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Browse every published article connected to Margaret Paul, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
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Harv called me for phone consultations because his wife, Nancy, threatened to leave him if he did not get some help. "I must be all messed up with my sexuality. I constantly want sex with my wife and she is fed up with it. When she won't have sex with me I'm angry and sullen. I love my wife ...
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. May 02, 2016 _________________________________________________________________________________ Learn to manage the shattering heartbreak of when someone doesn't grok you – doesn't see you, hear you or understand you. _________________________________________________________________________________ Take a few minutes right now and think back to your childhood. Do you remember a time when you felt deeply unseen, unheard, misunderstood?
Most of us have many goals in life. These goals might have to do with work, finances, relationships and family. Some of the goals that many people strive for are to feel worthy, loved, and valued. Many people spend much time in their lives seeking the approval of others, believing that getting this approval will finally give them the love, safety, security, and sense of worth that they desire. The problem with this goal is that it is an impossible goal to achieve, because it is not others' love, attention and approval that bring about a deep sense of self-worth.
________________________________________ Do you get stuck not knowing what to say or do when your partner treats you disrespectfully? ________________________________________ Louise asked me:
"I feel so frustrated when Mark is late," complained Shauna, during our phone session. "What am I supposed to do with all this frustration?" Shauna believed that her feeling of frustration was being caused by Mark. But this was not the case.
______________________________________ Pressuring yourself might be causing resistance, stress, anxiety, physical pain, insomnia and even illness. ________________________________________ How many of you put a lot of pressure on yourself? How often do you feel anxious because of this pressure? How often do you have trouble sleeping because you feel so pressured?r
I am sitting with Bryan at one of my 5-Day Inner Bonding Intensives. Bryan is talking about one thing after another, and I cannot follow him at all. Nor can I connect with him. My loneliness in sitting with him is giving me important information - that he is in his head, in his wounded self, protecting against his feelings and responsibility for his feelings. "Bryan, would you be willing to take a deep breath and put your focus into your heart?"
My definition of emotional freedom is being free from feeling like a victim of and controlled by our emotions. We are emotionally free when we know how to learn from and manage our feelings so that we are not reactive to them and they don't control us. How Do We Attain Emotional Freedom? Emotional freedom is the result of learning how to take emotional responsibility, i.e., responsibility for our feelings. What does this mean and how do we do it? There are two different kinds of feelings: wounded feelings and core feelings.
Angelo had been married to Serena for 15 years before divorcing. In his marriage, Angelo was a caretaker, always trying to please Serena, always trying to get her approval and avoid her disapproval. Serena was a taker - handing responsibility to Angelo for her happiness and often angry with him when he didn't do what she wanted. Inside, Serena was deeply insecure, too insecure to even work, so she completely relied on Angelo financially. Angelo felt very lonely in his marriage, which is what led to his decision to divorce.
"I keep getting into more and more debt, but I can't seem to stop. I do great for a while, and then I just have to go shopping and buy stuff. This is going to ruin my life if I don't stop, but how do I stop?" Mary Beth is addicted to spending. What does this mean and how can she stop?
All of us, as we were growing up, learned a myriad of ways to try to have control over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe. One of the ways we might have learned is to lie. We all had many opportunities to learn this way of protecting ourselves, which is a form of manipulation/control: - A parent or caregiver interrogated you about something you knew you were not supposed to do. Did you tell the truth or did you deny that you did it?
We all want to be respected by others. And, we would all love to have control over whether or not others treat us respectfully. Is this realistic? Nigel, one of my clients, has a lot of confusion about this issue. He believes that people, especially his wife and children, "should" be respectful to him, and he gets very angry when they treat him disrespectfully - which they often do. What Nigel has failed to understand - which is what led him to seek my help - is that others are often a mirror of how we treat ourselves.
________________________________________ How often do you feel one-up or one-down in comparison to others? ________________________________________ When you were growing up, did your parents compare you to others? Were you compared to siblings or other family members? Did your parents compare you to your friends or classmates? Did you have teachers who compared you to other students? Did you have friends who compared you to other friends? Most of us grew up being compared to others, which creates a sense of being one-up or one-down – neither of which is healthy.
What if there really is ONE major cause of relationship problems, one issue that if you address, would change everything? The good news and the bad news is - there is! The good news is that it makes it easier to understand why you might be having problems in your relationship. The bad news is that to resolve the issue takes a deep personal commitment to heal. The one cause is - self-abandonment. Let's take a look at what self-abandonment is and why it causes almost all the problems in relationships.
