Taking Your Wounded Self Lightly

Taking Your Wounded Self Lightly

All of us have a dysfunctional part, a part that operates from fears and false beliefs. This part – our lower left-brain ego wounded self - was deeply programmed from the time we were born to think and behave in ways that, today, create much of our fear and pain.

The purpose of the wounded self is to attempt to have control over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe. While the wounded self might profess a belief in a higher power, it doesn't have a personal connection with a loving source of truth, strength, and wisdom, and so it often feels alone in the world. It tries to fill the inner emptiness, which results from being spiritually disconnected, with various addictions - to people, processes, things, and substances.

Continue reading
408 Hits

What Steps Can You Take To Discover Your Sense Of Spirituality?

What Steps Can You Take To Discover Your Sense Of Spirituality?

Spirituality is quite a broad concept that varies according to the individual’s perspective and life experiences. To a few people, it might be related to identifying their own self and following the beliefs of a certain community. To others, it might be related to their holistic belief in others as well as the whole world.

The concept also proposes that there is something a lot greater than connecting all the individuals to each other and the universe. Discovering the sense of spirituality helps a person understand the meaning of life, subconscious mind, relieve stress, and live a life that’s not bounded by generic rules and regulations.

Continue reading
433 Hits

Single and Feeling Great!

Single and Feeling Great! - Dr. Margaret Paul

Is it possible to feel great being single? Yes, of course it is! There are many people who love being single. However, not everyone likes it.

Lorna is struggling with this issue with her wounded self:

Continue reading
434 Hits

Choosing our Intent is the Essence of Our Free Will

Choosing our Intent is the Essence of Our Free Will

We are beings of free will. We can choose to allow our ego wounded self to guide us, or we can choose to allow our higher guidance to guide us. An important aspect of the spiritual path is the path of healing the wounded self, so that we are able to release our ego will to our higher will.

Continue reading
446 Hits

Walk Through the Boundary into a Larger Life

guy12.1a

Have you ever noticed that the more negative you get, the more difficult everything about your life becomes, including being able to do the simplest things?

Even your intention to work spiritually in some way -- to develop and transcend yourself -- now sits in the hands of a very negative self, a dense level of self that sees nothing but darkness ahead of it. 

This dense sense of how impossible life seems when we’re negative is the direct expression of a certain kind of resistance that wells up in certain “dense” parts of us when life suddenly says ­-- usually in the form of some unexpected and unwanted event -- “Would you like to live in a larger world, without as much fear? Would you like to be less resentful, worried, or angry? Do you want the power to be more at peace with yourself?”

Continue reading
693 Hits

Trust Yourself

trustyourself

Who do you trust?

The Practice:
Trust yourself

Why?

As I grew up, at home and school it felt dangerous to be myself – my whole self, including the parts that made mistakes, got rebellious and angry, goofed around too loudly, or were awkward and vulnerable.

Not dangers of violence, as many have faced, but risks of being punished in other ways, or rejected, shunned, and shamed.

So, as children understandably do, I put on a mask. Closed up, watching warily, managing the performance of “me.” There was a valve in my throat: I knew what I thought and felt deep inside, but little of it came out into the world.

Continue reading
865 Hits

Pivoting Out of Fear Into Love

pivoting_love

The Self.  When I use the term, the self, I am not talking about the created self. In my book, You Are Enough, I outlined the distinction between the authentic self, or essential self, and the created self. The short version, or synopsis of my book, is that as long as we continue to identify as the created self, the ego and the identity, we continue to perpetuate our suffering. The reason we are not excelling in every area of life, is because of our conditioning out of our normal state of being. 

I’d like to offer you a shortcut today, a cheat code, a way to access what every incredible being throughout human history has accessed and embodied. I’d like you to begin to love what you have been taught to reject, love what you have concluded that you have to repress, love what you have denied, and especially, meet every single part of you with the love that it deserves to receive. At some point, you have to realize the futility of being afraid. 

Continue reading
965 Hits

The Powerful Choices That Create Inner Peace

innerpeace
I have found that there are five choices we can make to release stress and create inner peace. None of these choices are hard in themselves, but they can be challenging due to the insistence of the wounded self to do the exact opposite.

Be Present with Feelings and Guidance

Unless there is actually something dangerous happening in this present moment, being fully in the moment brings a release of stress.

The wounded self is addicted to focusing on the past or future – ruminating about the past, perhaps with regret – and worrying about the future – trying to control it. If you notice your body while you are ruminating or worrying, you will notice that your body is tense. The tension is your inner guidance letting you know that your wounded self is in charge and you are abandoning yourself.

When you notice this, shift into being in this present moment and notice the peace and relaxation that floods your body.

