Sustainable Emotional Growth and Lasting Change Beyond the Quick Fix: How to Approach Inner Bonding

It’s Growth, Not Fixing

What you can do, though, is grow into an ever more Loving Adult. You can embrace the journey of growth, with all its ups and downs. You can learn what is truly helpful for your growth and healing, and let go of the rest. It’s a process of allowing yourself to plant a tree and patiently watching it grow, nurturing it with just the right amount of water and care.

Also, don’t misunderstand this: You might feel a lot of pain and be truly searching for a way out. I’m not saying here, that there is no “way out.” It’s just that the way out looks different than you might think. To cite Thich Nhat Hanh, the famous Zen Master, “the way out is in”. It’s about accepting what is and truly turning toward it with love and compassion. From this place, we learn to tend to our wounds and gradually grow. But please don’t believe this is bad news. While we’re growing, there is tremendous relief. We don’t have to wait for relief until we’re finally completely healed.

Why Are We So Desperate to Fix Ourselves?

Why, after all, are we trying so hard to fix ourselves? What is so unacceptable about who we are that we frantically try to hide it, fix it and or get rid of it? The drive to fix ourselves is often a form of survival perfectionism. It’s fueled by shame and anxiety, and for many of us, it’s deeply rooted in our upbringing or societal experiences.

The Roots of Perfectionism

Perfectionism often becomes a survival strategy. In his book “Complex PTSD”, Pete Walker describes how this response is an attempt of a child in a toxic environment to feel in control—over getting the love, attention, safety, security, and protection it needs.

It’s a way to protect ourselves because, as children, we were too small to fully feel the heartbreak, loneliness, and grief over the shortcomings of our caregivers. These caregivers should have been there to love us unconditionally. But without another loving, attuned, compassionate, and grounded adult to support us, we couldn’t process those feelings.

Instead, we concluded that the problem must lie within us. We believed that if only we could change ourselves and be better, we could finally be safe. This belief might have helped us survive, but it now drives us into burnout, inner emptiness, anxiety, and pain.

The Perfectionist Trap in Healing

This perfectionism doesn’t stop at our struggles—it jumps onto everything we do. Even in our healing journeys, it sneaks in. Inner Bonding perfection is a fantasy. There is no such a thing as a perfect Inner Bonder. We need to be aware of this trap so we don’t fall prey to it again. Let’s stop playing the same old game.

Choosing a Different Intention

That’s why setting our intention is such a key aspect of Inner Bonding. We choose to let go of the survival strategy—the intention of our wounded self—that tries to protect us from pain or control getting love, safety, and security.

Instead, we choose an intention of learning: to understand what is in our highest good and the highest good of all concerned, moment by moment. In doing so, we accept reality as it is and stop trying to get a grip on the ever-flowing, ever-changing river of life.

The Grace of Healing

When we practice this, what we find is beyond anything our perfectionism-driven wounded self could imagine. It’s not about the temporary, dopamine-releasing high of believing we’ve finally “fixed” ourselves.

Instead, we find the grace of being connected to unconditional love, acceptance, and inner peace. This connection supports us as we heal through the challenges of our adult lives.

Healing and integration aren’t the kind of painful experiences we often imagine. Graceful healing feels more like removing a long-forgotten thorn from your flesh. It’s a relief so profound that it surpasses the fleeting comfort of indulging in salvation fantasies.

Accepting Life as It Is

Healing invites us to accept life as it truly is: messy, pain- and joyful, ever-evolving, growing, and changing. By doing so, we discover freedom, ease, and perspective—qualities we cannot find when we are trapped in the cycle of trying to fix ourselves.

So, I invite you to gradually let go of any salvation fantasies. I invite you to embrace the journey of healing and growth. Allow yourself to experience the beauty of being human, messy and imperfect, but deeply alive and ever-expanding.