When we were growing up, we experienced many life situations that caused us deep heartbreak. Any time we lost someone we loved, or we were yelled at, ridiculed, shamed, ignored, not seen or connected with, physically or sexually abused, or treated in any other unloving ways, our little hearts broke. But we could not manage this intense heartbreak, so we had to learn various addictive ways of managing the feeling.
Do you allow your natural kindness to shine forth? "Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in everything we think, say, want and do." ~Emmanuel Swedenborg, 1688-1772, Scientist, Philosopher and Theologian
Greed is wreaking havoc on our planet. "We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity." ~Stephen Hawking "In a country well-gove ed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of." ~ Confucius What Causes Greed? The Free Dictionary defines greed as "an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs, especially with respect to material wealth."
Do you have problems committing to a relationship, or are you involved with someone who has a fear of commitment? Louis wrote to me:
________________________________________ Love is not something that can be described – it needs to be experienced, and when you experience it through loving yourself, you will know how to love. ________________________________________ We read many things about what love is and what it isn't to help us understand love. But love is not something we can understand from our mind. Until we experience it, we don't actually know what it is or how to experience it in our lives. Is it love when a parent allows a baby to cry and cry, to get them on a schedule or get them to sleep? No!
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. ________________________________________ Do you often see people as you want them to be rather than as they are? Has this caused you problems in your relationships? ________________________________________ “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” —Anais Nin A variation on the above quote might be, "We don't see people as they are - we see them as we want them to be."
Do you find yourself resisting or procrastinating taking loving care of yourself? ________________________________________ Of course you want to be healthy and fit! Who doesn't? But are you always motivated and willing to do what you need to do to create health and fitness?
Are you aware of needing to talk too much, or have you been with people who go on and on? There is a good reason for this. I have found over the years of practicing Inner Bonding that the more I listen to myself, the less need I have for others to listen to me and hear me. Not that I don't enjoy sharing with others, but there is a big difference between sharing and the over-talking that comes from not listening to yourself.
Our country is stretched to the limit due to the cost of health care. Even with the new health care bill, there will be on going conflict over what we should do to provide people with affordable health care. But the reason that the problem seems irresolvable is a very complex one.
Does the fear of making a mistake immobilize you when you need to make a decision?
Discover some of the underlying causes of racism and what is necessary to heal this scourge of our society. I do not pretend to be an expert on what causes a person to be a racist, but I would like to explore some ideas based on the principles of Inner Bonding.
I have worked with individuals and couples for the past 42 years, and I have heard this question countless times: "Why doesn't my partner want to have sex with me?" Over and over, I discover that there is often ONE major reason he or she doesn't want to have sex.
Your spiritual guidance is always here for you, but you need to know how to access it. Connecting with Spirit is simple, but not always easy. ________________________________________ What if you knew that you are never alone - that you are always being guided by a personal source of spiritual guidance? If you knew and experienced this, you would undoubtedly feel safe and peaceful most of the time.
Are you limiting your life – allowing fear to stop you from doing what brings you joy?
________________________________________ Are you shy? Is your shyness getting in the way of your connection with others? ________________________________________ Have you struggled with being a shy person? Lily asks: "I try hard to overcome my shyness and reluctance to stand out, speak up and shine. It's a daily struggle for me. I make small progress, but can be easily derailed by a forceful personality. I know this comes from my overbearing, controlling father and meek mother. I want to shed the old hurts and stop being so timid. What do you suggest?"
Discover how to manage panic in a way that allows it to dissipate rather than escalate. "That's the strange thing about panic – when we lean into it, it loosens it's grip on us." Daniel Siegel, M.D.
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. ________________________________________ The disturbing lack of a personal spiritual connection that many experience has huge ramifications for our planet. ________________________________________
What does it mean to emotionally heal? It means that you know what you are thinking or doing that causes fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, fear, anger, jealousy, and so on, and how to learn from and heal these painful feelings. It means that you no longer turn to addictions to avoid loneliness, heartache, heartbreak, sorrow or grief because you know how to manage and release these painful feelings. It means that you do not feel like a victim of others' choices and instead operate from a place of personal power, taking loving care of yourself rather than being reactive.
How often do you withhold the truth from someone important to you - your partner, friend, parent, child, co-worker - because you know he or she will get angry rather than care about you? How you do feel when you don't speak your truth about something that is important to you? It is likely that you feel depressed when you don't speak up for yourself. Not speaking up about something that is important to you is a way of ignoring your own feelings and needs, and very likely will lead to depression.
________________________________________ Is being duped something you avoid at all costs, or are you willing to be duped in order to keep your heart open? ________________________________________ No one likes being duped. It feels awful to realize that someone has pulled the wool over our eyes – that we were so naïve we didn’t see that we were being duped, lied to or taken advantage of.
