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Browse published articles attributed to Margaret Paul, with full-archive search.
___________________________________________________________________Do you have the courage to do the things you are afraid of, or do you allow fear to stop you? ___________________________________________________________________ "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it." ~Nelson Mandela "He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life." ~Muhammad Ali
Our imagination is a great gift - a connection with our Divine Source - when we use it from an inwardly connected loving Adult to create the life we want.
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. April 18, 2016 ____________________________________________________________ Have you wondered if you have an abandonment issue? Discover the answer to this question in this article – and what to do about it. ____________________________________________________________
Discover what you may need to address before deciding whether you can be friends with an ex partner. Elise writes: "My partner and I separated a year ago. My partner now wants to finalize the relationship but work on being 'friends'. I am having difficulty connecting as just 'friends', it seems to trigger all my old wounds of rejection and abandonment. Do you have any advice?"
Are you being selfish if you do what brings you joy, even if others don't like it? Do you feel trapped, believing you can't really take loving care of yourself without being unloving to others? One of the questions I often hear from my clients is, "If I take care of myself and do what brings me joy, aren't I being selfish?"
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."
Is there a difference between loving yourself and loving others, or are they one and the same? ________________________________________ Have you ever been confused about the boundary between loving yourself and also being loving to others?
Are you stuck in your relationship not being able to talk about sex, or getting into power struggles about sex? Sean wrote in the following question on one of my free webinars about sexuality:
________________________________________ Do you have a mother wound that plagues you in your life and your relationships? ________________________________________ Many of us have a deep and painful mother wound from not receiving the nurturing we needed. Without adequate healing, this wound can follow you around your whole life and affect all your relationships. Are you still trying to get the love from your mother that you did not receive as a child? This is the situation that Katie is in:
A major aspect of loving yourself is taking the loving action suggested by your spiritual guidance. I cannot even begin to tell you how much my life has changed since I’ve been following the advice of my guidance rather than my ego wounded self. Here are just a few of the changes that have occurred for me: I no longer feel anxious, fearful or depressed. I feel peaceful, joyful and excited about my life most of the time. Judgments of myself are a thing of the past. I feel a deep sense of self-worth instead of believing I’m not good enough.
By Dr. Margaret Paul May 16, 2016 Are you using your spirituality as a "spiritual bypass" to avoid feeling your feelings and taking responsibility for them? Lian had been meditating for many years before consulting with me for his depression. He had been part of a spiritual community that encouraged their members to turn to God through prayer and meditation whenever they were feeling any difficult or painful feelings such as anger, hurt, anxiety or depression. He had been taught that Spirit would transmute his feelings for him and bring him the inner peace he sought.
Do you understand the power of kindness to change your life? "Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again." Og Mandino, 1923-1996, Author
________________________________________ Are you tired of being overweight and food addicted? There is a way to heal. ________________________________________ Pamela writes this question for my webinar on food addiction:
Have you tried unsuccessfully to heal a sugar addiction? Here's how! Are you sugar addicted? You are not alone!
________________________________________ Do you sometimes have confusion regarding the value of a relationship? ________________________________________ Jeanine asked me the following question at one of my free webinars:
________________________________________ Do you have mostly one-way or two-way conversations? What kind of conversationalist are you? ________________________________________ What happens in your conversations with people? The kind of conversation you have with someone says a lot about both you and them. There are mainly two kinds of conversations: one-way conversations and two-way conversations. One-Way Conversations
Do you love your partner but find that the intensity and intimacy have become muted? Discover why. Patti asked the following question in one of my webinars on sexuality:
________________________________________ Learn what you can do when you don't feel appreciated by your partner. ________________________________________ Chris wrote this question for one of my relationship webinars: "What do you do when you feel you are not loved for who you are? How do you accept your relationship when you don't feel appreciated, or you think it's your fault for what happens in your life? How can you change your relationship? How can you make it better?" There are two ways of dealing with this issue. Explore Within
Infidelity is a huge challenge, but relationships can heal from this and actually become stronger. Sheldon wrote this question to me during one of my free webinars:
________________________________________ Discover the major cause of relationship failure and what to do about it. ________________________________________ Most people, when asked if they want a loving relationship, will say that having a loving relationship is one of the two most important things to them – along with having work they love. Why, then, do so many relationships fail? If we want to go deeply into why relationships fail, we need to go all the way back to the parental relationship.
