"As a recovering codependent, I know how long and hard I have had to work to learn to honor my own Truth and my own feelings, instead of giving power to "experts."  I have also learned on my path, how many of the so called experts were giving out shaming, judgmental messages because of their own wounds.  I have empathy and compassion for them, but I also hold them responsible for the messages they convey."

"To give out shame bearing black and white messages in the name of teaching love, is to me, just as destructive as a parent shaming a child to try to control them.  Our society teaches us to be shaming, manipulative, and controlling in the name of love and I find it just as screwed up and dysfunctional as fighting war in the name of God."

"It is very attractive for people to believe that they can evolve spiritually without doing their grief work.  Emotions are messy, especially the old repressed ones that can feel so overwhelming.  It is natural and normal for human beings to want to do things the easier, softer way.  So, many people want to hear someone tell them that it is possible to become enlightened without healing emotionally.  Many of those so called experts will even teach that if one is feeling the emotions then one is doing something wrong."

"Many people who are drawn to the New Age movement are still looking for the right way to do things, for the source outside of themselves that will give them the answers, for the aliens in space ships who will save them from the pain of this human experience.  The goal in this Age of Healing and Joy, in my understanding, is to learn to look within to find The Source.  To own our Spiritual Essence and our humanity - and to integrate Spirituality into the human experience so that we can achieve some balance in this human dance we are doing."

"One does not have to be perfect to be a channel.  One of the most important best selling books - a book that introduced millions of people to seeing life from a spiritual perspective - was written by a practicing alcoholic.  Some of the greatest spiritual teachers have a marvelous gift for communicating Truth - but have a problem with applying that Truth in relationship to themselves."

"Anyone who teaches that there is a right and wrong way to heal, is trapped in the black and white, polarized thinking of the disease of codependence.  Anyone who gives the message that there is a destination to be reached is empowering the concept of conditional love.  Anyone who gives shaming messages is projecting their own unhealed wounds outward."

Welcome to a page of Joy2MeU The Web Site of Spiritual Teacher, codependence counselor, grief therapist, author, Robert Burney and Joy to You & Me Enterprises       Go to Home Page        Site index page Robert is the author of the Joyously inspirational book Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls

