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Co-Creation: Owning your Power to Manifest Love - Codependency Recovery
Co-Creation - Empowerment through Response-Ability
The single most important step in this inner healing work is detachment. It is developing a detached level of consciousness - and observer / witness perspective - that allows us to start practicing discernment in relationship to both our inner and outer process. This facilitates the process of learning how to have internal boundaries so that we can start having the wisdom and clarity to integrate a Loving Spiritual belief system and intellectual knowledge of healthy behavior into our emotional relationship with life. Then we are able to start achieving some emotional balance, and start owning our power to be a positive conscious co-creator of our life experience - a Loving, mature, empowered force in our own lives, instead of an unconscious co-creator out of the negative, self abusive, self sabotaging reactions that are caused by our emotional wounds and the codependent behavior patterns adapted in childhood.
By developing detachment we can start practicing discernment - having the wisdom to know the difference between the things we cannot change and the things which we can - which will allow us to develop internal boundaries so that we can stop being the victim of our wounds and dysfunctional intellectual programming. Developing some detachment from our own internal process is necessary so we can stop reacting and learn to respond in the moment in a healthy, mature manner - as an empowered, Spiritually enlightened adult, instead of a frightened, wounded child.
Awakening to Higher Consciousness
On January 3, 2002 I will celebrate 18 years of being clean and sober. I have actually been clean and sober now for longer than I drank and used. An amazing miracle that has unfolded one day at a time. Some of those days were excruciatingly painful - full of hopelessness and despair. In early recovery, I didn't make it through those days sober because I wanted to be sober - or because I wanted to be alive. I made it through one day at a time because I was terrified of returning to, and getting stuck in, the hell I had been living in for the last 4 or 5 years of my drinking.
There is an old AA saying that: Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't open up the gates of heaven and let us in - it opens up the gates of hell and lets us out. When I got released from my alcoholic hell, what I found myself experiencing was life. The very thing I had been drinking to cope with!
What I realize now, is that I was released from alcoholic hell and found myself in codependent hell. My relationship with my self and with life condemned me to codependent hell - and alcohol and drugs had given me a vacation of sorts from dealing with the fact that I did not have a clue of how to live life in a functional way.
I am very, very grateful now that I am a recovering alcoholic. If I had not found alcohol and drugs, I would have killed myself in one way or another in my late teens or early twenties. My 17 plus year drinking career kept me alive long enough to be present when planetary conditions changed so that the New Age of Healing and Joy could dawn in human consciousness. Long enough to have available to me, the tools and knowledge to be able to heal my wounded soul and learn to live life in a way that works. Long enough that first Adult Children of Alcoholics, and then Co-Dependents Anonymous meetings, were available to help me in my healing process.
Detachment and Delayed Gratification
I can see now, that the reason I was able to stay sober was because of two concepts that are invaluable to any healing or growth. The first one made the second possible. It is the first of these concepts that is the single most important step in the inner healing process - the one that I stress so much to anyone I am working with on how to change and improve the quality of their lives.
That concept is detachment.
Codependence is a compulsively reactive condition. I had gone through life like a pin ball - bouncing / reacting from one point to the next, from one person to the next. It was never my fault. Someone, or something else, was always to blame for how messed up my life was - for how awful I felt inside. I focused on blame and resentment because the only alternative that I knew was to blame myself. I was at war inside of myself - and because I was taught to look outside for definition and worth by the society I grew up in, I tried to assign the blame externally for that internal war.
At the core of codependency is shame about being human. This shame was caused by a polarized, black and white intellectual paradigm that empowered the perspective that the only alternatives for evaluating worth, for determining value, are right and wrong. Human beings are incapable of being perfect based upon a perspective in which the only alternatives are right and wrong.
Codependency is a dysfunctional relationship with life, with being human. It is the dance I learned to do as a little kid. It is a dance whose music is generated from fear and shame, to a rhythm dictated by black and white thinking. It is a dance characterized by movement between extremes - blame them or blame me, overreact or underreact, less than or better than, success or failure, win or lose, etc., - which makes balance impossible. There is no middle ground in a dance that can only be done right or wrong. There can be no inner peace.
Since I was continually attempting to do life perfect (or rebelling by going to the opposite extreme) according to false beliefs about the nature and purpose of being human, I could never have any inner peace. I judged my self and my life experience, both consciously and unconsciously, out of a dysfunctional polarized belief system - so that it was not possible to stop being at war within. At the core of my being I felt like I was a defective monster, some kind of shameful, unlovable loser - and I tried to deflect some of that pain by blaming others.
No wonder I drank. Alcohol - and later drugs of various kinds - saved my life.
The first thing I had to do to get sober was to detach enough from my personal reality - from my hellish emotional pain and shame, from the intellectual garbage generated by my twisted codependent thinking - to become conscious of the reality that alcohol was not working for me anymore. I had to get conscious enough to be able to realize that it had been many years since alcohol had given me the relief and good feelings that it had when I started drinking.
With any addictive, mind / mood altering substance / behavior, the very thing that brought some relief from the internal war and mental anguish - the substance or behavior that gives us feelings of being high, of rising above our lives of quiet desperation, of feeling good - becomes something that we feel is necessary just to feel normal. Then eventually, normal becomes very low indeed.
I had to detach from myself enough to look at my life from a perspective that allowed me to see that maybe my behavior had something to do with why I was so miserable - but that is was not because I was a shameful being. The twelve step concept of powerlessness - the idea that alcoholism was a disease rather than a weakness of character - allowed me to detach and view my behavior, my drinking and using, with enough objectivity to start seeing reality with more clarity.
Once I surrendered to the reality that alcohol was hurting me rather than helping me, then I could make some effort to start living life differently. It was necessary for me to get a detached, objective look at myself in order for me to get honest enough with myself to decide that it might be better for me to get sober. I did not stop drinking because I wanted to stop drinking. I stopped drinking because alcohol and drugs were not working for me any more. When I was able to look at reality with some detachment, I could see that what I thought was the solution had actually become the most pressing problem.
The second concept that was so valuable in staying sober and starting to change my life, was the concept of delayed gratification. When I first started recovery, I thought that living life one day at a time was a revolutionary concept for me. But looking back now, I can see that living life one day at a time is what I had been doing all my life. The difference was that I had been living out of instant gratification.
As I describe on my page The codependent three step - A Dance of Shame, Suffering, & Self-Abuse, codependency is a vicious, compulsive, self-abusive dynamic - an prison that we are trapped in as long as we are reacting. In my codependent dance I was the victim of myself, I was my own perpetrator, and I rescued myself in ways that were ultimately self abusive. The shame and pain I was feeling was causing me to feel like a victim, the critical parent voice in my head was beating me up for being a stupid loser, and I was rescuing myself with drugs and alcohol.
In early recovery, I learned to think the next drink through to the consequences before picking it up. In other words, think about how I would feel about myself tomorrow if I take a drink today. And be conscious enough to tell myself the truth that I didn't want just one drink - I wanted oblivion, unconsciousness.
So, I started living life one day at a time from a detached place of consciousness that was aware of cause and effect - and understood that not indulging in instant gratification today would help me to not hate myself so much tomorrow.
Detachment allowed me to start aligning myself with the way life really works - cause and effect - and choosing delayed gratification one day at a time. It has resulted in 18 years of sobriety.
