I had not really anticipated having a page just for testimonials until just recently. With the complete redesign I have just completed of my Joy2MeU site, having a testimonial page fit in with the overall concept of the design - so voila, here is this page. As I was getting ready to put this page together, on the evening of January 30th 2000, I got an e-mail that included a link to someone's else site with a testimonial to my site. Since I do not believe there are any accidents or coincidences, it seemed only appropriate that I include that link here. The site is Dr. Irene's and it is a really wonderful site. Her focus is on abusive relationships and she is really wonderful in her approach to the dynamics of both the abuser and the victim. Here is the link to the testimonial on her site that includes a testimonial to my site. Check it out http://www.drirene.com/words_of_appreciation.htm along with the rest of her site. ~ Robert
"I freely share so much information on my site because . . . I believe it is my Karmic Mission in this lifetime. I want to share the Joyous message and the precious information that I have discovered - and it is what I need to do for my Recovery and Spiritual Path. It is not such a great strategy when it comes to finances however.;-) So Donations to the Cause / Love Offerings / Spiritual Tithes are always appreciated if you feel my sharing has helped you in your Healing / Recovery process and on your Spiritual Path. If my writing has helped you remember Truth that brings you some Joy and inner peace, and your Spirit moves you to send some Love back my way . . . ." - Metaphysical Law: Giving and Receiving - Donations to the Cause / Love Offerings / Spiritual Tithes
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
Robert is the author of the Joyously inspirational bookThe Dance of Wounded Souls.
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I am now posting testimonials
about every year or so - this is the first time since May 2015.
(August 17, 2016) This is from someone who was scheduled to come to my workshop in Las Gatos in December 2015 and couldn't attend because of food poisoning. She was able to come to my workshop in Gilroy in April and bring her father with her. "I also wanted to share the undeniable divine intervention regarding this workshop. I first read Co-dependence, The Dance of Wounded Souls about ten years ago and it literally ignited the spark of life within me and brought my fathers alcoholism out from under the rug of denial. It was the catalyst for embarking upon the transformational journey and spiritual awakening leading me to my soul's purpose of becoming a therapist. I finally broke the silence surrounding my father's alcoholism and he has been sober for seven years. I dreamed of being able to have us attend one of your workshops but knew he wasn't at that point in his recovery and doubted he ever would be. I toyed with the idea of asking him but wasn't sure and then received your email asking me if I wanted to bring someone. I knew this was absolutely divine intervention and I asked him if he would like to come with me. After some thought and reading about your work, he decided he would like to come with me! I know it will be a profound healing experience and thank you for making it possible. Guess that explains where the food poisoning came from." "Thank you Robert not only for assisting me in my healing. I have been reading and deep searching truth in your words for over 15 years. As a therapist I share your web site and words with others to help them understand their wounded hearts and souls. Blessings to you" "Love your insights and wisdom keep up the great work! Here in Toronto your book was recomended as a course book for addictions counselling by one of the profs." "Your book ( codenpendence / the dance of wounded souls) is truly one of the best books I have read in a very long time - so much wisdom in such a small book. Hoping that if I get the chance to travel to the west coast again this year I will be able to attend one of your talks too." Comments on Facebook post of my book Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls “Awesome book.” “This book is worth STUDYING very slowly to absorb its meanings. Blew me away!” “This book gave me all the answers i needed to turn my life around....literally saved me from destroying me....enjoy” “I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Have listened to the tapes daily till they wore out!!” “This book was LIFE CHANGING and LIFE SAVING for me!” “This book is a total GAME CHANGER! Love it!” “Wonderful book” "Thanks Robert Burney, I did read this book and is just an awakening for the soul, to learn how to love ourselves and put some boundaries to keep a healthy life . love it." "I'm reading this book right now and it is amazing!!!!" "God has directed me to your sight with a purpose to heal my inner child - understand co-dependency, etc. I appreciate your wisdom and am enjoying reading through the various lessons immensely. I have passed this on to others who are doing the same." "Thank you, Robert! You've helped me in more ways than I can count. I could never thank you enough." "Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your gift with me! You explain it in such a way that it just kept going click, click, click! Wow! So helpful. It has changed my life and, in turn, my family's. Love!" "Hi Robert, I've just finished reading your book and I have to tell you, it is absolutely brilliant and I have read so many books, but yours just struck a chord with me, ongoing to read it again" "Thank you Robert Burney, you have enhanced my perception of life through your books and talks, peace always to you my friend!”" "A LITTLE OVER TWO YEARS AGO I STUMBLED ACROSS YOUR STUFF.. AND I WANT TO TELL YOU THAT YOU LITERALLY SAVED ME WITH YOUR WORK. YOUR WRITINGS WOKE ME UP TO A WHOLE NEW LIFE OF THINGS." "This author and man is a Blessing in my life. His books and his sharing has been extremely helpful to all of us who take advantage by being connected to him on FB Facebook ... There is so much knowledge to learn to change the things we do who we are and the way we perceived our responses with reading his posts , on his website, as well as his books.... check out todays post from a past post. I can say it is one of those post that I know say so much to help all of us become better Human beings." "Sure do appreciate your Emailed articles, & this Facebook page! You got some REALLY remarkable, HELPFUL ("practical"!) insights, & you are very gifted at expressing them! As I'm able, I'm gonna start "advertising" your Facebook page, as well as your website, to all the folks WHO ARE looking for MORE answers than "JUST not taking a drink/drug", here in Chattanooga, TN.!! (Am going to one of our CoDA mtgs, here in town, tonight... But I also got a "closed" CoDA Facebook group, that has quite a few (for Chattanooga) people in AA/NA recovery, that are ALSO INTERESTED in CoDA recovery!!! So, I'm glad I remembered your Facebook page, to share this with them!" "Honestly, I have gotten so much from reading your books:-) he he after reading relationships I was like really, I now have a healthier relationship with Self and amazing relationships with people, places & things come to life, meaningful I think the word is ....... Thank you Robert B for being a huge part of my recovery ...... Hugs!""Thanks Robert Burney...this book saved my life 3 yrs ago....living a grt life now" "i have one year today in the ACA program, thanks to you Robert!!! coming up on 15 in AA , 4 with no smoking, wow....such a life... i continue to be gentle, loving and humorous with my self so i can be present authentically. thank you for showing me/US how to do this. you help so many... i just wanted to share my profound appreciation of your work carving out a path for all of US in the world" "The Dance of Wounded Souls is an exceptional book. It has helped me a lot. I've read it twice and will do so many more times." "Robert it's the 3rd time read the dance of the wounded souls & I can not tell u how much it help so thank u" "I recently read your book dance of the wounded soul it helped me so much I loved it!!" "Finding your website was a "god send" for me that ofcourse came at the perfect time. Im very spiritual. I was absolutely blown away that we pretty much have the same core beliefs, or what I call my knowing, through as far as ive came, thus far, in my healing. You are filling in many blanks for me. Your writings are helping me tremendously. Ive shared your work with many friends and family that will benefit them as it has me. I shared with my brother, the metaphysics link. He is starting his awakening. Im also on the path to helping or "teaching" people to heal, and i had just explained to my brother that I can only teach another to heal as far as i have come. Ive the gift of seeing and feeling peoples pain, and usually instantly know who, what, where and why. Ive not been able to apply this to myself till I found your work. Also, you have GOT to be a soulmate of my wonderful teacher, _________, i informed her of this and she has seen your work. Ive told her she also needs to write a self help book! Anyway, thank you so much for your work. Ive got a beautiful child to heal! Love and light to "Thank you so much Robert. I am grateful for all the enlightment your book and site has brought to me. You have been a huge gift in my life." "Just ordered your new book about relationships as my marriage recently ended. Only read two chapters and finding it very helpful. Thank you." (Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth) "Happy day, oh spiritual brother. Thank you for always leading the way, fearlessly, with such deep impact. The many who have experienced the blessings of your teaching, are forever changed. Live deep, live long." "Its been a few days short of exactly two years since an emotional wreck first stumbled over joy2meu.com, and I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you for all that you've done for me and so many others. Since that time, I have certainly learned a lot about myself and others that were in my life (many of whom no longer are for various reasons). Without the knowledge you've so graciously shared, I'd probably still be riding the emotional pendulum that plagued me my entire life and can almost guarantee that I wouldn't now be happily married. So again, thank you for giving me the knowledge and strength to finally be emotionally honest with myself and to finally put an end to the cycle of "I'll show you, I'll get me!" The work may never end, but it is certainly worth it" "Love your work Robert. I completed your workbook over the holidays...spectacular! It has really helped me in my personal growth. Keep going strong!" “Your books and your coaching have help me tremendously . Thank you Robert. I just want you to know that your words have helped me through many relationships and helped me to discover who I am truly am. Thank you for those words they rescued me from some toxic people.” "Thank you! I hope I will have the honor of meeting you in person one day! You truly are one of the reason I find my connection to Spirit once again! Much love." "Thank you soooo much for your clear enlightening qualities in the way you shed light on the darkness." "I have been on a healing journey for a long time and discovering your work has been another step on my path. I hope you are rightly proud of the work you do." "Hi Robert, Thank you so much for helping me understand co dependency. I have found it a difficult concept to grasp. My father was the alcoholic. I have been going to Alanon for years which has transformed my life. I live in New Zealand. If I was closer I would love to go to your workshops. I cry when I read your work. It makes so much sense." "I found you first online years ago and I was helped so much by your writings and bought several copies of your wounded soul book and shared them around. Thankyou so much for your wisdom! " "This book is worth its weight in gold" "We haven't met, but I found your website by chance before I was even aware of what codependency is, and your writing is very helpful and relevant to me Which is putting it lightly - my girlfriend left me last year and I found myself in a very difficult place with a lot of unresolved grief. I see now that she came into my life to help me with my issues Thank you for sharing the wisdom of your experience" "Dear Robert, I am writing you from Switzerland. Today I prayed a lot for Divine Guidance and help, and now this evening here I found your website - and it gave me many answers !! Your work is precious, very very healing and so precious !!!" "I just want to tell you how much I am enjoying and learning from your workbook codependency recovery: Wounded souls dancing in the light. I am going through the workbook looking at my own wounds, and also incorporating your thoughts and suggestions in helping my own clients. I am grateful for your vulnerability, courage, and willingness to act as a servant of the Universe by sharing what you have learned. Thank you." "I have listened to the book 3 times while driving. I want to listen where I can take notes especially for the information in the 3rd section. It is amazing. You are truly gifted. I have read (back in the day) tons of coda literature and went to 2 and 3 meetings a week. Nothing ever came close to the way you have taken the coda saga, put the rocks in a blender and poured out out the dust so people (like me) can finally really get it. I am looking forward to listening to the workshop. Thank you. Thank you " (MP3 Downloads) "I've bought the audio tapes, listened over the three parts more than three times and that was a year ago. I don't know if then I wasn't ready for what was to come but... Right now I'm in so much joy because I'm actually enjoying this beautiful process. I'm just so happy because I know that it's working for me. I can FEEL it. I'm saying thank you. X100 thank you so much. If you will excuse me now, I have more wounds to uncover and more ME to discover. Thank you!!!!!" "I have read the book Dance of Wounded Souls ...this book made me realize what has been missing in my life and why I have always chosen the wrong person/ persons to be in my life...Thank you " "Thanks Robert, great inspiration to help us recover from great misconceptions. Thank you so much for sharing" "I read your 1st book many years ago..it gave me a great foundation..my healing path has involved working with my "inner children" they each have a name and represent an age group..I have re-parented them, I've connected them to Divine love..and I love that you say no matter how much work we do there are still buttons and sore points sometimes but can work thru them much faster! Thanks!!" "I just got my hands on Dance of Wounded Souls and I am about 2/3 of the way thru. It has already been such a blessing that I do not have the words. Thank you for being brave enough to write it!!! Bless your Spirit (temporarily housed on planet earth)!!!" "I am currently reading the wounded soul and i am facinated about the book." "Thanks for sharing your recovery and your life's path with all of us. You are such a gift to humanity! Please stay strong, stay well, stay blessed dear friend!" "I truly admire your insight!! Thank you so much for all of your articles. They have been such a blessing to me and my recovery." "Your book, Dance of Wounded Souls, has been a significant gift in my life. Thanks again!" "Your books and website have helped this past year to be one of my best ever. Here's to even more inner child healing going forward." "I read your material for the first time probably in 2008 when I searched a lot online trying to learn why I was so frustrated and angry with my mother. Last year a man I work with was voicing his frustration with his mom. I passed on your name and your website. This summer I will see him again. I hope he has taken time to learn and use many of the valuable tips from your wisdom. I am back to your site since today to lower my stress and learn how to think -and not think -about a challenging woman I work with." "Simply thank You! Your work and words have been inspiration, hope, guideline, insight for over 10 years......and I always feel really good returning. That is a gift only few possess...... Your words ring true, then and now." "I hope you are well. I cannot begin to say thank you for your work. I feel very blessed to have run on your website as I was searching to understand about inner child. Your writing has started to speak to me in ways I had not thought possible. Teaching me things I had felt but had not seen anyone write them so candidly. I am so happy for the understanding that comes from your in depth wisdom, truth and spiritual integrity. Thank You so much Robert. May you keep guiding us towards the way of light." "I am a big fan of your book! It helped me more than anything else when I was going through a really tough time. I have also given it to a couple of friends who appreciated it very much. Thank your Robert for your unique insights and sharing them for our healing too" "Thank you for your strength and courage on your path and for sharing it with the world." "Your book is really special to me Robert, because apart from the CoDA big book it was the first book I bought in recovery! It created a huge shift in me...thank you." "My journey has been an interesting one. I still trace my “awakening” and the start of the acceleration of changes back to my discovery of your codependence material in January 2011. That transformed my relationships with people and with the world. It has helped me cope in a codependent society. I have also found one precious friendship that is free of codependence. It is so refreshing to be able to communicate with a level of honesty, openness and trust." "I just wanted to express my gratitude for your work, as it has helped me immensely in the healing process. Thank you kindly for sharing all the insights and wisdom!" "I want to share with you that your book and website writings gave me great comfort and courage during my graduate studies in counseling from 2007-2009. Though I have not heard your voice, you were there speaking to me when I felt like I was alone in all the world. Thank you for being an empowering, inspirational teacher for me." "I want to thank you for the article on codependency I have just read on your website. It is so generous of you to put it out there and it had given me hope in my dealing with my subtly but exceedingly manipulative spouse....I wish you much success and I'm off to continue reading!" "I purchased your Co-Dependence book "The Dance of Wounded Souls"... This is such an amazing book that will help millions of people that will pick it up and read it. I was traumatized throughout my childhood from alcoholic deaf parents, being molested from my step-dad, to my family being threaten to be killed by my father and I being held at gunpoint with my mother, and brother at the age of 4, bouncing from family member to orphanages and not knowing if my father or mother was going to get me and my siblings, then to my first love commuting suicide behind my home after my birthday in my teen years. Of course the list goes on and I'm sure you get the picture and understand why I feel so blessed in finding your book. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for following your calling. I feel like for the first time in my life that I have hope now that I have some understanding,direction, and tools to work with... Thanks to your book. If we could reach so many children that struggle in the foster care system, that go to counseling due to abuse or neglect or that are just simply struggling because they are forced to adopt being someone or something they are not, in order to cope or survive, we'd see so many more healthy and functional people in society. I truly hope and pray you receive this email. Thank you again." "I just wanted to say thanks for writing your book 'dance of the wounded souls'. This book is just talking directly to me and is helping me so much every time i read it. It should be up there with the power of now and other similar books (maybe it is). Anyway no need to reply as am sure you are very busy. Just wanted to express my gratitude" "The first time my life meant anything was after reading...Co dependency..dance of the wounded soul....thanks much..blessings." "I read your article on Tough Love this morning and it was exactly what I needed to hear. It got me to move away from feeling guilty about practicing tough love on my ex-boyfriend that Im still in love with. Thank you! And keep up the good work" "I'm re-reading Codependency: Wounded Souls Dancing along with my daily Al Anon. I appreciate your opening of Self which enables me to become aware and recognize the dynamics I grew up. You have been a part of my growth and confidence as I continue moving forward so, thank YOU." "Your work on codependency has shined light in the dark areas of my conditioning. I appreciate you for acknowledging my day and truly appreciate you for having the courage to spread healing around a sensitive issue" "Hi Robert. I have been scouring your web site the past few days and read the book, "Codependency, The Dance of Wounded Souls". There is so much info that it is mind boggling." "What a wise, insightful and healing site beyond new age fluff. I wish I found your work years ago. I see my learning echoed in your writing and it feels very affirming. I will be ordering your books." "I'm reading your books and very much appreciating them. Thank you so much for all your work and insight."
August 3, 2003 - A number of the testimonials
I am adding today include queries about
where to find my book Codependence:
The Dance of Wounded Souls (clicking on the title link will
take you to my ordering page) In my January
2002 Update I addressed the issue of where people can
find my book, because it is a pretty common for people who find
the site to assume that they can go out and find
my book at their local book stores. Unfortunately
that is not true in most cases. - 9-7-03 Decided to leave this here for anyone who
does want to find the book.
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"Thank you so much for your website. I have been turning to it repeatedly
for the last week and finding it a great source
of information and comfort. You article about Letting Go of
an Emotionally Unavailable Person has especially deep resonance for me
right now.
I'm grateful to have
found your words to help me during a time when my
childhood wounds have been triggered. I agree with you that
when this happens it is an opportunity for healing. I am trying.
Thank you for putting this help out there for all to access."
"I just stumbled
upon your site and think your contribution to our world
is brilliant. You and Jesus appear to have very similar vibrations."
"Yesterday at work, while in the midst of another mind numbing day of
pain, I stumbled upon your website while searching
for information about boundaries. I spent the better part
of the afternoon reading and bookmarking pages to return
to when the time is right. This morning, I woke up and was
drawn to "The Story of Joy to You & Me". This
story hits so close to home with me on so many levels, but particularly
where you explain how you added “thy will not my will be done”.
All week long this has been the phrase that has been running through
my head while trying to cope with my immediate situation.
What I found to be ironic was that I carry the serenity prayer with
me on a pink sheet of paper taped over so it doesn't fall apart and
on Monday I had added "not my will…" to the bottom of the page.
So when I read your story it confirmed my need to let go of my situation
and let God do his work.
Meanwhile, through your
story, I now realize that I have also been torturing
myself for all these years when what I really need to do is
let go of the craziness and turn the situation over to God.
AND, today is the day that I will start to learn what it means
to love myself and to begin the journey of working on me. .
As the tears stream down
my face, I realize these aren't the "pain and fear"
tears I have been crying, but they are tears to acknowledge
that there is joy is within me, I just need to start letting
it out. This feels like a pivotal day in my personal recovery
and I just wanted to thank you for your transparency because it
was a positive trigger for me."
"I find your work very refreshing, i feel like i am truly connecting with my self . . . i am very thankfull for all the time you have put into your work and that of helping other peoples lives."
"Was up at 3am this morning reading more on your site, I love the way you explain your thoughts and expericances. I'm 100% with everything you are writing."
"I just wanted to let you know how amazing your wedding prayer
is to your friends. I wish I could have found your
website and audio book years ago. My husband
and I were married 4 years ago and I couldn't find the right
words to say to him that truly expressed what I felt for him.
However, I was so blind and misguided as to what love truly
means and what marriage and relationships mean. Your
wedding prayer says what I feel to be true. If that makes
sense! My husband and I are now separated and have had
so much trouble ... let me tell you, we can really push each
other's buttons! More so than anyone I've ever been with.
I now realize that I am very codependent and he also plays his
role in our unhealthy dance. We are talking about your book
and he is going to listen to it also. I am hoping that he
and I can work through this so that we can be together with our
2 year old daughter. We do love each other, we just haven't
been that kind to one another when we've hurt each other. I've
definitely had the misconception about relationships, thinking
that they were supposed to be perfect and happy all the time.
Anyways, thank you
for posting the wedding prayer. It's beautiful!"
"Your website is fantastic."
"Those pages (inner child healing pages starting with
Inner
Child Healing - How to begin) really helped
me get to the core of how to even recognize what co-dependence
really is, I'll have to wait to buy the book but it looks
like it's really worth it to. That's pretty amazing though
to have basically a system to quickly and relatively simply
get through and get passed so many LARGE issues! . . thanks again
Really appreciate the direction."
"Sir you have changed my life and my way of thinking ..."
"First I owe you an apology for the lateness in thanking you for your
reply to the question I posed on your website regarding
'codependence and the spiritual journey'. I have read
it and re-read it and then visited your site and was
so touched at the abundance of information that you provide
so generously. Thank you for sharing your kind, wise and wonderful
soul. I very much look forward to receiving your book
and plan to schedule time to read through the material on your site
too."
"thanks for saving
my life i read your article fear of intimacy...and
believe i am ready to start living."
"I attended your July-2008 Intensive with my daughter, _______, and we have been singing your praises since then. As a matter of fact, I convinced my friend,_______, to come from Virginia, be my house guest and attend your February Intensive. . . I have read numerous books on codependency and felt great gratitude to you for what you have created to help people who have grown up in the dysfunctional systems so prevalent in our culture.
How could I help my daughter ______ was my painful quandary when I
discovered your website. It would take years going
to Alanon or codependency groups. You and your heart-felt
program was just what we needed. I could not give her what
I had learned with her resistance. However, you could and did.
She took copious notes and bought your book. Your incorporating
transactional analysis was particularly helpful. . . . Thanks
to you, our communication has opened and ______ has let go of the
insidious "I Don't Want to Talk About it." I appreciate how you
have evolved a system and a vision that is practical, effective and
cutting edge."
"I received your CDs a couple of days ago, and I am remembering my Truth in listening to your words. The CDs are invaluable to me."
"LOVE the audio cds!!! God Bless amigo."
"Thanks for sending the book and cd's. I've been through the cd's once now and really liked them."
"I am recently blessed by the high vibration and accuracy of your cd set."
