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By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. July 04, 2016 Are you giving love to your partner or others for the joy of giving, or are you giving to get love, attention or approval? I received the following email, asking for my help:
Do you get stuck in not being able to resolve conflicts because you don't know how to bring up issues in a way that works? Bringing up difficult issues is often a major challenge in relationships. Laurie wrote to me about this issue:
Most parents want to be good parents. Yet parenting is one of those things that does not have hard and fast rules. So how do we know what to do? How do we know what will support our children in being all they can be? One of the most important things for parents to do is to learn to trust their ...
By Margaret Paul, PhDr November 15, 2016 What do you do when someone is trying to control you? Do you give in, argue or resist? Discover how to love yourself instead of abandoning yourself. Loving yourselfMost of us have had the experience in our relationships of someone trying to control us. Perhaps they were doing it with anger and blame, or by complaining and guilting us, or by withdrawing their love, or even by being too 'nice.'
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. January 03, 2017 Discover how loving yourself can not only lead to the manifestation of your dreams, it can also lead to manifesting kindness and caring on our planet. "Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events." – Ralph Waldo Emersonr If great hearts draw great events, and therefore support our ability to manifest, then what creates a great heart?r
The Encarta World English Dictionary defines "enmesh" as "to entangle somebody or something in something from which it is difficult to be extricated or separated." Are you entangled with your children in a way that is limiting both you and your children? Parents may enmesh with children when ...
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. January 25, 2016 ________________________________________ Discover the big difference between reaching out as your loving adult or as your wounded self. ________________________________________ Dorothy asked an important question: "What is the difference between turning to someone and handing my little girl over to them?" The difference is in your intent. Loving Yourself
"I know what's coming when Robert says that we need to sit down and have a talk," Maryann told me in our phone session. "He wants to tell me everything that is wrong with me. It's not about talking - it's about wanting to have control over me. Last time he did this it was all about how I spend ...
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. March 14, 2016 _____________________________________________________________________________________ It is often tempting to tell others what to do, especially when it is obvious that they are not taking care of themselves. Discover why this usually backfires and what to do instead. _____________________________________________________________________________________
"He is always blaming me for the bad things that happen in his life, and then he tells me it's my controlling him that is making him so angry. He yells at me and puts me down rather than deal with his own feelings. How can I get him to see that he is the one trying to control me? How can I ...
Are you addicted to trying to get love from unavailable, unloving people? Have you found yourself repeatedly 'falling in love' with an unavailable person? Have you wondered why you keep doing this? This is the questio Wanda asked: "What about our wounded self causes us to attach so fiercely to an unloving/unavailable person?" There are two primary causes:
Rebecca was struggling with 3 year old Kevin's screaming. Whenever someone didn't do what he wanted, he screamed and screamed, hoping to get his way. Rebecca had tried many different things to get Kevin to stop screaming, such as time outs, telling him to use his words, walking away and ignoring ...
Have you ever had an argument with someone - a partner, spouse, close friend, child, parent or other relative, or a business associate - that started small and spiraled into an intense conflict? Have you ever scratched your head, wondering how it got so out of control? Let's take a look at what ...
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. May 23, 2016 When you do not allow yourself to express yourself with laughter and tears, physical pain, due to stress and a lack of passion for life, may be the result.
I was conducting a weekend Inner Bonding workshop. Amanda, one of the participants, was working with me in front of the rest of the group. As we touched on a painful issue, she started to cry, and immediately said "I'm so embarrassed that I'm crying." "What are you telling yourself right now ...
"At work, every time I have to speak at meetings, I get so stressed." "I’m taking a class and I'm always afraid to raise my hand and ask a question." "I'm fine one to one, but as soon as I get into a group, I'm so tense I can hardly stand it." "I'm totally relaxed with my women friends, but ...
The next 'Love Yourself' Course starts February 21, 2018. Are you ready to learn how to love yourself? Love Yourself: A 30-Day Home-Study Inner Bonding Experience with Dr. Margaret Paul, to self-heal anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, addictions and relationships. "I feel like I have finally found what I have been searching for, for decades....I believe this is equivalent to spending decades in traditional therapy." ~ Marge Skinnerr
How often have you become irritated or angry, given yourself up, started to argue or debate, teach or explain, or withdrew when someone was treating you badly - ordering you around, judging you, blaming you, or dumping their complaints or negativity on you? How often have you behaved in any of ...