Developing a Friendly, Compassionate Observer Self
We all observe ourselves, but we do it from the perspective of the critical judge. It is our critical parent voice that provides the witness perspective in our lives. It is our own worst enemy, judging us and shaming us - calling us stupid or loser or fool. We all have experienced our critical parent voice beating ourselves up for being human by using whatever pet abusive names are part of our personal abusive relationship with self. To that critical observer self, nothing we do is ever good enough - except when we are reacting to the opposite extreme and telling ourselves how much better we are than others because they are mean or stupid or losers.
The critical parent voice is rooted in the subconscious intellectual paradigm that is defining and dictating our life experience. It is the play by play commentator that is providing running commentary on how well we are playing the game of life - and it is judging our performance based upon false beliefs about the nature and purpose of life, based upon a black and white perspective that dooms us to be the victim of being imperfect humans. It dictates how we react to life and then judges us for those reactions.
It is very important to start learning how to take power away from that critical parent voice so that we can start developing a witness perspective with a compassionate level of consciousness. So that we can start learning how to be our own best friend - instead of our own worst enemy.
The first step to developing this level of consciousness is to know that it is possible to develop it. Once we start to realize that we can have a detached observer perspective that is not judging us, then we can start raising our consciousness to be more aligned with Love than with fear and shame.
It takes awhile for us to get to a place where we can be compassionate with ourselves. In the beginning, we want to try to at least be able to observe ourselves from a neutral perspective - or even better from the perspective of a scientific observer. We can start to watch ourselves as if we were an alien species we are studying so that we can see ourselves and say, "Oh isn't that interesting. Now why did I react that way." Instead of "How can I be so stupid."
Once we start to learn to be detached in a way that is not shaming, then we can start being the detective of our inner process - we can start tracking down the cause and effect relationship between our behaviors and our childhood programming.
We can also then start using that observer self as an inner defense attorney who can start to defend us from the critical parent voice. We already have a judge and prosecutor inside - we desperately need an inner defense attorney who can start setting boundaries with the critical parent voice.
A vital part of the healing process is having enough detachment to start relating to the critical parent programming - and the emotional wounds / inner child places within - as parts of us rather as our self. Achieving some separation within in our perspective of our own inner process is vital to setting boundaries within - and learning how to stop being the victim of ourselves.
This inner child healing / codependency recovery work is a process of transforming our relationship with ourselves into a more Loving and empowered relationship by starting to take some control over our inner process. We can learn how to develop the mature empowered adult within us - and let that part of us run our lives instead of our emotional wounds and dysfunctional intellectual programming.
We all have that adult within us already - we just need to own it. Until we can detach from our inner process enough to start seeing all the different parts of us, we cannot really understand all the conflict within. The only way to start achieving some inner peace is to develop a friendly, compassionate adult within who is on a Spiritual path and can make choices in our life from a place of Love instead of fear and shame.
Detachment is necessary for anyone to start changing their behavior patterns. The more we get conscious of the power of detaching and the choices it offers to us, the more powerfully we can align with the healing / Spiritual awakening process. I had to practice detachment in order to get, and stay, sober. It was necessary to detach from my own process before I could start seeing reality with more clarity. But I did not realize that was what I was doing. Once I started to realize how the process works, and how valuable a technique detachment is, then I could really start to be proactive in intervening in my own internal process and changing my internal programming. Then I could really be consciously involved in the process of changing my relationship with myself into one in which I could choose to be a co-creator in my life out of Love instead of reacting unconsciously out of my self hatred.
Awakening to a level of consciousness where I could start to take responsibility in, and for, my life from a perspective that was aligned with the dynamics of how life really works, allowed me to start learning how to be my own friend instead of my worst enemy. It allowed me to realize that the part of me that was shaming and judging me was just a part of me - it is not who I am. The emotional wounds that I was so afraid of were just parts of me also - I was able to learn how to stop letting the feelings of the little kid define and dictate my life, at the same time I was building a nurturing relationship with those parts of me. I could then learn to stop the part of me that was abusing me from making me feel like a victim, and start rescuing myself in ways that worked - in ways that were aligned with delayed gratification and Love.
Detachment was the key to creating the space in my consciousness to start the process of taking power away from the shame and judgment - to stop living life based on fear. As long as I was just reacting out of unconsciousness, I was powerless to change my behaviors. Detaching from my internal process enough to be more conscious of cause and effect created the space for me to start owning the power to make choices and take responsibility for the way I was living my life.
We can develop a recovery control center (as I have taken to calling it lately) that is making choices about our attitudes and behaviors from an enlightened perspective that is aligned with intuition instead of fear based impulsive reaction. We can develop a Loving, compassionate relationship with ourselves by having enough detachment to learn discernment. We can then own our power to be co-creators in our lives who can align ourselves with transforming our dance of life from one of dancing in the darkness feeling separate from the Creative Source, to one in which we are dancing in the Light of Love.
Creating the space to manifest Love
What is so valuable, what I believe is unique, about the approach to inner child healing that I have been guided to develop and refine, is that it provides a formula for integrating Spiritual Truth and intellectual knowledge of healthy behavior into one's emotional relationship with life.
It does not matter how much Spiritual Truth, how many mystical experiences of oneness, how in tune with Love, you can feel in certain moments - if you cannot integrate it into your life in a way which changes your emotional experience of life on a moment to moment, day to day basis. You can go to therapy for many years, read all the Spiritual and self help books, go to workshops and seminars and lectures - compile encyclopedic intellectual knowledge of what healthy behavior is - and still be reacting to old wounds in the relationships that mean the most to you.
The missing ingredient for so many people who have been seeking for many years, is how to integrate what you know into how you feel about your experience life. That is what I teach people - because it is what I have spent many years learning. It is what I am still learning.
The telephone counseling that I have been doing for the last year and nine months has led me to refine and fine tune my understanding of the dynamics of the healing process work. I resisted suggestions to do telephone counseling for quite awhile because I was concerned about how effective it would be. When working with someone in person, I can observe body language and look into their eyes. It is much easier to help a person get into their feelings, do their grief work, when working in person.
The very fact that I wasn't in the presence of the person has turned out to be perfect - it actually forced me into a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of the process. Working with people on the telephone led me to focus on how to help the person change their relationship with themselves and life in the quickest, most effective way.
I realized that I did not need to know a lot of details about the persons story. I will get just enough information from them to be able to identify the primary themes and issues in their lives - and the dynamics in childhood that spawned these issues. That allows me to explain the dynamics to them in a way they can understand and relate to from their personal experience.
The dynamics of codependence are universal and predictable - because all human beings share the same emotions and emotional process. The internal dynamics of the interrelationship between the mental and emotional levels of our beings is something I understand intimately. Each of us is unique and different in the details of our lives, in the flavor of codependency we adapted - but we all have the same basic internal dynamic.
In my own recovery process I was led intuitively, and through working the twelve steps, to develop the detachment that allowed me to learn how to start practicing discernment and to develop internal boundaries to facilitate my healing and growth. I wasn't consciously aware of how important the concept of detachment specifically had been in my healing at the time I wrote the book - and don't even mention the word in my book. I do describe the process and the importance of developing the observer perspective.
What I see clearly now, is that detachment was the first step in my recovery - and is the key to consciousness raising. As long as we are reacting out of a polarized belief system to the feeling of toxic shame in our core relationship with ourselves, we are powerless to be co-creators of our lives in anything but a negative way. It is only by detaching from our inner process enough to start seeing reality from a new healthier perspective, that we can start to gain some freedom from our old wounds and old tapes.