"Thank you Robert. I am in receipt of your CDs. They are in alignment with my beliefs and a wonderful tool for assisting in reprogramming negative patterns. You are extremely articulate here and I will recommend your CDs/book to my clients and Yoga students."
"i found your site very useful and helpful, i have to say i am or
rather was not a big fan of self help books , because hey after all i assumed
i was a well rounded, well balanced, sucessful
independent woman...... until i hit that brick wall,
whereby i could not figure out why i kept repeating the
same patterns and the same things were happening to me over
and over with regard to my relationships with various people,
professionally, but more especially personally..... i am on
a massive journey of self discovery and that process is long,
hard and painful, i am however determined this time round to
deal and confriont my inner child... i have totally resonated
with what i read from you, but i believe I did so now, only because
i am now in the space to receive that information with an open mind
and want that change, otherwise yours would have been like so many...
read it and gone what the hell??? and put it down, forgotten about
and carried on with my day............
i bought he CD
so i could listen to it at night before i sleep, so
i can begin to retrain and re programme my subconcious NOT
to go back into default mode whenever things happen or i go into
my victimised space.......... no doubt i look forward to
going through more of what you have to say on these issues and
i also thank you for coming into my life at this juncture and
contributing to hopefully a new me!!"
"Myself and many family members of mine have been inspired and helped
by the information you have on your websites and the audio and written version
of your books. We would all love to be able to attend
one of your Intensive Training Day workshops, but with
the economy in it's present state and several without jobs,
it is not affordable at this time. I believe your Intensive
Training Day workshops are very fairly priced, but the cost of
travel and hotel is too expensive. "
"Thank you so much -- the book is brilliant."
"Thank you for the gift and blessings of your book. The book was a life
saver…Again, your book is the Truth. It came at just the right time. Just
looking for an additional nudge to do something. Blessings to you eternally."
"I haven't forgotten you or your work and what your (book) words did
for me. I continue to walk my spiritual path and with that lies
my compassion to empower other women. The Dance of Wounded Souls continues
to guide and inspire me. And I am thankful for
all the fertilizer."
"Thanks for the book. It is my second copy. I gave my first
one to a friend who really needed it. I told her to keep it.
It helped me more than two years of counseling. I recommend
it on many answers/chat rooms for people seeking help.
Your observations and views are spot on, and your
view on religion,( as opposed the the God spirit) and
what it has done to us really opened my eyes.
Thanks for helping me, and the millions of people out there
like me/you!"
"Your book is amazing."
"I am emailing to thank you very much for what you have written in yr dance of wounded souls book. I have just finished reading it for the first time and I intend to keep it as something I will re-read later on in my life. I have found it inspiring, hopeful and very truthful. I really appreciate yr honesty with your own frustration around the timing of higher power and also yr absolute conviction about our spiritual nature. I have come a long way on my own healing path and like you believe that the inner child healing is the most powerful - I realise that I, like many others, get very stuck in emotions and then believe them to be the total truth of everything rather than fluid temporary expressions of passing moments. It is great to have a sense of myself as something more than my thoughts and my feelings. I feel a lot of love as I write this so I am sending it to you with my gratitude. Good luck with everything you are working on personally, professionally etc etc Much love and light"
"Just found your book and loved it..... thanks for sharing your wisdom!""I have read and used to have a copy of your book but I happend to give
it to my brother so I am ordering a "resident copy"
of the book for myself. The other two will go to some important
people in my life who expressed interest in the subject matter
of your book. If I come across more such individuals, I
will give them a gift or your book, that's the least I can do.
I would also like
to let you know that your book and website gave me
(and keep giving me) some very important insights which
have aided my healing process. I keep on coming back to your
book and website and I would like to thank you for making
them available. I am just about to sign up for the Dancing
in Light website section."
"And I just
can't get enough out of reading it. I just can't put
it down. I am gaining so much insight and understanding
of 'codependence' and 'the human condition'. Your
book and the articles on your website have helped me so much;
everything just seems to make sense."
"I purchased your book via amazonkindle and am deep into Chapter 4 . I am looking forward to getting a hard copy so I can highlight and underline the most meaningful thoughts for me. The way you are able to communicate the pain of codependence is very helpful to me."
"I received the book today, and I am already half way through it.
A fantastic read so far, revealing, warm, and so very insightful. I wish
you the best of success in your pursuit of helping others help themselves.
I've no doubt the book will prove to be an invaluable
tool for myself."
"Hello Mr. Burney
I want to appreciate your book, your knowledge have
giving me the opportunity to understand how life works and
all the problems come from the fact of disconnection from
the higher power and of the wounds from childhood."
"This is great work you are doing."
"And joy to you brother Brother, You are the only one I know of who tells it like it is."
"What a blessing to come upon your website tonight. I've finally
made the step to do much needed Inner Child
work. As I am not in a financial position
to go to a counsellor, I was thrilled to find so much
great information on your website. This will be most
helpful in the weeks and months to come. May your
generosity be returned to you a thousand fold!"
"I've been reading your
website about codependency issues and it's making
tons of sense. . . Anyway, to make a long story short, I absolutely
LOVED the information provided on your webpage and it sounds
like we could both use some good counseling.Thank you soooo
much for your help Robert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Thank you for your kindness, your work... and for sharing it."
"I have visited your Website and enjoyed the material on setting personal boundaries. I am presenting a class to graduate nurses on “Setting Personal Boundaries.” I would like to use some of the material in your website for educational purposes. For example, your definition of boundaries is excellent. Also, I really like the way you explain how to set limits with other people and what consequences one can expect when setting appropriate boundaries."
"I haven't yet had a chance to listen to the audio, but have read with great interest your article on Setting Personal Boundaries. . . Please do add me to your email list, as I know from browsing your website that much of what you have written about will ring true for me as well. I felt as if it could have been me you described growing up believing that you had power over other people's feelings, and they over yours. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight with those of us not quite on the same step, but very much on a similar path."
"Its God's leading that I came upon your website. Really want to express my deepest appreciation to you for being & doing what you do so well. .. Your website will be passed on to soooooooo many friends living miserable helpless lives. In the days following, I'll be very happy & busy ......smile........studying your experiences & the wisdom you so joyfully share with the world. . . I feel you do OUTSTANDING work as a therapist."
"I want to thank you for your amazing wisdom."
"I read all your web sites and they all blow me away, I feel every word you say, and someday I will be able to write them and verbally say them as you do. Your a true blessing to me and I look forward to reading more of your inspiration."
"Finding someone who connects wounded souls and spirituality so well has been a blessing. Upon reading about you, my “writing coach” purchased your book to learn more about co-dependence and dysfunctional families. "
"And I just can't get enough out of reading it. I just can't put it down. I am gaining so much insight and understanding of 'codependence' and 'the human condition'. Your book and the articles on your website have helped me so much; everything just seems to make sense."
"Thank you so much for putting all of the wonderful information out there on your website. I actually just discovered that I am involved in some pretty deep codependent relationships and I am so ready to start working on this and start definitely bringing some joy back into my life! Yay! It is awesome to have a wonderful resource like your site. I plan to get your book asap, also. Thanks again and have a great week!"
"I have over the years gone back to your website time and time again.
It has been part of my journey to finding myself and
to refinding parts I never thought existed and to
heal the pain that I still carry with me. There's
still lots to do but I am in no rush. Every day I learn something
new. Be it about dysfunctional families and the anger
I carry. Then recognising that feeling anger isn't wrong
but that it is a valid emotion that points out that something is
definitely wrong. Then I read your page on Holidays and
how we 'should feel' as opposed to just letting go and if I feel
like crap then so be it. Happiness is so overrated at times.
There is much pain that exists and we don't need to deny it, we live
with it. Life is hard but the journey continues. And the
peace we find now and again completes the picture. But ultimately
the work we've come to do, will bring us back home.
So with that I want
to say thank you. Thank you for the work you've
done and for allowing people like me to do the work I need
to do for myself and with others and in return coming
full circle to reclaiming what's rightfully mine."
"I have loved
your website ever since I discovered it a few years
ago. I have always wanted the book, only now I am
getting it, first for _____, then I will get one for myself."
"WOW Robert! I accidentally stumbled across your site - incredible
and awsome! Congratulations! I will need to spend
quite a few hours in there reading it all. Such
an incredible amount of wisdom and understanding to share.
By amazing co-incidence
(or not-so-amazing sychronicity ;)) I have been going
through exactly a lot of this stuff recently myself!!! Only
I didn't know anyone else had been there the same as me! I am
not alone! It's great to have likeminded support, even if across
from the other side of the globe, written a few years ago. Anyway,
just wanted to say thank you for the site, and I will look out
for the book. Keep it up!! Well done!"
"I have found the site very inspiring so thanks for that."
"Thank you for your answer and thank you for your wonderful page. Thank you for sharing your experience. Thank you for being so clear, so honest. God bless you"
"I got tremendous benefit from reading the excerpts from your website.
I needed to find codependency recovery information
that could help me better understand myself and my
relationships with people, all mutually emotionally
wounded individuals as well as me. So, I googled "emotionally
wounded" and your site came up. Thank you for your valuable
information on the spiritual aspects of codependency.
I sorely need that information right now."
"I am extremely
grateful to have access to your website. I have
read all of your work in the past and thought "wow this is great,
someone knows what i feel" And i thought thats it, i know
everything Robert Knows, job done, easy street!
Well i have come back to your work with a new state of mind. I really
do "read" your stuff fully these days and allow that wisdom to penetrate
my whole emotional experience. "Wow" what
a difference Whereas i used to read a page of
your work in 5 minutes, now i take great joy at 5a.m in
taking an hour to read a page with a nice cup of strong coffee!x)
So now i am really benefitting from your work
I am really grateful for this Robert and wanted to tell you so. You
"should" (positive should!) be really proud of yourself
for your amazing website. Fantastic Robert, so much depth
and detail, its quite incredible really. When God
dishes out the universal honours you can be sure he's mighty
proud of what you have done. He might even have one of those
funny hats you could wear and stick a load of letters after your
name, because the value of your work to all of his magnificent spiritual
beings is without doubt immesurable and brilliant. I am so
grateful that i can "just" click on your site and there i am back
in my magnificence in an instant."
"Thank you for sharing your insights...they came to me exactly when I needed them!"
"Hello Mr. Burney,
It has not been too
long since I started to know myself. Now I am 31 and
it feels like 31 years in Auschwitz.. I just would
like to thank you very much for sharing the light of your wisdom
which helped me set boundaries with my inner Nazi torturing
my inner little jewish. The articles you share on
the internet has given me a lot insight, helped a lot.
Thank you, thank
you, thankkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
very much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom:)
Kind regards from Turkey,"
"The website is incredible."
" I came across your website on 3/16/09. What I read, I liked. I am in
the process of ordering your book. Also I printed out
many of pages from your website to read& study.
Thank You!"
"I love everything
I've read from your web pages, your personal experiences
written with honesty, and sensitivity is felt through your
words you put on paper. thank you"
"Whenever I was resisting healing or had fear I went to your website
and realised that I need not fight with my own Truth. Although I have
been ______ student since June 2008, I discovered
your website in September 2007 - when I was going
through depression. I was suicidal much of 2007. It was
relieving to find out someone else had experienced what
I had and there was a name for it - i.e. codependency. It made
me realise that life need not be so painful and we have a choice;
that we deserve and demand respect and that we have boundaries.
It was in January 2008 (after months of intense reading on
your website and writing down pages and pages of notes) that
I heard my first inner children yelling and crying to me that
they don't trust me as I don't listen to them. I was upset, I told
them, "It's okay for you to be sad and angry, for mum was never
there".
Since then I have
learnt so much about healing. Your website resonated
with me so much that I could just literally after reading
once, memorise what you had written and I would tell others
about it. It is all beautifully written. Eventually, in
November 2008 I finally spoke to an inner child who felt alone
since ever and forever. She wanted to leave and go far away from
mum and dad. Since then I feel I am done with my suicidal thoughts
for good. I am much less codependent now - but I guess, I am 23 and
it takes time to resolve years of conditioning. However, now that
I have discovered so much and my past is very clear I exactly
know what wounds to focus on in the next few weeks or even months.
All the patterns I had been living were unclear when I first decided
to be Abby's student. And although initially, my resistance to
healing was immense, I believe your website did give me a flair to
understand what Dominant/Non Dominant Hand Writing and Journalling
was.
Also, I feel may
be I have a bigger purpose. Your stuff resonated with
me so much that I felt as if even I could help people
as I grew as a person. Even if it may not be as a spiritual
teacher, it may be through motivational speaking - as
that is something I intend to do. Thank you for the service
you are doing to humanity."
"I enjoyed your website and was particularly taken with your lighthearted attitude to life in general. Like you I am a fan of Richard Bach and I have been a seeker of truth for many years. There are a few authors such as yourself who resonate with me metaphysically and I always welcome new information as I explore my present incarnation."
"Your writings are extremely inspiring to me. I am in my second month of sobriety. I have been in two treatment centers in the last 10 years and have had some beautiful periods of sobriety. I lost a job and hope back in July last year and gave up. I have your book around here someplace and have to find it and read it again. I read it, and found your site back in 2006 when in a treatment center for addiction. I want you to know that you are appreciated. Even way over here in Michigan. I have a good sponsor this time and am taking my time with each step."
"I was on your page for hours the other night . Your Truths have helped me immensly. Thank you for being here now"
"Dear Robert
I am a recovering codependent
- in therapy 2.5 yrs - separated from my wife 8
months ago. I am also an atheist - I found your pages nicely
explained and take much comfort from your kindness and words
of love expressed therein.
I wanted to tell you
that being an atheist closed off a lot of immediate
options for me, but I have found much comfort in the
philosophy of Buddhism - other religious traditions are full
of the lies and untruths you talk about - not to say that Buddhism
does not have it's fundamentalist dogmatic side - but I found
it to be most useful in changing my perspective on things.
I realised one day -
and I mentioned this to my therapist - that I take
great prode in being a scientist, but it is poor scientific
practice to close ones mind off from other possibilities. I
lived in a closed concretised world view - now i have an new openeness
to the possible and I do not have to reduce my understanding by
invoking a higher power as the explanation for any unexplained
thing.
I agree with your concept
of having a strong reaction / wound associated with
spiritual words like god. My therapist mentions to me often
that i have grown up feeling like I did not deserve god's love
(she is a little more religious than I can be, but i know she
means it as a statement of loving kindness), and that I felt
abandoned by god - a representation of my internal wound having
felt abandoned by my parents when I was sent to boarding
school.
In terms of my internal
dialogue, I do sometimes say "what is the lesson
that the universe is trying to teach me here?" but I do not
personalize "universe" into some deity concept.
I must say that I have
cried a couple of times reading your pages here -
thank you for the love and kindness you project out through
these pages. I appreciated it."
"First of all thankyou very much for a fantastic website joy2MeU.com
I've learnt so much and so many things I wasn't aware of particularly with
regard to the Inner Child Concept.
I found your website with
the search term "Fear of Intimacy" and as soon as I
started reading the article I related to everything you were
saying in it, I felt emotional as I recognised myself in what
you were describing.
I can understand now how
my personality has developed, when i look back at childhood
experiences, I can see how I could have created dysfunctional
beliefs that have caused me great suffering all my life."
"I was quite impressed by your writings, particularly on the subject
of Magdalene and
Christ...Thank you for your raw courage...
Amen."
"I am currently
listening to my new discs of you reading your book.
Thank you for putting this all together. I first went
to Al-anon 40 years ago, and from the very first meeting
I was "hooked" and on my way to recovery. Over the years,
I have read and studied much along this line - but yours is
absolutely the best!!!!! I don't know how you managed
to put all this together ine one package - spirituality, co-dependence,
quantum physics, ---but your work is very powerful."
"i need to tell you, i have been in the field for over 20 years, and just read your book, "dance of the wounded souls" i believe it is the best book i have read on codependency ever. i shared this with the 12 people iam working with this week, and they all plan on buying it, along with with my peers. thank you for the great info."
"I know you probably receive a lot of emails, but I just wanted to say thank you for the articles you have on your website. They have been immensely helpful to me, especially your article on setting personal boundaries. I never actually realized how much control I give to people, but you have opened my eyes."
"Thank you for your very descriptive and accurate analysis of so many psychological/behavioral questions I have. Your work is truely an insperation that should be used as a model to teach and enlighten the world. I know that there are very few who have even come close to your level of understanding, I have searched for a long time and concider your work to be the only successful find."
"I have found hope and inspiration on your web page. I think this is the first time I read the term 'internal boundaries'. That phrase resonated like a bell ringing."
"I am quite impressed with your writings on co-dependency. Although
I am not an alcoholic, nor do I eat obsessively,
my co-dependent symptoms and the logic behind them
are well scripted at Joy2MeU.com. Actually, I've
done alot of reading over the past few years and I've never
come across any single book or website that almost point
for point addresses the totality of the issues I am working
on head-on.
So I
thought I would write this quick email to make contact
and thank you for sharing your thoughts.
At the very least, I now know I'm not alone.
In all instances I will incorporate your thinking, which
solidifies and expands upon my own, into my recovery plan
going forward."
"Your Books and web pages have meant so much to me - I am soon to be 79. Unhappy not to learn these things sooner, AND HAPPY TO BE LEARNING THEM NOW."
"Thanks for your good work. I would be interested in the Dancing in Light subscription. I find your ideas interesting and am joyful to hear of your progress. I can relate to Codependency and was attending meetings for a while. Best regards to you and your expanding work."
"I really like what you're saying. I'm an adult child of an alcoholic and have worked on my codependency for years. I'm now 48 yrs old and still dealing with it. I thought I had it licked but a recently failed romantic relationship really showed me I was wrong. I find what you are saying is deeper than what others have said and for that I am very grateful for your work. I ordered your book and will read it soon. I wish I could attend one of your lectures, but I live in Virginia and it would cost a lot of money to come out there for a one day event. I don't know yet if I need telephone counseling, but I'm glad you offer it. I have a lot of reading to do on your site."
"Thanks for all your insights, they are a blessing."
"I hope someday/somehow you will truly know how much your words have meant to me and helped ME to change my life, I couldn't imagine a more valuable gift from another human being ;-)"
"I just wanted to write to thank you for your website and the material you have made available on it. I have not purchased your books yet but think I will do so in future. I have been sooo helped by what you have written here. It has made me realise what is going on my life, and what I need to do to change it. Your analogy of not letting your wounded children 'drive the bus' of your life was so helpful. I can see that this is exactly what has been happening in my life - my wounded children have definitely been driving the bus. Now I am learning more and more to develop a loving adult and a connection with God that can help to heal those wounded children and so I can reclaim myself again. Thank you so much."
"Thanks, I've finished the book & found it both helpful & inspiring. I stil read the website almost daily & enjoy that also. Thanks again!"
"Thank you for writing about your friend Robert and his passing. I lost my best friend to alcoholism four months ago and she died alone also. She was in a treatment center for eight weeks and stayed alive for five months after. I was with her for two close calls a couple of years ago with her throwing up blood and I never knew then that she was an alcoholic. She hid her drinking from me and when I say that I mean that she would drink a couple of drinks with me in the evening then but apparently she drank more. Her husband found a lot of empty wine bottles hidden all through the house.. Anyway I think of her often and she was my best friend."
"subject: A brief message from my inner child He found your website, and he wants to say thank you. Thank you for the time you have spend exploring this emotional disease, and the wisdom that you impart upon it"
"I am working and listening to your audio,
and it is just amazing. So right and accurate,
and just confirms what I knew for many years. It
was only that being in the middle of mostly ignorant
people, it was sometimes impossible to believe our own feelings
and visions. Anyway, i absolutely love it, and have
recommended to couple of people already."
"A friend of
mind shared the her CD's with me. There was so
many words and ideas that resonated with me that I decided
to have my own copy plus the book so I can go at my own pace
to digest all the concepts that validate what I have been thinking
for many years. You have a gifted way of presenting that
material. Thank-you for sharing your gift with those of us who
need to hear the message."
"Thank you for your insight at Joy2MeU.com. . . I have found your sight to be very informative and compassionate - so thank you!"
"When i googled codependency your website was one first that i looked at. That was back in April, but just by reading your website started the little seed that is now a tree of growth. For that i can not thank you enough. thank you."
"I also just want to say thank you for your website and work. Just reading some of the material on your website gives me a feeling of hope for positive changes for the future."
"You know, your book has set me free. As the youngest in a family of five daughters, a strong patriarchial father and a mother who did her best and stayed true to her principles the best way she knew, I am surviving best by staying in as close a relationship as I can with the Mystery. Thank you, Robert Burney, for helping me discover the wisdom of my own voice. God bless you."
"I found your writings on the web while studying the topic of codependency. Your insight is truly fascinating and refreshing. Thank you for posting and maintaining your website. Your teachings helped me understand and accept myself and have taught me how to approach love in a healthy, balanced way. I'm a heterosexual male, 33, recently divorced. I'm a full-time musician as well. Thanks to God and yourinsights, I'm happier now than I've been in a decade or so."
"i've been drinking(!) in the information on your site and it's helped me so much already, just to recognise myself and my patterns I want out of this codependance and the toxic relationships i've been attracting. i thank you so much for sharing the information and your experience it resonates with me on every level."
"I found your website by googling "letting go" and came to the page "letting go of unavailable
people". I began to read through the inner child healing pages
and the romantic relationship pages about a week or so ago. I have
spend the last 4 days just reading your pages. I too am in recovery
(NA since January 26th, 1988) but still struggle
with codependency issues. I was at my lowest
point ever when I found your website. It is helping
although I am still agonizing about losing the guy I met a
year ago after many years of being single. I never thought
I would "fall in love" again. Once we met I ran towards
the relationship while he soon began to run away.
We have been doing this dance for a year and it seems hopeless.
I am trying to accept that it is over but my abandoned child
will not let me accept it. The pain is unbearable sometimes.
I really thought when I met him that I had found my soul
mate. It is not that I can’t live without him but I don’t
want to. I have gotten through many dark times in my 20
years in recovery but this one has practically destroyed me.