Learn about the feeling of ‘elevation’ and why you might be moved to tears and benevolence by witnessing acts of kindness. Have you ever been moved to tears by acts of kindness? This happens to me all the time and I’ve often wondered about it. I recently read an article by Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor, where he wrote about tearing up at watching the Pope’s kindness. (https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/europe/pope-elevation/index.html).
Are you willing to do the inner work you need to do to possibly save your relationship? Many people, like Aaron who asked the following question, seek my help because either their partner is no longer in love with them, or they are no longer in love with their partner. Aaron asks:
Discover what a boundary is and what it isn't. Merilee wrote the following question to me in one of my relationship webinars: "Hi Dr. Paul -- One of my biggest struggles is being open to giving and receiving love, but also setting boundaries. I want to be loving, not controlling, but I don't want people to say or treat me in ways that I don't like. How to reconcile?"
Do you want to share love, but find yourself pulling away or pushing others away? Do you find yourself wanting love but being afraid to really open to it? This is the situatio Marley finds herself in:
________________________________________ Do you sometimes feel like you try to give your partner the connection he or she wants and can't figure out how? ________________________________________
Are you longing for connection? Discover what you need to do to create loving connection with another. Deeply connecting with another is one of the great joys of life, and is something most of us long for. Deep connection takes away loneliness and gives us the experience of being deeply known. We feel safe and loved when our hearts connect. Research indicates that the happiest people in the world are those who live in communities where they feel connected with each other.
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. January 18, 2016 __________________________________________________________________ When others are mean or rejecting, do you tend to take their behavior personally? __________________________________________________________________ One of the biggest issues that many people struggle with is taking other people's behavior personally. Why do we do this? Lila asked:
Learn how to embrace life as the sacred privilege it is rather than be stuck just getting through. Peter experiences life as a burden - a sentence to get through that is filled with suffering. Peter trudges through his life, experiencing little joy. He works hard, makes enough money to feel financially secure enough to take care of his family, and spends little time in connection with others. To Peter, life has no real purpose other than to make money and do the best he can to feel safe.
Discover what to do if you are stuck not being able to love yourself. When you were growing up, did you feel important to your parents? Did they attend to you in loving ways to show you how important you were to them? Or, did you often feel like a bother or a burden to them? Did either of your parents or caregivers role-model loving themselves? Did your caregivers think they were important enough to truly value themselves and take loving care of themselves?
________________________________________ Are you able to stand in your truth, or do you let others talk you out of what you know is right for you? ________________________________________ When the biblical floods hit Colorado on September 12th, I texted my daughter to see if they were okay. "We’re Ok, the house isn't." I called immediately. "There's a six foot wall of water in our back yard. The creek is a huge raging river!" she shouted, panicked. Six weeks prior, we had moved from Durango, to Berthoud, Colorado, into a huge house.
A circle of love is the result of people being together with open hearts, and is the most wonderful experience in life. Have you ever experienced a circle of love?
________________________________________ 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.
Do you hide from your feelings when you are challenged by life? Or do you allow your feelings to overwhelm you? You CAN learn to manage them and learn from them. "The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles." ~ Be ard M. Baruch "How can I get this pain to go away?"
Do you really see your children? If you operate from core shame and cannot see the beauty of your own essence, your children will not feel seen by you. Yet they need to be seen by you to truly value themselves.