This page includes quotes from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls, quotes from other articles, columns, and web pages (indented) written by Robert Burney, and quotes from The Dance of the Wounded Souls Trilogy.  The internal links within this article open in a separate browser window. An idea whose time has come I got an email the other day that reminded me once again of how the black and white thinking of codependence can cause some very Spiritual people to empower some very twisted views about Metaphysical Truth.  It brought to my attention an idea that has been presenting itself to me occasionally for some months.  I decided it was an idea whose time had come, and as a result have created this page.  The main content of this page is some ranting and raving in regard to this issue that I did in the news addendum to my Update Newsletter of July of 2000.  My Update Newsletters include information about what I am going through in my personal recovery process - and as such, I have chosen to block the search engines from indexing them.  I have done that because any page that a search engine indexes is potentially the first page someone will read of my site.  I prefer that people who discover my site start with a content page - rather than a processing page - so that they get a perspective of what my work is about.  It is not really a big deal, and I may change that one of these days, but right now the Updates are buried pretty deeply in the site and don't get nearly as many readers as the content pages. (Links to those Update newsletters can be found on the Information pages index which I will include a link to at the bottom of this page.) The information on that news page was the second part of a page that started off with some personal sharing about my ongoing process - so it was buried deeper than most.  I have been considering bringing that information up to a more accessible part of my site for some time.  This page will include the portion of that news page that relates to this topic, as well an expanded version of the answer I gave to the person who sent me the email that sparked this page.  I am also going to include several other quotes from my writing that relates to this issue. This is an important issue to me, because black and white misinterpretations of Metaphysical law cause codependents to judge and shame themselves - which is not aligned with the ultimate Metaphysical Truth of Love. ~ Robert   2-7-01 New Age Misinterpretations of Metaphysical Truth "We have now entered a very special time in human history. An Age of Healing and Joy has dawned in human consciousness on this planet. We now have tools, knowledge, and most importantly, clearer access to healing energy and Spiritual guidance than has ever before been available in recorded human history on this planet." (All quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls) (This section below, along with the section headed Metaphysical below this table is from the news addendum to my Update Newsletter of 7-20-2000) One of the perfect things that came into my path to stimulate me earlier this week was a quote that I saw in a post to a mailing list I am on.  This was the quote: What is not love is fear. Anger is one of fear's most potent faces. And it does exactly what fear wants it to do. It keeps us from receiving love at exactly the moment when we need it most. -- Marianne Williamson This is an emotional trigger for me. It really makes me angry.  And it was, of course, perfect since right at that time I was writing my article about finding emotional balance through inner child healing - the article that was focused on "through the fear."  The message that there is only love and fear, is one that I have seen in quite a few places - from various authors, belief systems, Spiritual teachers.  It is a message that in my opinion is not only inaccurate, but is also abusive and shaming. I will talk first about why it is an emotional trigger for me, and then why I think it is inaccurate. It is an emotional trigger for me because I interpret statements like this one to be saying that fear - and anger - are negative things that one should not experience if one is evolved enough.  That one who is enlightened should be in love all the time and not experience these negative emotions.  It feels to me like what is being said is that if I am experiencing fear I am doing something wrong - that I haven't gotten "there" yet. The reason that I have an emotional trigger around this kind of statement, that I give it power, is because I am judging myself on some level.  My disease is still in there giving me the message that something is wrong with me, that I am defective, that I am not doing it "right."   Other people's judgments have no power over me unless there is a level within me where I am judging myself.  And I believe that as long as I am in this body, on this plane, in this lifetime, that old programming will not go away completely.  It does not have anywhere near the power it used to possess.  Where is used to be a big monster screaming at me, now it is like a cricket in the corner chirping at me.  But even a little cricket chirping can get real annoying at times. Because I teach best what I need most to learn, and I am trying to learn how to Love myself - I am sensitive about messages like this, because I know how much power they can carry.  As a recovering codependent, I know how long and hard I have had to work to learn to honor my own Truth and my own feelings, instead of giving power to "experts."  I have also learned on my path, how many of the so called experts were giving out shaming, judgmental messages because of their own wounds.  I have empathy and compassion for them, but I also hold them responsible for the messages they convey.  (Which are of course perfect for wherever they are on their own path.) In working with codependents trying to overcome the power of the shame, I have often said, "You can't tell a shame based codependent enough that it was not their fault - that they were powerless to change until it was time to change."  When people who are healers reinforce the judgment and shame of the disease through making black and white statements like the one above, I get angry because I have used such statements in the past to beat myself up.  Until I learned how to have internal boundaries, and trust my own Truth, I took in statements from experts (whether they were authors or people with more recovery than I had or anyone that I saw as knowing more than defective me) and allowed it to fuel and feed my disease in shaming and judging and beating myself up.  I am constantly needing to tell clients that such messages are not necessarily the Truth. And of course, I have been going through a time of great fear, so I took the quote as a personal assault on me.  At a time when I have been recently struggling to be Loving to myself, this type of message is not one that reinforces the belief that I am Lovable and worthy.  To give out shame bearing black and white messages in the name of teaching love, is to me, just as destructive as a parent shaming a child to try to control them.  Our society teaches us to be shaming, manipulative, and controlling in the name of love and I find it just as screwed up and dysfunctional as fighting war in the name of God.

Metaphysical

Now, to get into why I believe such statements are inaccurate.  I am going to be responding out of my personal Spiritual Belief System, out of my own understanding of Metaphysical Truth.

On the Highest level, the Absolute Truth - the only True Reality of the God-Force, Goddess Energy, Great Spirit, what I call in my Trilogy, The Holy Mother Source Energy - is the ONENESS of the energy of ALL THAT IS vibrating at the frequency of Absolute Harmony, which is LOVE.  At that level, there is only LOVE.  We are all part of that ONENESS, of that LOVE.

The reality in which we are experiencing being separate, individual entities called human beings in a linear three-dimensional time/space reality is an illusion, a dream, a figment of the Great Spirit's imagination.  It is a holographic illusion caused by the illusion that energy can exist separate from The Universal Source.  Within this Illusion, there exist many other illusions - death, suffering, fear, anger, polarity, scarcity and lack, etc.  There are many levels to that Illusion.

It is very difficult to communicate about multiple levels of reality in polarized, three-dimensional language.  In my writing I try to differentiate by using LOVE to refer to the vibrational frequency of The Goddess, Love to refer to the Transcendent (transcendent through multiple levels within the Illusion) vibrational frequency which we humans can tune into, and love to identify the manifestation that occurs on the human level of experience.

