How to Apply the GPS+I Framework to Inner Child and Wounds

You’ve done the inner work. You know the language. You understand that childhood experiences shape adult patterns. You’ve done enough work that this isn’t new information.

And still, the same patterns keep appearing. The undercharging. The invisibility. The way certain clients seem to find you even when you’re trying to attract a different kind. The ceiling that shows up just when things are going well.

Here’s the piece many inner work frameworks miss: the issue often isn’t your manifesting technique, your business strategy, or even your mindset work. The issue is something the Counter-Intention Detection Framework calls counter-intentions — the subconscious beliefs that run louder than your conscious desires.

And those counter-intentions almost always trace back to the inner child.

Take this slowly. If any of it stirs something, pause. Read in pieces if that serves you better. There’s no rush.

What Counter-Intentions Are

A counter-intention is a subconscious belief that opposes your conscious goal.

You consciously want to charge more. Subconsciously, a part of you believes that charging more makes you selfish, or invites abandonment, or means you’ll be seen and judged. Both are real. The subconscious one runs at a deeper level — and it tends to win.

The tell is the “but” formula:
– “I want to grow my business, but I’m afraid of what success will cost me.”
– “I want to be more visible, but standing out never felt safe.”
– “I want to charge what I’m worth, but part of me doesn’t believe I am.”

What comes after “but” is the counter-intention. And counter-intentions don’t live in the reasoning mind. They were formed before the reasoning mind was fully developed. They live in the inner child.

Applying the GPS+I Framework to Counter-Intentions

The GPS+I framework — Goal, Problem, Solutions, Integration — offers a structured four-week approach to working through any block. Here’s how to apply it specifically to inner child wounds and counter-intentions.

Week 1 — Goal: Name What You Actually Want

Before you can address the counter-intention, you need to be specific about the goal it’s blocking.

Not “I want to be more successful.” That’s too abstract to work with.

“I want to raise my rates to reflect what I know the work is worth.”

“I want to launch my programme without pulling back at the last moment.”

“I want to be able to receive a compliment or a payment without immediately minimising it.”

Specific goals reveal specific counter-intentions. Once the goal is clear, the “but” becomes audible.

Week 2 — Problem: Find the Counter-Intention and Its Root

This is where the inner child work begins.

Take your specific goal. Notice what happens in your body when you imagine actually achieving it. Not the thought of it — the felt reality of it. Stay with that feeling.

Now ask: what is the belief underneath this feeling? Use the “but” formula.

“I want to charge what I’m worth, but…” and let whatever comes up, come up.

Once you have the counter-intention named, take it back further.

When did you first learn this? It often isn’t a single dramatic event. It’s more like a pattern that accumulated. A household where charging felt greedy. A parent who struggled financially and for whom money was stress. A message in your family of origin that ambitious people weren’t kind people.

The counter-intention didn’t appear from nowhere. It was learned. And it was learned by a child who had no other framework to make sense of what they were experiencing.

You don’t have to fully trace the origin in the first pass. Even noticing “this belief is old, and it came from somewhere” is significant.

Week 3 — Solutions: Apply the Technique to the Wound

Now you bring something to the wound.

The most important thing to understand here: you’re not going to the wound to fix it. You’re going to meet it. To witness it. To offer what was missing.

Practice: The Private Thought Audit

This comes from the core insight of counter-intention work: your private thoughts — the ones you never say aloud — have more manifesting power than your public declarations.

For one week, track what you actually think about your goal in the private moments. When you imagine raising your rates, what do you really think? When you imagine being more visible, what does your internal monologue say?

Write it without censoring. What you find there is the real operating belief.

Practice: The Inner Letter

Write a short letter to the age version of yourself who first formed this counter-intention. Not to fix them. Just to be present.

“I see you. You learned that wanting things led to problems. You were trying to stay safe. That made sense then. And I want to tell you — the world you’re in now is different. You don’t have to keep protecting us in that way.”

Let it be messy. Let it be imperfect. The goal isn’t a polished document. The goal is genuine contact.

Week 4 — Integration: Live From the Updated Belief

Integration is the hardest part. It’s also the most overlooked.

Understanding a wound, even feeling it, doesn’t automatically change the behaviour patterns that formed around it. Those patterns are grooved. They’ll reassert.

Integration means taking consistent small actions from the updated belief. Sending the proposal at the full rate. Accepting the compliment without immediately minimising it. Asking for help with one small thing.

These actions feel uncomfortable at first. That’s expected. The discomfort isn’t evidence that you’ve made a mistake. It’s evidence that you’re doing something genuinely new.

Track the evidence differently, too. Instead of tracking whether it worked perfectly, track whether you did the thing despite the counter-intention. That’s the metric that matters in the early stages of integration.

What Shifts

When you work through counter-intentions at the level of the inner child — not just naming them, but meeting the part of you that formed them and offering a different message — the beliefs begin to update.

Not because you forced them. Because you kept showing up.

The visibility becomes less threatening because the child underneath it has been met enough times to begin to trust that it’s safe.

The charging becomes more possible because the belief that charging means abandonment has been examined and found to be historical, not current.

This is the integration piece nobody gave you: the inner child work and the business work aren’t separate. The wound under the counter-intention is the thing that’s been making the strategy not quite stick.

If you want to work through this inside a community of conscious entrepreneurs who understand exactly what it means to know all the right things and still feel something holding the whole thing back, explore the Abundance GPS community on Skool. Free trial available. Come as you are.