"My husband never lets me explain anything to him. It's so frustrating! He makes these statements that are blaming and attacking and then he won't listen to me when I'm trying to explain." "Why do you want to explain?" "I NEED to explain because he is not seeing things accurately. He is making assumptions that are not accurate." "So you want to explain to get him to see things differently than he does." "Yes."
________________________________________ Dating is challenging for many. Here are some tips to turn it into a learning adventure. ________________________________________
Are you emotionally dependent? You might want to go through this checklist. __I cannot feel lovable and worthy without another's approval. __I need a lot of attention from certain people to feel that I am okay. __I don't trust my own feelings. I need others' to validate my feelings. __I am afraid of rejection. I isolate, or try to be perfect, or agree with others, or give myself up, or shut down, and/or do many other things to avoid rejection. __I am afraid to be alone. __I often feel empty inside. __I am often anxious around others.
"I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line." --Lucile Ball, 1911-1989, Comedienne and Actress Lucile Ball was a very smart woman! Do you believe that if you put others first, they will love and value you and you will feel loved? Has this worked for you?
We all have many addictive ways of avoiding feeling our painful feelings and taking responsibility for them. Some of the ways are obvious, such as using substances and processes. Some of the ways can be very subtle.
________________________________________ Sometimes we are clueless regarding the subtle ways we are trying to control, while being very aware of a partner's controlling behavior. ________________________________________ Tara asked me the following question:
________________________________________ How do you know if you are love addicted? Discover the answer in this article. ________________________________________ Our culture seems to promote love addiction to such an extent that it seems like a healthy way to relate. While it is very common, it is anything but healthy. Because it is so prevalent, many people don't realize they are love addicted. Henry asks:
The fear of rejection is a huge issue in relationships. For some, the fear is so huge that it stops them from being in a relationship. For others, it plagues them throughout their relationships and causes much anxiety. Rejection is a part of life, and learning to lovingly manage it is very important to our wellbeing. To help you learn to move beyond the fear of rejection, I would like to help you see who a person is rejecting when they reject you. Are they rejecting your wounded self or your core Self?
________________________________________ Are you staying in an abusive relationship because you believe you can change it or not be bothered by it? ________________________________________ The question of when to leave a relationship comes up over and over with my clients and with the members of Inner Bonding Village. In fact, my YouTube video, "When To Leave A Relationship," is my most popular video. Sonia asked:
________________________________________ Do you find yourself getting hurt over and over in relationships? Discover why. ________________________________________ Do you find yourself falling hard for someone and then ending up feeling rejected and not good enough when it ends? This is the problem that Sabrina is having: "Why do I fall so hard for men? How can I get over this without pain and the feelings of dreadful rejections and feeling less than?"
Ed consulted with me because he was conce ed about his 16 year-old son. "He doesn't have any friends. I'd like to spend more time with him but there doesn't seem to be anything he likes to do." "How does he spend his time?" I asked. "Playing video games." Betsy consulted with me because she was conce ed about her husband's lack of motivation.
Why would someone be afraid of intimacy? Don't we all want to feel close and connected with someone? Yes, of course we want that, but there are very real fears that keep us from opening to emotional intimacy in a primary relationship. The Fears What is the first fearful thought you think when you think of feeling close to someone? "I'm going to be rejected or I'm going to be abandoned." "I'm going to be smothered, engulfed, controlled. I will lose myself."
"I feel awful saying this," Mary told me during one of our phone counseling sessions, "but I often wish my husband would die. I feel like a terrible person saying this, but I think about it a lot." "I hear this fairly often," I responded. "You are thinking this, not because you are a terrible person, but because you feel trapped and you don't know how to get out of the trap." "But my husband is a really nice person and he loves me. Yet all I want to do is get away."
________________________________________ After reconciling with your partner, do you find yourself back in the same pattern? ________________________________________ Nancy wrote to me asking the following question:r
________________________________________ Do you have a misconception about what it means to be a strong and emotionally healthy person? ________________________________________ Do you have an expectation that if you were emotionally healthy, you would not feel hurt in the face of others' judgments or uncaring behavior? This is not true! Let me explain.
________________________________________ Discover the way out of choosing the wrong relationships over and over. ________________________________________ Do you find yourself choosing a similar wrong partner over and over? This is what Laura asks about: "How can I get past the point of choosing destructive and abusive relationships over and over just because I grew up in an abusive and dysfunctional family? Is it better to just remain single and grow with God and be a good mom and not gravitate toward craziness?"