Continue reading
848 Hits

Let Go and Give Others Room to Grow

happy-couple-in-raincoats-

There is one essential ingredient missing in most of our relationships -- one that is definitely required if we wish to continue in our own development and help others to do the same. What is this powerful catalyst that only we can provide for each other? Room in which to grow.

We can help others reach higher by simply agreeing, consciously, to give them space to go through their changes even when these changes may challenge our sense of self and its well-being. As just one simple example of how to help in this way, we must each learn to keep ourselves quiet when the actions of someone close to us start to disturb us. Why is this new kind of self-silence so important for the growth of both parties involved? 

Continue reading
1093 Hits

How To Be Unabashedly Alive

How To Be Unabashedly Alive How To Be Unabashedly Alive

The ego, or the self you imagine yourself to be, has a thousand goals. But are they really yours? And are they your sweetest goals?

A whirlwind Western world worships productivity, as defined by how much we “get done.” But I’d love to see you become “undone” with joy. Because let me assure you of this: Learning how to be unabashedly alive is a very productive goal.

I want you to be free. Freedom doesn’t mean you’ll run away to Istanbul or forget to pay the rent. It’s a remembrance, not a forgetting. It’s remembering who you really are. It’s too easy to lose sight of your nimble, guided self in the everyday tasks and habits, not to mention the self-talk that cripples you, makes you feel behind, even before you’ve sipped your morning coffee.

It’s preconceived ideas about what we “should” be doing that prevent us from listening to our hearts in any given moment. But you can stop this “virtue” in its tracks. Set down the laundry or report, even for a minute. Your deep self wants to talk to you. Do you want to listen?

We don’t always realize what we’re not getting done by “getting things done.”

Continue reading
834 Hits

Stand on the Ground of Your True Self

young-girl-bows-in-meditation-picture-id1215544467 Stand on the Ground of Your True Self

Our sense of self -- the way we experience ourselves -- is very much connected to the widely varying states of emotional energies that come into us and that seem to shape the nature of our individuality. But the fact of the matter is, there is no such separate self, at least not the way we presently experience it. There are just these ceaseless states of energy and the fleeting sense of self they produce as they pass through us. And because these widely varying states don’t belong to us -- in effect, they’re just "passing through" -- the moment their nature moves on, goes with them the sense of self we had derived from their presence.
 

This knowledge has great meaning for anyone who wants to be free of useless negative states and more, including this: When you don't -- when you consciously won't -- express some negative state, you are literally asking for awareness of a higher self. Here's why. As you don't express that state, you become conscious of yourself as the ground upon which it is breaking as well as the presence of that visiting state. In this moment of new awareness there is something there inside of you, with you, that won't change when the state changes.

Continue reading
1009 Hits

You Are Enough – Awareness

YAE-Awareness You Are Enough – Awareness

“When you start to be present for yourself and feel what there is to feel to completion, you begin to embody higher frequencies, and you become lighter, freer, and more at peace.”

For too long, you have been frenetically racing around to mend a self that you believed was broken. You’ve read countless self-­help books, talked through your issues numerous times, and completed a slew of workshops. But most of this was focused on changing your thoughts or building up an impressive repertoire of nice spiritual concepts. The process we are discussing is an experience of energy changes within you. It is less about knowledge and more about living in connection with your authentic self in each moment.

At first, it can be hard to just be with yourself, as you are awash in internal discomfort. You are so trained to get somewhere, to have or create a point for everything. You are a professional human “doing,” programmed for high performance, low maintenance, and fast delivery.

Continue reading
1325 Hits

Enslaved By Your Mind Or Embracing Your Inner Knowing?

spinning-girl-picture-id465353391 Enslaved By Your Mind Or Embracing Your Inner Knowing?
Are you stuck being a slave of your wounded self, or do you trust your intuition?

“Intuition is a sacred gift, the rational mind its faithful servant. Sadly we have thrown away the gift and have become enslaved to the servant.”  ~Albert Einstein

In Inner Bonding, we often talk about who is in charge—your wounded self or your guidance? Most people are enslaved by the thoughts and beliefs of their wounded self—their programmed mind. But the mind is meant to be the servant of our inner and higher guidance, not the master. Why do we too often throw away the gift of intuition – of our inner knowing?

Imagine living in a society where people trusted their intuition—trusted their feelings and their higher guidance. Could people in this society be easily controlled by government, religions, or the media? Obviously not, because when you trust your own inner knowing, you are not vulnerable to others’ manipulations and lies.

Continue reading
1101 Hits

You Are Enough-The Essential Self

essentialself1 You Are Enough-The Essential Self
When you willingly reconnect to your Essential Self—­to your soul—­you immediately access the power and potential for unimaginable transformation. This power requires no effort, no pushing, no striving.