In my understanding, we cannot experience LOVE as long as we are experiencing being separate individual entities - because in LOVE we are part of ALL, of the ONENESS.  We can experience Love when our internal channel is clear enough - or in some cases, we can experience something very close to that Transcendent emotion through temporary artificial means.  The goal in healing and recovery is to align ourselves with Truth to a degree that allows us to tune into Love as much of the time as is possible in a natural way.  It is not possible to be tuned into that Love all of the time.  In the times we are not tuned into Love, there will be times when we feel fear.

The Absolute Truth of God is Love, Joy, and Abundance.  It can be said that Love is all there is.  It could be said that fear and anger are a result of not being in tune with Love.  But to say that, is to deny that while in human body, it is not possible to be tuned into Love in every moment of the day.  The most enlightened person on the planet will experience a moment of visceral, instinctive fear when a plane they are riding in takes a sudden plunge or a car swerves in front of them or some such thing.  That fear of the unknown, that survival supporting programming, is something that is inherent in being human.  The more enlightened someone is, the sooner they let go of that fear and move back into an enlightened state of being - but they still feel it.

That kind of fear is not bad or wrong or the result of not being evolved enough.  What is dysfunctional are layers of fear that are a result of the trauma and programming of the disease.  As I said in the article about fear, most of the levels of fear we experience are dysfunctional and silly.  I believe that people who say that there is only fear and love, are talking about those dysfunctional levels of fear.  But to make a statement in black and white terms that convey the message that fear is negative - is in my opinion, not only inaccurate but also shaming.

It is also directly related to the reality that not only does traditional science, medicine, and psychology discount emotions - treat them as a chemical reaction or an extension of thought, but many of the so called New Age teachers do the same.  Emotions are, on one level, chemical reactions - just as on another level, our emotional reactions are very much influenced by our mental attitudes. But emotions are also energy that exists in a very real way on the etheric plane in the emotional body.  To discount the level in which emotions are energy is very dysfunctional in my belief.  To discount the emotional energy that was generated in our childhood, and still exists in our being, is to discount our own experiences and being - to say nothing of being very dangerous to our physical and mental health.

It is very attractive for people to believe that they can evolve spiritually without doing their grief work.  Emotions are messy, especially the old repressed ones that can feel so overwhelming.  It is natural and normal for human beings to want to do things the easier, softer way.  So, many people want to hear someone tell them that it is possible to become enlightened without healing emotionally.  Many of those so called experts will even teach that if one is feeling the emotions then one is doing something wrong.

I believe that such teachings are inaccurate.  I believe that our emotions are an important and vital part of our being that needs to be owned and honored.  I believe that fear is a teacher that helps us move toward Love, that helps us to learn how to love ourselves.  I do not believe that, in and of itself, it is wrong or bad or the opposite of love.  Our relationship with it can cause it to be very dysfunctional - which is why we need to own it so we can change our relationship with it.  The reality of being human is that this experience is really scary sometime.  I am saying that is OK - that it is not shameful or unevolved to feel fear.

This is getting way too long here, so I am just going to mention quickly some of the other messages that I find disturbing - especially coming from people who are supposed to be teachers.

Free Will - free will is an illusion that exists within certain levels of the illusion.  On the highest level, we are all part of the ONENESS and nothing any of us do can change that - because ONENESS is the highest Truth.  On Lower levels we have free will to a certain extent.  All of our actions on the physical plane however are governed by the Law of Karma - so that free will exists within the context of Karmic settlement.

Choosing your parents - this is another one that is governed by Karma.  We did not have the choice of any parents in the world to be born to - we had limited choices that were aligned with settling the Karma we needed to settle.

Abundance - as long as we are in the Karmic realm, let me address abundance.  Some of us came into this lifetime with issues to heal around money and financial abundance.  Other people had already done their healing around abundance issues - or will do it in some future life.  People that have a very easy time manifesting financial abundance are not better than, or more evolved than, people who have struggled financially in this lifetime.  It is just about having different types of paths - it is not something that rich people are justified in judging other people for (or vice versa), or that anyone needs to feel ashamed of because it means you are doing something wrong.

Now, all of us have childhood experiences that are reflections of the Karmic debts we need to settle.  That means, that things in childhood wounded us around the issues we are here to work on and heal.  So, like any other issues, abundance is an area that many people need to work on - to remove the dysfunctional, self sabotaging programming that comes from our childhood.  As long as we are working on uncovering our wounds and healing them, we are doing our part in the process.  It is important to learn to accept and Love ourselves no matter where we are in regard to any issue, and not give any issue (such as not having money) the power to affect our sense of self worth - or set us up to think that we are doing something wrong if we have not reached "there" yet.  We may never get "there" in this lifetime - it is important not to buy into being the victim of ourselves in relationship to any issue.

