Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light
Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light
Book 2: A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life
Chapter 9: Codependency = Emotional Anorexia
“Growing up in dysfunctional, codependent cultures programmed us to compare ourselves to others. As long as we are looking outside for self definition and self worth we are condemned to do it in comparison. It doesn’t matter what criteria we are using: looks; intelligence; success; popularity; righteousness (includes religious fanatics, bigots and racists, rebels and outcasts, health fanatics, etc.); etc.; we are taking our feelings of worth from looking down on others. When we are taking our feelings of worth from some arbitrarily defined external criteria - including healthier than, more spiritual than, kinder than, etc. - we are in our codependency. We are nurturing ourselves emotionally by seeing ourselves as “better than” - we are sucking emotional sustenance from our perspective of other people. We are being emotional vampires. As long as we are looking outside to define ourselves and determine our worth we are set up to be emotional vampires - which sets us up to be emotional anorexics.” “Codependency is a condition which sets us up to be starved for emotional nurturing - to be emotionally anorexic. Not having our emotional needs met in childhood sets us up for the behavior patterns that cause our adult emotional needs to go unmet - and both areas of need are reflections of our Spiritual wound, of the hole we feel within due to the feeling of disconnection from our Source. That deep empty longing can only be filled Spiritually, by reconnecting with our Source. As long as we are looking outside to fill the hole we feel within ourselves, we are destined to be emotional anorexics. Our emotional needs cannot be filled as long as our self worth is enmeshed in our emotional relationship to external sources. We are not able to discern between our legitimate adult emotional needs and the desperate emotional neediness of our wounded inner children as long we are looking outside of ourselves to find worth, to fill the feeling of emptiness within.” “Giving power away over our feelings and giving power away over our self esteem are two completely different things. It is vital to start seeing these two levels of the dynamic as separate - to start discerning a boundary between emotions and self worth - so that we can start taking responsibility for that which we do have the power to change.” “This is another of the areas that it is so vital to start discerning between different levels, start understanding the paradox of life, of recovery. We need to stop being emotionally enmeshed - learn to define ourselves as separate from others emotionally - in order to get clearly in touch with the Truth that we are all connected - we are not separate Spiritually.”
On this page is the ninth chapter of an online book by codependency therapist/Spiritual teacher.
Stopping emotional enmeshment
Feelings
separate emotionally - not Spiritually
Emotional Responsibility
Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light Book 2: A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life: Go to Chapter 10: Normal Families are dysfunctional - Published online November 20, 2002
September 2005 - Chapters 3 through 15 of this work are now exclusively available in the Dancing in Light pay to view component of Joy2MeU.com
Discernment in relationship to emotional honesty and responsibility 1Obsession / Obsessive Thinking Part 1
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney is copyright 1995. Material on Joy2MeU web site (except where otherwise noted) is copyright 1996 thru 2006 by Robert Burney PO Box 235401 Encinitas CA 92023.
Originally published at https://joy2meu.com/codependency_anorexia.htm