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. Do you speak up for your inner child – your feeling self – when someone is judgmental toward you, or they are blaming you or discounting you? What do you generally do when you are in an interaction with someone and you are feeling anxious, scared or lonely from the interaction?
In our stressful society, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s easy to feel inundated with all we need to do, and besieged when too much is coming at us at once. It’s my experience that overwhelm comes from two different places:
"I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experiences behind him." ~Eleanor Roosevelt I know from my own experiences that what Eleanor Roosevelt said in the above quote is very true. - I used to be scared to speak up for myself or speak my truth, and now I do it easily. - I used to be afraid of public speaking or doing radio or TV shows, and now I do these easily. - I used to be scared to be in my power, and now it's natural for me.
Do love and marriage really go together like a horse and carriage? For some they do but for many they don't. Why not? Why does love seem to die away in so many marriages? At the beginning of most relationships that eventually lead to marriage, the couple falls in love and believes that this ...
Dealing with addicted family members is always a big challenge. There are some important issues to explore when someone you love is harming themselves. ARE YOU CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM? People use various addictions to avoid their painful feelings, especially their feelings of anxiety, ...
By Margaret Paul, Ph. D. February 01, 2016 ___________________________________________________________ You CAN heal a fear of being excluded and rejected! ___________________________________________________________ Many of us grew up experiencing, in one way or another, the pain of being excluded. Perhaps you felt excluded at home – by parents or siblings, or with friendships at school or outside of school. As a child, being excluded is deeply crushing. Children don’t have the ability to not take things personally, so being excluded likely contributes to our shame and insecurity.
"My parents were distant, unaffectionate people. I don't remember ever being held by them. They were never interested in how I thought or felt. I never felt important to them at all." "My mother was crazy - nice one minute and the next a screaming maniac. My father was sweet but he was never ...
"Sam whines and complains to me a lot, and then expects me to be turned on to him and make love with him. When I don’t want to, he gets angry," said Jackie in our first telephone counseling session. "I have become more and more shut down. I don't want our marriage to end, but if we keep going ...
Marianne consulted with me because of anxiety and depression. She had tried various forms of medication but was not reacting well to any of the drugs. She was exhausted from lack of sleep, and from the intense anxiety that kept waking her up. While there were challenges in her life, like in ...
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. September 12, 2016 Emotional intimacy is essential for sustaining love in a committed relationship. Discover how to create and nourish this deep connection. Loving coupleThink back to times you felt 'in love.' Aside from chemistry, what was it that drew you to the other person? Usually, my clients say things like: "We talked for hours on our first date." "We felt an immediate connection with each other, like we've always known each other." "At the beginning of our relationship, we could talk about everything."
Passionate Purpose, Vibrant Health! A 30-Day at home Experience with Dr. Margaret Paulr The next course will start on April 15th, 2020, and is offered only once a year. Are you ready to discover your calling, and have the health and vitality to pursue it? Passionate Purpose, Vibrant Health! A 30-Day at-home experience with Dr. Margaret Paul, to discover your passionate purpose, enhance creativity, and create a joyful, vibrantly healthy life!
A 30-Day At-Home Courser The next course will start on April 3rd, 2019 https://innerbonding.com/video/mp4/Beloved-Landing-page.mp4 This course is offered twice a year. Are you ready to find the love of your life? Attracting your Beloved: A 30-Day Home-Study Experience With Dr. Margaret Paul - To Learn How to Attract the Love of your Life!
"Eat more carbohydrates!" "Eat more protein!" "Be a vegetarian!" "Vegetarians are not healthy." "Don't eat grains!" "Eat more grains!" Are you confused about how to eat for excellent health? Even the research is contradictory! Since my early 20s, I have been interested in health and ...
"We never seem to be able to solve any problems," Kaylee told me in a phone session. "Every time we sit down to solve a problem, we end up fighting. It doesn't really matter what it is about - it always ends up the same. Is this normal? Aren't couples supposed to be able to solve ...
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. Hugs can be romantic or disconnecting, depending on your intent in hugging. Has the romance gone out of your relationship? Has work and/or parenthood left you no time for romance, connection and intimacy? A major challenge for parents, especially new parents, is finding the time to be together in ways that foster romance in their relationship. A question that a reader recently asked me is: "Is it the quality of time versus the quantity of time that is significant in 'we-time'?"
By Margaret Paul, PhDr November 28, 2016 Do you often feel out of place and like an alien in some groups? Discover how to love yourself in group situations. "She's very shy," my parents used to say to people when I was quiet. From their tone, I thought it wasn't a good thing to be shy. I thought being shy meant there was something wrong with me.