Observing ourselves without shame and judgment allows us to see reality with more clarity. It creates the space that allows us to own our power to make choices. It creates the space for us to start to understand our own internal conflict so that we can choose to start paying attention to the "small quiet voice" of our Spirit, of our intuition, instead of giving power to the loud abusive messages coming from our wounded ego programming. It is the key to starting to stop the war within and create some inner peace.
Developing a level of consciousness in which we are self aware, and turning that space into a proactive force in changing our relationship with self and life, is the key to learning to relax and enjoy life in the moment some of the time. The percentage of the time we are be-ing and enjoying life will increase gradually as we transform our relationship with self and life.
Probably even more important than the ability to relax and enjoy life, is developing the observer consciousness that helps us to start developing some compassion for ourselves when we are not enjoying life. It helps us to allow - and align with - the emotional healing so that we can release the repressed grief energy we are carrying. It helps us to stop judging and shaming ourselves when we feel "bad." That in turn means we spend less time in negative feeling emotional spaces - and move back into positive feeling emotional spaces sooner. It allows us to open up to receive so that we don't sabotage feeling good.
Detachment allows us to start taking some Loving control of our own internal process. It allows us to start taking control over, and responsibility for, our thoughts and our feelings to the extent that is possible. It allows us to create a space in our lives to start learning how to be Loving to ourselves instead of feeling like a victim of self and life.
Detachment - learning to observe our selves so that we can become more conscious - is an act of Love.
"Our job is to pay attention to the best of our ability, to be conscious enough to pick up on the messages the Universe is sending our way, and to take action in the direction we feel is necessary. We need to suit up and show up for life today, and do what is in front of us - at the same time a part of us is observing how intricately and perfectly the process is unfolding.
God I Love this process!! It is so incredibly elaborate. A fascinating unfolding of an intricate mosaic. I can be an actor in the play - and at the same time, be the audience watching the story unfold. The audience part of my consciousness used to be booing and hissing, throwing tomatoes and yelling what a stupid loser I was. Now my audience is compassionate, understanding, and supportive - and even gives me a standing ovation once in a while."
Additional Level of Consciousness
I realized after posting this page that I wasn't sure if I had been clear that I was not talking about detachment as a way to avoid feeling the feelings. I am referring to developing an additional level of consciousness where we can be watching ourselves at the same time we are feeling the feelings. A level of consciousness from the adult on a Spiritual path, the recovery control center, that can help us align with the grieving process and release the emotional energy. We can be the recovering adult who is observing from a nurturing and Loving place at the same time we are experiencing the feelings of the 5 year old, or 9 year old, or 23 year old, or whatever. We can be in the feelings and observing ourselves grieving at the same time.
This level of consciousness is from a higher perspective. It is an additional level of consciousness that we cultivate and develop by more clearly tuning in to, concentrating our attention on, our intuition - the "small quiet voice" - and consciously choosing to give power to the Spiritual Truth we resonate with instead of our emotional truth and mental programming from childhood. By cultivating this detached perspective - detached from our ego experience of being human - we can observe both the mental and emotional levels of our being from a more discerning perspective. It facilitates changing the intellectual programming and taking some of the terror out of healing the emotional wounds. It allows us to set internal boundaries within, and between, the mental and emotional levels of our being.
When I speak of a detached observer perspective, I am not talking about the kind of observation that is taught in some spiritual meditation practices. Many people use that type of observation as a way to avoid feeling the feelings. That type of detachment from emotions is what some people experience on anti-depressants. Some people use chanting and meditation as anti-depressants. Chanting and meditation can be invaluable tools but applied in an imbalanced manner can, like positive affirmations, be used as tools to deny feelings.
Just observing the feelings does not heal them; does not fundamentally change our relationship patterns; does not make our fear of intimacy go away. We need to feel, experience, and release the emotional energy in order to heal the wounds and take power away from them.
We need to feel the feelings but learn how not to be the victim of them / of our reactions. I am talking about a detached observer consciousness that gives us the power to choose how to respond when one of our grief / rage buttons has been pushed. An emotional wound can be triggered and we can make a conscious choice that it is not safe to feel and release those feelings in that moment. Then, we have a choice about how we are going to respond in the now, and later we can do the grief work when it is safe and appropriate to do it.
We do not avoid feeling the feelings. We gain some power over when and where we feel the feelings. Detachment, as it applies to the inner child healing process in my approach, is a technique that fosters empowerment and response-ability, not emotional denial. Detachment is a dynamic technique, a method of consciously relating to our internal process, that is an integral and invaluable step in consciousness raising / enlightenment / awakening / recovery / healing / empowerment. - Robert Burney
Inner Child Healing - How To Begin
"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.
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."Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Inner child work is in one way detective work. We have a mystery to solve. Why have I have I been attracted to the the type of people that I have been in relationship with in my life? Why do I react in certain ways in certain situations? Where did my behavior patterns come from? Why do I sometimes feel so: helpless; lonely; desperate; scared; angry; suicidal; etc.
Just starting to ask these types of questions, is the first step in the healing process. It is healthy to start wondering about the cause and effect dynamics in our life.
In our codependence, we reacted to life out of a black and white, right and wrong, belief paradigm that taught us that is was shameful and bad to be wrong, to make mistakes, to be imperfect - to be human. We formed our core relationship with our self and with life in early childhood based on the messages we got, the emotional trauma we suffered, and the role modeling of the adults around us. As we grew up, we built our relationship with self, other people, and life on the foundation we formed in early childhood.
When we were 5, we were already reacting to life out of the emotional trauma of earlier ages. We adapted defenses to try to protect ourselves and to get our survival needs met. The defenses adapted at 5 due to the trauma suffered at earlier ages led to further trauma when we were 7 that then caused us to adjust our defenses, that led to wounding at 9, etc., etc., etc.
Toxic shame is the belief that there is something inherently wrong with who we are, with our being. Guilt is "I made a mistake, I did something wrong." Toxic shame is: "I am a mistake. There is something wrong with me."
It is very important to start awakening to the Truth that there is nothing inherently wrong with our being - it is our relationship with our self and with life that is dysfunctional. And that relationship was formed in early childhood.
The way that one begins inner child healing is simply to become aware.
To become aware that the governing principle in life is cause and effect.
To become aware that our relationship with our self is dysfunctional.
To become aware that we have the power to change our relationship with our self.
To become aware that we were programmed with false beliefs about the purpose and nature of life in early childhood - and that we can change that programming.
To become aware that we have emotional wounds from childhood that it is possible to get in touch with and heal enough to stop them from dictating how we are living our life today.
That is the purpose of inner child healing - to stop letting our experiences of the past dictate how we respond to life today. It cannot be done without revisiting our childhood.
We need to become aware, to raise our consciousness. To create a new level of consciousness for ourselves that allows us to observe ourselves.
It is vitally important to start observing ourselves - our reactions, our feelings, our thoughts - from a detached witness place that is not shaming.
We all have an inner critic, a critical parent voice, that beats us up with shame, judgment, and fear. The critical parent voice developed to try to control our emotions and our behaviors because we got the message there was something wrong with us and that our survival would be threatened if we did, said, or felt the "wrong" things.
