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) 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 1998) 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.
Truth (with a capital T) vs emotional truth
"Truth, in my understanding, is not an intellectual
concept. I believe that Truth is an emotional energy, vibrational communication
to my consciousness, to my soul/spirit, my being, from my Soul. Truth is
an emotion, something that I feel within.
It is that feeling within when someone says, or writes,
or sings, something in just the right words so that I suddenly feel a deeper
understanding. It is that "AHA" feeling. The feeling of a light bulb going
on in my head. That "Oh, I get it!" feeling. The intuitive feeling when
something just feels right . . . or wrong. It's that gut feeling, the feeling
in my heart. It is the feeling of something resonating within me."
*
"We are involved in a process, a journey, on multiple
levels. One level is, of course, the individual level. Another
much higher level is the level of the Collective Human Soul: the
ONE Soul of which we are all extensions, of which we are all manifestations.
We are all experiencing a Spiritual evolutionary
process which is unfolding perfectly and always has been. Everything
is unfolding perfectly according to Divine plan, in alignment with precise,
mathematically, musically attuned laws of energy interaction."
*
"We have a feeling place (stored emotional energy),
and an arrested ego-state within us for an age that relates to each of
those developmental stages. Sometimes we react out of our three-year-old,
sometimes out of our fifteen-year-old, sometimes out of the seven-year-old
that we were.
If you are in a relationship, check it out the next
time you have a fight: Maybe you are both coming out of your twelve-year-olds.
If you are a parent, maybe the reason you have a problem sometimes is because
you are reacting to your six-year-old child out of the six-year-old child
within you. If you have a problem with romantic relationships maybe it
is because your fifteen-year-old is picking your mates for you.
The next time something does not go the way you wanted
it to, or just when you are feeling low, ask yourself how old you are feeling.
What you might find is that you are feeling like a bad little girl, a bad
little boy, and that you must have done something wrong because it feels
like you are being punished.
Just because it feels like you are being punished
does not mean that is the Truth.
Feelings are real - they are emotional energy that
is manifested in our body - but they are not necessarily fact.
What we feel is our "emotional truth" and it does
not necessarily have anything to do with either facts or the emotional
energy that is Truth with a capital "T" - especially when we our reacting
out of an age of our inner child.
If we are reacting out of what our emotional truth
was when we were five or nine or fourteen, then we are not capable of responding
appropriately to what is happening in the moment; we are not being in the
now."
*
"We, each and every one of us, has an inner channel
to Truth, an inner channel to the Great Spirit. But that inner channel
is blocked up with repressed emotional energy, and with twisted, distorted
attitudes and false beliefs.
We can intellectually throw out false beliefs. We
can intellectually remember and embrace the Truth of ONENESS and Light
and Love. But we cannot integrate Spiritual Truths into our day-to-day
human existence, in a way which allows us to substantially change the dysfunctional
behavior patterns that we had to adopt to survive, until we deal with our
emotional wounds. Until we deal with the subconscious emotional programming
from our childhoods.
We cannot learn to Love without honoring our Rage!
We cannot allow ourselves to be Truly intimate with
ourselves or anyone else without owning our Grief.
We cannot reconnect clearly with the Light unless
we are willing to own and honor our experience of the Darkness.
We cannot fully feel the Joy unless we are willing
to feel the Sadness."
*
"It is necessary to own and honor the child who we
were in order to Love the person we are. And the only way to do that is
to own that child's experiences, honor that child's feelings, and release
the emotional grief energy that we are still carrying around."
*
"One of most important steps to empowerment is integrating
Spiritual Truth into our experience of the process. In order to do that
it is necessary to practice discernment in our relationship with the emotional
and mental components of our being.
We learned to relate to our inner process from a
reversed perspective. We were trained to be emotionally dishonest (that
is, to not feel the feelings or to go to the other extreme by allowing
the feelings to totally run our lives) and to give power to, to buy into,
the reversed attitudes (it is shameful to be human, it is bad to make mistakes,
God is punishing and judgmental etc.) To find balance within we have to
change our relationship with our inner process.
Feeling and releasing the emotional energy without
giving power to the false beliefs is a vital component of achieving balance
between the emotional and the mental. The more we align ourselves attitudinally,
and clear out our inner channel, the easier it is for us to pick out the
Truth from amid the dysfunctional attitudes - so that we can set an internal
boundary between the emotional and mental.
Feelings are real but they are not necessarily fact
or Truth.
We can feel like a victim and still know that the
fact is we set ourselves up. We can feel like we made a mistake and still
know that every mistake is an opportunity for growth, a perfect part of
the learning process. We can feel betrayed or abandoned or shamed, and
still know that we have just been given an opportunity to become aware
of an area that needs some light shined on it, an issue that needs some
healing.
We can have moments where we feel like God/life is
punishing us and still know that "This, too, shall pass" and "More will
be revealed," - that later on, down the path a ways, we will be able to
look back and see that what we perceived in the moment to be tragedy and
injustice is really just another opportunity for growth, another gift of
fertilizer to help us grow.
I needed to learn how to set boundaries within, both
emotionally and mentally by integrating Spiritual Truth into my process.
Because "I feel feel like a failure" does not mean that is the Truth. The
Spiritual Truth is that "failure" is an opportunity for growth. I can set
a boundary with my emotions by not buying into the illusion that what I
am feeling is who I am. I can set a boundary intellectually by telling
that part of my mind that is judging and shaming me to shut up, because
that is my disease lying to me. I can feel and release the emotional pain
energy at the same time I am telling myself the Truth by not buying into
the shame and judgment.
If I am feeling like a "failure" and giving power
to the "critical parent" voice within that is telling me that I am a failure
- then I can get stuck in a very painful place where I am shaming myself
for being me. In this dynamic I am being the victim of myself and also
being my own perpetrator - and the next step is to rescue myself by using
one of the old tools to go unconscious (food, alcohol, sex, etc.) Thus
the disease has me running around in a squirrel cage of suffering and shame,
a dance of pain, blame, and self-abuse.
By learning to set a boundary with and between our
emotional truth, what we feel, and our mental perspective, what we believe
- in alignment with the Spiritual Truth we have integrated into the process
- we can honor and release the feelings without buying into the false beliefs.
The more we can learn intellectual discernment within,
so that we are not giving power to false beliefs, the clearer we can become
in seeing and accepting our own personal path. The more honest and balanced
we become in our emotional process, the clearer we can become in following
our own personal Truth."
"We are Spiritual beings having a human experience - not weak,
shameful creatures who are here being punished or tested for worthiness.
We are part of/an extension of an ALL-Powerful, Unconditionally Loving
God-Force/Goddess Energy/Great Spirit, and we are here on Earth going to
boarding school - not condemned to prison. The sooner that we can start
awakening to that Truth, the sooner we can start treating ourselves in
more nurturing, Loving ways.
The natural healing process - like nature itself - regularly serves
up new beginnings. We do not reach a state of being that is "happily ever
after." We are continuously changing and growing. We keep getting new lessons/opportunities
for growth. Which is a real pain in the derriere sometimes - but is still
better than the alternative, which is to not grow and get stuck repeating
the same lessons over and over again."
(Column "Spring & Nurturing" by Robert Burney)
Return to Joy to You & Me Home Page
The column "Spring & Nurturing" appears on the
web page entitled Spring & Nurturing
Copyright Material belonging to Robert Burney PO Box 977
Cambria, CA 93428
|