When I read
about how you were yet again setting yourself up
for a birthday alone (mine is next week 9/27) and called
a counselor (the one who was going out of town but let
you talk to him while he was packing) I reached for the phone
and called a number given to me by a trusted professional (my
chiropractor) of a holistic healer. I am seeing
her next week and after speaking to her on the phone I know
she will be instrumental in getting me to re-focus on my spiritual
path. She does energy work, meditation and other stuff.
I have a wonderful therapist, a solid foundation in my recovery,
a wonderful sponsor, and good friends. I feel so alone
though and so unhappy and empty. I do have a glimmer
of hope and am facing my inner child wounds and the grieving process
thanks to your website. Anyway – thank you for writing about
your journey. It has helped me and I will keep reading. "
"I just viewed your website and have been reading your words which have compelled me to write to you. I think you are phenomenal in your approach to co-dependency and life in general."
"I did resonate a lot with your website-very authentic- and similar to ideas I've explored in my own writing and healing experience from both on an individual and macro level. I had never thought about codependency the way you described on your site, and I am a poster child for the description you outlined."
"I just want to let you know that i think you are great by the way and your website info has helped me so much as I am going through a tough break up!"
"Reading your website I find you a kindred spirit."
"I googled in parents of addicted children and your wonderful site came up with its inspirational words."
"I would like to say Thank You I knew I was a co-dependent but I didn't know how to love or let myself be loved you have inspired me to take a deeper look at myself and the ghosts that live within. So I can learn to let others in I have found with myself that I only let a little of myself be revealed and didn't know how to have a open and honest relationship. I have always been the one who gave with nothing returned, finding those who were emotionally unavailable knowing that it would always end, that was always my course of action. Reading what I have I know that the first thing is to forgive myself first and to love me, so that others can truly love me. Once again thank you for the path and to be enlightened."
"thank you for putting such a great work and helping us all to grow and understand. Love and joy 2 you Robert."
"I am so pleased to have received your wonderful book so quickly. This has to be the deal of the century. I was awake until 5AM reading all of your additional web pages my purchase gave me access to... what a privilege and an upgrade!!!. (not to mention the emotional upheaval I anticipated. Feeling and not releasing has not and does not work for me... I'll have to get to work to get rid of the mental and 'heart congestion'!)"
"I have found reading your website very helpful and look forward to hearing the audio version of your book."
"I wanted to let you know that a Higher Power used your writings to help
me. Here's my little story. :)
Recently a friend
and I parted ways. I was spending a lot of time
thinking about the relationship. One night the serenity
prayer came into my head. I found myself going through
the lines of the prayer and thinking, "I've always liked
that prayer since I was a kid, but I don't understand it." I said
to God, "What does it mean? Everything is so fuzzy. There's so much
gray area. How do I know what I have control over and what I don't??
I don't understand! I don't know how to apply the prayer to my life."
The very next night, I searched for something in google (I can't
remember the phrase. It might have included the word shame. Possibly
it included the word co-dependency, I can't remember.) One of your
webpages came up. I started reading what you had written. Almost
immediately, I came upon what you had written about the serenity
prayer. I had one of those very special "aha!"
"answered prayer" moments. Not only did the meaning
of the prayer become very clear to me, and not only
was I thanking God for leading me to the site and answering
my prayer, but I couldn't believe how much I needed to read
what you had written, and how illuminating and helpful and applicable
it was to what I was going through. I would read a few sentences,
and their power would make me stop in my tracks and reflect, and
then I would re-read them before I could go on to the next sentence.
It all rang so true. I could relate. It tied so much together. I kept
reading/reflecting, reading/reflecting, reading/reflecting.
I slowly read pages on your site almost all night (something
like midnight - 3 am!). It was a special time. I just wanted
to thank you very much for writing your book and creating your website.
I'm looking forward to receiving your book! Thanks again!"
"I felt compelled to mail and say I found comfort in this site."
"Robert..
I’m just excited
as can be, to proclaim who I am, and what I’m doing..
and feeling. I found your pages some weeks ago,
and have used the knowledge within them, Bigtime!
I suppose the
reason for this email is that I had the opportunity
to experience something that would have set me back
months ago. Instead of feeling worthless, full of self-hate..
desperate. I feel all the emotions from the experience
itself! Grief, anger.. acceptance. I owned
them, and they ran their course. And I’m still here, and
feeling whole; as though energy flows in and out of me. Own
it!
It’s perhaps
a familiar story for you <or so I read>.. I
have been in and out of a dating situation with a highly ‘counter-dependent’
woman, she’s the spitin’ image of a woman that excited you
once several years ago. She’s charming, pulls me in..
but ultimately denies me in one form or another. I see
her fear clearly, I respect it, I do what I can to dispel it within
the boundaries I have established for myself. The
final result is the same, from the surface view, inside I am not
the same person. I am in control.. not at the mercy of emotional
tides that ebb and flow. Unbelievable. I now stand
in the face of something that once killed me… unblinking. It’s
working. And I feel beautiful. This is my future
to keep working for."
"I've been reading your website over the past couple of years, and I always find a paragraph or sentence that speaks to me, as though you knew my story."
"I have been reading a great deal of the content on your site, I find it both enlightening and humbling and very much correct! Your work is appreciated."
"I bought the Inner Child Healing E-book . . But I just wanted to say that your e-book really hit the spot. I have been going to Al-Anon for about 2 years and have been working the steps with a sponsor since February and am on Step 4 and have gone through a ton of healing. . . The things that hit me because they are really relevant, was 1) integrating the self, which I am completely focused on, 2) the magical thinking inner child and the critical parent. which is completely me and I am focusing on this because it really affects my life, and the whole concept of love, I am a deeply spiritual person when it comes to nature and almost to a compulsive standpoint but when it comes to men I am attracted to I am filled with fear....and fear is a huge part of my day to day life, though I will admit less so than it was....so everything you wrote about I actually am pretty aware of and working on, but somehow the way you put words to the page really made it jell for me....... So, I know I will go back to this Ebook from time to time just to remind myself of things...... but it just was incredibly timely and "hit the spot" of most of the things that I am trying to kind of mix together..... ANd I guess Love is the key ingredient which for me is fine with nature, dogs and women but really hard with men and myself.....so it is obviously easier to start with me..... THank you for this great piece, and thoughts and insights."
"I have been working on my inner child stuff for a long time. Your thoughts and beliefs have given a new dimension to my on-going recovery. I'm also in a 12 step program (al-anon) and that has put a great many things in prospective for me. I wish you all that is good and connected."
"I am reading your book at the moment. Your writings make a lot of sense to me, and are helping me to fill in some of the gaps in my understanding of how it all came about and how it all works. What you are bringing to the world is so important, it's so important that people who walking the path of recovery themselves are open to sharing their path and learnings with others. I salute you in what you are doing."
"This is the second copy of the book i have purchased. I lent it to a friend but didnt get it back... so i need another copy to keep handy and keep me on track with life!"
"Terrific timing, just before the New Year, and at a time in my life when I'm most ready to learn from it. It's resonating more with me than any other book (and many therapy sessions) on the subject, and it comes at a time when I'm opening up much more to things Spiritual."
"Thank you for your work and sharing. I was lead to this from inner direction and my desire to become healthy. I am ever so grateful that this enlightening information spells out most of it for me so that I can understand more concretely."
"I love your work and feel blessed in finding it."
"I have gotten a tremendous amount of healing from your writings and your book and I am truly grateful."
"Robert – I am thankful to have found your site after a romantic breakup."
"I just wanted to say thank you. Your website has saved my life! I have been looking through your pages now for nearly three years. My marriage was failing, even though it was a load of crap anyway. My ex husband was as equally co-dependent as I was. However even now, it was like I had a deep rooted emotional tie, that even still now I feel with him. However now I recognise what it is and it is not good for me or for him. However, I am not the same person that I was then. In about May last year, whilst reading through your inner child healing pages, and it felt like everything I tried to control, I had to let go of. I remember going to see our marriage guidance counsellor and I could not stop crying or shaking, I remember telling her that if felt like I was 11 years old. I cried and cried and cried. Actually it only lasted about three days, but it was such a relief to let it all go. . . God guided me to your pages, I wouldn’t be where I am now, if it was not for you. Again, thank you so very much."
"I have been reading a lot of information on your site recently re inner child healing and have found it invaluable. So much of what you have written about resonates with me completely and I now feel I have got to place where I can understand more fully why I feel the way I do and have chosen the relationships I have in the past. The great thing is now that I know I can change things going forward!"
"Thank you for being such a beneficial presence on this planet. Your work is so needed at this time!"
"I really gotta say I love reading your stuff I have learned so much clear plain talk detailed emotions, emotions is where I lack in handling I found your web site when I realized that I was co dependent , I can’t wait to read book 2 , I have the first one at home,although I thought the book would have been bigger but I was not disappointed when I read it. Keep up the great writing and thank god for you, cuz know I can learn and so many others I recommend your site to many people, take care and merry Christmas"
"I just wanted to say THANK YOU for putting up your website!!! I
came across it today and I think it's awesome!
As Spirit would have it, I came across it JUST when
I needed to! I have been through A LOT in my life
and it's like you said in your site, progress.. that's what
it's all about!
My name is _____
and I believe in gratefulness, sharing and letting
someone know that they affected your life. Thank
you for affecting mine! I bookmarked your site and
I KNOW I'll be back there later tonight when I have some
more free time to read.
Your site is
so well written and while reading it, the words just
kept making sense to me. I recently had a life changing
event take place in my life and ever since, my growth spurts
have been tremendous, and reading your site today, has given
me even more! Again, I thank you for taking the time
to help others with your wisdom. "
"upon stumbling to your site within the first few sentances i couldnt quite believe how your very words were telling my whole life story ... You spin your information in such a way that is very admirable,understandable and easy to relate to ... Thanks for helping me to understand my whole situation in life and thank you for putting that website up ... Believe me pal what your writing is helping wounded people just like myself ... I'm ___ 23 from the UK by the way... You really know how to get to the roots of the problems we face in a way - Keep up the good work :)"
From the Netherlands: "With reading your material I see how it all fits
togeteher, and the more I read, the more clearer
it gets. I appreciate that you wanted to share
your experience with others, like me. I agree with
you that when someone has not done this work him/herself, he/she
does not understand the complexity, the phasing/timing and is
not the right person to be the therapist. Indeed this profeesor
treated me like dirt, placing himself in the one up position and at
the start of the session made clear I was out of balance, troublesome
for myself and relations. Indeed I run from this man who is a symbol
for many more therapists that I have met.
I continue working
the healing process. I know it's not a quick fix
and I know there have been people before me who have been
able to do their work. Indeed as you say as a starting (incest)
survivor I need to have some support and acknowledgement.
That's in my system until I can fully support on my own feelings.
It is scary to look into the dark, but I will. And I know that's
the only road to the Light. With appreciation and kind
regards,"
"Robert, I didn't though that there is someone who felt EXACTLY the way I felt. And I was born an lived in Egypt for all my life (43 years) It is amazing how people can be alike. . . . And all these deep thinking come from a man! I was sure that only women who were that concerned with there inside feelings, and man just don't have the time for it. On top of all, you could find the relation with Christ and God, I still didn't get to that part yet, but until now , I really thank you. Cairo-Egypt"
"I am far away from S Diego, I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but every word you write becomes a part of my healing process."
"I am writing to you from India. I a live in New York and came here for the second level of a course I took earlier this year at the Oneness University. I brought you book along on this journey to read over the course of my stay and managed to read it all on my first day. It was so on point with how I am feeling and much of what I want to work on during my visit. Thank you for your book, it has helped immensely in my journey to oneness and self love."
"JUST WANT TO SHARE WITH YOU THE REALLY CLEAR AND EFFECTIVE WEB PAGE THAT LED ME TO YOU. MY SPIRIT GUIDES LED ME TO A PRINT OUT I MADE ON AUGUST 17, 2003 OF A PAGE FROM “SANTA BARBARA HEALERPAGES BY REGION NETWORK.” ON THAT PAGE YOUR “PHILOSOPHY AND COMMENTS” STATEMENT HELPED ME TO SEE MYSELF AS SOMEONE LIVING OUT WHAT YOU DESCRIBE AS “OUTER OR EXTERNAL DEPENDENCE” AND THE WORK YOU DO TO HELP “INTEGRATE SPIRITUAL TRUTH AND INTELLECTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF HEALTHY BEHAVIOR INTO THEIR EMOTIONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH LIFE."
"LISTENING TO YOUR TAPES HAVE HELPED MY RECOVERY PROCESS SO MUCH, THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU!"
(July 4, 2008)"Your site is fantastic. The abundant amount of information that you have provided is exceedingly beneficial to the recovery community. It is so incredible that you have so much information to share with others."
"I've been having a rough couple of months lately, and so I was searching the web for some answers and stumbled across your website. The articles have been so helpful and have really opened up a lot of barriers within myself and have answered/created a lot more questions. It has definitely helped me with my personal growth. Thank you so much for your work, it will most certainly help others and it is really a wonderful gift you are giving to put so many articles on the internet for others to find and gain knowledge from."
"I have read some of your passages on your website…I am a 41 yr old male that has been divorced for 7 years and has had poor success with finding that next relationship. I recently had a relationship end that brought to surface some incredible grief that was so incredibly depicted in your long excerpt from the Joy2MeU Journal in which you were talking about different levels of letting go."
"Just so you know, I found your site on google.com, and the information there helped me immensely yesterday and gave me hope when I needed it."
"My girlfriend went off on me today and I googled how to get over an obsession because I wanted to break up with her but I am very in love wither her. I get to your article and I really have to say it moved me. I felt like the article was written about me. Broken house the CONSTANT worrying... everything. I have a fear that if I break up with this girl my world will end. I really think you helped me not get over her but really help myself "
"I have enjoyed exploring your web pages."
"Thank you for your website...you offer some ideas and insights with issues I've been struggling with. I saw it before (perhaps a year ago) and read it a few times. I found it again this last week and have been reading through it. It's been very helpful...thank you."
"I am 30 years of age and have been struggling to cope with my inner children - i didn't understand this until i came across your website. As soon as i started reading about all my inner children.... the words sreamed out at me "This is your life. Now i know what's going on!"
"A few days before i found your website i had a very bizarre experience where i woke up and jumped into a 3 hour conversation with my inner child. No longer screaming and able to talk to me. I had recently taken up Emotional Freedom Technique and this experince came about because i had tapped into something extremely overwhelming... I have now discovered how much healing i still have to do and have found your website a fantastic help - you spend so long living with something you sometimes forget what it is or how to word it. I needed to find the words - thank you!!"
"I have found a lot of healing in just reading the articles. I have never heard anyone else say that they woke up and just wanted to die too. It makes sense now. I don't feel suicidal but see how that has been an unconcious driving force behind a lot of my behaviors."
"Your site is amazing and I am grateful that it is out there for all to see. It is also very true. I have enjoyed reading it and still have more to explore within your site."
"In November, I went online and did a search for “inner child healing” and your sight came up. I had no idea how much in return I would get for that search. Your writings resonated with me so deeply and powerfully, and I have to tell you that many times a week I say a prayer out of gratitude for what you have shared."
"I have found your website an immense treasure of wisdom and healing for me. Thank you so much."
"thank you so much for sending me the book. my friend had it and i read it and it was so powerful i decided to buy one. i have been in recovery since l990 and am half american and half british. you spoke from the soul and the heart, everything is about love. i was diagnosed aids in 1993 with three hospitilazations and 50 tcells, i am now 62 this year and became a grandmother yesterday, i now have 430 tcells and havent been ill since 1995 with a combo of 12 step recovery modern medicine and powerful alternatives practically vegan now. all my hiv friends have cancer etc because they chose to leave 12 step and are back on the poisons of modern day. i have cherokee blood in my veins and wondered if you had native blood. i am in tune with the great spirit and the earth now and have a good life. thankyou so much for your beautiful words. they were powerfull words from a man on a good journey, in love and fellowship"
"I have been reading and learning so much from your website. YOU understand me. What a gift that is! Thank you so much for the website."
"I want to thank you for all the work you've done on co-dependency. I have your audio book, Dance of the Wounded soul, and I found it very enlightening."
"Even the small amounts I have touched on he website have opened my eyes, my mind and my heart. My life has already begun to change with the first tears that began to roll down my cheeks. When you feel so empty and alone for so long and then realize you are far from alone and there is genuine hope, it is life changing. Thank you again."
"I wanted to say that I love your site and you’ve really helped me in times when I’ve needed it most."
"Thank you for the priceless gift that is your book: The Dance of Wounded Souls. I found your site while googling "how to stop obsessing." And as it always is, I found exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it. As a gift to myself for my thirtieth birthday in March I made the conscious decision to end my near half decade opiate addiction and allow myself to feel the emotional pain and face my Reality, for a greater purpose. At 30, I am just beginning to feel and find who I really am- it's so painful and wonderful and scary and everything all at once! Your book and website- your understanding and explanation of codepedency, is helping me tremendously with my process. In addition, you have reinforced my belief that some men can and do discuss feelings and emotions honestly and openly... and even want to! I also want to thank you for re-assuring me I'm not crazy! Your Truth and my Truth are so in-line with one another I felt an instant cosmic connection :-)"
"thank you for such a great and extensive web site."
"i absolutely *loved* how you described the evolution of the term 'co-dependency' on your wounded souls tape -- i see it exactly the way you described it!!! i have never been in a relationship with a chemically dependent person, and yet i found that many of the things being discussed at co-dependents anonymous meetings were *my* issues! i found CoDA in the late 80s, and went to meetings (at *least*, and usually more often than) once a week, until i had my ten year chip! it was a *wonderful* experience, and the beginning of my spiritual journey. i also went through a month long treatment program at the 'bradshaw center' in los angeles in 1990 and did a *lot* of family of origin work, and healing of my inner child(ren). although i'm not in therapy anymore, i attend a unity church and am addressing the *spiritual* aspects of my healing now!"
"Thank you for posting such valuable information. Your work is appreciated!!"
"Thanks for the great website. I wanted to thank you for all the work you put into your website. I am a recovering abuse survivor, and I'm trying to set boundaries with a very codependent, emotionally manipulative friend. The information on your site is helping me stick to my boundaries without getting drawn into her drama. Thanks for the great work!"
"i absolutely adore your writing."
"It is with great honor that I write to you to let you know that I was guided to your website and since that day but only a few weeks ago...I have the knowledge to understand that you have a great handle on the TRUTH of this realm."
"Your book Codependence: The dance of wounded souls and cd set have really resonated deeply with my own healing journey and experiences. Thank you for such a giving and resourceful website."
"My name is _____ and I am currently training to be a psychotherapist. I live in Ireland and am studying in Dublin. I just wanted to email you to thank you ever so much for all your postings on the Joy2MeU site. I have read your words many many times and still revert to them on days when I am feeling particularly vulnerable. I have taken so much strength and encouragement from your words. Everyones inner journey is different and yet I relate to so much of what you have written, it makes me feel less alone as I continue on my journey towards healing."
"I am looking forward to reading your book, as your writings on your website are great (and helpful)."
"This letter has been stimulated by my discovering and reading your web site. As I went through it, I found much that I appreciated and heartily agreed with . . . . I came to CoDa almost seven years ago, after a search of many decades. It felt like home to me and has continued to do so. For me too, CoDa is a path of spiritual growth more advanced and more consistently effective than any other I know about. Many of your comments in your web site are reaffirmation’s of understandings and experiences that have come to me also through the program.
And your book "The Dance of Wounded Souls" is being read by a number of members of my regular group and they speak highly of it as supporting their recovery process. I like that you see the issue of codependence as a crucial insight clarifying larger sociological and political processes. This capacity of codependency theory to cast light on other aspects of life demonstrates its value and usefulness. . . . I am glad to have discovered your site and hope it gets the attention it deserves."
"Your work has been of great benefit to my growth, thank you."
"I have been reading many different books on codependence, recovery, and inner child healing. I came across your website a couple of weeks ago. It has been very helpful! Some of the most informative and understandable information I have read so far. . . Thanks for giving so much free info on your website. It shows you care about helping people and I personally am very thankful."
"Thx for your insights on your web site I keep coming back to it time and time again as I “Google” the latest phase of my life I am trying to come to grips with."
"Yes I am enjoying your website and know I found it by Divine direction. :) Doing some homework from my last therapy session I was led to it and it has answered a lot of questions for me. My therapist asked me to ask myself this week what my fear of intimacy was due to my pattern of wanting to run away a lot and also picking men who are unavailable. Truth is....and don't laugh too hard.....this was after I told her I had filled out some forms for a placement service for the religious life. She said _____ A convent would be the ultimate form of running away and you wouldn't make a good nun! LOL
Truth is I wasn't really sure what intimacy was because I have been running from it for years. When I finally just let it come up the word and the feeling I got was "death". I thought death? Why would one feel that way about intimacy? How odd. Then I realized I didn't even know what intimacy was. So I googled why do people run away from intimacy and up comes your site. It has been so wonderful and enlighting! I have been reading it off an on all weekend. After reading I realized I feared both abandonment and engulfment. I love my therapist and she has really really helped me but I feel at some point I will be calling you for phone counseling. Yes, please put me on your newsletter list. I will look into the Cruise but am hoping that you will put on an intensive in the midwest some time. Thanks again Robert for your generous heart! Your website must help a lot of people."
"I look forward to recieving the your book - I stumbled across your website at a very difficult time in my life and as I began to read the various entries it felt as if a veil was lifted and for the first time in my life I began to understand how I came to be in the place I have found myself, and perhaps how I can get to where I want to be. Thank you for your generosity in sharing so much wisdom with others via your site."
"I read about grief of deprivation,that you wrote,today,and yesterday I had it.You said,the universe send us the mesegges,and thats thruth.For me is hard to believe,that you write exactly about the deepest mental proceses,and thoughts,and feelings,that I have.fear of intimacy is realy a serious isssue,something The Universe tells me I shoud work on.Becouse,I suffered of sexual deprivation,and then if even a Beautifull woman tries something,I reject her....later I cannot understand why did I reject her,and stay alone sexualy deprived.See,how strong are emotinal wounds.Anyway again,I am thankfull To You for imposing your knowledge on the internet,for free.."
