The Codependence Recovery Process 

"We learned about life as children and it is necessary to change the way we intellectually view life in order to stop being the victim of the old tapes. By looking at, becoming conscious of, our attitudes, definitions, and perspectives, we can start discerning what works for us and what does not work. We can then start making choices about whether our intellectual view of life is serving us - or if it is setting us up to be victims because we are expecting life to be something which it is not."

(Quotations in maroon are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)
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"Perspective is a key to Recovery. I had to change and enlarge my perspectives of myself and my own emotions, of other people, of God and of this life business. Our perspective of life dictates our relationship with life. We have a dysfunctional relationship with life because we were taught to have a dysfunctional perspective of this life business, dysfunctional definitions of who we are and why we are here.

It is kind of like the old joke about three blind men describing an elephant by touch. Each one of them is telling his own Truth, they just have a lousy perspective. Codependence is all about having a lousy relationship with life, with being human, because we have a lousy perspective on life as a human."

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"The more we enlarge our perspective, the closer we get to the cause instead of just dealing with the symptoms. For example, the more we look at the dysfunction in our relationship with ourselves as human beings the more we can understand the dysfunction in our romantic relationships.

As was stated earlier, our perspective of life dictates our relationship with life. This is true for all types of relationships. Our perspective of God dictates our relationship with God. Our perspective of what a man or a woman is, dictates our relationship with ourselves as men or women, and with other men and women. Our perspective of our emotions dictates our relationship with our own emotional process.

Changing our perspectives is absolutely vital to the growth process."

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"We need to be willing to let go of, surrender, our ego's definitions, belief systems, expectations, in order to change our perspective of life. Then we can make the choice to align our beliefs with the concept of an unconditionally Loving God-Force."

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"The Truth is that the intellectual value systems, the attitudes, that we use in deciding what's right and wrong were not ours in the first place. We accepted on a subconscious and emotional level the values that were imposed on us as children. Even if we throw out those attitudes and beliefs intellectually as adults, they still dictate our emotional reactions. Even if, especially if, we live our lives rebelling against them. By going to either extreme accepting them without question or rejecting them without consideration we are giving power away.

In order to stop giving our power away, to stop reacting out of our inner children, to stop setting ourselves up to be victims, so that we can start learning to trust and Love ourselves, we need to begin to practice discernment. Discernment is having the eyes to see, and the ears to hear - and the ability to feel the emotional energy that is Truth."

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"We need to change our perspective and learn to practice discernment so that we can change our relationship with life and with ourselves. We need to be pro-active in our own process so that we can stop being the victims of the old tapes and start owning the power to co-create our lives in a healthy, Loving way."

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"Recovery involves bringing to consciousness those beliefs and attitudes in our subconscious that are causing our dysfunctional reactions so that we can reprogram our ego defenses to allow us to live a healthy, fulfilling life instead of just surviving. So that we can own our power to make choices for ourselves about our beliefs and values instead of unconsciously reacting to the old tapes. Recovery is consciousness raising. It is en-light-en-ment - bringing the dysfunctional attitudes and beliefs out of the darkness of our subconscious into the Light of consciousness."

Emotional

"On an emotional level the dance of Recovery is owning and honoring the emotional wounds so that we can release the grief energy - the pain, rage, terror, and shame that is driving us. 

That shame is toxic and is not ours - it never was! We did nothing to be ashamed of we were just little kids. Just as our parents were little kids when they were wounded and shamed, and their parents before them, etc., etc. This is shame about being human that has been passed down from generation to generation. 

There is no blame here, there are no bad guys, only wounded souls and broken hearts and scrambled minds." 

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"Codependence is dysfunctional because it is emotionally dishonest. As long as we are reacting out of childhood wounds and old tapes we are not capable of being in the moment in an emotionally honest, age-appropriate way. It is necessary to be healing the childhood wounds and have an emotionally honest relationship with ourselves internally in order to respond to life honestly in the moment."

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"When the role model of what a man is does not allow a man to cry or express fear, when the role model for what a woman is does not allow a woman to be angry or aggressive, that is emotional dishonesty. When the standards of a society deny the full range of the emotional spectrum and label certain emotions as negative - that is not only emotionally dishonest, it creates emotional disease. If a culture is based on emotional dishonesty, with role models that are not honest emotionally, then that culture is also emotionally dysfunctional - because the people of that society are set up to be emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional in getting their emotional needs met. What we traditionally have called normal parenting in this society is abusive - because it is emotionally dishonest."

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"We live in emotionally dishonest and Spiritually hostile societies. Trying to get sane in an insane world is crazy-making!" 

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"We are set up to be emotionally dysfunctional by our role models, both parental and societal. We are taught to repress and distort our emotional process. We are trained to be emotionally dishonest when we are children."

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"Attempting to suppress emotions is dysfunctional; it does not work. Emotions are energy: E-motion = energy in motion. It is supposed to be in motion, it was meant to flow. Emotions have a purpose, a very good reason to be even those emotions that feel uncomfortable. Fear is a warning, anger is for protection, tears are for cleansing and releasing. These are not negative emotional responses! We were taught to react negatively to them. It is our reaction that is dysfunctional and negative, not the emotion.

Emotional honesty is absolutely vital to the health of the being. Denying, distorting, and blocking our emotions in reaction to false beliefs and dishonest attitudes causes emotional and mental disease. This emotional and mental disease causes physical, biological imbalance which produces physical disease.

Codependence is a deadly and fatal disease because of emotional dishonesty and suppression. It breaks our hearts, scrambles our minds, and eventually kills our physical body vehicles because of the Spiritual dis-ease, because of our wounded souls.

The key to healing our wounded souls is to get clear and honest in our emotional process. Until we can get clear and honest with our human emotional responses - until we change the twisted, distorted, negative perspectives and reactions to our human emotions that are a result of having been born into, and grown up in, a dysfunctional, emotionally repressive, Spiritually hostile environment - we cannot get clearly in touch with the level of emotional energy that is Truth. We cannot get clearly in touch with and reconnected to our Spiritual Self."

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Quotations in maroon are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney (Copyright 1995). Quotations from columns & articles (Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000) written by Mr. Burney are noted and in blue text. Blue text material that is not in quotes is from Robert's upcoming book Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light (Copyright 1999) unless otherwise noted. There are several authors quoted in excerpts from The Dance of Wounded Souls, those are noted with copyright acknowledgment at the end of the applicable page.