Being Creators of our life - this is one that I run into in Metaphysical New Thought Churches sometimes, as well as in other New Age type associations.  The law of mind action which states that what we focus on is what we create - is True.  The problem is that isn't the whole Truth.  There are other factors involved - including Karma.  We are co-creators in our life - not the sole creator.

It is also, one of the black and white statements that are sometimes made that can convey shaming messages if not qualified.  Telling someone they are creating their own reality without also telling them that they were programmed to come from fear and negativity - and that they were powerless over that programming until they learned they can change it - can cause codependents to feel ashamed.  It is a Truth but not the whole Truth.

Polarity - polarization of the energy field of Collective Human Intellectual Consciousness - the Lower Mind - is what set up the dysfunction in human existence.  It is what empowered the illusion of separation.  Polarity is not only part of the problem, it was causal in creating the problem - the human dilemma.  To empower polarity, by making black and white statements is to me, a sign that someone is not looking at the human experience from a large enough paradigm.  As wonderful a person as I am sure Marianne Williamson is - and she is a wonderful teacher who has brought enlightenment and a new perspective on Love to many, many people - I deduce from statements like the one above, that she still has some black and white judgments going on in her relationship with herself.  That is not bad or wrong - just human.

Statements such as hers above, give the message that fear and anger are negative and shameful.  I very much disagree.  The dysfunction in our relationships with ourselves have resulted in fear and anger being manifested in some really awful ways - but that does not impart negative value to the emotions themselves.  Our planet was stuck in a negative paradigm, one that was reversed to the Truth of Love, for thousands of years.  The whole human race was the victim of planetary conditions that caused humans to react to this human experience from a place of fear and survival, from a paradigm that empowered belief in lack, scarcity, and negativity.   It was the human condition - not something that any individual human being should judge them self for.

This is a New Age, as I explain in my book.  The energy field of Collective Human Emotional Consciousness has reversed to a place in alignment with Love instead of opposing it. That is why there is a Transformational Healing Movement happening on this planet.  We are learning to Love - and that needs to start with Loving our self enough to stop shaming and judging our self for being wounded humans.  It is really helpful if the people who are at the forefront of the movement are not giving out shaming, judgmental messages.

But, of course, everything is unfolding perfectly.  And the reason I react to such things is because of my own emotional wounds that I am working on healing.  Marianne is perfectly where she is supposed to be, just as I am - just as we all are.  There are just a lot of times when it doesn't feel like it.  In my belief, we are Spiritual Beings who are extensions of the God-Force, Great Spirit, Goddess Energy - having a human experience that is a form of boarding school.  We are all going to get to go Home.  We are all in Truth Home already on some level of our being.  We are waking up and remembering that.  It is a Joyous and exciting time to be alive.

The main reason that I have seen the so called New Age movement discredited is that people are not doing their healing.  They want to get Spiritual without owning their humanity.  They do not want to do the messy emotional healing that involves grieving and releasing the rage energy we are all carrying around.  They are out of balance and lack discernment so that they keep looking for the whole truth in one place.  There is Truth in all religions, spiritual belief systems, esoteric practices, etc. - but there is also twisted, distorted misinformation in them all.  Until we clear our inner channel to allow emotional flow it is impossible to Truly be discerning about Truth.  The emotional energy/intuition that is Truth is very different from what we experience as our emotional truth - which is most often largely a reaction to our emotional wounds and subconscious intellectual programming.  Until someone has become willing to heal their emotional wounds they cannot clearly start discerning between Truth and misinformation.  They keep looking outside for the answers, for someone or something to tell them what Truth to believe - instead of owning their own inner channel to Truth.  There are nuggets of Truth everywhere if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.  If our intellectual paradigm is limited, then we cannot see and hear clearly.  If our emotional wounds are being allowed to unconsciously run our lives then we are incapable of Truly understanding our intuition.

And, the bottom line I believe, is that we are Spiritual Beings having a human experience.  We are not here to get Spiritual - we are Spiritual.  We are here to integrate that Spiritual essence into our human experience.  The first time that someone told me that I was a Spiritual Being having a human experience, I got really angry.  The reason that I got angry is because I recognized immediately that this statement was the Truth.  I also recognized that since that was the Truth, it was not acceptable for me to go up on a mountain and meditate my way to God.  I realized that it meant I was supposed to learn how to relate to other human beings - something that I did not want to do because of my wounds.