________________________________________ Are you in a relationship with a man who is not sexual? You are not alone! ________________________________________ In a question to me on one of my webinars, Melanie writes: "My husband is very loving, but not very sexual. I've tried to talk to him about this many times in non-threatening ways, but his lack of enthusiasm toward sex makes it very difficult to engage myself when he finally does get around to feeling sexual. We have zero intimacy mentally and very little physically."r
Are you asking your higher self for the loving action and not receiving answers? Ernie was having trouble accessing his higher self. He wanted to know about the loving action toward himself, but he couldn't seem to receive any answers. Because his inner child often felt abandoned and unloved due to the lack of loving action, Ernie often felt disconnected and depressed.
Do you get stuck in not being able to resolve conflicts because you don't know how to bring up issues in a way that works? Bringing up difficult issues is often a major challenge in relationships. Laurie wrote to me about this issue:
________________________________________ Do you often crave solitude, or is being alone too lonely for you? There is an inherent reason for these differences. ________________________________________ "Language has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone, and the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone." –Benjamin Tillett I find this quote very interesting in the light of recent research on introversion and extroversion.
Is your relationship stuck in a pattern of blame where you both feel like victims of the other person?
What do you do when your partner shuts you out? Do you know that being shut out and stonewalled is even more hurtful than being yelled at? Children would rather get yelled at or even hit than ignored. This is why the worst punishment for prisoners is solitary confinement. Yet, along with overt anger, withdrawal is the most common form of controlling behavior in relationships. Just as the fear of anger keeps partners from addressing issues, so does the fear of a partner's withdrawal. Loretta is struggling with this issue.
By Margaret Paul Ph.D. February 22, 2016 Have you been in love with a narcissist? Are you now going through pain and confusion as a result of the relationship ending?
Have you ever wondered if your desire to share time with a partner is coming from need or neediness? Sometimes it's a challenge to know what are reasonable relationship needs and when we are being needy. Klarese is asking this important question:
Discover the many good reasons for having animals in your life. “Until a person has loved an animal a part of the soul remains unawakened." ~Anatole France People who love animals know that there are many very good reasons to have animals in your life.
______________________________________ What's really happening when someone blames and shames you? If you stopped taking it personally, what would you be feeling? ________________________________________ What do you generally do when someone blames you for his or her feelings? Do you find yourself taking it personally and blaming yourself? This is what Melinda struggles with:
________________________________________ Do you keep attracting narcissistic or emotionally unavailable partners? You CAN learn to attract a healthy partner! ________________________________________ Have you found yourself continually attracting the same kind of unhealthy person into your life, such as people who are narcissistic or emotionally unavailable? This is the situatio Connie finds herself in.
By Margaret Paul, PhDr November 28, 2016 Do you often feel out of place and like an alien in some groups? Discover how to love yourself in group situations. "She's very shy," my parents used to say to people when I was quiet. From their tone, I thought it wasn't a good thing to be shy. I thought being shy meant there was something wrong with me.
By Margaret Paul, PhDr February 20, 2017 Discover how loving it is to yourself to understand the amazing difference between blame and responsibility. Growing up, most of us had numerous experiences of being blamed. I was frequently blamed for things that I was too young to understand, or for things that I didn't do 'right', or for things that, to me, didn't seem worthy of blame.
Do you know who you are in your essence? If you knew that your core Self, your essence, was a sacred being, an individualized expression of Spirit, would you treat yourself differently than you currently do?
Are you addicted to fixing others? Do you believe this is loving rather than controlling? Many of us were raised to base our identity on helping or fixing others. Fixing others is often the addiction of choice for people who have a naturally deep level of empathy and who easily feel others’ pain. This was one of my major addictions for many years. Deeply feeling my parents' pain and the pain of others around me was unbearable to me as a child. I thought that if only I could make them happy then I wouldn't have to feel their pain. Leslie is struggling with this very issue:
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. February 15, 2016 _______________________________________________________________________________ The state of Divine Grace is a most wonderful experience, and it's available to all of us – even if you are an atheist. ________________________________________________________________________________