"I am really looking forward to receiving the book. From looking at your website, I feel your approach and understanding resonate very well with me. I have only recently come to a greater understanding of my patterns and your thoughts have helped me to put that into words and to find in that a sense of hope.Thank you,"
"Wow! Robert, your message and the insight it contains needs to be made known to the world! You are truly an amazing gift."
"I am very new in my walk to overcome my co-dependency issues. Your website has given me the courage to move forward with hope that in time I can have a happy and emotionally healthy life."
"I would just like to say that I thoroughly enjoy reading your site and find it very rewarding. It has really helped me moved forward with problems I have had from an abusive childhood and I hope to book some telephone counselling sessions with you in the future, which I hope will move me on even further. By the way, I found this on youtube the other day and thought you might be interested to hear it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICLp0gmkrYM Thank you for being so generous."
"I am looking to heal myself and I am progressing well but I realize the more you learn the more you have to learn -- it gets painful and it gets dark. I have been visiting your website and reading your articles regularly and I find that so much of what you write resonates with me. Thank you for your insight and your work. I hope that one day I can help others as you have done and continue to do."
"your Web site has been a great comfort to me."
"Thank you for the newsletter.. i find them very helpful..this vibrantly beautiful spiritual being is greatful"
"This is wonderful stuff...found it by mistake. Are you a psychologist?if
not you should be. my brother is
a serious alcoholic..hes in hospital now with
dts.....and when he is happy..he says"it is not allowed"but
when asked he doesnt know or wont say and he gets vioces
saying he is bad etc.
I will
show him your writings when he gets out of hospital,as
i feel that a lot of it might just ring a bell as
he is a very spiritual person as well as liking"spirits"
of course! He is a buddhist by the way. so thankyou
very much for sharing this(if you get this)"
"I am a Unity Minister. . . . I am not sure how I found you...I do know it was surfing and I think it was when I was looking for stuff on codependency. . . . . I love your site. You have really "given" us a gift on your site Robert. You give alot and I really appreciate it. I find your writing and thoughts very profound, clear and thought-provoking. I resonate with your writing."
"My spiritual partner stumbled upon your site yesterday searching for information on Inner Child Work. I have been doing a lot of personal healing work and growth over the last 15-20 years. Your site and the articles are wonderful. Connecting it all with our spirituality, karmic healing and balancing, Christ-consciousness and more is AWESOME!!!! Wit wll take a while to get through that which resonates (which is a lot of it). Thank you and may you be continuously blessed for the wonderful work you do!!!"
"It's only really been in the past three days since i've been devouring your articles that i feel the full healing and the acceptance coming in. I don't feel guilt and i know that the guilt was never mind to feel. The people i have hurt with my actions will either forgive or will hold on to that anger from their own conditionings. I just wanted to say thank you for the insight into all this and that I believe i have finally realized that if we don't love ourselves, we cna't really love others. and if we can't make ourselves happy, no one else can either. "
"I received your book and was so appreciative that you took the time to write a note of encouragement. Thank you for that. You should also know that your book is great. I thank you for taking the time to write it."
"Thank you Robert. I found your website full of great info. As I am processing a long marriage of 24 years, that is now ending in divorce, your information on your CD and book are relevant to my healing and moving forward without a partner until I am strong enough to stand on my own. Thank you so much for compiling this information for Wounded Souls to find a healing way."
"I just read the above article on your web page. (Obsessive thinking Part 2) The entire article describes what I am living right now. Thank you for the suggestions within the article."
"Your articles have given me such insight and have been so helpful in opening my eyes to see myself differently and give me the "permission" to like myself and appreciate the beautiful gifts God gave me. I never knew I was of any value. Thank you so much for your perspective and thank God your work fell into my life just when I needed it the most."
"I bought your book a couple of years ago. Reading it has been a catalyst for my personal and spiritual growth and getting in to a choice based program. I am beating Co-Dependency and for the first time in 46 years I love myself. I look to myself for satisfaction and fulfillment and not another human being or thing. The Journey has been worth it even while it was hard. Thank You for sharing your experiences!"
"I've been enjoying your metaphysical approach to relationships via your website. I'm looking forward to receiving the CD's and listening to them in my car on my way to work."
"Thanks for the book and CDs. I've read a lot of your web site pages on-line, but the book and audio CD reading of it, really hit home. I'd first found your site, about a year ago, but wasn't ready at that time to really get into the deeper work I've embarked on now. I'm sure your materials will be a great help to me."
"I am a 21-year who just graduated form undergrad and am in my first semester of Grad school. All of your words ring very true in my heart and it's like all these bells and whistles going off in my head. Often it is those of us who are most sensitive, kind, and compassionate in our hearts that are hurt most by parents and people who stumble blindly around with their own wounded selves and since we feel that we must somehow heal them we become very wounded ourselves."
"I love what I've read on your website. "
"I would have loved to attend your workshops because your words so resonate with the forgotten knowledge in my soul. I have yet to read everything (the Universe has led me to you but 3 days ago), but already you have brought me much clarity and comfort and hope. I live all the way here in the Philippines, so making it to the workshops is pretty tricky. (-% Still, who knows, we do travel there every now and then. Next trip I'll be sure that it coincides with some of the sessions. Thank you so very much for sharing your wisdom with us. I will have you know, that you just spared me my sanity."
From India: "I appreciate the commendable work you have done!!"
"i have found your book - dance of wounded souls beyond description. i am in a twelve step program. my mother died a few years ago and i need the stuff in your book to be true. it has such a ring of truth to it unlike anything else i ever read. i have tried many scams before but i don't find anything about your words scammy. and i am a very skeptical questioning person."
"Your website is amazing and I have recommended it to my fellow counselors. at the very least, I will order your book, to help me, and hopefully eventually my clients. . . At any rate, thank you for your site and your honesty and I look forward to reading your book"
"The information you're giving out is amazing!"
"l stumbled across your website about four years ago when l started taking a dance around pandora's box. Well lets say l had a peak and it scared me, the thing is as you know once it's open... it's open. Well four years later lm starting to delve deeper, really peeling those onion layers! Tonight, l had some emotional clearing come up and tried to squash it down until l could no longer and the tears came rolling down. When it was over l got onto the net and guess what? After, four years l stumbled across your website again!
l wanted to thank you for the literature you have provided on your site it is very helpful and the style of your writing is reassuring. l even managed a giggle when l read "I would end up crying in a rubber room for the rest of my life. That if I ever really owned the rage, I would just go up and down the street shooting people". May you be the recipient of many blessings "
"Just wanted to thank you for all the awesome material you have made available free online!!! I am looking forward to getting your books.. my Spiritual Partner and I are both excited about finding this material"
"Hello. I have to say that when I read your article on "Fathers", particularly the part about the additional way that fathers wound their daughters, I felt completely validated. For years it was a joke in my family that "Daddy stopped hugging me when I got boobs." But it was true! I had been a daddy's girl until I hit puberty and then I couldn't do anything right...not that I could before, but I really was dealt his wrath after I developed physically. . . . . . Thank you for putting in print the feeling that has dominated my life for the last 30 years! It is liberating to know that I wasn't alone or ridiculous for feeling this way. Perhaps now I can begin to heal."
"Just recently, I read some of your writings on co and counter dependency and was amazed to see how well the descriptions that you provided were so right on the money, as a description of our parents, while growing up, and that made no sense to me as a child, as well as all the stress and frustration produced for all of us."
"I am enrolled in a Clinical Pastoral Education Program at the Veteran’s Hospital in ____. A large portion of our program is Psychotherapy training and WOW am I glad I stumbled onto your web site. I ordered your book “The Dance of Wounded Souls” and I am very excited to learn more. I, being co-dependent myself, think that this book and some of the other points brought up on your website help drag out some really deep issues into the light. Thank you and please keep up all the great writing!!"
"Your website is totally amazing. I stumbled upon it recently while looking for articles related to obsessive thinking - in order to heal my own. What I found was information on that topic and so much more. Thank you for publishing your work like this, making it so easily accessible and understandable. I'm on to reading about romantic relationships, with hopes that I will also find answers and healing within your articles. Thank you for your colossal efforts in putting this website together. Please know that they are helping me, and I'm sure many others, tremendously."
"Thank you for your writings. They helped to convince me of my issues that I have been facing in life. I suspected the cause but I needed to confirm the insight. Your writings have assisted in that regard."
"I just wanted to express my gratitude for supplying such eye-opening
information on your website. It is so greatly appreciated! . . . The
reason I am sending this lengthy, way too
much information e-mail, is to thank you, because
I stumbled across your website just today when doing
a Google search for "personal boundaries," because I had absolutely no clue
what that meant, and I'm waiting for self-help
books arrive and counseling to start.
Thank
you for making this information available to the public!
I have spent the entire day reading your website
with your valuable information -- and I now have
a place to start with myself immediately, instead of having
to wait."
"I HATE TO KEEP COMPLIMENTING YOU BUT I CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF YOUR WRITING. THANK YOU SO MUCH."
"I want to thank you for all of your wonderful articles on your site. I have been searching for so long for an answer and when I found your site I was so excited I cried. It seemed like everything I read you wrote just for me right down to the part about your last relationship. . . I have never felt so peaceful in my life though and I have hope. Thank you so much and I hope you are blessed beyond measure."
"I continue find your website a fabulous tool to assist with the business of a real life. Thank you."
"I have been tirelessly reading your online articles and they have been of great help to my healing. I find myself emerging from suffering and confusion into happiness, understanding and serenity. It must be an amazing feeling to know that you have brought peace and happiness to so many. With love and deepest gratitude."
"Thank you very much for sharing on your web pages. I found the way you write so honestly about your own experience very moving, and there was so much I could identify with."
"I have spent a lot of time on your website the past month and recently purchased your book Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls. I absolutely loved it. I can not thank you enough for your work. Thank you for opening up your heart and soul. Reading your book and the writing on your website has brought me so much peace and comfort at a time when I needed it most. . . . I am currently writing an autobiographical book and would like to know if I can use parts of your book as quotes included in my book. I can honestly say that you have explained my life through your book and also changed my perspective on how I view life forever. By profession I am a Psychiatric Nurse and will be incorporating this invaluable information in to my practice. It is going to allow me extend a wonderful path of healing to many.
I want you to know I am thankful for knowing about you. Thank God there are people like you out there spreading the good news. This is something that is going to transform the world. Again, thank you for all you do. Also, thank you for signing my copy of your book. I appreciate you taking the time. much love..."
"I love your book--I think it is genius"
"I accidentally- no let me rephrase that - I went onto google and typed "self love" your website was one of many that appeared. My soul led me to your site - I am completely wow'd. It's just what the dr ordered. I have not read the material on it in concetration but have skimmed through the pages and I am wow'd. I've printed some stuff which I'll be reading tonight at home - I cant wait. Thanking you for such a lovely website of enlightenment - I hope to get more from your site and will advise you accordingly and if there's anything to add I will do so."
"Thanks for the amazing work you have done on your own recovery and for your courage in sharing that process with other sufferers. Over the last week or so I have spent hours reading, thinking and feeling about a great deal of the information on your website. When you describe the illness of co-dependence, you are writing my biography. I have already gained a new perspective on my life and some hope for a different future from the material you have provided."
"Your website is quite amazing and anticipate it taking me a very long time to get through it all."
"I wanted to say that I find your website very educational and helpful. I can relate to so much of what you say. . . . Thank you so much for providing so much helpful information on codependency... You really are a blessing!"
"I read your book "The Dance of Wounded Souls" yesterday. And again today. The first time, I could hardly get through it. I had no idea what you were saying. Yet, a few passages resonated and I decided that I needed to re-read the book. I have found your book, for me, to be life changing. I am 43 years old and I don't believe I have ever known the "gut" feeling of Truth that I had when I understood that my inner 5 year old was "driving my bus" (and has been for as long as I can remember). Codependence has been SO EXPENSIVE in every way in my life that I can't even describe it. I am still reeling from this first hint of recovery. I have been attending CoDA for about three months and have introduced myself as "codependent". The next time I share, I will use "recovering codependent"."
"I just wanted to send you an email to thank you for all your work on codependency - it has helped me greatly in so many many ways"
"I just wanted to say, I have been visiting your site for a little more than a year. I also have a copy of your book. I have benefitted so much from your writing, and I even found ACoA because of it. . . . The second thing is that I think you are too apologetic about your pay section of your site. I was happy to pay. You have given so much to me. If people do not wish to pay, then I think that it is their own problem. But I was more than happy to pay, and actually a little off-put that you had apologized for having a pay section. You need to make money too, and you are helping people in the best way possible! All power to you!"
"I am enjoying your writtings Thanks for making then available"
"Hey, I really like this article on Happy holidays, Sad holidays. I am just noticing this year as well that I am around my friends and feeling deeply sad, and I hadn't been thinking about the joy I also feel. Reading this article reminds me that, yes, I can feel more than one feeling at once. I can feel deeply sad, that might be the strongest feeling, but when I define my self in that moment by it then it is an untruthful accusation. I am not "sad" or "suicidal", I am feeling sad but also lots of other things. Thank you for writing this article for this time of year :) I appreciate having it to read when I am going through this time, and likely to forget some of the subtler details."
"I appreciate your site and your words."
"I love, love, love, did I say, love your book! "The Dance of Wounded Souls" is what I hope everyone in my group will have the opportunity to read. I have looked for a book like this all my life. Like I said in a previous email, I was sitting here minding my own business and your name appeared. I am so grateful for the Divine unfolding. I can't thank you and Him enough. My journey has been a long one. I wouldn't change a thing. Your book feeds my soul."
"I found your website very valuable. So much made sense to me and my life at the moment."
"I found your wesite last night and I amazed at how it describes me to a "t". I know I can benefit greatly from Robert Burney and Joy to You and Me. Thank you."
"Tonight I have spent 5 hrs off and on the computer, discovering that yes, indeed, there's a factor of co-dependency alive and well in me. I started out looking for something for someone else, and ta da -- found me. Why am I not surprised? Ultimately, I have found your site, and tho I haven't read an nth of what I shall, I've read enough to believe you (your site) will be a valuable resource. Thank you for the massive amount of work that has gone in to making the site, for the journey to Self that you openly and freely share, and for the continued work you carry forward."
"Hi. I find your essays on boundaries very helpful."
"I've just found your web site and am thrilled with the contents,i've also ordered the book and cd set as well,i've been in recovery for a number of years and am just now getting to the core issues,,my relationship broke up 8 month's ago with my partner,,a very sick individual,,,and i've been in an awful lot of emotional pain since,,,they've moved on with ease,,(when you dont look at yourself it's easy to do that),,any how i just wanted to say thank you and i look forward to dissecting this site and soaking it in,,it was found at the perfect time on my part."
"I found your information by Googleing "How to stop obsessive thinking." I loved what I read and it all has fit me to a "T.""
"I want tell you that I am so grateful that I have found your website. I have had revelations on my condition from reading your through your writings. I can deeply relate to so much of what you have written. Its like you have followed me around my entire life and wrote it just for me. Your writings have helped me tremendously."
"Dear Robert .... Thank you! While doing some searches on Jesus and Mary Magdalene and related topics, I stumbled into your sites .... divine intervention. . . . I am overwhelmed to find confirmation on your website of many conclusions I have come to myself through independent study, meditation, dreams, and prayer. . . . . I had never before reading your website connected "Wounded Inner Child" as a form of PTSD .... it makes incredible sense, and I will certainly keep it in mind in my counseling work....and in my own life!"
"It feels like a miracle that I found your site."
"I am very much looking forward to getting started on a path to recovery. I have purchased an intial telephone counseling session. I have read your book and listened to the tapes over and over again. I put the tape on when I go to bed at night, when I wake up in the middle of the night I put it on and when I wake up in the morning, I listen to it. I have done this for the last five days in a row. I want to do the work that needs to be done."
"I have not contacted you in awhile. we did a few phone counseling sessions in the past and I have emailed you from time to time. I wanted to wish you a Happy Holiday. Your website has guided me on my path of trusting the universe. It makes sense out of the nonsense and I am grateful for you. So again thank you."
"I have tears of thankfullnes at receiving your reply! It has given me even more hope to explore and understand the impact of my "childhood" and inner child that is getting in touch again. I shall continue to visit your site and will be buying your book as soon as possible! I live in the Netherlands and am so glad to have acsess to you via the internet.......Thanks again so much for your time and efforts to pass on your knowledge and experience."
"It was some time I contacted you to thank you for you book......I beleive I contacted you from a different email back than. Since dealing with my child hood abuse issues and learning to love myself I have come out of the closet. I am walking in love and peace with my husband and he is handling things pretty well considering. I wanted to thank you as your book and site helped me out so very much. . . . Much love to you and thank your for all your loving support."
"What a great heart you have. I feel really lucky to have found you and your work."
"I started finding web-sites like yours it gave me clarity, WOW!!!!!, when I found you're site holy shit!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! . . . I can tell from you're site you are full of compassion and will give me some advice."
"My therapist gave me a series of articles to read which prompted me to go to your website. What I have read so far has been incredilby helpful."
"Hi Robert, my name is ______ and i just want to start by sayin a big THANKs to you for the work you are doing. It has been invaluable to me on my own journey of healing! I can only imagine the countless others that you have helped, it seems without much thought of personal gain! . . . I love the emotional healing aspect of your work, which certainly resonates strongly with me!"
"Since I have found the website, joy2meu, I have been profoundly enlightened"
"thank you so very much your book has touched my life greatly, I have been recommending it to everyone I know~ I sure orders will be coming in soon~ but mostly I pray that it will touch my friends and all others that I have suggested to purchase your book , and it will inspire them to make a change in their life for the better~ Again, I wish I had the time to tell you my story, it has been an amazing journey~ from a extremely abusive childhood to homeless to almost losing my life from a 21 year eating disorder ( praise God ~ I have recovered, out of 5 of my friend's I was the only survivor)~ So in short~ thank you and God blessings upon your life,"
"Thank you for your exceptionally useful, wise and insightful site, Joy2MeU. . . the content of the site is adult, well researched and deeply meaningful."
"I don't usually send letters to writers, musicians or other famous people, but as I looked over your site again I just thought why not send thank you? 3 years ago when I discovered I was addicted and codependent, I read your site ALOT along with books by Melody Beattie and Pia Mellody and I absolutely thank you from the bottom of my heart for having your writings online and accessible to all, it's a beautiful gift to your fellow mankind and is so helpful. I had no idea about boundaries. Now I protect myself a lot better and am a much nicer person :)"
"Thank you for your amazingly helpfull site."
"I am so happy to see that your webpage still exsists. It's been many years since I have been on but your webpage was there, when I needed it most. I learned so much about life with you and your understandings. . . I just referred your page to friend and I thought hmm.. I should go on it too. Can't wait to start reading again and healing another part of my life."
"Thank-you for everything you have posted on your website!!! Your revelations you have typed about Co-Dependency are truly already transforming me, and truly truly I am full of joy for finding this, and giving all the glory to my beautiful God!!! :) I know He lead me to your site!!! I am so happy, this is exactly what I needed at this time! :)"
"Thx for your response, I really appreciate it! I can only imagine how busy you are!! Thx again for sharing with me, I will do some reading. You are truly gifted and in the Divine Flow. May God continue to bless you"
"I did not expect to hear back from you personally, what a pleasant suprise. When I googled obsessive thinking and your website came up, I could not stop reading your articles. I had to purchase the book. I look forward to reading the book!"
"your website has been very helpfull."
"You have no idea how deeply you have touched me! I am a little boy who was prevented from exposing my emotions. Now, I am a person, not yet a man, who was not able to express my emotions to myself or anyone else. I've been reading your information now for the past four days, and I can't stop gleaning the information that I crave. For the past three days, my spare time after taking care of the everyday things that need to done, is spent reading your works and then evaluating my inner self. I have never had such a clear view into why I am the way I am. I've sought out the help of a friend, who is a therapist and I believe that I am on the path of recovery now. I at least can see a light at the end of the tunnel, or that black hole that you so vividly depict. The therapist that I am in contact with is hired by the Police Dept that I work for, just to ride with each of us every once in a while for us to bounce things off of. Through my interaction with him and the descriptions that you offered of going through that black hole, I can tell that he has already done that in his own healing. He is a recovering alcoholic. It is my goal/hope that one day I will be a person that is capable of Love and being Loved. I think that as that occurs, I will not be the lonely little boy full of saddness and insecurity any longer! I just wanted to say Thank You for putting your experiences out there for others to find and use to their benefit."
"It was wonderful to receive your holiday message (referring to December Update) and I will be sharing it with our Nar-Anon Group. Blessings to you and your family too!"
"thank you for the great work you are doing Robert. I continue to be one of your supporters and admirers and quite often give out you web site to my own clients."
"I cannot even begin to express how much your writing has profoundly impacted my life. I discovered your writing when I set out to find out why I continually found myself in abusive relationship after abusive relationship despite recognizing the signs of abusers. An internet search took me to your writing on emotional incest which I read in absolute amazement as it described my relationship with my father with astounding accuracy. I continued to read the other writings on your site and could not order Codependence, The Dance of Wounded Souls quickly enough. Your writing paved the path for my discovery and identification with Adult Children of Alcoholics. I embarked upon the journey to the core of the tightly weaved layers of the dysfunction in my family and the manifestation of the dysfunction throughout my entire life. I often read aloud passages from your book, and this piqued the interest of others and I soon found myself introducing the concepts from your writing to them. I suddenly knew with absolute clarity the direction my life was meant to follow, and made the decision to pursue a PhD in Counseling Psychology, and will start in the fall."
"i find your site very informative and can relate to some of the information and some of the other info certainly gives me a different perspective."
"I have just read through part of your site (I'm new to it) and write to express my gratitude to you for your writing about the process of your relationsip (1998/9). I realise this is old 'history' now and you are doubtless moved on to continuing life adventures. Nevertheless, writing about your own process has given me MUCH clarity about a recent relationship/ending. I have been in a screaming heap over this but am now starting to put together the story that fits, and through this process, start to believe (and SEE actually) that I am now more likely to have the thing I want which is a (real) relationship. Thank you."