You are being a permissive parent when you are compliant, indulgent, or indifferent with your children. When you are being compliant, you are giving yourself up and going along with what your children want to avoid their upset with you. When you are being indulgent, you are giving in to your ...
By Margaret Paul, PhDr November 22, 2016 Do you know how love yourself when you feel rejected? Start learning how now! What do you generally do when you feel rejected? If you're like most people, you either try to control the rejecting person, or you take it out on yourself with various avoidant and controlling behaviors. When you try to control the other person, do you try to control by: * Getting angry, defending, complaining, blaming? * People-pleasing, complying, giving yourself up? * Shutting down, withdrawing? * Threatening violence or exposure?
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. February 15, 2016 _______________________________________________________________________________ The state of Divine Grace is a most wonderful experience, and it's available to all of us – even if you are an atheist. ________________________________________________________________________________
Failure! What do you feel when you think about failure? Inadequate? Unworthy? Unlovable? It is so sad that you might have learned to link failure to your value as a person. Most people who are successful in their work and their relationships have experienced many failures along their road to ...
Have you found yourself in relationships where you feel empathy for your partner but your partner lacks empathy for you? Were you born with the ability to feel others' feelings? I was, and one of the issues that I had to face was that not everyone is empathic.
Linda sat opposite me at one of my five-day Inner Bonding Intensives. She had decided to attend the Intensive because her depression, which had plagued her for years, was not being helped by medication or by the numerous forms of therapy that she had tried. As she sat opposite me, telling me ...
We all learned many ways of avoiding pain as we were growing up, but what once seemed to protect us against pain is now actually causing our pain. We all had to learn many ways of avoiding emotional pain as we were growing up, because we could not have survived the pain of childhood without these protective strategies - which eventually became habitual. The problem is that what once protected us against pain is now causing much of our emotional pain.
Have you found it hard to stay open in the face of conflict? Does your wounded self quickly take over, and your conflict resolution skills disappear? Allison asked me the following question: "I practice Inner Bonding when I feel I need it. I basically feel connected and when something is going on I sit down to do it. My question is, in the heat of the moment I feel wounded and find it hard to communicate effectively. When I take care of it later I get grounded and feel ok. Can you please share advice on how to connect to my loving adult self in the split second of active conflict?"
Sometimes the most loving act, both for yourself and for others, is to disengage from an abusive family relationship. This can eventually lead to some healing. We all know that families can be very challenging!
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. Like anything worth learning, developing the habit of loving takes practice. As you practice Inner Bonding, your brain develops the habit of loving. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." ~ Aristotle All of us develop habits as we are growing up. Some of the habits are positive, such as the habits of being on time, being organized and being honest. But some habits can cause us many problems, both with ourselves and with others.
By Margaret Paul, PhDr January 31, 2017 Discover why it takes great courage to learn to love yourself, and why it's so important to make loving yourself one of your highest priorities. Loving Yourself"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." ~ Ambrose Bierce I find it sad that it takes courage to love ourselves. But the truth is that our culture has come so far from our natural way of being – which is to love ourselves – that now it does take courage, a lot of courage.
"My husband and I have a great working relationship. He's great to the kids, he's nice to me, he works hard on the house but he isn't very interested in getting to know me for who I really am. Any exploration around personal growth is threatening to him. Sometimes I feel so depressed to think ...
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. February 08, 2016 _____________________________________________________________ Learning to disce the difference between mind and soul communication is essential to learning to love yourself. Learn how to tell when information is truth from Spirit or made up from the mind. _____________________________________________________________r
Aidan decided to consult with me because he wanted to get married and have a family. A handsome man in his mid-30s, it was certainly not obvious at first glance why he could not find a partner. However, it didn't take me long to understand why relationships were not working for Aidan. Being ...
By Margaret Paul, PhDr February 07, 2017 How often are you stressed and frazzled in trying to meet others' expectations? You can learn to love yourself instead! I was staying at a friend's house on one of my teaching trips. I walked into the kitchen early one morning to find my friend frantically trying to get everything done that she believed she needed to get done before going to work. I walked over to her and put my arm around her and said, "Breathe." She stopped and breathed and started to cry. "What's going on?" I gently asked her.
Experiencing emotional intimacy with others is one of the most satisfying experiences of life. Emotional intimacy, or a sense of deep connection with another person or a group of people, occurs when each person is completely open hearted and devoted to taking 100% responsibility for their own ...