Many people who are drawn to the New Age movement are still looking for the right way to do things, for the source outside of themselves that will give them the answers, for the aliens in space ships who will save them from the pain of this human experience.  The goal in this Age of Healing and Joy, in my understanding, is to learn to look within to find The Source.  To own our Spiritual Essence and our humanity - and to integrate Spirituality into the human experience so that we can achieve some balance in this human dance we are doing.

This is a New Age, but unfortunately many so called new agers are still looking for the magic answer that will allow them to vibrate at a higher vibrational level that allows them to escape the human experience.  I do not believe it is possible to do that without first honoring our human emotions, clearing our emotional bodies of repressed emotional energy, and embracing the experience of being human.

"We cannot integrate Spiritual Truth or intellectual knowledge of healthy behavior into our experience of life in a substantial way without honoring and respecting the emotions.  We cannot consistently incorporate healthy behavior into day to day life without being emotionally honest with ourselves.  We cannot get rid of our shame and overcome our fear of emotional intimacy without going through the feelings.

Walking around saying "We are all one," and "God is Love," and "I forgive them all," does not release the energy.  Using crystals, or white light, or being born again does not heal the wounds, and does not fundamentally alter the behaviors.

We are all ONE and God is LOVE; crystals do have power and white light is a very valuable tool, but we need to not confuse the intellectual with the emotional (forgiving someone intellectually does not make the energy of anger and pain disappear) - and to not kid ourselves that using the tools allows us to avoid the process.

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."

Trilogy

"It is however, vital for humans to realize that doing their emotional healing is a vital part of opening up to Love and en-Light-enment. For any human to focus on anything but healing their own self is counterproductive in this New Age.  To put their time and energy into belief systems that do such things as:  attribute all of the significant events, and the important people, in human history to the intervention of aliens from other planets or other dimensions;  buy into the belief that they are being manipulated and/or led to Truth by some hierarchy of beings from higher vibrations;  or need the intervention of discarnate entities from the Astral plane to teach you Truth;  or any of numerous other ways in which people focus their attention on some of the myriad of false gods that are outside of their being;  is to deny that they in and of them self are Lovable and worthy simply as beings who are extensions of The Holy Mother Source Energy.  To attribute messages that are coming through your inner channel from your own Higher Self to someone or something outside of - or separate from - you, is to give power to the shame and separation that is the evil in this Creation Dream.  And the reason humans are doing these things is because they are scared to do their own emotional healing.  Honoring, respecting, Loving self enough to heal the emotional wounds from this lifetime is what will clear the inner channel and open self up to Love - not connecting with some being from the Pleiades."

Chapter 5 of Book 1 of The Dance of the Wounded Souls Trilogy

"We will talk about how entities of the Astral plane have interfered with the inner channel after you have recalled some more memories of the future and past.  For now it is enough to note that any communication that requires unconsciousness on the part of a human being - including entity channeling, automatic writing, drugs, meditative trance, etc. - has always resulted in as much misinformation as Truth, and will in this Age retard the beings growth process.  Of course, the path for some beings has included some of these things at certain points prior to the information about what works best in this Age becoming available to them.  The key is balance which can only be attained through emotional healing.  Each person must strive to be emotionally honest with themselves and that requires taking responsibility for one's own path.  This Age of Healing and Joy is about awakening to consciousness of one's own Spiritual Nature and Spiritual Purpose - and that is accomplished by healing the wounds within, by healing the 'inner child' that is the soul.  One cannot awaken to consciousness by turning over responsibility for one's own path to anyone outside of Self.  That includes gurus in body, aliens from the Pleaides, and/or entities of the Astral."

Chapter 6 of Book 1 of The Dance of the Wounded Souls Trilogy

The e-mail I received was from someone who was in a relationship with a spiritual teacher that had taught this person a great deal.  The teacher was a Reiki Master and Spiritual Minister who was very invested in the concept that there are no limitations to the spiritual power available.  The  teacher was also a practicing alcoholic/addict.  The person who sent the e-mail was relatively new to spiritual teachings, and was confused about the behavior and inability to set boundaries exhibited by the teacher.  My answer in part:

There is a page that is part of one of my Update Announcements that you might find interesting.  In the bottom half of the article on that page http://Joy2MeU.com/news.htm I talk about misconceptions and misunderstandings of Metaphysical law that many spiritual seekers fall into the trap of empowering.

