Side splits... Am I doing them properly?

I'm a foot away from the ground and have been stretching everyday for two weeks. I think I'm afraid to go down further and on top of that I think I may be tearing muscle tissue because I can't tell if I'm stretching too hard. And when I do turnout stretches (butterfly and related) my inner thigh joints feel like they need to pop but they won't. What does that mean? How should I address it? I know I can do the side splits all the way down I have before but is there something that'll make me less afraid? And how do you do split stretches properly?