It is vital to start learning how to not give power to that critical shaming voice. We need to start observing ourselves with compassion. This is almost impossible at the beginning of the inner child healing process - having compassion for our self, being Loving to our self, is the hardest thing for us to do.
So, we need to start observing ourselves from at least a more neutral perspective. Become a scientific observer, a detective - the Sherlock Holmes of your own inner process as it were.
We need to start being that detective, observing ourselves and asking ourselves where that reaction / thought / feeling is coming from. Why am I feeling this way? What does this remind me of from my past? How old do I feel right now? How old did I act when that happened?
One of the amazing things about this process, is that as one starts to become more aware of our own reactions, we also start to become more aware of others. We start seeing when the people in our lives are reacting like a little kid, or adolescent, or teenager, or whatever. The more we become aware of their reactions, the easier it becomes to stop taking their behavior personally - which then makes it easier to detach from our own reactions and observe ourselves.
It is an amazing, miraculous process, that can help us to change our relationship with our self, with other people, and with life. Becoming more aware, becoming conscious of a new way of looking at ourselves and life is the beginning of a process of learning to forgive and Love our self.
A detective always looks at cause and effect. By becoming a detective, solving the mystery of why we have lived our lives as we have, we can start to free ourselves from our past. By doing the inner child healing, we can start to learn how to really be alive instead of just surviving and enduring.
Go to Inner child healing - Why Do It?
Inner Child Healing - Choosing a therapist or counselor with discernment
Therapy and Counseling
I get at least a couple of e-mails every week from people who are trying to find counselors and therapists in their local area who do the type of inner child healing / codependency recovery work that I talk about in my book and on my web site. Several that I received this week, combined with some very codependent, abusive, and dysfunctional behavior exhibited by a counselor some telephone counseling clients of mine had been seeing, spurred me to create this page.
I am going to begin this page with an article which I wrote last year for my inner child/codependency recovery page of the internet directory Suite101.
Inner Child Healing - Choosing a therapist or counselor
"It is also a vital part of the process to learn discernment. To learn to ask for help and guidance from people who are trustworthy, that means people who will not betray, abandon, shame, and abuse you. That means friends who will not abuse and betray you. That means counselors and therapists who will not judge and shame you and project their issues onto you.
(I believe that the cases of "false memories" that are getting a lot of publicity these days are in reality cases of emotional incest - which is rampant in our society and can be devastating to a person's relationship with his/her own sexuality - that are being misunderstood and misdiagnosed as sexual abuse by therapists who have not done their own emotional healing and project their own issues of emotional incest and/or sexual abuse onto their patients).
Someone who has not done her/his own emotionally healing grief work cannot guide you through yours. Or as John Bradshaw put it in his excellent PBS series on reclaiming the inner child, "No one can lead you somewhere that they haven't been.""
(Quotations in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)
In his PBS series on healing the inner child, John Bradshaw talked about how important it is to choose counselors and therapists who have done their own emotional healing. He stated that he had been in recovery for 10 years and counseling for that period of time before he started doing the emotional healing. Prior to starting that process if someone he was working with started to get emotional, he would immediately take steps to pull them out of the emotions back onto an intellectual level.
One of the most important things to check out when you are interviewing a new counselor/therapist - is whether they have done any emotional healing. If they have not done any grief and anger work - actual emotional release work involving the deep grieving of sobs and snot running out the nose, and anger work, beating on cushions while they shout out their rage - then they will not want you to get emotional. Doing the deep emotional work can be terrifying - and unless the person who is facilitating your work has been through it themselves, they will be scared by your emotions. They will try to get you back into an intellectual framework - and many of them will tell you that you need to go on medication.
Too often, when we start counseling or therapy, we feel it is somehow shameful, or weak, because of our cultural programming - and come kind of hat in hand, as it were. We come to the professional from a place of hoping they won't tell us we are the sickest person they have ever met, and there is nothing they can do for us - or at least that was what I was sure was going to happen.
It is important to remember that the person going to the therapist is the employer. You are the one doing the job interview with the power to decide who gets the job. You are the one that is going to be paying for services and you have a right to ask any questions you need to - including what healing they have done personally. Because someone has degrees, credentials, and is licensed does not mean they have done any healing on a personal level. In an emotionally dysfunctional society, the standards used to judge qualifications are based on the dysfunctional, emotionally dishonest standards of the society.
My first experience of going to a licensed therapist in my recovery from codependence, was a very telling one. I went to a therapist that was recommended by a friend. I told her that I wanted to deal with emotional enmeshment issues with my mother. (In a future article in this series I will talk about the emotional incest that is mentioned in the quote above - and what I was calling emotional enmeshment at that point in my recovery.) The third session I had with this person, she delightedly told me that she wanted to line me up with a blind date. A blind date with someone who worked for her husband, who had his office in their home as she did. Duh! The therapist I am seeing to sort out emotional enmeshment issues wants to line me up on a blind date - absolutely inappropriate and very codependent, thinking a relationship would fix me - with someone who works for her husband in the same building we are in - talk about enmeshing and incestuous.
She could not understand why I was upset. I left that day, and went home to process what had just happened. In processing through the issue, it was obvious to me how inappropriate and unhealthy this therapist was. So, I called her up that evening and fired her. I was very proud of myself because I did not buy into the guilt trips she laid on me as she tried to convince me that I was the one with the problem and that there was nothing wrong with her suggestion.
There is no one as good as a therapist at turning issues back on you so that it seems to be all your problem. Therapist can be very difficult people to have personal relationships with - unless they are working an honest recovery program, and sometimes even then. And if they are not involved in a personal recovery program, it is inevitable they will project their issues and judgments onto their patients. Even therapists who are seeing another therapist for supervision, can only be as healthy as the belief systems which he/she and the supervising therapist are empowering. And if those belief systems do not include an understanding of the importance of emotional healing, they will not be able to help someone do the emotional healing.
Another experience came shortly after I had started in a therapist position at an outpatient chemical dependence program in Van Nuys California in 1987. One evening in a Family Group I was talking about how grateful I was to be in recovery and I teared up from joy - I didn't cry, just teared up. The next week the Clinical Director - my supervising therapist - came marching into our office and proceeded to lecture me about getting emotional in front of the clients. This psychiatrist, who was on anti-depressants because he was suicidal over a relationship breakup, warned me to never let it happen again.
Often the more credentials someone has, the more tendency they have to wear blinders. To see things only within the traditional paradigm - which labels and pigeon holes individuals - and more often than not, discounts emotions while worshiping chemicals.
Allow your Spirit guide you - not your shame. Talk to a person, meet with them, and see how you feel about them. Do they feel like someone you can trust? Does what they have to say resonate? Do you feel like they are really hearing you? Are they empowering a belief system that is black and white, right and wrong? (If they are, they will judge you.) Do they talk to you - or down to you?
It is your choice. You are the one holding the audition. Going to see a counselor or therapist can be a very important and invaluable experience - but it is important to remember that choosing a therapist is not a commitment to them, it is a commitment to you.
(This article was originally published on Suite101 Directory - the Inner Child/Codependency Recovery page which was then edited by Robert Burney.)
This article contains a paragraph or two I wrote for my recommended referrals page, and a few lines that I have used elsewhere in describing my experiences and opinions in this area. I decided to also included some other thoughts that I had originally written in the very first Joy to You & Me Newsletter published July 1, 1998 - and had quoted in various ways on other pages since (including in the introduction to my Miscellaneous Topics index page.) And then, because of references to medication in both of those pieces of work, I decided to include some quotes from my Joy2MeU Journal where I talk about anti-depressants and other medications. I will give a brief introduction to these two pieces below - but first there are a couple more facets to this issue that I want to discuss.