Although I don't speak directly to the concept of limitations - the same principles apply.  That the Universe is capable of any miracle, that it's power is unlimited, is an absolute Truth.  That we have access to that power is also a Truth.  That it is important for us to be open to that power and not put limitations on ourselves in terms of the attitudes, beliefs, and definitions we allow to dictate our relationship with self, life, and The Universal Force / God / Goddess / Great Spirit is very True.  But it is also true that we are here to do Karmic Settlement and heal wounds from the past - and that Karmic Law and physical existence do impose certain limitations on us.  The wounds that we suffered in this lifetime are reflections of the Karma we need to heal.  The  situations we find our self in are perfect for us to learn the lessons we need to learn.  And important part of learning is to see reality clearly - and then take appropriate action to heal what we become conscious of.

One of the limiting factors that we need to learn to accept and make the best of, is the physical body vehicle we have chosen for this lifetime.  Some of us have chosen - in alignment with Karmic settlement - to experience bodies which include a genetic predisposition to alcoholism and addiction.  Any alcoholic who thinks that they can heal their alcoholism through spiritual power without quitting drinking is delusional and empowering denial rather than Truth.  Their disease is twisting their thinking to suit the purpose of allowing them to rationalize continued drinking.  An alcoholic who is in denial about their alcoholism will always have as their first priority justifying their drinking - that is a survival level priority for an alcoholic in denial.  Anything and anyone in their lives who tries to get between them and their drinking will suffer for it - unless or until the alcoholic gets conscious enough to recognize that they have a problem.

In order to protect yourself, it is necessary for you to recognize the reality of the situation.  Talking to an alcoholic that is drinking is about as effective as talking to the bottle itself - in other words, a waste of time and energy.  As long as the alcoholic is in denial, he will blame others and rationalize his behavior.

Alcoholism is a physiological condition.  All of us have certain limitations caused by the physical body vehicles we are inhabiting in this lifetime.   That there are no limits to the power we have access to, does not include the ability to create anything we want to in this physical world we inhabit.  Someone who is 5 feet tall with no athletic ability does not have the power to manifest a career as a professional basketball player.  If we are focusing on a specific goal that is based upon external circumstances then there are many limitations to what we can manifest.   That there are no limitations to the healing possible through Reiki or other spiritual practices is very true - in terms of we should not put any limitations on the possibilities, but there are still other forces at work that do limit possibilities.

As I say on my page that includes questions and answers about alcoholism:

One of the major indicators that a person is an alcoholic in my opinion, is that when they decide they are not alcoholic they have a drink to celebrate.  Some one who is not an alcoholic has no compelling reason to drink - and most non alcoholics do not ever have to wonder if they are alcoholic. Questions about Alcoholism

Someone who has accessed so much Spiritual power that they could heal their own alcoholism, would then also have no reason to drink.  There is no limitation to the abundance of Joy, the exquisite feeling of Love that we can access in some moments of our journey through doing our healing.  Accessing those transcendent emotional vibrational frequencies results from clearing our inner channel and being open to whatever we are feeling in the moment.  Using temporary artificial means to help us raise our vibrational frequency and access higher vibrational energies was sometimes the only way they could be accessed prior to the dawning of this New Age.  In this Age of Healing and Joy, our mission is to raise our consciousness naturally through clearing our inner channel and owning our Divine connection.  The purpose of the healing is to own our True Spiritual essence and remember that we are connected to the Source.  Temporary, artificial means of doing that are detrimental to our path in this New  Age.

"Who we are, 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" perfectly according to a false belief system in order to "get Spiritual."  It does not work.  It's dysfunctional and backwards.  It is not bad or wrong or shameful - it is the best we have known how to do life until now.

All any human being in the history of the planet has ever done is the best that she/he knew how to do to survive in the moment.

Humans have always been looking for a way home.  For a way to connect with our Higher Consciousness.  For a way to reconnect with our creator.  Throughout human history, human beings have used temporary artificial means to raise their vibrational level, to try to reconnect with Higher Consciousness.

Drugs and alcohol, meditation and exercise, sex and religion, starvation and overeating, the self-torture of the flagellant or the deprivation of the hermit - all are attempts to connect with higher consciousness.   Attempts to reconnect with Spiritual Self.   Attempts to go home."