"I've just read your book and found it to be extraordinarily helpful."
"I poked around the web looking up emotional child abuse and trust issues. I found your site and all became clear. . . I have dealt with so much that I am sort of bummed there is plenty more to uncover release and heal, but I have come far enough to know this wounded part of me is not all of me."
"So I got on the internet and the first thing I came upon was your website. The first paragraph of Obsession/Obsessive thinking part 1 hit like a rocket. “Being in our heads ? thinking, fantasizing, ruminating ? is a defense we adapted in childhood to help us disassociate from the emotional pain we were experiencing. WOW!!!!! This has been my life since the age of 5 years. I don’t know of any other way to live. I can tell you that I just can’t bear the thought of living the rest of my life with this pain."
"I would like to express my gratitude to you for your website. . . . I wrote, mainly, to let you know that your site, your words, your insight, your guidance served as footprints next to me in the sand tonight. I was asking for guidance to calm me and a term popped in my head. "Obsessive Thoughts". I Googled this term and found you. Funny thing is that I have been writing about Joy and me/you, you/me......today I was contemplating renaming myself Joy. All just hints so I would recognize your site. Syncronicity never ceases to amaze me. "
"Just wanted to say, brilliant work. My wife and I are both incest and child abuse survivors and learning what we’ve learnt from your website has pushed our individual recoveries far further along than we could have previously imagined. So thank you.
I made this posting on survivors forum: I would recommend that everyone on this site and any other abuse, mental/emotional health, Alcoholics Anonymous, Al Anon, Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, BPD, Victims of Domestic Violence websites etc start learning about the true definition, the true nature of codependancy and it’s causes and effects. I would recommend the first place to start is a site called www.joy2meu.com I don’t think there is anybody else who has been able to gather all the information and demonstrate it verbally or in print as well as the man who created this site."
"Lovely website. Well written."
"This is the best book I have ever came across dealing with these issues... it feeds my soul. I can't think of a better description."
"Im 21yrs old from Sydney, Australia. Over the past months I have been uncovering and adventuring through the path of recovery. I have found your website the most insightful so far. When i started on my journey I found most of the information I found helpful to my cause but my not fulfilling to my overall understanding. I still had this internalised feeling of doubt and suspicion over my newly acquired perspective. Though, with all honesty the thoughts you put forward have filled that gap and inspire and motivate me on my path."
"Thank you for sharing some of your writing on your website. I haven't gone through the 12 steps but i was intererested in reading about your perspective on spirituality. For some reason it doesn't suprise me that even though i haven't been through the 12 steps, i have been "forced" to go through a similar transformation that you describe in powerlessness to empowerment."
"Thanks for the richness of your website. I almost could heal with just that."
"I can't tell you how lucky I feel to have happened upon your website. I have come to realize most recently that I have what they call "obsessive behavior". I am no expert of course, and as far as I know it only exists during, but mostly after, romantic relationships that I have been involved in, and as I was searching for information on line regarding this, I came across your website. . . .After reading a few of your articles I couldn't believe how much I connected with what you were saying, it's as if you were talking about me and my life, and although reading is wonderful and enlightening, I need more."
"Well i have to say thank you for your insightful web pages. . . these articles all ring true for me."
"I am enjoying your book greatly. . . I do not like to read that much but your book is quite interesting. The majority of the information makes complete sense. It is nice to know that I am not a screwed up hopeless cause. I feel empowered to make changes and do not feel guilty for seeking out help to be a happy, healthy person. I want to be a postitive role model for my children as well. I have spent far too much of my life being bitter and owning that bitterness as part of my identity. I did not want to forgive or let it go because I felt I would loose part of who I am. However, I was only preventing myself from giving and accepting love and joy. Thank you for your book."
"I just found your great website in my search for a CODA meeting."
"I guess I just want to say thank you for your site; it has helped me in so many ways. Most importantly, it clarifies all the work that I've been doing over the past 14 years...I'm finally understanding and forgiving. Again, thank you so very, very much!"
"All I can say is WOW! I Googled this morning and the first site I landed on was yours."
"Another relationship(really learning lesson) for me just ended. I had become sick of this. I know codependency well. I went back and reviewed my life and came up with variuos triggering incidents, had a list of issues, main two being that of "trying to prove to my mother that I was good enough," and to be complete I needed to be in a relationship. In fact all of my relationships followed these lines. I was not sure how to address these and begin the healing process. I found you on the internet. The rest is history, and your book arrived at the appropriate time.
I cannot put into words the enormity of help and comfort and potential for healing that your message brought to me. My list of issues was validated, and as I read the book, it was as if I was reading an autobiography. Many of your ideas, I have had and know them to be true, I lacked the confidence and trust in myself and love to know them as true. During the three days that I have been reading your message, there have been four triggering events that brought me to tears. Before I began to read, my eyeballs hurt, no headache just the pain of eye strain. With my emotional release, the eyeball pain is gone. All I know is that the God-force was preparing me to begin dealing with the couped up emotional pain. I know it is only the beginning, but I embrace the journey with a more appropriate attitude.
I will continue to process your message, and with God's help, grow stronger and help the universal evolutionary process. I will always be mindful of integration and balance. Thank you, and I truly appreciate the message that you brought to me at the proper time. Needless, to say I will be referring your book to anyone that will listen."
"well, if so, then hello robert. i just came across the website that featured your 'healing the child within' articles. i wanted to say that every single thing in them matches what i've been learning in counselling. i found it reassuring to read the articles as it was a reinforcement that someone else (besides my counsellor,) understands what i am going through.
i found your explanation of feeling the feelings and how you thought if you allowed yourself that right you'd end up crying in a rubber room for the rest of your life, quite accurate! in fact, almost every day i feel i am masochistic for allowing myself to "go there." i feel quite alone in the process, as most people around me simply self-medicate and must think i'm quite self-absorbed with all of this "healing" business. and the fact that no special alien can come down and heal me/there are no secret codes/pills/time limit resonated with me as well...i've often wondered if my soul had been plagued with some sort of grief a shamanistic healer could free me from. also, the harder i try to clean up my life (quit drinking, go to therapy, etc.) the WORST i seem to be...because the "pandora's box" is indeed open, and i am feeling for a change. it's no fun, huh?. . . . . ps: i can REALLY relate to those articles...the more i think about it, the more i can. the part about 'trust' just popped in my mind...it's so true---i'm always suspicious because i don't know who to trust because what we naturally felt as kids was told was wrong or inappropriate. GOD, what a waste of time all this regressing is haha."
(November 8, 2007)
"The
Dancing in the
Light stuff is awesome! It hits me like a lazer beam. It is
all very profound. I am getting it. I finally understand totally
about coming from a place of woundedness. This path I am on is
all very strange., I am getting so many answers.. a lot of guidance.
I am finally relying on me instead of wanting someone else to do
it for me. . . . the emotional vampire info changed my relationship
with my father. I just dont go there anymore with him.. Man oh man..
I was really giving myself away to him. And others too! I am
excited about getting your book. This information is priceless...
I am so grateful you wrote it."
"We've listened and loved your CD version, and now want the book to go along with it. We are both very active AA members."
"Thanks for the book and cds, and especially for the personal dedication of the book, which you most likely write in every book you send, which is in my opinion utterly cool! :) I have devoured your website quite thoroughly in little over a year, that I've been on the strenuous but, oh, so rewarding path of recovery. It was now the time for me to buy the book from which it all started sprawling. I've read the material of the book in citations on the articles on your site several times, but I wanted now the full and original version of the book that has had such an impact on me and had created such shivering resonance in my Soul. The CDs are absolutely a mind-blowing audiospiritual experience! You rock, man!! It's one thing to read the articles on the clinically electric computerscreen and completely another level of involvement hearing the man himself utter his own words of wisdom and spiritual alchemy. One can tell that you aren't just mumbling through a book you've written; while listening it becomes certain that the message truly is your spiritual truth and not just some neatly packaged intellectual mindjob disguising itself in spiritual language. And for a work-in-progress production the quality of the audio is solid. I dig the vintage cassette feeling that has remained on the CD-version quite nicely. A slight indie/garage resonance enhances the street-cred-value of the recording it most certainly deserves. Cult stuff, indeed! ;)
An enormous THANK YOU for sharing your story and perspective for all the world to see, I truly appreciate it, man!"
"After reading your website it felt like I was drinking water after being in a desert for 30 years."
"My name is _____ and I have been following your work via your web site from almost the beginning and I have been tremendously impressed with it. Your work is more comprehensive than anyone I have seen in the recovery field ever. In fact it is almost overwhelming."
"These are some of the best articles I have ever read. Thank you for sharing your insight and experiences."
"A therapist recently suggested I look into inner child healing, so I was surfing around the internet today and came upon your site - Wow, what I read was nothing short of amazing. The painful and confusing thoughts I had been having really re-formed to make sense after reading some of your articles."
"I just found your web-site and have to say that you said in one page what I have been trying to articulate (to my self first and then to others) for years. THANK YOU for your work and the way that you express your truth. This is a great site and I am thankful I came across it. I look forward to spending some more time here and checking out your other writings as well. Thank you sincerely"
"I am greatly enjoying your work on the Joy 2 Me and U website. I have never seen such a wonderful collection of writings in one place. My feelings about life are very closely aligned with your work, and I am finding it invaluable. . . Thank you so much for your time and help, and thank you for your wonderful articles. I look forward to reading more of your work in the near future."
"Your website was a blessing. I cried as I read all the pages that I could within 7 days. I was obsessed with it. So I thank you."
"First of all thank you so much for your trust in your intuitive guidance it has lead you to put out information that will help many people. It has helped me thru a tough time recently and I am very greatful to you."
"I LOVE your tape !!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE AMAZING~~~~YOUR VOICE IS AMAZING, YOUR MESSAGE IS AMAZING. I have a NEW problem~~I didn't want to go to SLEEP I wanted to stay up all night and just listen to the tape !!! And I turned it on first thing this morning and didn't want to LEAVE for work!!! What a problem~!~!
It is so amazing. The words just go right into my soul~~~~~~~~~ I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy. Thank you so much for sharing your recovery with all of us. This is the BEST gift I've had in a long time. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"I have been looking at these web pages and it has released so much anger and sadness in my body. thank you for sharing."
"I read many of your articles in internet. They are so clear and so right on to my mind and heart. Thanks for your works in this area."
"Thank you so very much!!!!! To start with I immediately felt special when you signed my copy of your book. . . . . It is not unusual for me to drive 200 to 400 miles a day. Needless-to-say, I listened to your 3 CD's in 2 days. What a wonderful experience!!!! I am HIGHLY suggesting to my 6 sponsees (we're in NA and I have 16 years clean)that we are going to have a "Celebrate Burney and Humaness" day free from shame and perfectly human!!! Your willingness to share your experience ,strenght, and hope are greatly appreciated............so, Thanks to you sir!!!!"
"Much of what you have written on your web site resonates deeply with me. I am from an alcoholic, emotionally abusive/neglectful home and much of what you have written describes my resulting codependent patterns."
"I've already healed a lot of issues from applying what you say on your website. I love your website so much and it has helped change my life. your book will be icing on the cake."
"I finished reading your book Dance of the Wounded Souls. I just wanted to write and thank you for your experience and your insight. It is a shame that we have to get beat up by the stream or beaten with the stick so many times before we learn an easier way isn’t it? . . . Many blessings to you and I hope you know that if you had blinded me in a previous life, you have indeed repaid your Karmic debt."
"You have done some amazing work and I applaud you for the courage to share everything you have."
"I remember reading and enjoying your book years ago, though I don't believe I was ready for it at the time. I am now diving into recovery through 12-step and counseling (who knew I belonged here?!) and it is not an easy journey. I had forgotten about the book (misplaced it, loaned it out....) until just now when I came across your website again. Funny.....everything seems to be coming full-circle these days! . . Thank you for sharing your wisdom and healing energy."
"Hi Robert~ I just want you to know how much you/ your book has inspired me~ I beieve with all my heart that God brought me to your site and I have been truly blessed~ I thank you."
"My biggest problem in all my recovery/healing was forming the spiritual aspect... and I really relate and agree with your view on it. Especially how Paul really f-----d it up with our relationship with spirituality. I think I can finally get over the blame/shame that Catholicism embedded in me, and live happily, joyous and Free! I still go to my 2-3 very strong support groups/meetings a week, but I now have so much more to share, relate to and pass on."
"I received my book today and I am just dancing! You see about a year ago when I was dealing with repressed memories of childhood abuse I found your site. I always wanted to get your book but did not. The other day I was at a sweat lodge and great healing came about but it brought me back to your information. The book spoke to get it.
Little did I understand why but I opened to a section about touching and expressing love no matter what gender and I was just shouting from the roof tops. I have been working through this very issue. . . . . God I can not tell you how free it makes me feel to know I was not wrong for what I was feeling and desiring to express. It felt soooooooooo trapped as I was made to feel it was sooooooooo wrong. I am not talking about anything to violate the trust, repect or boundries of another but just freedom of touch in general. I have always been a touchy feely person and it has been hard at times Robert.
I look foward to reading you book all the way through. I am seriously thinking about starting a support group and if I do I would like to use your book with your permission of course. I noticed that I can order in bulk quantity. I cant express my gratitude to you Robert. Oh and Yes..........thank you sooooooooooooo much for taking the time to sign my book copy. YOU ARE THE BEST! HAVE A WONDERFUL VIBRANT RADIANT DAY MY DEAR BROTHER."
"Your website and book have helped me more than I can say. I love the way you write."
""The Dance of Wounded Souls" did change my life. Thank you."
"I wanted to tell you thank you for your website and all of the articles you write…I was searching for websites on codependence and stumbled upon your great works and now I read a “chapter” a day. I can’t tell you the INSPIRATION you have instilled in me to want to get to know my SELF better and own my SELF, and all that comes with it."
"Just want to say that I have been researching some of your work and for the first time ever I feel relaxed content and at peace despite my life being sheer hell at the Moment."
"I have truly enjoyed reading the articles on your website thus far. I am certain I will enjoy the book more. Thank you so much for the free information. I have just ended a very emotionally abusive relationship that ended in physical abuse and have been struggling for answers. Your articles were so refreshing that I instantly felt better after reading a couple of them."
"Thanks for sharing your ideas with those of us who can truly benefit from the knowledge you've assimilated."
"I borrowed your book from a friend and liked it so much that I wanted a copy for myself and my husband. We are therapists/life coaches and find your book a great resource for our clients. I will be referring many people to your book and website. We have been in Private Practice for 32 years and are always looking for good resources for our clients. Thanks for writing this great book."
"Hello Robert, I just finished listening to the tapes and I am so happy that I am able to send you a letter of thanks, and tell you how much I enjoyed every word. I laughed out loud many times and related on so many levels."
"I have found your book extremely insightful and want to buy one for my therapist."
"I just discovered your site and want to thank you for such wonderful information. What a gift you have provided! I've only just begun my journey on healing my inner children, and your site has given me the start that I so desparately needed. Thank You!"
"I simply want to say, "thank-you" for your site. I am a recovering codependent, and have been on the road to recovery since 2000.Your site contains the best information I've found on codependency and recovery."
"Recent circumstances in my life led me to your website, which absolutely resonates with me - more than any other self-help /break up /abandonment book I have read (too many to mention). Your philosophy fits perfectly with, and fully incorporates, my spiritual views. I have been looking for that for a long time. I hope to gain more insight from the book, and will definitely consider phone sessions and/or intensive training. I admire and appreciate your integrity in sharing what you have learned for a minimal price. Considering some of your past experiences, it would be understandable for you to want to profit as much as possible from your wisdom. You really must be working out a lot of karma."
"I found your website while looking up info on aca and codependence. I think the writing is profound and great and gave me more hope than anything I had read all week."
". . . it was not until I found your website that things really began to make sense and fall into place. I have been reading your material, I started with Loving the Wounded Child Within, it opened my eyes so wide and helped me finally to begin to see the truth, to see through the misperceptions that have were formed from my childhood, I now feel I can finally begin to let go of the past, the outdated, outmoded beliefs that have kept me attached to the past and kept me reliving it over and over again. Freedom is mine."
"Thank you for the wonderful site you have provided on the internet. I found it when I googled the word "discernment"."
"What I really like about the book though, is how I can seem to put things all together now. After lots of money spent on years of therapy (no resentment though, I had to go through it to be where I am), Landmark Forum (Twice!), and two years of the meetings, it feels so good to feel good about myself again and not so much of the negativity of the 12 step program. I was having a problem with the spiritual aspect and your writings follow right along with what I believe about the universe, etc. and I think it will really help me to live life freely again."
"thank you for the amazing gifts you bring to the planet and the healing that takes place on all levels."
"How brilliant are your words. I am a die hard born and bred skeptic and the comfort from your philosophy seems to touch all the areas I have chosen to embrace, to listen to. I have a feeling we may have had similar experiences. To be pushed by life to where I am today and to find your book is a blessing. It has helped my husband and myself to "SHUT UP!" and we were desperate for something to calm our fears something worth listening to. I think you hit the nail on the head. . . . . You have become my warrior of truth. A beacon of hope and happiness something I have lost so many years ago. The beauty of it all is after so many extreemly complicated issues comes such a simple cure and thats how I believe life should be, simple. I believe the most brilliant minds find their conclusion in simplicity, though you do have to be smart enough to realize when it appears. I think you are BRILLIANT! BRILLIANT! BRILLIANT!"
"Your site has been the most help in my quest to become healthy from Co-Dependence."
"I am just so very grateful that you had the courage to present your Truth in exactly the context in which you presented it. I am so grateful that you can acknowledge that this life business can feel like a cruel and pointless joke and still ask us to consider that maybe it does all make sense somehow and we are loved unconditionally. Thank you so much, Robert, for daring to burn brightly."
"thank you for your work and for your sharing, it is truly a life saver, please keep writing, i will be forever grateful that i found your website. but i think it was the universe guiding me towards you and towards better life emotionally."
"I have enjoyed your website so far, and I'm looking forward to your book. When I first read your site, I felt that I have finally found something that describes me and makes sense. Although it is a relief to find such familiarity, it is also overwhelming and frightening to think of all the work that may lie ahead. And although the literature feels so familiar, it is still all very new to me and I am sure that I am no where near where I have to be to grasp the recovery concept. Nonetheless, it is good to know people out there that are going through the same thing, and that I am not alone."
"Great stuff, very helpful. Thank you for your work of assisting people to heal and grow."
" I just wanted to take a moment to thank you so very much for this site. . . . . . Thank you so very much once again, I was sitting here miserable having come to the realization that it was time to move on and afraid of the missing her that will ensue. But I feel much more confident that my decision is what is best for both of us."
"Really getting a lot out of your articles on codependence and healing the inner child. Man, you positively hit the mark when it comes to understanding what it is I'm currently dealing with -- toxic love, wounded inner children etc. Just want to say thanks."
"Found your web site and it made excellent reading, and provided a very good insight to what is happening to my wife."
". . . you kindly wrote me a message saying that you wished the book helped me along my life journey - to be honest that was an under statement! Having read your book, been to a CoDA meeting and read some of Pia Mellodys books, its like I am waking up for the very first time. The shifts in my emotional world have been quite profound and I am grateful to life that it has bought me to you and to our forthcoming meeting."
"First of all I must thank you. No words can express the graditude I am feeling for you appearing in my life."
"Robert, I have to say your website and articles are invaluable information to anyone who is on the healing path.You put to words many of the things that were confusing to me. Like much of my own emotional pain and confusion and self hatred. You put to words my own childhood experiences which I could not name or put a finger on. I had done some reading and had tapes on inner child healing but it was not as extensive as your website. Looking for information. I started doing a websearch on what was mental and emotional abuse, and I happened upon your website and what you say about religion is right on, definitely toxic and shamebased. You help expose the crap we have been fed by society and toxic religion. And you put things into a saner perspective. I hope you don't listen to those who may criticize or attack your ideas and beliefs, you are right On. . . . Unfortunately we have very few religious leaders who have the honesty and integrity you do about things"
"I just wanted you to know that it makes me feel better knowing that I am not alone in this struggle. By the way, I loved your CD's."
"I just found your website, and the article that you wrote in reply to questions about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. (Jesus & Mary Magdalene - Jesus, sexuality, & the Bible) I want to commend you on your work, and your research. Your research goes hand in hand with my own, and it is rare that I find someone that sees things in the same ways that I do. I will be reading through your site even more, but I wanted to take a few minutes to send my regards. Excellent job!"
"Had to let you know how much I enjoyed reading your book. It is a thorough overview of the subtle, but life draining issues of Codependence and the wounded inner child - and connects all aspects with a rare, wise and visionary insight."
"thank you forever so much for that site for sharing for completely changing my life."
"Your texts are a great help for me in my self-work, and I thank you very much for them, especially for your integration of feeling therapy and spirituality. It has been a new perspective for me, one which I highly appreciate."
"I don't know how to thank you enough...Your website and your Co-Dependence book have been brought to me just in time ...more so because I happened to open a page of your online writing that began " I spent most of my life wanting to die"...and that caught me because I was feeling that feeling again.
It is the first time that my life-experience, which felt so unlike anyone else's around me, has felt recognized, validated, empathized- word for word, sentence for sentence although the details of the circumstances are different, and this in itself is a big relief. . . . . I live in India. . . . . Thank you for having the courage to write the book and the online stuff. I hope there will be an opportunity to meet you someday. I hope I will be able to help others someday too."
"I received the book yesterday and am diving right in. I have enjoyed the website and your approach to codependence as a spiritual and cultural issue rather than just a " personality problem" that occurs in some individuals."
"I just finished reading your book. Without sounding like a converted cult member, I must say that those words more than resonated with me, they showed me how several puzzle pieces that I have acquired in my lifetime fit together. Thank you for writing it and sharing it with the world."