The Importance of Seeking Help
As I was preparing this page, I got an uncomfortable feeling because I realized that someone could see my opinions in the article above as the "right" way to do things - and use them as an excuse to not seek counseling because they couldn't find someone who meets these standards. It is important to get help. We all need some help at times in seeing ourselves more clearly. Some counselors and therapists that haven't necessarily done the emotional healing may still be very helpful to you early in your process - or at specific points in your healing.
The reality is that inner child healing and codependency recovery are still pretty new - and many very well meaning professionals out there do not know a lot about this work. My approach to the work is unique and pioneering, and no one out there is doing exactly what I do and describe. You will find very few counselors and therapist who define codependence in as large a context as I do; many who do not see it as a Spiritual disease; many who have not done their own emotional work.
I do not know of anyone who combines developing internal boundaries with doing the grief work as part of building an ongoing relationship with different ages of the child within - the framework that I developed for integrating knowledge of healthy behavior and Spiritual Truth into one's emotional relationship with life. That is the most powerfully life changing and transformational aspect of my approach to the work. Your chances of finding someone who does exactly that kind of work are almost nil.
But you can find good people out there doing important work. You can find people: who can lovingly facilitate grief work; who can be very helpful in seeing your codependence when you are blind to it in certain areas; who are very good at teaching Loving Spiritual concepts; who can help you understand specific dynamics around such issues as verbal abuse or sex addiction etc. It is possible to find counselors and therapist who can be very helpful in your process.
What is important is to be careful about giving them too much power. The purpose of the work as I see it, is for each individual to become empowered to access and trust their own inner guidance. There will come a point when it is time to move on - or when you only need to see them once in a while. The goal is to stop making any outside source your higher power - including your counselor or therapist.
It is important to recognize that no one has the right to judge or shame you - especially a counselor. Counselors and therapist are wounded human beings who sometimes let their own agendas influence what they say to you. There may be things about you that trigger their wounds. Pay attention. Recognize if you have outgrown what they have to offer. Do not buy into thinking that because they were helpful for awhile, that means they are always right.
Do seek help. It is important. As you are seeking help pay attention. This paragraph from the my article is a good rule of thumb to follow.
Allow your Spirit guide you - not your shame. Talk to a person, meet with them, and see how you feel about them. Do they feel like someone you can trust? Does what they have to say resonate? Do you feel like they are really hearing you? Are they empowering a belief system that is black and white, right and wrong? (If they are, they will judge you.) Do they talk to you - or down to you?
And remember, you are the employer.
Finding Therapists And Counselors
Some time ago, I started a referral page for any counselors/therapists/healers who do work that aligns in some way with the work I describe. It includes healers who have e-mailed me to let me know they are out there - and others that were referred by someone reading my site. That project has been somewhat of a disappointment in terms of the number of resources gathered. I would welcome any additions to it.
In most areas there are free papers that are devoted to healing or New Age or some similar theme that have ads for healers and counselors. Some larger newspapers have a Mind Body Spirit section, or something similar, with ads and events like workshops listed. Most areas have Community Colleges that offer Adult Education classes that include such things as: self esteem, healthy relationship behavior, and other helpful resources.
The internet is a great resource for finding help if you know where to look. The search techniques that I describe on my page about Finding CoDA and ACoA meetings locally, can also be used for finding therapists and counselors locally. By putting " " around what you are looking for and then adding the locale (city, county, etc.) Google - the best search engine on the internet - can help you maximize your chances of finding local resources. For example, "codependence counselor" ____ (your city) or "inner child therapist" ____ (your area) or any combination you can think of that may help you find what you are looking for: codependence, codependency, inner child, grief, etc. + counselor or therapist or workshop etc. in quotation marks plus your area.
People at 12 step meetings can sometimes be a good referral source for healers/counselors that individuals in the meeting have found helpful - and going to 12 step meetings can certainly be a help in recovery. It is advantageous if you take an attitude like one that I developed for myself in early recovery. Because I found myself being so judgmental of many of the people and skeptical about much of the sharing, I decided that I was letting my disease dictate my relationship with meetings. So, I started telling myself that I needed to go to meetings because there was going to be one thing that I needed to hear said that day, at that meeting. When I stopped giving so much power to the judgments, and started to pay attention for one thing to help me, it changed my relationship with meetings. There was usually far more than one thing I needed to hear - but until I started letting go of all the judgments I often didn't see the value in the meetings. I needed to realize that the focus on judging was the disease trying to keep me from getting help.
Be Loving and kind to yourself by getting help when you need it. Asking for help is part of working the 3rd step. It is very important to be willing to ask for help. It is also important to learn to be discerning in who we ask. My experience with the therapist who wanted to line me up on a blind date was invaluable. I saw very clearly that I could take care of myself. In retrospect, I now know that I went to that therapist so that I could have the empowering experience of standing up for my intuition and firing her. Go find yourself a counselor, and then if you don't feel comfortable with them, fire them. It will not be a mistake - it will be a opportunity for growth, and a perfect part of your path. ~ Robert 4-23-01
Role Models
This is an excerpt from the first Joy to You & Me Newsletter published July 1, 1998. The web pages from my original web site that were not been moved to the Joy2MeU web site can be found on the Joy to You & Me index page. You will notice that this quote starts out with a paragraph which I used in part in the article above.
"He proceeded to lecture me about getting emotional in front of the clients - this psychiatrist who was on anti-depressants because he was suicidal over a relationship breakup - warned me to never let it happen again. I was not far enough along in my recovery at that point to confront him but I do remember thinking to myself - "Then who is supposed to be the role models?"
The thing that was the most damaging to us was the role modeling of the emotionally crippled adults we grew up around - the role modeling is what taught us the dysfunctional definitions of who we are as emotional beings. It is vitally important, in my opinion, that we have some beings who are willing to role model what emotionally healthy behavior is - which includes being emotionally vulnerable at times.
Traditional therapy/counseling in this society is set up as a one up-one down situation - that is, the therapist is set up as the expert who treats the poor unfortunate patient. I happen to agree with something Ram Dass once said about this - "If you meet a therapist who thinks you are the patient - run!"*
There were two interrelated things that I had to get clear about when I started working as a therapist: One is that I am powerless over other people - over the pace of their progress, over whether they hear what I am saying to them, over where their path leads. I watched a good friend die of Alcoholism (which is in a column in the Alcoholism section) and saw how clearly he helped other alcoholics stay sober because he couldn't - he did more to keep more people sober than many of the sober people I know. I can't know what someone else's path is - therefore I can't tell them what is right and wrong. What I can do is help them see themselves clearer (especially as to understanding how their childhood experiences have dictated their lives), see their choices and the possible consequences clearer, and know that we are Spiritual Beings going to boarding school not taking a test we can fail.
