The heart of being in an intent to learn is to be willing to learn about our wounded, protected behavior without judgment. It's when we are open to learning about our intent to control getting love and avoiding pain that we begin to have the consciousness we need to heal our wounded self.

Judgment always comes from the wounded self and is itself a form of control. When we judge ourselves for our controlling, addictive behavior, we are trying to have control over getting ourselves to change. We hope that by making ourselves wrong and beating ourselves up, we will feel badly enough to change.

Yet, if you've ever really paid attention to the results of this, you will notice that the changes never occur. In fact, the more we judge ourselves and the worse we feel as a result of it, the more we need to act out with an intent to control to avoid the pain of our self-judgments.
 

Giving up self-judgments is just as difficult as giving up any addictive behavior.

The wounded self is deeply devoted to this form of control and really doesn't want to let go of it. So judging ourselves for judging ourselves will get us nowhere.

What's necessary is to be in a compassionate intent to learn about all our controlling behavior. This means that you embrace the understanding that you always have important reasons for being in the intent to control. These reasons are the false beliefs that fuel all of our protective, controlling behavior. When you want to learn about these reasons, you can eventually bring in the truth about the false beliefs, then take actions based on the truth. That's when the wounded self heals and true behavior change occurs.

For example, before Inner Bonding, I believed I could have control over getting compassion from others through sharing my pain, being stressed or overwhelmed, getting angry, withdrawing, crying, and explaining things. I wanted others' compassion because I wasn't giving my inner child the compassion she needed. I believed if others felt compassion for me, then they would accept me and not judge me. I wanted control over not feeling the loneliness I felt when people I cared about judged me. I didn't want to accept the truth: that I had no control over others' intent or behavior. I didn't want to accept that at times people I cared about didn't care about me, and that there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't want to accept the lonely times.
 

Then one day, after starting to practice Inner Bonding, I got it!

I was feeling miserable over feeling uncared for and I asked my guidance what I was doing to cause this. My guidance helped me to understand that I was not miserable due to others' lack of caring, but due to trying to control others instead of taking care of myself. I finally understood that I had no control over getting acceptance, caring, compassion, or understanding from another. I also had no control over whether others chose to be angry, blaming, distant, or judgmental. From the day I really took in that truth on a deep level, I stopped trying to control others’ feelings and behavior. Before that time, I would TRY to stop the controlling behavior, but it never worked. After than day, it was like magic! I changed without any effort at all. Because my belief that I could control through trying to elicit compassion in another was gone, all the behavior that resulted from that belief was gone as well.

I was able to understand all this only because I wasn't judging myself for my controlling behavior. There is no way I could have been helped by my guidance if I had been in self-judgment. It was my intent to learn about how my own controlling intent was causing my unhappiness that led to the understandings that I needed in order to change.

You might want to think of being in the intent to learn about your intent to control like being on a treasure hunt. Uncovering the treasure of your false, limiting beliefs and the resulting controlling behavior is a great adventure, one that can lead to deep peace and joy, as well as true self-love.

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."