One of the things that is very important in recovery is to not put people on pedestals.  Anytime we put someone on a pedestal and empower the belief that they are much better than us, we are setting ourselves up to be victims - because they will disappoint us.  Everyone is human.  Everyone is wounded.  Which means that the most highly thought of "experts," the best selling authors, the pioneers to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for blazing the trail, are human also.  One does not have to be perfect to be a channel.  One of the most important best selling books - a book that introduced millions of people to seeing life from a spiritual perspective - was written by a practicing alcoholic.  Some of the greatest spiritual teachers have a marvelous gift for communicating Truth - but have a problem with applying that Truth in relationship to themselves. (And also have the potential to be the most gifted in turning any perceived criticism back on the person trying to communicate with them.  Anyone who is in denial about what they perceive as a life threatening priority - like an alcoholic who feels compelled to drink or an "expert" whose ego strength is based on feeling "better than" - can be masterful in defending themselves.  They will use spiritual/recovery language and knowledge of interaction dynamics to manipulate.)

We all need help in remembering Truth.  We all need help at times to see ourselves more clearly.  We all need to have people come into our lives who will help us heal, who will share with us understanding and knowledge, tools and techniques, that will help us on our path.  None of those people will be perfect.  Everyone is in process.  No one is completely healed or enlightened.  Putting someone on a pedestal is codependent and a block to intimacy.  Any "expert" who buys into believing they belong on a pedestal is being codependent.

"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."

No one has the right to tell you what your path is, to judge you in your process.  Anyone who teaches that there is a right and wrong way to heal, is trapped in the black and white, polarized thinking of the disease of codependence.  Anyone who gives the message that there is a destination to be reached is empowering the concept of conditional love.  Anyone who gives shaming messages is projecting their own unhealed wounds outward.

"One of the core characteristics of this disease of Codependence is intellectual polarization - black and white thinking.  Rigid extremes - good or bad, right or wrong, love it or leave it, one or ten.  Codependence does not allow any gray area - only black and white extremes.

Life is not black and white.  Life involves the interplay of black and white.  In other words, the gray area is where life takes place.  A big part of the healing process is learning the numbers two through nine - recognizing that life is not black and white.

Life is not some kind of test, that if we fail, we will be punished.  We are not human creatures who are being punished by an avenging god.  We are not trapped in some kind of tragic place out of which we have to earn our way by doing the "right" things.

We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience.  We are here to learn.  We are here to go through this process that is life.  We are here to feel these feelings."

"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."

At the core of the condition of codependence - which I believe is the human condition - is shame about being human.  Feeling that being human is a punishment of some kind - or something to evolve beyond.  As I say in my book, many aboriginal societies were far advanced over "civilized" societies in this regard.  They actually believed that there were Loving reasons for this human experience, and that it was just a temporary condition to celebrate rather than something to escape.

At the core of recovery from the dis-ease of codependence, is the need to take the shame and judgment out of the process on a personal level.  The only way, in my opinion, that we can Truly manifest Love into the world is to start with learning to Love ourselves.  As long as we are judging and shaming ourselves for being human, we will judge others for being human.  As long as we are fighting our own emotional process, we will not be able to clearly discern rather what we are feeling is a reaction that is coming from the old wounds and old tapes, or an emotional energy communication from our soul.

Recovery is a process of learning how to take power over how we feel about ourselves away from the critical, fear based internal programming so that we can more clearly tune into the intuitive messages from our soul, from our Higher Self.  The test of rather a message is coming from our wounds and false beliefs or from our Spirit is a fairly simple one:  does it support Love?  Is it a Loving message?

Any message that supports polarity - right and wrong, black and white - is not coming from a large enough paradigm.  Yin and Yang are not separate - they are ONE dynamic, one whole.  It is our polarized perspective that makes them seem to be competing opposites.  When we look at the human dynamic from a large enough perspective we can see the ONENESS of it all.

It is very difficult to communicate in polarized, three dimensional language about a process that is multi-leveled and multi-dimensional.  The quote from Marianne Williamson that I use above may be taken out of context - my interpretation of it may not be what she meant at all.  There may be quotes in this very article that someone could use in a shaming manner.  I certainly am not perfect - nor is it possible for me to communicate clearly all of the time.

The point that I am trying to make is that any message that empowers judgment and shame, that supports the illusion of separation, is not coming from our Spirit - those messages are coming from the disease.  The Highest Truth, the only Truth, is LOVE.  By accessing the Transcendent emotional energy of Love, Joy, Light, and Truth through paying attention to, clearing our channel to, that which we resonate with - we can reconnect with the Source and remember our True identity.