Your essential self is vast. it is pure consciousness, universal awareness, and it is the foundation of all expression, creativity, and expansion in this world. It is “you” in your most unadulterated form. You entered this world with this essential innocence and purity, but life’s events have distanced and covered over the core foundation of your being. You have forgotten the essential you.

When you forget, you do something very curious.You experience your mind thinking, your feelings arising, and your body functioning, and you conclude that those aspects of your experience are the totality of who you are. You say, “I’m fat,” “I’m depressed,” “I’m poor, broken, and hopeless,” “I’m angry,” or “I’m stupid,” as if you are the thought, feeling, situation, or body part.

Continue reading
2040 Hits

Feeling Fractured: How to Heal Guilt & Shame

sisters Feeling Fractured: How to Heal Guilt & Shame

We are born whole, free and absolutely perfect. Yet oftentimes, during the course of our lives, we get shut down in that natural process.

Imagine when you were a toddler, expressing yourself with creativity and love while doing what comes naturally through curiosity and exploration, such as singing loudly or shrieking in pure joy. Then, because you happened to be in a place where behavior such as this is deemed inappropriate (such as a church service or public location), a parent or adult steps in and scolds you. Confused by this reaction, you begin to learn that being your authentic self will get you in trouble and so you begin to shut down that part of yourself. You shove that joyful part of yourself to the side, questioning:

“If I’m not supposed to be who I am naturally and authentically, then who am I supposed to be being? Who am I supposed to be, if I’m not supposed to be me?”

Continue reading
1226 Hits

Three Simple Exercises to Invite the Extraordinary Life

hot-air-balloons-flying-over-the-valley-at-cappadocia-turkey-picture-id926425076 Three Simple Exercises to Invite the Extraordinary Life

I can think of no greater encouragement than the self-evident Truth that there dwells in each of us the opportunity to explore and know the Extraordinary Life. The meaning of Extraordinary I wish to convey points to the immutable and inexhaustible source that is the secret center of each of us: a timeless resource open and available to anyone who would seek this Life that sits behind life as we know it. Will we spend our lives in mere dreams of winning a limitless life, or will we do the inner- work of awakening from this dream? Choosing the Extraordinary Life begins with our conscious work to realize it, which the following special practices help to ensure.

1. Let Nagging Questions Go Unanswered: In stressful moments, listen to what life is trying to tell you about you instead of searching anxiously for familiar answers to make life feel "right" again. All fearful, doubt-filled moments are secret reflections of what we have yet to understand about life and ourselves, not life's rejection of us or our wish for happiness. Choose to go consciously quiet whenever there is a riot in you. Refuse to take part in the search to repair what you fear may be coming undone. Let go and watch what happens when you consciously sacrifice the fear-filled self. This new action allows the Extraordinary Life to enter into you where its presence alone proves that all is well.

Continue reading
1411 Hits

Mindfulness and Depression

James-Pesavento-Mindfulness-and-depression

There is one symptom of the fear of un-lovability and unworthiness and that is sadness and depression. This wound of un-lovability expresses itself in the feeling of depression. The reason sadness arises from the experience of unworthiness is that it is untrue, yet you believe it. Lack of worth, lack of acceptance, lack of lovability is the great fallacy in life. But you hold worthlessness as a belief on some level and as long as that false belief is in place you will feel the symptoms of sadness and depression.


You believe you are unlovable not because you truly are experiencing yourself authentically that way but because you are gauging and judging your worth based upon the conditioning and experiences of parents, teachers, society, friends, family and spiritual beliefs. You have to fit in, excel, look, act, respond and think like they want you to in order for them to love you. And that is an impossible job with an unattainable result. You live in-authentically to be loved and you dis-connect yourself from your essential self, always living in a created self, seeking to be loved.


When you don’t get what you want you react with anger or you hide yourself away. Either way, deep inside you feel a deep and ever-present sadness. You can’t achieve being loved outside and you aren’t experiencing it inside, where it truly exists, because you are dis-connected to your essential self. As this cycle continues sadness turns to depression.

Continue reading
2845 Hits

Mindfulness and Relationships

MindulMonday_-Relationships

Relationships can be approached from 2 directions; need or as two fulfilled people sharing life. In relationship there should be both support and space. Looking to another to fulfill you will never work because fulfillment is a personal, internal experience. Share life, but have a life, each your own. Relationship that smothers or binds another or covers another with expectations will suffocate the other in need. It becomes energetically stifling.


Relationships serve as one of the strongest vehicles to bring into awareness all that is hidden. At the same time it allows you to connect to your essential self and feel the love there and focus and share that love with another. Love is always an internal experience, even though another can inspire your inner connection and allow you to get in touch with your inner love.

Continue reading
2444 Hits