Which brings me to the second thing, which I believe is a Spiritual Truth - I teach best what I need most to learn. I teach people how to Love themselves because I am trying to learn how to Love myself. I learned to always listen to what I was saying because, though I have no control whether anyone else hears me, I do have the power to choose to hear myself - and there is always something in what I am saying that applies to me and my process in that moment. . . . . I am in process just as my clients are - just as we all are. There is no hierarchy as far as I am concerned - just one wounded person/Magnificent Spiritual Being sharing what has worked for me with another wounded person/Magnificent Spiritual Being. I am doing what I need to do for myself, to heal myself - it doesn't have to do with anyone else - that it helps other people is just a bonus (and an opportunity to settle Karma)." - Joy to You & Me Newsletter I - July 1,1998
*My version of this would be something like: If you meet a therapist who tells you that he/she does not have any issues from childhood and does not need recovery - run.
Anti-Depressants
"Another incident also comes to mind. I had just started in a therapist position at an outpatient chemical dependence program in Van Nuys California a little over 10 years ago. One evening in a Family Group I was talking about how grateful I was to be in recovery and I teared up - I did not cry, just teared up. The next week the Clinical Director came marching into our office and needed to talk to me about something he was quite disturbed about. He proceeded to lecture me about getting emotional in front of the clients - this psychiatrist who was on anti-depressants because he was suicidal over a relationship breakup - warned me to never let it happen again. I was not far enough along in my recovery at that point to confront him but I do remember thinking to myself - "Then who is supposed to be the role models?"
Newsletter for July 1, 1998 - Joy to You & Me Newsletter I
So here I am trying to teach people how to stay sober and deal with their feelings and the suicidal psychiatrist who is my clinical director warns me that I will be fired if I ever get emotional in front of clients again. He did not even realize what emotional was. In February and March of 1988 I was breaking down completely at the office - never when the clients were there, before they came in. Luckily my probation period was over by the time I was crying uncontrollably in the office.
This is part of the hypocrisy and dysfunction in the mental health system of this society. Therapists must always be professional and never show their clients any emotions while telling them how important it is to feel their feelings. The people who are supposed to be role models are taught to keep up appearances - which is, of course, part of the disease. Keep up appearances, wear a mask, keep the secrets - never show that you are human.
Unfortunately, far too many therapists in this country do not know anything about emotional honesty anyway. They have not done their own emotional healing and do not have a clue how to help others through theirs. . . ."
"Our mental health system not only does not promote healing - it actually blocks the process. The mental health system in this country is designed to get your behavior and emotions under control so that you can fit back into the dysfunctional system.
Drugs that are designed to disconnect you from your feelings block the healing process. Mental health professionals who need to have you see them regularly in order to be financially supported, need to have you be dependent upon them, need to keep you a patient in order to survive."
Therapy that fosters dependence and does not include emotional release is not very healing. Unfortunately, too many therapists still look at therapy as a one up - one down type of situation. In other words, they are the experts and you are the poor patient. This is also a type of codependence: a person gets in relationships with people who are more messed up than they are so that they can have some control. I happen to agree with Ram Dass who once said, "If you meet a therapist who thinks of you as a patient - run."
Back in the fall of 1987, I was about to meet a very screwed up therapist. But before getting into that I want to say something about the quote from my book above regarding anti-Depressants.
Anti-depressants are life savers for some people. I would never advise someone not to go on anti-depressants. I personally refused them. I was told by 3 different experts in the spring of 1988 that I should go on anti-depressants - and I told them all the same thing: "I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. I have been taking something for the pain most of my life. I want to learn how to deal with these feelings, not medicate them."
I am very happy I did that. I was also very fortunate and blessed that when I broke down (through) I had the opportunity to go to treatment and deal with the feelings in a safe environment. I was very fortunate and blessed that I had some therapists in treatment who knew how to facilitate grief work so that I could learn how to do my grieving. I know that I could not have done the healing that I did as rapidly as I did it, nor could I have broken through to communication from the Spirit the way I did, if I had not refused. I was following my intuition and my Higher Power's plan unfolded perfectly to give me exactly what I needed, when I needed it.
So, for me anti-depressants were not necessary. I can not tell anyone else what their path is in regard to this issue - or any issue for that matter. What I would say, is that I think it is best to think of such medication as a temporary aid.
There are some people who have genetically messed up brain chemistry. I think that a minority of the people who are told they need anti-depressants really do need them on a long term basis.
For the great majority of folks, I believe the brain chemistry is messed up because of the repressed emotional energy. Doing the emotional healing - the grief and rage work - as part of the inner child healing process will help most people to find more balance on all levels, including their brain chemistry.
This is strictly my opinion. But, I think it is important to point out, those people who are telling others they need anti-depressants are not people who have done their own emotional healing. Like Bradshaw said, "No one can lead you somewhere they haven't been." Mental health professionals who have not gone through the Black Hole are scared to death when they see someone get real emotional. Doing the emotional healing is terrifying - it is also terrifying for someone to witness it, if they have not gone through it themselves.
I have been through it - so when someone goes into the "out of control" type of emotional place, I can tell them it is all right. I can tell them that they will come through it - because I have been through it. Someone who has not been through it, will not want you to go there. Keep that in mind when making your decision.
Also keep in mind, that almost the only reason that people go to psychiatrists any more is to get drugs. Psychiatrists are glorified drug dealers. They make their living prescribing drugs - they have no incentive whatsoever to tell you that you might not need those drugs.
Our culture is a quick fix type of culture. Everyone is looking for the quick, easy way to do things. We like to treat symptoms without ever looking at the cause. Just because so called "experts" tell you that you need medication, does not mean that they know what they are doing.
If you are on medication, by all means stay on it. Try not to think of it as a permanent solution. If you buy into thinking that they are necessary you will be psychologically addicted to the idea of them. Listen to your Spirit. Over and over again, I have had clients who were on medication, say to me: "It feels like maybe I should start cutting back on it." The Universe is very capable of letting you know when, and if, it is time to start backing off. Don't buy into doing things one way or the other because it is the "right" thing to do, or the "wrong" thing. That is the disease thinking. Everyone's path is different. Your Spirit will guide you. I would just urge you to look at all of the options and not give all your power away to "experts" because they have some degrees.
Now, about the reference I made to the Black Hole. That is something from my book. Since this installment of my recovery stories has turned into a multiple part one, I will share the quote from the book about the Black Hole here now, before wrapping up this installment.
"When I was willing to hear and see the messages - and take action based upon them - I began to discover the Truth around me. There were certain books of Truth that I was led to that were especially important in my consciousness raising, in my Recovery process. I am now going to quote a story from one of those books which means a lot to me. It is a story from a book called Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson. This book deals with the Medicine Wheel, and the totem animals of the Medicine Wheel Spiritual beliefs of certain Native American tribes.
The subject of this particular story is the Swan totem - Swan power:
"As Swan looked high above Sacred Mountain, she saw the biggest swirling black hole she had ever seen. Dragonfly came flying by, and Swan stopped him to ask about the black hole. Dragonfly said, "Swan, that is the doorway to the other planes of imagination. I have been guardian of the illusion for many, many moons. If you want to enter there, you would have to ask permission and earn the right."
Swan was not so sure that she wanted to enter the black hole, She asked Dragonfly what was necessary for her to earn entry. Dragonfly replied, "You must be willing to accept whatever the future holds as it is presented, without trying to change the Great Spirit's plan." Swan looked at her ugly little duckling body and then answered, "I will be happy to abide by Great Spirit's plan. I won't fight the currents of the black hole. I will surrender to the flow of the spiral and trust what I am shown." Dragonfly was very happy with Swan's answer and began to spin the magic to break the pond's illusion. Suddenly, Swan was engulfed by a whirlpool in the center of the pond.
