Many people who have been on a path of personal and spiritual growth have spent a lot of time talking. Talking with friends about what is wrong and what they want. Talking with therapists about their past and their beliefs. Talking with a mate about what needs changing. They have explored and explored and talked and talked - and not much has changed.

Perhaps it's time for less talk and more action - loving action.

Loving actions are those actions that support our highest good and the highest good of others. Loving actions are those actions that are motivated by love rather than by fear.

Exploring your limiting beliefs and where you got them is essential for opening the door to loving action. However, you can explore forever and nothing will change without loving action. You can talk and talk and learn and learn, but until you are willing to take loving action, nothing will change. It’s not that it is time to stop learning about our fears and beliefs, but it is time for all this learning to result in loving action. 
 

Who is in Charge of the Actions You Take?

We are always taking action, yet much of the time the actions we take are not loving, in that they do not support our own and others' highest good.

Inner Bonding teaches that all our actions are motivated by one of two intentions:

1. The intention to have control over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe. The intention to control is motivated by fear and the desire to protect against that which we fear.
    
2. The intention to learn about what is most loving to ourselves and others. This intention is motivated by love and the desire to become the most loving person we can be.

When our actions are being motivated by fear and our intent is to control, our wounded self is in charge.

When our actions are being motivated by love - both for ourselves and others - our loving adult is in charge. 
 

The Wounded Self

The wounded self is who we are when our primary intention is to have control over getting love and avoiding pain. Other common terms for the wounded self are the false self and the ego. Our wounded self lives in the lower left part of our brain, along with our instinctive fight or flight mechanism.

Our wounded self, coming from old fears and limiting beliefs, tries to feel safe through attempting to control our own painful feelings, as well as controlling others' feelings and behavior and the outcome of things.

We are operating as our wounded self when we are listening to and taking actions based on the programmed lies of our mind - lies such as:

• I'm not good enough.
• I will always end up alone.
• There is something essentially wrong with me.
• When others are angry or withdrawn, it is my fault.
• I am responsible for others' feelings.
• Others are responsible for my feelings.

These are just a few of the hundreds of lies we absorbed as we were growing up. When we listen to and take actions based on these false beliefs, our actions are controlling rather than loving. Controlling actions lead to anxiety, depression, stress, anger, and many other painful feelings. We get caught in a vicious circle of creating our pain with our unloving, self-abandoning, controlling thoughts and actions, and then choosing more self-abandoning, controlling thoughts and actions in our attempt to stop the pain that we have created with our self-abandoning, controlling thoughts and actions. Whew!

For example, if you lash out at someone with blaming anger in an attempt to control him or her, you may end up feeling anxious and lonely. You may then try to control your feelings of anxiety and loneliness by overeating or eating junk. This may result in feeling physically bad as well as in weight gain. Then you may feel anxious and depressed over the weight gain, which may generate fears of rejection. You may then attempt to cover over your fears of rejection by being overly nice in your attempt to control how someone feels about you. When that person does not respond in a loving way to you, you may then feel hurt and lash out in anger and blame in your attempt to have control over the other person as well as over your own hurt. Now you are right back where you started - a vicious circle of pain and controlling behavior. 
 

The Loving Adult

In order to take loving action and walk your talk, your loving adult needs to be in charge of your choices. Your loving adult is who you are when you are coming from a deep desire to be a loving person and you are open to learning with your higher self about what is most loving to you and to others. When you are truly open to learning, you will naturally be connected with a higher source of guidance, and when you ask "What is the most loving action in this moment?" helpful answers will pop into your mind. Once you receive the answer in a particular situation, the loving adult then takes the loving action.

The more you consistently practice all Six Steps of Inner Bonding, the more loving action you will take. As you walk your talk, you will experience more and more inner peace and joy.

Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her 30-Day at-home Course: "Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships."