Update March 2006
This is the Newsletter of the Joy2MeU web site of codependency therapist, inner child healing pioneer, Spiritual teacher Robert Burney - who is the author of the Joyously inspirational book of Spirituality: Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls. These Update Newsletters are posted online 3 or 4 times a year at about 3 or 4 month intervals. A short announcement e-mail is sent out notifying people - who sign up for the Joy2MeU e-mailing list - when a new Update is posted. (Links within the text will open in a separate browser window, while most of those in right hand column will take you away from this page.)
Joy to You & Me and Joy2MeU Update Newsletter
spiritual = relationship with life
For anyone unfamiliar with my Spiritual Beliefs, here are quotes from a few pages of my site that might be helpful.
“My own personal Spiritual belief system is one form of spirituality. It is certainly not the only one. Mine works for me very well in helping me to have a relationship with life that allows me to be happier today. It is not necessary for you to accept my belief system in order for you to use the tools, techniques, and perspectives that I have developed for emotional healing / codependence recovery / inner child integration. For the purposes of this discussion of spiritual integration, I would now define what I refer to as a Spiritual Awakening in the quote above, as: being open to a larger perspective - awakening from being trapped in a limiting perspective. In this regard, spiritual would be a qualifier, an adjective, that describes the quality of one’s relationship with life. This adjective, spiritual, would be (in my definition) a word describing an expanded level of consciousness. A level of consciousness, of awareness, that is expansive and inclusive and facilitates personal growth - as opposed to limited, exclusive, rigid, and inhibiting growth, development, and alternative view points. . . . . . There is a saying that I really like, that religion is for people who are scared of hell and spirituality is for people who have been there. We have all lived in the hell that is the feeling we are somehow shameful, unworthy, and unlovable, the hell that living life according to a dysfunctional belief system can create. Recovery is about changing our perspective with life into one that works to help us be happy to be alive today for as many of the moments of the day as that is possible.” - The Recovery Process for inner child healing - spiritual integration “The path to empowerment and freedom from the past lies in owning that we have choices about our belief systems. Our mental attitudes, beliefs, and definitions dictate our emotional reactions and control our relationships. If we are living our life in reaction to the past, in reaction to our childhood wounds, then we are not making choices - we are not free. This is true rather we are trying to conform to the old tapes or rather we are rebelling against them. Either way, we are giving the past power over how we live our lives today. One of the most vital prerequisites of healing and recovery, of being open to growth, is a willingness to be open to looking at anything, and everything, from a different perspective. As long as we are stuck in a rigid perspective on any issue, we are like the blind man who thinks the elephant is a snake because all he can feel is the trunk. The reason that we have rigid perspectives is because we are reacting to emotional wounds. When I was first introduced to twelve step recovery, I thought the people were a bunch of religious fanatics because they talked about god. I did not want anything to do with god because of the shame based religion I grew up in. I had been tremendously wounded by that religion and rejected the concept of god because the one I was taught about was an abusive father.” - Spirituality for Agnostics and Atheists “The Spiritual belief system detailed on this web site and in my book can be incorporated into any open-minded individual’s personal beliefs. It is a belief system that allows for the possibility that maybe there is an Unconditionally Loving Higher Power - a God-Force, Goddess Energy, Great Spirit, whatever it is called - which is powerful enough to insure that everything is unfolding perfectly from a Cosmic Perspective. That everything happens for a reason - there are no accidents, no coincidences, no mistakes. It would be possible for someone to use the tools and techniques contained herein - for inner child healing and setting internal boundaries - to change some of their codependent/reactive behavior patterns and work on healing their childhood emotional wounds without a Spiritual belief system underlying the work. It would be possible, but in my view would be kind of silly. Spirituality is all about relationships. One’s relationship to self, to others, to the environment, to life in general. A Spiritual belief system is simply a container for holding all our other relationships. Why not have one that is large enough to hold it all.” - Spiritual Belief System index page “We are transcendent Spiritual Beings who are part of the ONENESS that is the God-Force. We always have been and always will be. We are perfect in our Spiritual Essence. We are perfectly where we are supposed to be on our Spiritual Path. And from a human perspective we will never be able to do “human” perfectly - which is perfect. We have been trying to do human perfect according to a false belief system in order to get Spiritual. It does not work. It’s dysfunctional.” “We are not sinful, shameful human creatures who have to somehow earn Spirituality. We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience.” (All quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)
Newsletter The Newsletter portion of this Update involves some issues I am processing through - including some with my father, as I alluded to above - and is going to take some more time and space to finish. Since it will make this Update quite long, and I want to get word out about the Intensive Training Day in San Francisco, I am going to make the Newsletter a separate page - part 2 - as I have done in the past. When it is posted (possibly not until the end of the week), I will activate a link here - and announce it on the New page. Anyone that wants to get notified of when the New pages changes - which is whenever I add something to the site, or announce any significant news - can sign up for e-mail notification service.
April 8, 2006 - The Newsletter is now posted.
Go to June 2006 Update Newsletter
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Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney is copyright 1995. Material on Joy2MeU web site (except where otherwise noted) is copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, & 2006 by Robert Burney PO Box 977 Cambria CA 93428.
Originally published at https://joy2meu.com/Update_March_2006.htm