Swan reappeared many days later, but now she was graceful and white and long-necked. Dragonfly was stunned! "Swan what happened to you!" he exclaimed. Swan smiled and said, "Dragonfly, I learned to surrender my body to the power of Great Spirit and was taken to where the future lives. I saw many wonders high on Sacred Mountain and because of my faith and my acceptance I have been changed. I have learned to accept a state of Grace.""
A "state of Grace" is the condition of being Loved unconditionally by our Creator without having to earn that Love. We are Loved unconditionally by the Great Spirit. What we need to do is to learn to accept that state of Grace.
The way we do that is to change the attitudes and beliefs within us that tell us that we are not Lovable. And we cannot do that without going through the black hole. The black hole that we need to surrender to traveling through is the black hole of our grief. The journey within - through our feelings - is the journey to knowing that we are Loved, that we are Lovable.
It is through willingness and acceptance, through surrender, trust, and faith, that we can begin to own the state of Grace which is our True condition.
We are all beautiful swans who exist in a state of Grace, in a condition of being unconditionally Loved. The dance of Recovery is a process of learning to accept and integrate the Truth of Grace into our lives."
I thought that to end this web page, I would come full circle and use the quote from my book whose last paragraph started out the article that spurred the creation of this page - but first I decided to use a quote that reinforces what I was trying to say above, that there is not a right and wrong way to do recovery.
"Recovery is not a dance of right and wrong, of black and white - it is a dance of integration and balance. The questions in Recovery are: Is it working for you? Is the way you live your life working to meet your needs? Is the way you are living your life bringing you some happiness?
When I state that the grief process works, I am not saying that it is the "right" thing to do, or that you are bad or wrong if you are not actively pursuing your emotional healing.
Maybe it has not been time for you to do your grief work yet. Maybe you have not had a safe place to do it. Maybe it is not part of your path in this lifetime.
No one can tell you what your path is!"
"There is no quick fix! Understanding the process does not replace going through it! There is no magic pill, there is no magic book, there is no guru or channeled entity that can make it possible to avoid the journey within, the journey through the feelings.
No one outside of Self (True, Spiritual Self) is going to magically heal us.
There is not going to be some alien E.T. landing in a spaceship singing, "Turn on your heart light," who is going to magically heal us all.
The only one who can turn on your heart light is you.
The only one who can give your inner children healthy parenting is you.
The only healer who can heal you is within you.
Now we all need help along the way. We all need guidance and support. And it is a vitally important part of the healing process to learn to ask for help.
It is also a vital part of the process to learn discernment. To learn to ask for help and guidance from people who are trustworthy, people who will not betray, abandon, shame, and abuse you. That means friends who will not abuse and betray you. That means counselors and therapists who will not judge and shame you and project their issues onto you."
We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience. We are not alone - even when it appears, and feels like, we are most alone. Listen to your intuition. You are being guided - you will be guided
Grief Process Techniques
"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 clearly reconnect 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.
We need to do our emotional healing, to heal our wounded souls, in order to reconnect with our Souls on the highest vibrational levels. In order to reconnect with the God-Force that is Love and Light, Joy and Truth."
"The way to stop reacting out of our inner children is to release the stored emotional energy from our childhoods by doing the grief work that will heal our wounds. The only effective, long term way to clear our emotional process - to clear the inner channel to Truth which exists in all of us - is to grieve the wounds which we suffered as children. The most important single tool, the tool which is vital to changing behavior patterns and attitudes in this healing transformation, is the grief process. The process of grieving."
"We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional."
Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
In order to do the inner child work we need to be willing to do the grief work.
Emotions are energy and that energy needs to be released through crying and raging.
We need to own our feelings about what happened to us.
We need to own our right to be angry that our needs were not met.
Grief is energy that needs to be released. We need to give our self permission to feel our pain, sadness, & rage. We need to own and honor the feelings.
Part of grief work is simply owning the sadness and the anger.
We need to own the grief about what happened to us as children - and then we also need to own the grief over what effect it has had on us as an adult.
"It is when we start understanding the cause and effect relationship between what happened to the child that we were, and the effect it had on the adult we became, that we can Truly start to forgive ourselves. It is only when we start understanding on an emotional level, on a gut level, that we were powerless to do anything any differently than we did that we can Truly start to Love ourselves."
Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Grieving is a very different experience from being depressed.
While we are grieving we can still appreciate a beautiful sunset or be happy to see a friend or be grateful to be sad.
Depression is being in a dark tunnel where there are no beautiful sunsets.
The deep grieving work is energy work. Once we can get out of our heads and start paying attention to what is happening in our body - then we can start releasing the emotional energy. When we get to a place where the emotions are coming up - when the voice starts breaking - the first thing I have to tell people is to keep breathing. We automatically stop breathing and close our throats when the feelings get close to the surface.
At that point the technique is to locate where the energy is concentrated in the body - it can be any place from head to feet - much of the time it is in our back because that is where we carry stuff we don't want to look at, or in the area of the solar plexus (anger or fear) or heart chakra (pain, broken heart) or chest (sadness) - then the individual breathes directly into that place. Visualizes breathing white light into that part of the body. That starts breaking up the energy and little pieces of energy start getting released. These balls of energy are the sobs. This is a terrifying place to be for the ego because it feels out of control - it is a wonderful place to be from a healing perspective. Empowering the healing is going with the flow - inhale the white Light, exhale the sobs. Sobs, tears, snot from the nose, are all forms of energy being released. You can be in the witness watching yourself and controlling the process at the same time you are in the pain and releasing it.
By controlling the process I am referring to choosing to align self with the energy flow, surrendering to the flow, instead of shutting it down as the terrified ego wants to do. It is very hard to learn this process without a safe place to do it, and someone who knows what they are doing to facilitate it. Once you have learned how to do it then it is possible to facilitate your own grief processing.
The anger work is also an energy flow process. The bat (tennis racket, bataka, pillow, whatever) is lifted over the head as you inhale and then as you hit the pillow you expel the energy - in shout, a grunt, a "fuck you", a scream, whatever words come to you. Inhale, exhale - open your throat to say whatever needs to be said.
Own your voice. Own the child's voice
It is vitally important for us to own our right to be angry about what happened to us or about the ways we were deprived. If we do not own our right to be angry about what happened in childhood it greatly impairs our ability to set boundaries as an adult.
"We need to own and release the anger and rage at our parents, our teachers or ministers or other authority figures, including the concept of God that was forced on us while we were growing up. We do not necessarily need to vent that anger directly to them but we need to release the energy. We need to let that child inside of us scream, "I hate you, I hate you," while we beat on pillows or some such thing, because that is how a child expresses anger.
That does not mean that we have to buy into the attitude that they are to blame for everything. We are talking about balance between the emotional and mental here again. Blame has to do with attitudes, with buying into the false beliefs - it does not really have anything to do with the process of releasing the emotional energy."
Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
It is terrifying to face healing the emotional wounds. It takes great courage and faith to do the grief work.
The only real way to do it is with a Spiritual Program.
Recovery is not "self-help" - we are not doing this work alone.
Our Spirit is guiding us.The Force is with us
"There is no quick fix! Understanding the process does not replace going through it! There is no magic pill, there is no magic book, there is no guru or channeled entity that can make it possible to avoid the journey within, the journey through the feelings.
