Transcending Technique and Eliminating the Need to Do It Right

If you are anything like me, when you first learned the steps of Inner Bonding, you thought “wow, this is it! I am on my way to healed.” The process is a thorough road map to guide you on your journey to love, peace and joy. The problem comes in when the wounded self says “hey, I can control how fast it happens….I just have to learn to do it right and I can be free. No more suffering for me once I get it right.” The main job our wounded-self provided for us as children, is acting in the same way it did to protect us believing that there is only one right way. It judges how the process is going, how we are using the six steps, and at times analyzes each approach and puts on the brakes when we might get close to a core feeling. Analyzing each feeling as a potential intruder. “Is this a wounded or core feeling?” comes from a place of the wounded-self wanting to “do it right”. If for a minute I could observe a feeling not as something to face, but a tidbit of information. Information is not to be judged, it is just useful direction within the six-step Inner Bonding process, a necessary place to start. It is the wounded-self that would have me believe that if the feeling is judged as “good”, then I must be doing my six steps of Inner Bonding right and if the feeling is “bad”, then I must be doing something wrong.

In step one I have to be willing to take responsibility of my feelings, and my wounded self would have me believe that it means something if a feeling is pleasant, and it means another when the feelings are difficult or unpleasant. However what responsibility asks of me is not to shame myself for my current state but to be aware of my feelings, with compassion open to learning. I cannot learn if I believe responsibility includes shaming, blaming or judging myself. I realized from my family of origin, responsibility, the word was often paired with shame, blame and guilt for having done something, anything and sometimes feeling like everything “wrong”. So when I first was introduced to Step 1: be willing to take responsibility for my feelings, I immediately, although not aware of this response, moved into covert blame, shame and guilt over discovering I was operating from a wounded place, rather than take this as information, as a map, aware I would not make it to my place of peace following my current path. I had to discover what was going on with my reaction to simple words within the process before I could fully move into Step 1.

I became aware, so painfully aware of my constant judgment running through my head like a broken record player. “You’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it wrong again….what’s the matter with you?” The pain in my heart was so deep, I found myself crying at every difficult interaction with others. I was angry for others who would not take responsibility for their actions. I believed if others would just take responsibility, I could happily coexist. I wasn’t the source of the problems, pain or suffering in my life. It was everybody else. However, that story didn’t line up with what I was learning as I practiced my six steps. I became aware of the broken record, and the space the recording of that record player had filled. I knew why I was stressed, and it wasn’t “other people”, I was my main source of stress. The happy surprise is, if I am at the root of my suffering, I can be the one to bring me out. So I decided to approach Step 1 with a new approach. I would be aware of my choices as I asked the question: are you willing to take responsibility for your feelings today…. And my first answer was “NO!! every time I open up to feelings it hurts like hell, and then you judge me for it telling me I’m wrong. Why should I want to open up to you when there isn’t any love? Then you try to impress others with your knowledge of the steps and you can’t even get into Step 1.” Whoa. Really? That is the response? What the hell am I going to do with that? I can’t do Inner Bonding right if I can’t get into Step 1. I asked my guidance, “What do I do now?” and guidance clearly said “Sit and feel, sit and notice, shhhhhhhh….just notice”. The tears began to flow, deep heavy sobs that lasted for days. I was touching in my heart the abuse at my own hands, the judgment, blame and shame I had used to avoid some of my deeper trapped feelings. I would have no access to those feelings before choosing to be aware of the pain caused by my own unloving behavior toward myself. I asked God to help me be a more loving adult, and He reminded me of Mother Theresa’s “I cannot do great things, but I can do small things with great love” and in that He added, “you don’t need to prove to the world that you have value, you need to see and love the you that has value already. There is no right, there is love and not love….that you can feel in your heart. Move toward love.”

The love I learned to move toward was a simple willingness to be with all of my feelings with compassion. I would treat them all as teachers, some were more fun to invite in than others, but all were welcome with great love, compassion and gratitude because each had come with a lesson and a gift. There is no right way, no perfection in technique of the six steps of Inner Bonding, there is process with judgment or the process with love and I chose love, and that has made all the difference.