Why Step Four Is The Most Important Step Of Inner Bonding
By Emily AgnewMarch 15, 2018
Opening to your spiritual guidance is more than just a step of Inner Bonding: it is the foundation of the process. Here's why.
"Open to your spiritual guidance" is the fourth of the six steps of Inner Bonding. But in fact, Step Four is much more than just a "step": it is the mother of all the whole Inner Bonding process. Only with Step Four in place can Inner Bonding create lasting healing and growth. Why? Because until you open to your guidance, you are limited to working on your personality, from your personality.
You might well ask, "What's wrong with working on my personality? Isn't that the whole point?" Indeed, the entire self-help industry exists to try to help you do just that. I've spent decades trying to perfect my personality, and I've finally been forced to face the truth: it ain't gonna happen!
But don't take it from me: take it from Albert Einstein. He stated that our significant problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness in which they were created. And he was right. We simply can't solve the problems of our personality from the level of our personality.
So how DO we solve our problems, then?
To answer this question, let's go back to the Inner Bonding steps: it looks as if your guidance is something you get to after you've done Steps One, Two, and Three - after you've felt your feelings, opened to learn, and dialogued with your inner parts. But in reality, it's the other way around: you must open your heart to Spirit before you do Steps One, Two, and Three. If you don't, you'll have a hard time doing the first three steps.
So, as I said earlier, "Step Four is much more than just a "step". In fact, opening to your guidance is a lifestyle choice. To enter fully into the Inner Bonding healing process, you have to choose to live a spirit-led life. This choice requires a much higher level of self-responsibility than, say, choosing car insurance: you don't just fill out a contract, sign on the dotted line, then forget about it. Connecting to Spirit only happens if you choose it, moment by moment.
Only you can make this choice
And no one can make you make it. You can let your wounded habit patterns rule your actions. Or you can choose to lead a Spirit-led life. This choice is the essence of your human free will. And the emphasis on this choice to connect to Spirit differentiates Inner Bonding from conventional therapy in which you work on your problems on the level of the personality.: when you practice Inner Bonding, you shift your consciousness from the level of your personality to the level of your soul.
This consciousness shift can be hard to make because wounded karmic habit-patterns have a momentum of their own. As you practice Inner Bonding, your wounded self will brazenly attempt to control your spiritual guidance, saying, "Great! We can get love and avoid pain by accessing our guidance and doing all the right things!"
This is the way of the wounded self: it always tries to control things in order to avoid pain and get love. But in its attempt to control the Inner Bonding process, the wounded self has it backwards. If you are truly in your loving adult, then your intent is to learn, not to control. From the intent to learn, you open to Spirit, but not with any agenda—not even with the agenda to heal yourself. You open to Spirit because you want to live a Spirit-led life, and because only your spiritual guidance can show you how to do that, moment by moment.
Why we need each other
For most of us, it is nearly impossible to overcome our wounded habit-patterns alone. We need help from Spirit. And we need help from each other in order to open to Spirit. Fortunately, we can listen to each other in a way that facilitates this shift of consciousness from wounded control to spiritual surrender. We help each other move into our loving adult.
From this higher level of consciousness—our loving adult-—we can receive and act on our spiritual guidance, addressing our problems in a loving, effective way. And the more we do this, the easier it gets to do it: trusting our guidance and acting on it creates a powerful "virtuous cycle."
Learn how to get and give Inner Bonding support in the Inner Bonding Buddy course with certified Inner Bonding and Focusing facilitator Emily Agnew. Or contact Emily for 1:1 sessions if you are a sensitive, creative person struggling with anxiety or depression.
©2018 Emily Agnew
Thanks to Kaitlyn Wyenberg for the beautiful photo: kaity.wyenberg@gmail.com
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Daily Inspiration
Free will is a great gift. Because of free will, we have the opportunity to choose who we want to be each moment. We can also choose to be unconscious of this choice. Today, be conscious of choosing who you want to be - loving or unloving; open or closed; in surrender to Spirit or attempting to control feelings, others or outcomes; learning about love or protected against pain.
By Dr. Margaret Paul
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