"Remember" is a great way of explaining the feeling you get when you are being enlightened. I have often used that word myself, because at those "Aha" moments, even though I feel like light is being shed on something that I had not noticed before, there is always a feeling that I already, in fact always, knew the thing the light was revealing. I also use "resonate" to describe it, because it feels like something deep down inside recognizes it's long-lost twin. . . In any case, this is how I felt when I was reading your book, and I am on-board with everything you are saying."
"Your words offer a compassionate clarity to cut through the emotional fog of accumulated hurts and wounding in our lives."
"I had looked up tough love and came upon your website -I just downloaded huge amounts of your website that I will read this weekend. I am the codependent mother of a 21 year old son who I have allowed to turn my life inside out over the past 5 years. . . . Bless you for putting this website together."
"I find your work revolutionary, and I dont say it to please your ego, but becouse I realy think so."
"Your insight is a breath of fresh air for me.. . . . .Just letting you know I am reading and reading and re-reading and actually have made a notebook to journal the steps. I am not in a hurry, it has already been 48 yrs. of this. I want to get it right this time and if I drop dead 10 minutes after feeling that personal victory of owning self-love...I will still say the journey was all worth it. Thank you for all you have shared with the "online world" out here."
" I am reading a lot of the stuff from your site - very good.... very helpful to me personally outside the office and also in the office."
"I must say that I read literally hundreds of books, self help, healing, spiritual etc and have never before felt compelled to write to the author until now. . . . This morning I chose to read passages of your book again to see if it might get me through the day and I have to say you have touched me to my soul with the Truth that I have felt in your words. I cry as I type this. I love your "fucking asshole" to your Higher Power. I must say that I have certainly felt this way about mine lately as well. You have given me hope that this might all really be part of the perfect plan and I wanted to thank you for that today. . . . Again thank you for your book ... and for getting me through my day!!"
"My name is ______. I found your site and it is changing my life. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! . . . . I am so thankful for finding this information at this time in my life."
"Your book is a big part of my progress in dealing with my own stuff. For the most part, my friends are recovering non-drinking alcoholics, and without noticing the transformation, I somehow started avoiding the drinking ones. From the first time I visited your website I felt like I was talking with an old friend."
"Thank you so much for all the information. I am revisiting your site after some years for 'the crappeth has hitteth the faneth' big time in my life and I need to ground."
"I would like to thank you for creating your amazing website...I am 25 student of counselling, who recently finished her another tragic codependent relationship:/....I have done plenty of work around my self esteem, childhood trauma, and irrational beliefs to change my attitiude and choices in life. I am not saying it did not help me, but I did not felt truly understood and in spite of all, still kept my inner children rulling. Few days ago I was really desperated, I lost faith that anything will change. I observed all my life's fascinations and they all perfectly fitted to 'UNhappy ever after' story. I started to believe that this is how I was and there was not much to do about it, when I accidently googled your website I spent 2 whole days reading your texts. I also bought 'Codependence: The Dance Of Wounded Souls' straightaway. I was laughing and crying sometimes in the same time. At last, someone who understand me, even more, who experienced exactly the same situations, feelings...and found the way out of this. There is hope. There is strenght. Knowing that it is possible to stop to crave for critical and unavaible partners gives me that power. And me, I am sitting on the table with all my children around me Lonely child, the one with broken spirit, bad little kid.... romantic and magical thinking ones are here as well but more distant, still angry at me since I told them that Fairy Tales are not true. But I know they will be ok!, I will be ok!...universe showed me that he cares by giving me your book to put these pieces together and make more sense from my living:) THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THAT Mr. Burney:)"
"Hi Robert, I’ve read a lot on your site and I’m very interested in what you teach and the way you explain problems."
"_____ was kind enough to share your article with me. I've read a portion of it tonight and am excited that there may be a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I'm starting to understand how I got where I am and how to get where I need to go."
"I am experiencing a romantic break up after 9 years and your knowledge is here now to help me understand and heal and move forward. I have come to an understanding of myself that I have searched for since I was 17 (I am now 45). I do believe this is not a coincidence and am thankful to be coming into these levels of understanding after so long. Thank you for so generously sharing!"
"WOW!! I mean, WOW!!!! I see an email from you and I can’t believe my eyes. I told my husband last week; there is one person I’d like to meet before I die, and that is Robert Burney. You have no idea the impact you’ve had in my recovery since I first heard you last year. My husband had your tapes sitting in his office for a few years and one day I noticed them. As you say, there are no accidents, no coincidences. It was a time in my recovery where I had thrown away my Catholic God as well as all spiritual hope and all I could think of was, how much longer before I get a chance to check out. Dealing with people, hurting those I loved, being hurt, afraid of confrontation, angry, etc... that was my dilemma.
You’ve given me hope and a door into a program that fits. I have been a member of Al-anon for years but, though it helped, it just wasn’t cutting it. Then I heard you and I realized, I am a full blown adult child. And yes, there is a God that loves me, warts and all. My soul is coming out more and more and I kind of like her. So with my deepest gratitude and admiration I thank you for all your wisdom and sharing. I am so looking forward to meeting you!!!"
"I actually already own a copy. (of Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls) It has been so helful and insightful in my own journey out of codependence that I am giving a copy to my mother:) and to my best friend. This is the second book that I have read on this and while I learned a lot about the disease in the first book, yours has touched me on a much deeper level. Thank you for that.
"I've been a huge fan of your web page joy2meu for years. I'm a coach who uses inner child-based techniques in conjunction with other tools both in my own life and with clients."
"I am very much inspired by your work and would like you to know that I'm very much touched by your life history and i can very much relate to it. . . . . I thank you very much and would like to read your articles more often. I think this will help me get some clarity and understanding about the person I am and finding peace within my inner soul. Thank you so very much for your writings."
"Thank you for a truly amazing book! In fact, some of the sample / examples of the mother and father you shared left me thinking, "well d*mn, how does he know MY family!?!" . . . . My thank you headed into a lengthy narrative, so i decided it best to abbreviate it all by saying - you work has left a lasting impression on me and echoes the voice I have heard calling me for years!" (the same person wrote later "I jumped too soon when writing, as I had not completed the Cosmic perspective. if you only knew how it meshed so coherently with the kabalah coursework I received.)"
"I do not know how I found your web…probably it was meant to be…. Thank you for U being who U were and is. There are so many things I have experienced exactly in the way U had, it seems to me that YOU is almost me."
"Just wanted to thank you for your web site. I have been away from the Inner Child/Co-dependent work for quite a while and it was good to be brought back to this very important inner work. For those of us that are not in a position to purchase books, the web site offers great free material which can only benefit us. . . . As a woman, I appreciate your understanding of our centuries old wounds and how we pass those wounds on to other people. It is the main reason I decided not to have children. I also appreciate your take on what happens to girls as they turn into women and how our fathers turn away from us and turn on us and do not celebrate our transition - very sad (refers to article Wounded Parents - the tragic legacy of dysfunctional families). . . . Anyway, thanks again for your web site."
(May 20, 2007)
"I read The Dance of the Wounded Souls
and I think it will be life changing for me."
"I ordered your book a few weeks ago . . . . . it has changed my life. I went from hating to go to AA to going at least once a day. I went twice today. I have ordered another book for my son ____ who is in rehab. I hope it helps him as much as it helped me."
"I just want to thank you for your wonderful website and thank you for keeping it accessible to all. I've been coming back to it every so often over the years. It is like a sacred place where I can come and be understood and helped. I don't know if you get compliments like this often. I just wanted to make sure you know just important the work you do is."
"Robert, thank you, your website is amazing, such great info. Congratulations on your great work..."
"I had received your book in the mail on Friday and i have not been able to put it down since. very well written and indeed gives a lot to think about and a much healthier perspective of life. I have been in therapy for years as a result of a terrible childhood and i have that problem you had mentioned of the critical parental voice that makes me think im an evil monster when infact i havent done anything wrong and never meant harm to anyone. it can get overwhelming sometimes but your book seems to point me in the right direction."
"I found your website and LOVE it! really resonates :)"
"I read your book, I have to admit it is good and that is saying a lot, because I am sick and tired of these self-help books and allergic to spiritual mumbo jumbo, but you have something."
"As an transactional analyst I find the information on your website very relevant to my work. Also, coming from a dysfunctional family, repeating my own dysfunctional patterns with my children, I am now in the grieving stages of the break-up of an emotional abusive relationship. Not only did he broke my heart but my soul was complety destroyed in the process and I lost all passion for life. I now have the courage to move forward and would like to attend one of your inner-child workshops. Congratulations on an excellent website."
"I have gone to your site over and over again and am reading and taking it all in.... thank you for this wonderful site."
"Thank you so much for your literature. thank you for your time you spent in giving it. Thank you for your courage to share your experiences."
"Robert, I am surprised that people who visit your website don't buy your book or ebook. Your website and writings represent to me the only kind of real, grounded (Amerincan) spiritual and psychological information I have read on the internet so far. I used to have lots of information on my websites for free and many visitors from all over the world, but I decided that I needed to have some balance in all this, so I made an ebook instead and only had a few writings on my website for free. Maybe an idea for you too? Of course people like what they can get for free, but your information is valuable information which comes from the heart (I feel). So many people write about spiritual stuff but contrary to your writings, it seems that the experience from the human point of view of having been through all that they write about is missing, and this is certainly not what I feel from reading your website. So keep up the good work."
"I would like to be put on your email list for any emailings you send out and info on your work. I am finding what I have read to be of great interest and better said and more clearly stated than anything else I have read or any of the work that I have done in therapy"
"Excited to receive your book! Thank you for responding so quickly to my enthusiastic e-mail :) I passed on some information from your site to friends and got responses immediately! One friend in San Diego, _____, said he is going to take the first workshop coming up this month (i think that's pretty soon). And another friend in Canada felt like it was speaking to her directly. So happy. I love sharing information that is full of divine truth and healing and much, much needed."
"I have learned so much from your articles . . . Your articles have helped me tremendously, and I thank you for them. I look forward to your book. . . you have definitely hit the mark for me, and I value your insight. I thank Spirit for leading me to your website."
"I found your website through a yahoo search on emotional grieving. Thanks for your time in developing and sharing your website."
"I spent the morning reading your newsletter and I especially liked the thought of the childhood healing seminars that you have created . There can be much accomplished through this type of healing . Far too many of our everyday problems now stem from such experiences . Sometimes just saying them out loud can help a great deal at facing these demons down . Keep up the good work."
"I am very happy to be on your mailing list because everything I've read so far makes so much sense to me now that I'm off the drugs and I can only thank you for being there when I needed some help, and help so often comes from the most unexpected direction, thank you again."
"I am one of your Danish visitors. I find your information and articles brilliant and very useful. I have been very inspired when reading your writings. You seem to be a true lightworker to me. Thank you for doing such excellent work."
"I have just found your website and it is "right on time". I have struggled throughout my life with many of the feelings you discuss. Having no boundaries and codependency are the two major current items I have come to realize I must work on and I had very little information. Thanks for the information and I will be reading some daily."
"I received your book and really love it! It's like a deep sigh of relief from my inner child and soul as I read"
"Thank you so much for everything you have done for so many of us who need your words of wisdom. I read your book and have been continuing to read the information on your site. Because of this help, I feel like a weight has been lifted from me - I feel free, and able to smile - I do not feel empty and dead inside. I will continue to read everything I can on your site...It is transforming! Of course, I have to do the work but because of you and your site, I have the tools to work with."
"I wanted to thank you again for your web site. I spent a lot of years growing up feeling like there was something weird about me. I have a certain degree of ESP and I've always had vague memories of what felt like times and places I'd lived before. I never have talked about it much because it's offputting being able to know things like that when most people can't.
Two years ago, I started dating my current boyfriend. Over the course of that time, we wound up talking about a number of things (of course). About two months ago, he started talking about past lives, and we'd never talked about that before. He knows who he was in at least two past lives. I don't know who I was; I just know where I was. I didn't know before that there were other people like me. So, please put up with a "newbie" who has finally found out that there are other people like me and just wants to learn more about it."
"Thank you so very much for your website."
"I write to you in the month of my 3rd AA birthday, a 32 yr old single mum, in the process of integration of my fragmented modes with my wonderful therapist, stepping out to observe just how I play out Rescuer, victim, Perpetrator and back to university studying Theology, then likely a graduate diploma in Psychotherapy... I've defined myself from where I am now in my journey - where I found your pages on the net, and where I come back to for connection to tell my little girl that it is going to be OK and I am not going to die... You seem to write how I think (though I wonder if this is the same energy as when I sit in a meeting and feel like it was planned just for my ears only (I am sure you know how that feels!)) . ."
"I read a book on dysfunctional families I had had for a long time but hadn't opened, and happened to find your site on the internet. I am so amazed by all the discoveries this has brought to me. I was a good psychiatric nurse for many years but did not have any dealings with family therapy. Thank you for your site, it has been a revelation, and I hope will help to bring more peace to my life and my mothers. At last I understand."
"Just wanted to say thanks for the site. It was very helpful reading your narratives about each of the family roles as I study for my "Substance Abuse and Social Work Practice" class. . . . Keep going! Your life story was very inspiring, and is one more testament to the importance of dreams and perseverance."
"Dear Mr. Burney, I ordered your book -in spite of what I considered was its somewhat-new-agy title- ;-) while browsing through Amazon.com for items on recovery. I received it yesterday, and thought I'd read a few pages before retiring for the night. Well, it's well past 11am, and I have not slept a wink! I do not believe I ever read anything so easily absorbable while being so profoundly enlightening. I remember the Bradshaw series, still have the tapes somewhere, read tons of material on self-healing etc including Dyer, Mindell, Gawain, and many others, but your book was by far the best "bull's-eye hitter" ever. I cannot express enough my joy and gratitude to you for creating this extraordinary spiritual revolution tool.
On another note, I got so excited about sharing your brilliant “perspective” that I thought I‘d ask if you might consider authorizing me to do a French AND Arabic translation of the book! "
"I really enjoy your writings. I am reading about The New Age Misinterpretations. I too have come across people who talk about twin souls and say they channel things, but at the same time they are totally disconnected from their feelings and wounds. And I get this feeling they are striving for perfection and the light, but fail to understand that you cannot receive the light if you are disconnected from an emotional part of your own being. I think this split happened at the time of Atlantis where feelings were considered to be bad."
"Absolute Masterpiece! I have finally finished my first reading of the book. I do love to read but I took my time to read it all. Now I understand why it is not a best seller. You would put too many people and the powers that be out of commission. Imagine one book having the power to do all that. It is funny when I started to think what I was going to write in response to the book, I likened you to the messiah...and lo and behold you started writing about it on page 111...so I said oops, it wouldn't seem like my words now would they? That continued to the end, my thoughts eventually I started to read in the pages that followed, it was amazing! Never before have I ever read a book so thoroughly explaining all my suffering etc. . . . I do love the incorporation of Native American spirituality...I always felt that the Native American holocaust preceded ours...if they weren't successful in taking over this land...we would never have been stolen to be slaves. . . I honestly feel the book was written for me and it was my time to find it. . . ...you are just here ahead of your time...and for that I am eternally grateful because it is my time. Thank-you.
"Your website is such a deep allowing life-affirming place. Thank you so much for what you've shared in your website. . . . . I felt led to email you and thank you. We are strangers and yet not. The way you write and explain your work is very familiar to me at some deep inner level. I want to thank you for what you share in your website. I am not in a place in my life where I can attend workshops right now. If I could I would so sign up for yours! Thank you!"
"I have been reading your excellent pages on 'Setting Boundaries'. They have helped me a lot."(refering to Setting Personal Boundaries - protecting self)
"I just found your site on Google. Great site... keep up the great work! =)"
"What a feeling, What a rush - to be present in the here and now. I have been reading your articles off and on for about two years. . . . all my relationships were acutely dysfunctional until I found AA, then AlAnon and then ACOA. The latter being the one that was home to me. And it took 10 years of this (and therapy) to begin to change my life. Armed with an education in 12 step programs I made a choice to try to become healthier ie. couldn't take the pain any longer. Of course my family have not been receptive and in fact express anger for the changes they see/feel in me. To continue, I found your webpage about two years ago. . . I work on healing myself daily and have spent more time in the here and now/the present in the past year than at any other time in my life and a major support is being able to access your webpage - reading - feeling - affirmations - all part of my daily life. I am also writing my dissertation and that is more than a fulltime job. . . it was time to thank the person who has given me encouragment to go on. For me, reading your articles has been as if I were in a therepeutic relationship with you and I have gained so much - even a little serenity."
"I have just finished reading 'The Dance of Wounded Souls', and i particularly enjoyed the last chapter. It gave me an insight and answered some of my questions. Without coming across your web sights I would not of totally understood about the disease of co-dependance and i didnt realise it went that deep."
"I have been reading your pages on codependency and recovery with great interest. Thank you for making that material available. I've been in AA for a while, and your synthesis of 12-Step spiritual principles with codependency healing make more sense to me than Melody Beattie's sometimes candy-coated approach. Thanks again for your insight and willingness to help through clear explanation."
"I feel I grew a lot by reading your book, and what you taught me is wonderful and beautiful knowledge. I feel how special my inner child is lovable and loving. Wow Robert your awesome teacher, I hope to meet you someday, that is my hope my friend, I thank my creator and I thank you Robert, isn’t joyful to see and hear the creation of our holy mother source the nature, what I see I love and what I hear I love."
"Hi Robert~ I love your work, and have recommended it to others who are serious about their spiritual path."
"Over many years I have found help and solace from your writings. Thank You!"
"Maybe it's a coincidence or not, but I ordered your tapes many years ago while attempting to do something about my situation and I really liked what I heard but it was all lost and fore-gotten over the course of going through a divorce and attempting to recover from that. So here I am probably 7 or 8 years later and after witnessing some close friends go through loss of loved ones and my own father with a blood disease and a shortened life expectancy, I found myself searching the net for some help, some guidance and direction, and have stumbled once again into you. I have spent hrs and hrs searching and reading and I like the approach that you have."
"Hi, I've really identified and enjoyedthe material on this websit"
" It will be quite fine to add me to your e-mail list, your website is very impressive, though i cried immensely after reading it."
"Hello, I had been co dependent and an enabler for years. In the past year I have taken ownership of myself and have confronted years of dysfunction. With that, there is another person involved and your site has helped me confirm and has given be the hope to go deeper, to put the dysfunction to death forever. Thank you"
"Robert, thank u very much for all the information provided on your website, i just ordered a copy of your book and am awaiting it's arrival with as much patients as possible. i have read just about everything and the words on your page resonate very strongly."
"I read and re-read your articles on your website for help and hope for me. I fit into exactly what you write about."
"Thank you for your excellent work and insight!!! Hi Robert my name is _______ and I just wanted to say thank you very much for allowing us to read your thoughts regarding basic self awareness. I am sure we have only scratched the surface however, it would appear that on some levels humanity is slowly but surely moving in a positive direction. Telling the truth to ourselves is extremely difficult and taking action is even more so and this is why I found your work so very important in our ever changing dysfunctional world. At the end of the day our "errors" are only half the battle. The other half is what we do to make things better. . . . Your work helps illustrate all of the basic themes in human behaviour with only the names and faces that change. Thank you very much for providing us with the tools so that if and when, we choose to enlighten ourselves and others the opportunity is there. Let's make the world a better place by losing the secrets and enjoying the healing process. Thanks again and keep up the good work. "
"I have found your book to be very insightful and I am attempting to apply some of the principles."
"just found your material on the internet following a argument with my Mom! I happened to type in on a yahoo search engine for some help this morning and came across your article titled "Emotional Honesty and Emotional Responsibility" and it literally is beginning to unmask things that I never had words for in my relationship with my Mom! Thanks ahead of time for all your writing is and will do/doing for me and my relationships with God, self, and others! I can feel such hope and anticipation on what lies ahead for me in this next season of growth!"
"I identified, myself, tremendously with the information on your web site. Thank you. GREAT WORK!"
"I came across your website when I was searching for information about 'emotional boundaries' ... and I was so impressed by the articles you'd written and the information on your website that I wanted to read the books you've written about issues that I think hit very close to home for me (I included the CD's because I want to put them on my Ipod so I can listen on the train to London and back for work). What you wrote really resonated with me so I'm looking forward to receiving the books and CDs and to learning more -- about boundaries and about myself ... : ))) ... Based on a very small sample -- of one, me -- I know that generalizing is dangerous (yes, you guessed it, I'm an academic, American, but displaced to the UK) ... Nevertheless, I think you've got a really powerful website and are probably helping more people than you realise come to terms with the 'baggage' we've dragged with us into adult-hood from the time we were small ... Already, I've learned an enormous amount ... and I feel so encouraged ... Anyway! Thanks again ... "
"I do hope this is the right address to get in touch with you directly. I have been meaning to get in touch with you for some time as I wanted to say I have been deeply moved by your writing (both your book, The dance of Wounded Souls as well as your web pages) and feel convinced that what lies between me and my healing is the need to heal my inner child."
"If I could afford it, I would send this book to every person who needed it, which is most everyone! I'm very glad there are brilliant people such as yourself that have the capacity to help in this world. Thank you so much, Robert"
"I just ran across your web-site while doing a google search for codependcy + alcoholism and it directed me to your "Toxic Love" link which was really what I needed to see. There were parts that rang so true that I literally gasped out loud. It made me want to go and wake my husband with a hug because we are both stuck in the same vicious cycle together and (thankfully) finally trying to figure out where to begin the recovery. My next hour was spent reading about the Inner Child and I have forwarded the web site address to my sisters as well. I think they will find it as beneficial as I am. Please add me to your e-mail newsletter - I plan to visit your site often and would love to hear more of what you have to say. Thank you for your time and your work!"
"Thank you for writing this book. I have been handed many publications on codependence and adult children, and this is the only one that has given me hope and inspiration."
"I am enjoying your book, and I appreciate your down-to-earth, no-nonsense approach."
"I was so grateful to find your site while I was searching for help in getting thru my "4th Step" in my program where I am healing from many years of emotional, sexual and physical abuse and codependence. This step has been very very taxing for me. Most of my trauma has been blocked out so I have had a real struggle to "dig up the bones". I believe the LORD led me to your page where I saw your book. It looked like EXACTLY what I needed to begin my healing process. I didnt hesitate to order it. Thank You for writing it. Its exactly what I need."