"As was stated earlier, Codependence could more accurately be called outer or external dependence.  Outside influences (people, places, and things; money, property, and prestige) or external manifestations (looks, talent, intelligence) can not fill the hole within.  They can distract us and make us feel better temporarily but they cannot address the core issue - they cannot fulfill us Spiritually.  They can give us ego-strength but they cannot give us self-worth.

True self-worth does not come from temporary conditions.  True self-worth comes from accessing the eternal Truth within, from remembering the state of Grace that is our True condition.

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.

Accessing your own Truth is remembering."

Life is not a test that we can fail.  Life events are not punishment for being defective, or for doing it wrong.  As long as we are in human body we will sometimes experience fear.  When we judge and shame ourselves for being human we are feeding the disease, we are allied with the shame instead of with Love.

By learning to have compassion for our self we can take power away from the shame and judgment - which will in turn take power away from our fears.  By remembering the Truth of Unconditional Love, we can access the faith and courage to walk through our fears.

"If you have an image of what completely healthy behavior is, and you will not allow yourself to accept and Love yourself until you get there, then you are setting conditions under which you decide when you will become Lovable.  You are still buying into a concept of conditional love and by extension, the concept of a Higher Power that is conditionally loving.  You are still trying to earn, and become worthy of not only self-Love, but also God's Love.  That small child inside of you is still trying to earn your parents' Love and validation. . . .

Everything is unfolding perfectly from a Cosmic Perspective!

There are no accidents, no coincidences, no mistakes!

You are perfectly where you are supposed to be on your Path.   You always have been and always will be!

The God-Force is powerful enough to get us to where we are supposed to be with or without our help!  We do not have the power to screw up the Great Spirits plan.

What we do have is the option of making it easier on ourselves.  The goal in Recovery is not to become perfect.  The goal is to make life an easier, more enjoyable experience.

The way I think of it is that my Higher Power works with the carrot and stick approach:  like a mule driver trying to get a mule moving, he can either dangle a carrot in front of the mule and get the mule moving after the carrot, or he can take a stick and beat him until he gets moving.

It is a lot easier on me to follow the carrots that my Higher Power dangles in front of me than to force the Universe to use a stick to get me moving.  Either way I am going to get to where the Universe wants me - but the carrot method is a lot easier on me.

The more that I do my healing, the clearer I get on receiving the messages - the more I get to follow the carrots instead of experiencing the stick.  The dance of Recovery is a process of starting to Love ourselves enough to start changing life into an easier, more enjoyable experience."

As I said, the goal of healing is not to become perfect, it is not to "get healed."  Healing is a process, not a destination - we are not going to arrive at a place in this lifetime where we are completely healed.

The goal here is to make life an easier and more enjoyable experience while we are healing.  The goal is to LIVE.   To be able to feel happy, Joyous, and free in the moment, the majority of the time."

". . . .  in the Age of Healing and Joy that has dawned in human consciousness, our first priority is Spiritual Awakening.

This healing process is why we are here!

The awakening to consciousness of our Spiritual nature and Spiritual purpose is why we are here at this time.

This is the age of awakening, of raising our consciousness, of becoming aligned with Divine Truth.  This age is the time of atoning, of tuning into the higher vibrational emotional energy of Love, Light, Truth, and Joy.  This higher vibrational energy is the homing beacon that guides us back home. . . . . .

This is not home.  This is also not a prison. This is boarding school and we are getting ready for graduation.  And it is all a perfect part of the Divine Script.

We are here to experience this human evolutionary process.  The more we awaken to the Truth of who we are (Spiritual beings) and why we are here (to experience being human), and stop giving power to the false gods of money, property and prestige; people, places and things; the more we can celebrate being here!

Buddha had it half right:  We need to let go of our attachment to the illusions of this Illusion.  But as we stop giving power to the illusions, we can begin to celebrate being here, we can begin to enjoy our human experience.

This is a playground, this is a wonderful summer camp.  It is full of beautiful colors and wondrous sights, animals and birds and plants, mountains and oceans and meadows, whales and butterflies.  It is full of tastes and smells and sounds and sensations. . . . .

As we learn the dance of Recovery, as we tune into the energy of Truth, we can reverse our emotional experience of being human so that most of the time it can feel more like a wonderful summer camp than a dreadful prison."

This is an incredibly complex and convoluted process.  It is also very simple.  Love is the answer.  Love is the guide.  LOVE is Home.  And Love has to start at home by learning to Love and accept our self by tuning into the Truth within us.  That Truth is that we are part of the ONENESS; we are Unconditionally Loved; and we are going to get to go Home.  On a Higher Level we are Home already - we always have been.

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