No one outside of Self (True, Spiritual Self) is going to magically heal us.
There is not going to be some alien E.T. landing in a spaceship singing, "Turn on your heart light," who is going to magically heal us all.
The only one who can turn on your heart light is you.
The only one who can give your inner children healthy parenting is you.
The only healer who can heal you is within you.
Now we all need help along the way. We all need guidance and support. And it is a vitally important part of the healing process to learn to ask for help.
It is also a vital part of the process to learn discernment. To learn to ask for help and guidance from people who are trustworthy, people who will not betray, abandon, shame, and abuse you. That means friends who will not abuse and betray you. That means counselors and therapists who will not judge and shame you and project their issues onto you."
Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Therapy that fosters dependence and does not include emotional release is not very healing.
"Psychoanalysis addressed these issues only on the intellectual level - not on the emotional healing level. As a result, a person could go to psychoanalysis weekly for twenty years and still be repeating the same behavior patterns."
"Our mental health system not only does not promote healing - it actually blocks the process. The mental health system in this country is designed to get your behavior and emotions under control so that you can fit back into the dysfunctional system.
Drugs that are designed to disconnect you from your feelings block the healing process. Mental health professionals who need to have you see them regularly in order to be financially supported, need to have you be dependent upon them, need to keep you a patient in order to survive."
Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Learning is remembering
Teaching is reminding others that they can remember too.
"No one outside of you can define for you what your Truth is.
Nothing outside of you can bring you True fulfillment. You can only be fully filled by accessing the transcendent Truth that already exists within.
This Age of Healing and Joy is a time for each individual to access the Truth within. It is not a time for gurus or cults or channeled entities, or anyone else, to tell you who you are.
Outside agencies - other people, channeled entities, this book - can only remind you of what you already know on some level."
Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
The more we integrate the Spiritual Truth of a Loving Higher Power into our internal relationship with ourselves, the easier it becomes to surrender to the process - to surrender to the flow of emotional energy. Integrating that Spiritual Truth into our inner process makes it easier for us to trust that we can be a Loving parent to our wounded inner children. That makes it easier to have compassion for our self, and for the wounded parts within us, so that we can change our emotional relationship with our own emotions.The more we own our own feelings - get emotionally honest with ourselves - the easier it becomes to know who we are and what we want. Then, it becomes easier to see our path more clearly and follow the intuitive messages from our Soul instead of giving power to the dysfunctional reactions of our wounded soul/inner child.
Go to Grieving - examples of how the process works
Recovery from Codependency / Inner Child Healing
"It is through healing our inner child, our inner children, by grieving the wounds that we suffered, that we can change our behavior patterns and clear our emotional process. We can release the grief with its pent-up rage, shame, terror, and pain from those feeling places which exist within us.
That does not mean that the wound will ever be completely healed. There will always be a tender spot, a painful place within us due to the experiences that we have had. What it does mean is that we can take the power away from those wounds. By bringing them out of the darkness into the Light, by releasing the energy, we can heal them enough so that they do not have the power to dictate how we live our lives today. We can heal them enough to change the quality of our lives dramatically. We can heal them enough to Truly be happy, Joyous and free in the moment most of the time."
Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Codependency recovery / inner child healing is a way of life. It is a way to live life that works. It works to help an individual gain some freedom from the past. It is a path for living that facilitates developing a centered grounded space within where inner peace exists. That creates the space for a person to be present in the moment and be happy to be alive - to connect with Joy - some of the time.
It is not something we do and then get on with our lives. It is something we do in order to Truly be alive.
Life is a process - a journey. By being willing to do the inner child healing we can learn to be present for the journey - and to have the capacity to actually relax and enjoy it at times.
One of the very valuable things that I have learned in my recovery is echoed in something that I often say to people when I first start to work with them. Most of my counseling work is done by phone these days, and often I will end the first session by saying, "Everything that happens in your life from now on, is part of this process."
We are here to do this healing. We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience - and we are in body at this very special time in history to do this healing work.
The inner child healing work is part of our Spiritual evolutionary journey. Doing this work requires consciousness raising - en-light-en-ment. We need to become conscious of our own inner process - by developing the detached observer / witness / detective / defense attorney / compassionate parent level of consciousness. The more conscious we become, the easier it is to see how powerful our reactive programming has been. By becoming conscious of it, we can change it.
By being willing to get more conscious we can start to reprogram our ego programming by using positive affirmations and self talk, by developing a Spiritual belief system that allows us to start being compassionate and Loving to ourselves.
By becoming willing to face the terror of healing the emotional wounds we can learned to release the dammed, repressed grief energy within us so that it is no longer defining us and dictating our experience of life.
Doing the healing work, making recovery a way of life, allows us to make choices to define our reality from a place of faith and acceptance instead of victimization, fear, and shame. It allows us to start having healthier relationships with our self and with others.
Becoming conscious and paying attention to the guidance from our intuition / Spirit, will help us learn to stop reacting to life and start having choices about how we respond to life. Responsibility - the ability to respond. We can take responsibility for our lives - and own our power as a co-creator of our life.
As long as we are reacting to life unconsciously out of our childhood emotional wounds and programming it is impossible for us to grow up. Recovery is about growing up - as I said in part 10 of this series on inner child healing (Inner Child Healing Paradigm):
"This work is about becoming an integrated, whole, mature, adult person in action, in the way we live our lives and respond to life events and other people. The only way we can be whole is to own all of the parts of ourselves. By owning all the parts we can then have choices about how we respond to life. By denying, hiding, and suppressing parts of ourselves we doom ourselves to live life in reaction."
Becoming an integrated, whole, mature adult does not come easily. It takes commitment. It takes action and effort on our part. We need to be willing to do our part in the process. We need to be willing to learn to be honest with ourselves intellectually and emotionally. We need to be willing to do the grief work. We need to be willing to be conscious - and to live consciously.
We can't do it perfectly. We will make gradual progress. We will resist and procrastinate and make excuses - because we are human. One of the trickiest things about his process is to stop judging ourselves for being human at the same time we doing whatever it takes to align with healing and transformation.
It is hard work. It is ongoing - it will keep changing and shifting and getting different, but it will continue for the rest of your life.
The rewards are awesome however!
I am going to end this article and this series with a couple of short quotes from near the end of my book Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
"We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience. We are here to experience feelings and touch and Love. The goal of the healing process is not to reach someplace where we are above all the human experiences and feelings. We are here to feel these feelings.
When we become willing to feel the pain, then we become capable of feeling the Joy. The Joy of doing this healing is incredible! Our job is to heal and enJoy. Our job is to be. We are here to be human beings, not human doings.
Our job is to follow the Joy to the Truth. Our job is to feel in the moment.
As long as we are reacting to old wounds and old tapes we cannot respond to the now. The more we heal, the more responsibility we have - that is, ability to respond. The ability to respond in the moment."
"This is a process, a process we are going to be involved in for the rest of this lifetime. We will never do it perfectly from a human perspective. But the more we are willing to choose to view life as a growth process, and to feel and remember the Truth within us, the more we will become conscious of the Truth that we are perfectly where we are supposed to be on our Spiritual Path - and that we are being guided Home.
There is Truth all around us. And the Truth is setting us free.
Through healing the inner child, we access Truth and Love. And the little child shall lead them."
Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
That little child is within you. That little child deserves Love. That little child is you.
Go to The Grief Process