"Just like to tell you that i think your insight and word display are simply amaizing, just so everything that i believe and feel are so integeral to us as humans. You conceptualise, intelectualise and emotionalise everything so well. You are really a great spirit. I would love to come to one of your seminars one day! You have a little admirer down under."
"I am so inspired by the readings on your site that I just ordered your book: "Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls". . . . I just wanted to write and say thank you for sharing your emotions. You definitely give me hope"
"I do not know if you ever get a change to read your e-mail, but would really just like to thank you for your work that you made so freely available on the internet. I am sure it is a lifesaver to many people and has been an answer to my cry for help. Not having any one to talk to and not knowing how to bother people with my problems without creating more for myself and others, and when every one so firmly believes I don’t have any, I ask God to give me an answer through google. To get an answer to my continuous self-inflicted emotional pain I wanted to know why I am so ‘emotionally needy’ and how to heal this deep empty hole inside of me. Your web pages came up addressing a lot of my problems. I am stil far from where I want to be, but as you said life is a process. . . .Thank you very much again for sharing your insights, knowledge and experiences and your time."
"Your web site inspired me! . . . . I loved your web site, loved where you're coming from."
"Your writings and website continue to be a tremendous help and inspiration to me. I can particularly relate to your ideas on "counterdependence". I certainly have and do swing between the poles of codependence and counterdependence often. I find that counterdependence in particular leads me to a harsh rigidity and narrow-mindedness that is not a good place to be. The difficulty is that the outward manifestations of counterdepndence (setting boundaries, not being a victim, etc.) can actually appear healthy on the surface. It's only when I look at how I'm getting there that I realize that it's really no closer to a healthy love and trust of self than codependence."
"A week or so ago you sent me a copy of your book, Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls. I was deeply touched by the personal message you'd handwritten inside, wishing me well on my spiritual path, and my first thank you is for that. It gave me an immediate sense of connection with you.
My second thank you is for your book itself. I've never believed in the "no coincidences" philosphy of life, but the way your words have resonated with me is making me question my own (dis)beliefs. Your words have given me an unexpected shift in perspective. I've always thought myself to be spiritual in a sort of abstract and "intellectual" (read: totally disconnected!) way. Now suddenly, for the first time in my life, I feel like my spirituality is taking flight. Or at least, my awareness of it is. I'm feeling like there might be hope for my life.
You wrote that "our personal stick" (mine being an addiction to a relationship) "is the blessed gift that has started our awakening to consciousness of our path". I can't tell you how much that idea alone is helping me right now. I've been in a process of emotional healing for about 8 years now, making great strides, but without making much progress on my "personal stick". Your words have opened up for me the possibility that there is a very good reason for that.
I've just purchased a package of telephone sessions with you. I am very much looking forward to beginning this work, this adventure. But with this email I just wanted to thank you for what you have already given me."
"Robert! Just a note to say, WOW! Is this not just the most incredible and awesome journey on which you find yourself? I just finished reading the following passage:
"The Universe completely ambushed me with this relationship - and did it in such a way, that I had to throw out all the romantic fantasy stuff. There was no feeling that I had met a soul mate or twin soul - or that there was some powerful vibrational or Karmic connection in this relationship. I don't even think in those terms any more.I bow my head in humility and reverence at the depth of the courage and the honesty this passage reveals and at the very real cost in pain and grief of such clarity and insight. At the same time, Robert, I am filled with such joy at this level of growth and awakening. There is a line in a poem by Walt Whitman that goes something like: "We but level that lift/To rise and go beyond. . ."I think that I am seeing now, that part of the experience I needed to surrender to, was to learn how to be present in reality in a romantic, intimate relationship. I mean, I knew that theoretically, but I don't think I have been focusing enough attention on actually doing it - actually being present and conscious of the gift that this relationship is in my life, the gifts this relationship has brought into my life.
I have been not been focusing on the relationship - or on my recovery. The fact that I haven't been focusing a lot of attention on my recovery - haven't thought I had the time and energy to do that - is definitely a strong contributing factor in what has been happening."
I am so happy about this gift of relationship in your life and all of its gifts to you. But when you can say, as you have in this passage, "I have not been focusing on the relationship - or on my recovery," I could leap in the air with the sense of liberation from lies that I am not doing recovery right. This is Truth which Lives and Breathes, not some canned, stale sales pitch. I can celebrate with you the amazing gifts and growth of the path you tread right now and feel a newfound measure of peace on my own path. Dance wherever you may be, Robert, at the Wonder of this Life!" (This is in reference to an addendum to the March 2007 Update: My Fear of Intimacy processing page)
"THE TIMES THAT I HAVE CARESSED MY SOUL WITH YOUR WORK, I HAVE GOTTEN INMENSE CLEARING - VERY MUCH IN CONTRAST WITH A FEW ATTENDANCES TO GROUPS AND READING OTHER WORK RELATED TO CODEPENDENCY. LOVEYOURWORK"
(February 28, 2007)
"Your
website is helpful and encouraging, and it's so good
to know that someone else is approaching codependency
recovery spiritually."
"In the 34 years of my sobriety, 30 of which has been working with addicts and families I have never read or heard anything that equals your writings on addiction and effects on loved ones. Thank you. "
"I just finished reading your book, The Dance of the Wounded Souls, and wanted to let you know how important a read it has been for me, walking the path I am now on. Many, many things clicked as I read. Many "aha!" moments. Understanding the different voices and emotions I'm finding is an indispensible key to this. I never thought in terms of different aged children coexisting in me, and never saw myself as an emotional six-year-old. But I sure do now! An incredible learning experience. . . Thanks again for sharing your profound insights. They are helping to light my path."
"I read the Dance of Wounded Souls just before Christmas and it has been very helpful. It is helping me to work through and understand problems that I have had with my partner and with my close friends. I think that many of my friends are wounded souls, as was/am I. I had an insight before reading it that we were friends because of some dysfunctional reason as well as because we have fun together.
It is a wonderful book. And it has helped me on a path to spiritual understanding and healing. I went to Southern India over Christmas and the New Year. And this also has opened my eyes to a different way of looking at the world. The people I met were wonderful. I really felt as if there was warmth and love between them and I. I really believe that you are right - once we start being conscious of the problems, we can then start to change."
"Thank you for your response. I listen to your CD's every morning and evening, as I take the NYC subways to and from work. It is helping to change my life immensely. God bless you for putting out this beautiful, so desperately-needed work"
"Just wanted to say how thankful I am for you and your site and your wisdom! I'm at a real low point right now and I'm trying really hard to read and understand your articles. I can't afford a therapist and so I'm so grateful."
"I was doing some searching and came across your website. I enjoyed your insight on many topics. Obviously I can relate... I plan on reading more of your experience and helpful suggestions."
"Dont know if you read these, But just in, case, would like to say thanks for your articles and how much they have helped me through recent crisis. You are an inspirational person. I asked for guidance and I got it. Thanks again This book is for my partner for Xmas. Hope he sees the light too."
"I had to stop today and take a moment to thank you for sharing your insight and knowledge with the world on your website. I began my healing a few years back and I still find that I put it on hold sometimes as it is very hurtful and probably the hardest job ever. I find your material inspirational and refer to it often. Esp. at work when I can take a break and read a bit to refresh my self. Working with family is hard enough but putting 2 stereotypical narcissists in the picture makes it brutal torture. My goals this year include a change of employment and more growth for my inner child and self. Thank you again for reaching out to others, you are an amazing man!!"
"I forgot to thank you for your Dance of the Wounded Souls book, I went through a major depression last year, and read it, it helped immensely and is one of a kind and ahead of its time! Your work is amazing, and I look forward to reading more that you publish. I am going on to study energy medicine and acupuncture and plan on understanding emotional intelligence/awareness and how false belief systems affect and manifest actual physical symptoms in our bodies, and would love to share your material with my patients who could benefit from your work!"
"I am so pleased to have have found your web site and pages and book. They are helping me NO END. I am not a recovering alcoholic, but an adult + child of one, and are recovering from my childhood abuse wounds which I finally SEE. I see how they have run my life thanks to your willingness to share your journey. I am in the process of RECLAIMING myself and existing for ME for the first time. it is very liberating. It is very HARD. But I feel the love finally. I am ready to receive it, knowing I have a right to exist, a right to breathe, a right to be here. THANKYOU. from my heart and soul."
"I have read your book "the dance of wounded souls" and it ressonated with me - the wounded child that I feel I carry around and the spiritual aspect - which I think is really my only hope."
"I would like to say Thank you for your wonderful website. I found it quite awhile ago and have been skirting around my codependency issues for some time. I plan to order the book soon. I have been quoting some of your writings on my blog."
"Thank you very much for the prompt delivery (and the enclosed inscription) of your book. I read it through the day I recieved it and found it to be powerfully insightful. Having this book enter my life at this point in my journey has helped greatly with some added perspective."
"I have found a deep connection with the way you have describe the circumstances of co-dependancy and how all pervasive it is - i have only came to the realisation before Christmas that my wounding had been since birth due to my parents own wounding etc. I have repeated the same issues again and again in my relationships ie different people but the same dynamics! I have found that there is a great deal of ignorance in the recovery groups in the UK regarding Co-dependancy. i have had to search out the way which suits me in the end. I am so grateful to have found your site and i wish you every continued success with it and hope we can arrange to meet this year on one of your courses."
"I recently came across your page after doing a google search on Codependency. Quite sometime ago, a friend recommended Melody Beatties book "Codependent No More" to me. It lit a fire under me to seek out inner bonding-inner healing, emotional honesty and much of the things you mentioned in your writings on your page. I identified with a lot of your writing. . . . . From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for a wonderful and truly enlightening site and thank you for your work. "
"A few months a go I contacted you about the emotional crises I was experiencing. Both your books got me through not to mention the many many pages I downloaded from your site. It was lifechanging. I was desperately grabbing out for something and nothing fitted. Your support and guidance were there when I needed it."
"Your work has added to the value of me as a human being. I am as a result, more educated and enlightened and feel not quite so alone. It is good to know that other people are working to enhance the cause."
"Fabulous sight and lots of great info on dysfunctional - isms!, I really needed to read it to remind me where i was going wrong, thanks so much:-)"
"I just stumbled onto your website by accident today. I wept as I read the part where you indicated that you thought "wanting to die was really who you were". (Union Within - healing the inner child) Your words rang true for how I have been feeling for nearly all of my life. I am in recovery also but have just realized that it’s never really over. I can't wait to read all of the information you have available. Thank you for sharing your experience of inner pain. What a wonderful gift. I feel truly blessed today."
"Thank you Robert. I discovered your website yesterday after a very difficult day. YOur teachings are bringing together things that I have intuited and half guessed for months and years."
"I have recently come across your site and find it amazing accurate and a wonderful array of insight and knowledge. It was actually more than I bargained for as I was only looking for material to include in a hypnotherapy script for a client. I feel that inner child work is very important as it’s only when the ‘child’ is able to make peace with the past that was, that we are able to move forward. As I feel quite strongly about this type of therapy I will soon be facilitating workshops on this here in Australia."
"Hi Robert, Thankyou for the gift of healing. Thankyou from the bottom of my heart and soul."
"I just found your website tonight. I searched "emontional incest" and your site was the first that popped up. You have some excellent descriptions and examples of emotional incest and Codependency. I am happy that I found your site."
"Perhaps that is the beginning of " wisdom".... recognizing that there is a better way and being willing to explore it. I would like it very much if you would add me to your e-mail list. Thank you for doing so. I like your approach. Much of what you write resonates with the program of AA of which I have been an active member for longer than I want to admit. The program of Al-Anon, at it's best....approaches the idea of dysfunction and co-dependency but it is difficult to find a group that either know or are willing to examine the many aspects of old emotional injury. I am looking forward to reading your book. I particularly am boosted by the idea that there is a distinct line between emotions and thoughts. I have already become aware of my speech and the way I automatically define myself with my emotions....simple things make for the greatest change."
"I find your site very helpfull and am glad I came across it, we need more people like you in the world."
"since I found you I feel different from others. And I said to myself I will turn all my garbage into something wonderful. I feel you’re a wonderful person and did wondrous for me. . . you are a gifted teacher, and I'm grateful to my creator for guiding you into my life. Mahsi (cho). Is saying thank you very much, in my language"
"I recieved your book some time ago and now I have read it. It took some time as I needed to digest everything in my own time. Im still very impressed by your book! And Im so glad that I found it and that you wrote it! Like you say in your book, its not a coincident that I got to read your book. "
"Yes, Robert, it is from ________. This is another "tithe". (This is the second time this person had made a donation to Joy2MeU as a way of Spiritual Tithing.) I visit your site from time to time, still being inspired and greatly helped. Your book is a wonderful support and am often led to it in time of need. The wisdom I received from you is very "ALIVE", it echos often in and from my heart at the right place, at the right time. I am grateful for your work, and advise people to get your book and visit your site often."
"You have a terrific website. I am a LifeCoach and find you really cool."
"I know I haven't written for a long time. I just wanted to let you know we both really enjoyed reading your book, "Dance of Wounded Souls" and it helped alot."
"For a long time now I wanted to tell you what a wonderful book you wrote. I am 43 and read this book three years ago. Actually I read it several times. I have read it again and again and even now when I have a low day, I find myself referring back to it. It’s something to think that it took 40 years to become a complete person. And it was not right after I read the book, it took actually a lot longer than that, and I still think this will always be a work in progress. If everybody in this world wanted to read and understand your book, this would finally be a peaceful planet. I still fall back into traps where people push my buttons, I still have some insecurities, but I am aware of it now and can be proactive. Wouldn't it be nice if this book could be translated into German, (it is actually available in German) so my mother would be able to read it? I was raised in a traumatized war refugee family ? talk about emotional unavailability. So for the longest those were the people I ended up with. But I do think even if you never attempted to work on it ? it is not too late even for people in their sixties. They have never been happy."
"Thank you for all your time and insights you have invested into your website. I have embraced the spiritual path for many years and found this site to assist in the horizontal part of the journey. It helped me put into words feeling and emotions that have existed for so long but that I could not quite verbalize what they were all about. It has helped me make leaps and bounds in my awareness and growth in a very short time period. I wish you much love and light on your journey and that the dance of the rest of your life is joyous and full of love."
"I keep seeing your writings when I do research - they're wonderful. I look forward to reading more of your work."
"Hi Robert Burney, I find your writing --your thoughts to be inspiring--both to me and to my clients."
"I have downloaded many many of your articles since I went into a crisis state about 2 mnths ago. I can't ell you how helpful and timely they have been, as I continue to work my my way through. . . . . I felt desperate and began searching the web. I found lots of articles which VALIDATED that I had been abused by family and partner, but NONE explaining HOW I drew this to me. I had not realized until then, HOW affected I was. I began to look back over my life and see the abuse patterns. I felt sort of shattered when I realized the impact it had had on me, that I had tried to forget it.
Some of the sites mentioned codependance linked with emotional/verbal
abuse, so I looked it up and eventually I found your site and it was literaly
a GODSEND
AND
it came from a spiritual perspecetvie.
AND
it showed me the patterns
I have
been on the spiritual path all my life. A belief
in a higher power that guided and protected me.
I felt the TRUTH in waht you wrote.
Recogninzing
Truth as an EMOTION was HUGE for me and validating.
Through your articles I understood Co dependance and
MY PART in it.
I had
KNOWN I was wounded from my childhood, but discounted
it as 'other people have worse.' Your articles
sent me into my grieving process. They have been TREMENDOUS."
"I have already found your website insightful, it was passed onto me by a friend. It is a relief to know that this a common conditions for humans and i look foward to freeing myself with the help of your book."
"I find your website truly inspirational."
"Thanks a heap for making your book/tape series available on CD. I bought the tapes some months ago and listen to them frequently. I dig into something in my own recovery and my own development, and then listen to your tape and realize that I plug in more and have more to learn from your tape. Additionally, when I am feeling 'crazy' and 'codependent', I know that I can pop on your tape and find some centering for myself. I connect with my spritual self in some ways by turning to something that is positive and uplifting and along my path for reccovery. I believe it them so much that I recommended them highly to others in my CODA group yesterday, and have my two tapes lent out to two folks, hoping that they get as much out of the content as I have - and as I continue to. I am evolving my car stereo to one that does not have a tape player, so I have been working to figure out how to transfer the tape to CD, and spent an hour at BestBuy last night to figure out how to use my computer to record the CDs. I figured that I should check back to your website as well to see if you have moved to CD media. Yippee! You have (or your friend did it for you). I bought a copy of the CDs - so now I can keep listening. Yeah! Robert, thanks in a huge way for your very helpful book/tape and now CD series. Thanks for your perspective. I have found it real helpful that you describe how the many levels of this world relate to codependency and recovery. I very much value your local/community/global view of spirituality and how it plays into my personal /community /global view and interaction with/in the world. This is hugely impacting for me, as I have needed to integrate my newer spritual beliefs into how I relate with the rest of the world - and I am very much in agreement with how you portray things. Thanks again, I'll be listening more, and will try to hit your website more frequently."
"My name is ______ and I am a 33 yrs old french woman living in the Netherlands. I spent hours reading the pages on ur website. I just feel so close to what u r writing. thank you for your wonderful site."
"I just want to send a few words your way to say how much valued and appreciated the experiences you have shared have been to me. . . . I was left stunned, just reading the initial few articles that you posted. I did a little bit of regression on myself, and eventually traced some anxious feelings I used to develop when my dad would come home late when I was a child. Everything made so much sense, and it was all greeted with a sense of relief and joy. Spirit has its own mysterious ways, and I feel so relaxed and free now just with the knowledge of a new perspective beckoning. I am actually looking forward to do my own inner healing process, and I am sure this will have a very positive impact for me on the path to just be, let go and live in the moment. . . . All in all, thanks once again for being the kind soul that spirit sent my way through cyberspace in times when I felt really stuck. I have gained brand new and fresh insights and can't help but feel excited over what lies ahead. . . . P.S: I am on the other side of the world by the way, in the tiny island of Singapore."
"You are love and you are light! and we are many people around the world who loves you dearly! Please dont feel that you need to explain yourself as everybody needs help at times, we are humans, and humans dont live on their own and we are all connected! I shall send you some money by cheque when I can. Right now I dont have any to give away but I will soon and then just take it as a symbol of love, ok? Also I will put your website as a part of my signature where ever Im online. Hopefully this will generate some traffic and money your way! Sending you a big hug all the way from Copenhagen, Denmark"
"Even though I know I don't know you, I can relate to your articles on the internet on fears of intimacy on a deep level. I'm a 22 year old female student from New Zealand and all my life have felt incomplete somehow. . . . . I'm writing this email just to let you know how much your articles have helped me realise I am not alone and think now I might have the courage to seek help and support to help me begin to heal. I have never talked to anyone about how I feel. By writing some of my feelings down I think this has also helped me. I can now begin to see light at the end of the tunnel"
"I am thanking god for guiding me to your site when I desperately needed to find a way out. And I thank the universe for responding to my thought!" & "Just want to let you know that I received the book 'Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls' and the 3 CDs on Thursday. I am very happy when I got the parcel and I was even thrill to have your autograph in the book, thank you very much for such a nice thought. My car is like a mobile university to me, I begin to listen to the first CD whilst driving, that is convenient and time well spent when queuing in the traffic!" - from Malaysia
"My web searches regarding codependency and healing my Inner Child have led me to your site. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, insight and experience through the medium of the Internet, which I'm accessing here in Coventry, UK."
"I've spent the last few days reading your joy2meU website and have found it really useful. I seemed to have found it just at the right time. For some time now I have been trying to understand whether my hurts are the result of unhealed past wounds or a consequence of the current situation. I understand now that I need to detach, and discern between my emotional and spitual truth. I am excited about this process and look forward to discerning between the different "voices" and emotions."
"Wow. I have listened to the CD set twice. What a revelation! I am passing the good news along. I would love to attend one of your workshops. I plan to in the future. I believe that you may be a genius! Thank you for your work."
"I LOVE your website and the blending of psychotherapy, spirituality and native am. wisdom - they all work well together."
"Your articles have been a blessing to me, thank you. . . I am an actor/writer/director and the process has helped me tremendously in my craft as well, specifically expressing myself in a real way and getting to the point of what I am saying. So if possible that would be great, for my life and art."
"I love your work and find it very deep, enlightening and unlike anything I have read so far. I am in a recovery period, trying to find my lost wounded self. I've experienced lots of trauma as a young child, teen aged sexual molestation and emotional blackmail from my ex-husband of twenty years. Your work is going to be of paramount importance to me, I can see that! I am trying to scrape together some money to come to the Feb. intensive training in San Diego. Don't know if it will happen. Yet I feel driven to attend. We shall see if it comes together for me!
You are a courageous spirit and I am profoundly grateful that I 'discovered' you online. I've already ordered the wounded soul book and look forward to voraciously reading it! Thanks for all you do for all of us out here in reality!"
"I have really enjoyed reading your website and it has helped me to do some very preliminary work at becoming concious of some of my co-dependency. Thank you so much for sharing with people your experience and giving hope for the opportunity to become whole beings again who love themself. I am going to try a CODA group as I feel like it would be better not to try to tackle everything on my own."
"Thank you so much for all your wonderful information. I have spent days printing it and also bought the book-Dance of the wounded souls. I am currently in an anger management class. I have been sharing your stories. Some others have alcoholism in their backgrounds and have found your info helpful. Although this work is a lifelong struggle for me, and just when I think I'm so much better-wham-it hits me in the face how much more work there is to do. Bless you and I'll keep on keeping on. If only I could afford your seminars I'd love to come. Unfortunately not. Thanks for all your help and please put me on the updates in a newsletter."
"Thank you - your web site is proving to be exactly what I need - too bad I didn't come across it before this - a relationship ended and I feel now that a big part was because of my reacting in a childish way - guess I can't go back and make up for the mistakes I made but I can go on from her - loving myself and healing the inner child (children). Your site is wonderful - thanks again. Yes, please add me to your e-mail list. I appreciate you and your work - keep it going so others may learn to heal."
