Reaping the benefits of working with the Six Steps of Inner Bonding® is pretty straightforward- any time we are feeling anything less than peace, do a process!

Step 1 - Be Present with Feelings and Take Responsibility for Them. In this step we notice and explore what’s happening in the body. What are the sensations? What are the emotions underneath them? Then we purposefully take responsibility for any way that we may be creating the emotions. Is it available to be curious about what things might be in our power to change? To our core, existential pain, the pain that is an unavoidable part of being human, we bring deep compassion and presence.

Step 2 - Setting Intentions- Choosing the Willingness to be Loving to Yourself. Step 2 invites us to choose the intention to learn to be loving to ourselves, over the only other option, which is to be in the intention to control, avoid and protect. We consciously lay down our weapons of war and invite the presence of love and compassion into our hearts. This inner opening and use of our free will give rise to a Loving Adult presence that is actively seeking the truth and can attend deeply to the needs of our Inner Child.

Step 3 - Dialoguing with the Inner Child and Wounded Self. Just as an attuned adult would be moved by compassion to ask a real child what was causing their pain, we tenderly ask our Inner Child what we are doing or saying or how we are treating them or abandoning them that is causing their pain. Then we approach our Wounded Self, the programmed part of us that was created in response to the painful experiences in our childhood, to explore the very good reasons that it is choosing to control or protect in those ways. Its protective tactics may have actually saved our lives when we were kids, but now its choices and false beliefs are disrupting our adult lives and causing us pain.

Step 4 - Ask Guidance for the Truth About Beliefs or Situations, and about Loving Actions. We invite our personal source of Guidance, Wisdom and Love to teach us the truth about the false, Wounded Beliefs that we discovered in Step 3 that are creating our pain. We ask to be shown the next right action that supports our highest good and is loving to us. 

Step 5 - Take the Loving Action. We follow and act on the impressions and directions that came to us in Step 4. 

Step 6 - Evaluate the Impact of Taking the Loving Action. Do we feel an increase in peace and well-being? Have we experienced a sense of relief? These are the indicators that we are on the right path for us, the path that leads to healing and growth. If that isn’t the result, then we go back through the steps.

For a more detailed explanation of the Six Steps, sign up for the free seven- day course on the Inner Bonding® website. The 7 Lessons to Inner Peace and Joy | Inner Bonding