Jordan Paul - Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved by You

After the initial publication of Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved by You? Jordan and I received many letters from readers. The letters were often similar in tone, reading, in essence: Your marriage sounds just like ours. Did you put a microphone under our bed? What you are saying about intent and controlling and getting stuck in protective circles is so true for us. The problem Im having is that I cant seem to stay open in the face of fear. As soon as my fear comes up, I go right into my protections. How do I learn to stay open in the face of fear?

This is a question we all struggle with. Around the time our book was first published, I was not doing a very good job of staying open in the face of my fears. Of course I knew about the intent to learn, and I believed in it deeply, but I couldnt maintain it when fear came up. I would go right into my traditional protectionsgiving myself up, getting angry, or making myself busy as a way to avoid dealing with my feelings. I often felt like a scared child, feeling immobilized and not knowing what to do. I had no idea how to take care of that scared child within me, and no idea how to discover the loving action toward myself that would heal the fear.

I realized that something was missing in our relationship, that something wasnt right; I prayed for guidance, for help in discovering the heart of the problem.

The answers to my concerns came soon after the publication of the first edition of Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved by You? In 1984, I met Dr. Erika Chopich, and we soon realized that we had each been developing parts of a profound inner healing process. By combining our work and thinking, the evolution of the Inner Bonding spiritual healing process began.

As I worked with the Inner Bonding process, it became clear to me that, after twenty-five years of marriage, Jordan and I were on very different paths. Sometimes people who love each other find that over the years their directions change, and they need to go off on their own paths. We separated in 1989, attempted reconciliation in 1992, and finally divorced in 1994.

Despite our separation, we remain deeply committed to the theories discussed in Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved by You? It forms the foundation of much of our later work, some of which is introduced in this revised edition.

I have been working with the Inner Bonding process personally and with clients for the past fifteen years, and I have been teaching it in workshops and five-day intensive training courses since 1992. I have discovered that until all of us are able to stay open to learning with our own pain and fear, we cannot possibly stay open to learning in conflict with another. I have discovered that there are two feelings we want to avoid at all costs and that all our protections stem from an attempt to avoid feeling these two feelings. These feelings are loneliness and helplessness.

Loneliness is not the same as aloneness. Aloneness is the feeling we have inside when we are disconnected from ourselves and from a spiritual source of comfort. We feel as if everything is on our shoulders, that we have to manage everything alone. Aloneness is something we can heal through learning to connect lovingly with ourselves and with a personal source of spiritual guidance. The Inner Bonding process is about learning how to heal our aloneness. It enables us to feel and experience that we are never alone.

Loneliness is a searingly painful feeling that radiates through the center of our being when we cannot connect lovingly with another, either because the other is closed or because there is no one available to us. When we have not learned how to manage loneliness, it touches off our infant experiences of being left alone, when we might have died if no one came. People who have not learned to manage loneliness in healthy ways often feel as if they will die if they have to feel this feeling. Feeling both alone and lonely leads to despair. Once you learn how to connect with yourself and with your spiritual guidance, loneliness becomes a very manageable feeling. Once you learn how to manage loneliness, you no longer fear it and no longer need to protect against it with addictive and controlling behavior.

When we were small, we were helpless, unable to take care of ourselves and influence others. All we had was our cry. If no one ever came to tend to us when we cried, we would have died. As we grow up, we are no longer helpless over caring for ourselves. However, we always remain helpless over othersover how they feel about us and treat us. Many people have a very hard time accepting that they are helpless over others but not over themselves. Helplessness, like loneliness, may feel like death. When we do not accept our helplessness over others, we continue to try to control them rather than take responsibility for ourselves.