"Hi Robert….I’m a 51 year old mother of four, and for the first time in my life I can see “why” I’m codependent. I’ve been to countless “co” meetings, and I’ve had the concept explained to me over and over, but I never really understood what it was until tonight. I sat down and started reading excerpts from your book on your website, and now I get it. I’ve been sitting at the computer for nearly 3 hours, and I can’t pull myself away from what I’m reading. My eyelids are getting heavy, so I wanted to “Thank You” for your website before retiring for the evening. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but at least my eyes have finally been opened. Wow!!"
"Hello there. I am a life coach and am so impressed with what I see on your site! As a coach I am aware that without boundaries people subject themselves to great suffering. I tell people not having boundaries is like being a river with no banks. If a river has no banks eventually it will evaporate as all the water dissipates!
Given that, I often give people words to say to help them set boundaries; however I loved YOUR three steps! It is what I have been telling them more or less but I value all the renditions of words you offered. That makes it even easier for clients when they can see the choices so clearly!" (refering to the formula shared in Setting Personal Boundaries - protecting self - and it is actually a 4 part formula.)
"THANK YOU ROBERT. I HAVE BEEN SO PLEASED WITH YOUR BOOK BECAUSE IT IS USEFUL FOR YOUNG AND OLDER PEOPLE ALIKE.IT IS S WELL WRITTEN AND MUCH DEEPER AND MEANINGFUL THAN THE OTHER SIMILIAR TITLES THAT DEAL WITH CO-DEPENDENCY. [IE; MELODY BEATTIE, ETC.] I GIVE YOUR WEBSITE TO MANY YOUNG PEOPLE AND OLDER FOLK WHO NEE THE EXPERIENCE, HOPE AND STRENGTH THAT YOU OFFER. I WILL ORDER BOOK THROUGH YOUR WEBSITE. I JUST WANTED TO CLARIFY WHAT A MEANINGFUL BOOK THIS IS FOR MY OWN LIFE TOUCHED BY CO-DEPENDENT LIVING. THANK YOU FOR SUCH A WONDERFUL GIFT. LET THE FORCE BE WITH YOU"
"I MUST SHARE WITH YOU THAT I CANT WAIT TO READ YOUR BOOK SINCE I HAVE BEEN IN A HEALING JOURNEY FOR QUITE SOME TIME NOW. I WILL SHARE WITH YOU THAT YOU HAVE HAD PART IN THIS. IT WAS A FEW YEARS AGO THAT I CAME ACROSS YOUR WEBSITE AND READ MOST OF THE ARTICULES THAT YOU HAD ON AT THAT TIME AND THEY MADE AN IMPACT IN MY LIFE, YOUR INSIGHTS WERE THE BEGINNING OF A STRING OF EVENTS THAT HAVE PROPELLED ME TO MAKE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN MY LIFE THAT WERE VERY FAVORABLE."
The comments below are from people in response to the request for Help in keeping my book in print that I posted on January 11, 2007.
"I loved reading your book and it has a profound effect on me. I am happy to make a donation and wish you all the best in the coming year."
"I'm very happy to help. I only wish I could do more. If you ever need any more help just let me know and I will always do what I can. Reading your work has helped me a GREAT deal and I'd like to do whatever I can to see that others have access to the same help. You're very caring and genuine and I think that's why you really touch so many people."
"I admire your intellectual honesty and the way you shared your dilemma. Wishing you much abundance and continued prosperity."
"keep it up its great to see you have persistence and belief in your work if i had more you would have had it."
"I loved reading your book and it has a profound effect on me. I am happy to make a donation and wish you all the best in the coming year."
"I have The dance of the wounded souls...........i have written to u at the beggining of my journey and i had told u .that u had saved my life and i realize now my sanity as well.........can u give me an address i can send u a few dollars.......i hope u recieve enough $$ to continue to help people like me.i belong to a support group for women who are in an abusesive relationship or out of one.....i keep telling everyone about your site.even the social workers.........i keep on spreading your word...........i hope u trudge on.....and u get the suport u need to help women like me.......i dont find your writings to deep.i find they reach my inner core to maintain a healthy mind."
(November 13, 2006)
"I recently
bought your 3 CD's:
"Codependence; The Dance of Wounded Souls".
I literally CANNOT THANK YOU enough, for the immense
service you have done for me. Like you, I am an addict
in recovery, with an addiction to almost everything addictive,
although I have been clean for almost 10 years. However, I
have only recently realized that I am addicted to abusive relationships,
and that is what is currently driving my new approach (out of
desperation) to recovery. Your CD's, are now downloaded on
to my iPod, for me to listen to daily.
I am planning on writing an online review of these CDs'. ANYONE who is open & willing, will heal and grow, because of your work. I am convinced of this. God bless you, Robert."
"Thank you. Your words have helped me in a new found spiritual joy and freedom."
"I have been reading your web articles off and on for a few months now. They have really helped me pull together the insight I needed to more forward in my recovery. . . So thank you for putting your stuff on the web or else many of us would be in roaming mode for years and years never really able to get it. Your articles really bring it all together in a way that creates the ah ha moments. . . I like to think along your lines of it being a societal disease. Again, more reasons I love your articles, they are softer, and more healing based."
"My friend _______ turned me onto your book. I was so moved by the accuracy of your perspective and the frank way in which you communicate your knowlege. I sent the book to my sister in June... she passed away August 7th as a result of her addiction to barbituates for over 30 years... heart attack. She gained so much from your book and after working on her sobriety seriously for 1 year I was so delighted that she got to read it. She was really in a good place when she passed and I think God was waiting for her to "get it" and when she did He lifted her from the worldly troubles which engulfed her.
Upon rescuing the book from her home after her passing, I gave it to my mother (25 years in Al-Anon) and she has chewed it up! Highlights abound on each page! She said you didn't miss a concept! I ordered the 3 books so that she can turn others onto you and so will I Thank you for so eloquently putting all in the perspective of a worldview... we need it. I just wanted to let you know quickly that your book resonated so deeply with us and to thank you for sharing yourself and your insights with the world. Bless you and thanks again!"
"I thank God for you. from the day I came across your book, my life has been transformed. The wounds of my past has been healed and I am truly living in the moment and having fun. I am free at last. Thank you."
"I have just come across your website Joy2MeU and I am so thrilled. I am in the process of healing my inner child and have just finished reading "Healing your aloneness - finding love and wholeness through your inner child" by Erika Chopich and Margaret Paul. The book was good but I felt I was left with so many questions about how to go about the whole process. My main question was really "how to love myself, how to grow an inner loving parent??" And now I found your website and have just read your articles about Internal Boundaries. What a relief!! :-)
You approached is both pratical, simple and yet I can feel that its coming from a spritual place. Its like some deep part of me, knows that this comes from a good place! I shall carry on reading your website with much joy and excitement. And I shall try and figure out how to buy your book when I dont have a creditcard. Thank you so much for sharing your experience and wisdom!"
"I just want to say, how brilliant the info is on your website."
"I've been reading your book and listening to your tapes, and to be honest, they've literally been a life saver for me. Everything you say resonate with me, is addressing exactly what I'm facing and working on right now. I really appreciate your very clear writing style as well. Your teaching is being both inspirational, uplifting, and comforting - almost like a security blanket in times of turmoil and deep pain. Thank you for the work that you've done, and continue to do. I can't tell you how immensely it's been a guiding light to me already."
"I recently visited your website for the first time and it had almost brought tears to my eyes. It was like God led me to you."
"I am sitting here reading your pages, feeling as though I have found a lifeline of sorts. I appreciate your wisdom and perhaps even more importantly your willingness to share it; you are very articulate in the delicate matters of the psyche. Your words penetrate to the levels of my deepest wounds and I am grateful for the spirit of hopefulness and possibility for recovery which they impart. I have found traditional psychotherapy and the more common literature on codependency to be lacking somewhat."
"Hello Mr. Burney, Im taking time out of my busy life to tell you your book is excellent!"
"Dear Robert, I have just read below this piece of your work. Thankyou! this has just given me a hugely positive quantam shift in uderstanding myself God Bless you (dude) Robert
"I very seriously pursued learning about past lives and different planes of existence and all of the esoteric, metaphysical knowledge I could access. And that pursuit was important in helping me to enlarge my intellectual paradigm - but a few years later I realized that the whole purpose of the pursuit had been to bring about a shift in my relationship with myself, my concept of God/Goddess, and with life. The details that I had accessed about past lives and other dimensions of existence were not really important in terms of how I live my life today - but the shift in my paradigm, and therefore my relationships, was vital. At that point in time, I threw away all the notes I had taken about different past lives and such."I so value your work and the help you provide to so many."The whole purpose of my quest was to discover a belief system that could allow me to start believing that I am in fact Lovable and worthy. Figuring out how it all works isn't what is important - what is important is discovering the faith to believe that there is a Loving Force in control. That is what helped me start Loving myself more - to start relaxing and enjoying life a little bit more instead of always giving fear and shame all of the power.
So, anything in terms of details, that I share here are my interpretations. The interpretations that helped me to discover a belief system that served Love - that was functional in helping me to overcome the dysfunctional beliefs I was programmed with in childhood. That they may be different from someone else's interpretations does not mean that one is right and one is wrong. There are a plethora of ways to look at and interpret information which is beyond human understanding. Any explaining or defining of God is limiting - and the Goddess is unlimited.
The purpose of sharing this at all, is the hope it may help you to enlarge your intellectual paradigm - help you to build yourself a larger Spiritual container so that you can open up to accessing more Love in your life." (This is a quote from The True Nature of Love - Twin Souls, Souls Mates, and Kindred Spirits - which is now part of the Dancing in Light pay to view section of my site.)
"Just a quick word to say how pleased I am to have discovered you web site. There is so much information which I want to absorb. I have only this year discovered ACOA. I never knew they existed. . . I would like to get all the info written on your site and put it in one big book which I could hug to myself and feed off of."
"I find the message in your words and on your website inspirational and hope one day to attend one of your 'intensives' all the way from New Zealand. Until then keep up your great work."
"I have never written to an author, to a TV host, or anyone of whom I have never met or will likely never meet. I can’t help but not write to you and let you know how much your book has meant to me. . . you have helped explain so many things that I feel such a rush of joy and excitement. I could not put your book down and found myself underlining every single page to bring my eye quickly back to an area that meant a lot to me. If you did gouge my eye out in a previous life, you have made up the Karmic debt in spades! Thank you for writing this book….nothing is coincidental (like you say), and I am so glad I saw your quote to motivate me to buy your book, and thank you for your personal touch with your note."
"I appreciate all the work you have done and continue to do and I pass on your name and website and your services as much as I can."
"I wanted to say thank you , for giving me hope again. I've been struggling with codependence my entire life. I am 37, and an adult child of an alcoholic. I just had yet another break up, with someone I love very much. I can see now that I set myself up for this, yet again. I am committed to looking at this, and changing my patterns. Your website is helping so much. I don't feel so trapped and isolated anymore. I'll be referring to this site often"
"First, Bless & Thank you for making articles Joy2MeU website available! It is my belief that I have been lead to your site for help."
"I had a feeling he was ready to hear your words (he lives in MA and we talk almost everyday except when I do not respond to drunken phone calls) and he was thankful and told me he would read it. Well! I have to tell you that not only did he read your book cover to cover for a week while on a business trip..he called me sobbing saying that he finally gets it. He went on line today to find where AA meetings are in his area and says he will attend his first meeting tomorrow on his lunch break. That's a start! So, thank you for being you and having the courage to share your story and helping others in doing so. Your words resonated and touched off something in ____ that enabled him to face his truth. From my mouth to G-ds ears...thank you!"
From the person the above messages was referring to: "Thank you for opening your soul and sharing your emotional connection with "our" higher spirit;....in "The Dance of Wounded Souls" you write on page 10 .."I am sharing my Truth with you. I am sharing my heart and Soul. I ask you, if you can, to be aware of the emotional messages coming from your heart and your Soul as you read this".
This sentence resonated through my Soul as I read and re-read your writings,..extremely powerful emotions poured into my heart as I turned the pages,...and the emotional feelings finally, finally connected!!.....I cant thank you enough for your courage to share "your feelings"....I feel honored that I have had the opportunity to read and greive,..which has allowed me to spiritually heal, open wounds that I have carried as toxic shame for 50 years!! Please add me to your your e-mail list....I thank you again for your Truth,...I'm on a new Life discovery of wonderment and Joy, through the awareness of appreciatition of living in the moment and grace of the miracles of today......Thanks to two Loving Spirits...you and _____"
"I am reading your book and it is great! It really speaks to me on so many levels -- It's the kind of book that you don't want to rush through. Thanks very much for writing this book!"
"I would like to be put on your mailing list so I can receive any updates you may have on your wonderful page. I came across this page nearly three days ago and I cannot tell you enough how much this is saving my life! I mean it. I would love to eleborate on what I mean, but I believe you know exactly what I mean. Thank you for a terrific website. And I pray you receive adequate funding so you can publish more books and get this message out to many, many more people. God bless you"
"Like you, I became aware of my other disease, that of rampant codependency, more or less when I was nine or ten years into my recovery from alcoholism, also. I related closely to your story, bought and read your book two or three years ago, learned much about my own codepedency and how to heal from it. The sharing of your experience, strength and hope has helped me immensely. I am now living in Mexico, retired, sober, happy, joyous and free. Thank you very much, Robert."
"What a blessing to have come across your web site. I can't wait to read your book. . . I began my search on the internet for false self image, removing the mask, etc. when I came across your web site. It is in your words that I have found the answer to my questions for my self. Your writngs caused an unbelievable spiritual awakening with in myself. My false self images I was representing began in the child hood wounds. Everything is suddenly very clear and I have a true direction in which to work. I am very excited to have found you and very excited to present topic tomorrow night where I wll be quoting many of your words and referencing your writings, book and web site. . . Thank you for all that you do, and you will be seeing my name again. God has blessed you, there is no doubt."
"Recently I have purchased your book Dance of Wounded Souls. And I have printed out so many of your articles to place in a binder for my reference. I have been working through recovery for 15 years--working through family dysfunction and addiction. I have several books and have been through some counselors. I have made steady progress and have journaled the whole journey. When I came across your definitions of codependency and about inner child healing you opened it up for me like no one else. Especially about emotional honesty. That opened my eyes and a flood of healing has come to me. I thank you for all of your hard work and the legacy it leaves for people like me. I have never worked so hard for my recovery as I have in the last 5 months. You had the key I was looking for.
Another counselor who has helped me also incredibly is Iyanla Vanzant. Have you heard of her? She and two other wonderful counselors run a 'Starting Over House' in L.A. They have a TV show on in the mid morning channel 6. I have also been working through her book called "In the Meantime". It also comes with a workbook, "Living in the Meantime" She has similar views to yours, but you have a way (that works best for me) of bringing it all to light. Thank you so much."
"I wanted to let you know that stumbling upon your website last year began what has really totally transformed my life."
"As someone who grew up in a far from perfect home, your article and website helped alot. I know I have a long way to go, but it already feels like a weight has been lifted just knowing that I'm not alone, or paranoid. Being around so many people who had it alot worse off than me made me wonder if I wasn't just being sensitve. . . Thank you so much for having the website up. It has helped me see and learn so much about myself and the type of parent I want to be."
"Reading your website, is such a powerful catalyst in my continuing recovery, every word pulls a resounding "yes" "yes" from deep within, . . I won't take more of your time now except to say thank you for creating such a helpful, clear, nuturing, spirit driven book"
"I really do appreciate all the information you have made available. You have helped me more than you will ever know. I'm happier and finding more joy in life, less stress. I am getting closer to my daughter and husband, and I am seeing who I really am. I've even lost weight now. I had no idea that all the junk you collect growing up could affect you so much as an adult. I really feel like God led me to your website, it was a huge blessing in my life. Many blessings to you in return sir."
"Thanks for sending your book: "The dance of wounded souls" Thanks for writing it!!!"
"I had just checked in and read your August update. Readers and appreciators of your work who have some recollection of past accounts of your history with cars are going to derive a lot of pleasure from the image of you and your family riding in air-conditioned comfort and from your account of the Ford Focus. Your description of an "Intensive Training Session" appeared as if in response to questions I had been asking of my Higher Power after my own recent Adventure in Relationships. At the risk of this sounding like my August update, I have been experiencing a profound sense of inertia that I told myself was just a reaction to the extreme heat and to the increased work load with my new job. However, I haven't been able to muster the enthusiasm to do much more than go to work everyday. I caught myself Friday feeling that I didn't want to get close to anyone (at work, I said).
Today, I became aware that I had suspended myself, so to speak, between two mutually irreconcilable, equally untenable extremes: a) spending the last quarter of my life alone (and, if that's all there is, I don't want to be conscious); and (b), being drawn into (because I don't make good choices) another relationship (because it will end badly, and I will be back at (a), at which point, if that's all there is, I don't want to be conscious). I felt like a beetle which had gotten on its back, struggling to right itself, but fearing, once it gets on its feet, it will only get squashed. With that many types of codependent thinking in operation, no wonder the best option felt like remaining unconscious. Robert, I kept thinking my first task was to get myself out of this emotional place. And, since the one thing I did not think I could do was to take action, I keyed "taking action" into the search engine on your site. In your article, "Obsession/Obsessive Thinking, Part 2," I found the following passage:
"It was very valuable for me in recovery to realize that I cannot force myself out of an emotional place - I can't force my process. I learned that I needed to accept where ever I was emotionally - no matter how uncomfortable. Once I accept where I am at, then I can take some action that will be helpful in moving me to a different emotional place.This passage is the equivalent for me of the Universe's gift to you of a "new" Focus. Although "wallowing in the agony of the trauma drama" still comprises a portion of what I have written here, and the act of writing might still be at some remove from actually "getting up and getting in motion," I had to express my gratitude for this astonishing passage. If my Higher Power had assumed corporeal form, sat down in front of me, and spoken these words to me, they could not have more directly addressed my immediate situation. Thank you. Now to get up and get in motion!One of the things I have control over, that I have the power to change, is what I am doing in the moment. I have the power to force myself to take an action. Not because I "should" - because it is the kind thing to do for me.
Allowing myself to be in my head wallowing in the agony of the trauma drama that is obsession is not a kind thing to do for myself. Getting up and getting in motion is a good thing.
I take the deep breaths to get into the moment. I look around and see that the sink is full of dirty dishes. So I do the dishes. Then as I am drying my hands I look around and notice what a beautiful day it is outside. So, I go out and take a walk."
With Wishes that Joy, Love, Peace ~and Playfulness~ Abound for You and Your Family,"
"I was so grateful that you addressed the inner child who does not want to live (Union Within - healing the inner child) on your site. It was good to know that someone else understands this and acknowledges this honestly. Yesterday I managed to talk to my inner child about the pain and why she does not want to live and I made some progress towards healing. May your work continue to bless and help people around the globe. Thanks that you share what you have experienced and learnt."
"I wanted to express my sincere gratitude for the articles on your site. I have searched for months on the topic of Inner Child Therapy, more to keep myself focused on my recovery, but also to hear various ways to approach it. I've found a lot of insight and hope throughout your site, and I've shared it with many. I'm very grateful that the information is out there, and I've got a feeling you've helped more people than you know because of it."
"I am writing to you cause I am so excited and want to share with you. I am reading on your website and little by little I learn new things and you are giving me new tools, which I am SO greatfull for. It feels like your story, your experience and knowledge is the missing link I have been looking for. So once again thank you so much for sharing."
"Thank you so much for your web site and all of the voluminous, vitally helpful and healing information. Without being able to access your site daily, I'd be at a painful loss at this time in my life. I did Inner Child work several years ago and my therapist has since left this small town, leaving me without the kind of therapy that I know works well for me and the kind of therapy that both my Inner Child and I like and believe in.
I am doing MORE grief work now and working daily on MORE of my unresolved issues, due to your WONDERFUL web site information. I have learned and utilized some new information from you. I appreciate your emotional honesty, your writing, your generous spirit, your insights, your creativity and your journey. I wish only abundant blessings and love and serenity and joy and lots of laughter in your life. May your Higher Power surround you with love, serenity, warm hugs and total acceptance."
"Thank you for the updates of your information. I am so appreciative of your work and how it has assisted me in my recovery."
"I had received your book, Wow everything in the book is me. What co-dependent can do to me. How powerful it can be, I see it everyday. In my own way I realize what I was doing for me today, healing my inner child is wonderful. And how I can take care of the little children who we’re controlling my life. Robert Since I started reading your work on the enter-net. What it did for me, I was so full of fear. Because I thought I had committed sin, with the wrong I did. Today I thought about my past, what a wonderful experience I had to live to be here at the present moment. Thank you again Robert there is hope."
"I am waiting to receive your first book which I have bought through Amazon and I am trying to plough my way through the super-abundant material on line, its all a bit overwhelming, but in a good way. There are so many points I can relate to. I never realized my Mums drink problem and other family problems had such a devastating effect on me. I have been printing out some if your articles but would absolutely love to be able to buy a book with it all in. Please bring out another book soon. Last year when I was doing some research on line I came across the acoa world service. I was very disappointed with it. It said very little to me. It just made me feel really guilty, where as your site speaks volumes and had been an enormous help. The world service really should have a major place on their front page for your site, it is leagues better that theirs."
"Just to let you know I got your book today. I've been reading it and it is truly amazing. It gives me peace. I love reading it. Thank you so much."
"I am delighted with it. I have been on my journey of recovery for many years...but there are things in your book that no one else I have read has articulated so beautifully. I am just now discovering that it truly is "inner children", and amazed at how a 15 year old girl inside me has had so much control! What you said is true, I was living part of my life through her eyes and while her thinking got me through some very hard years, they are not in agreement with my adult self. Also, I have healed so much but it never fully goes away. I am in therapy for over 15 years, and am always surprised when something, kicks up...and I bring something into my consciousness and need to grieve. And grieve I do. Your book puts it all in perspective. Also, I love your concept of the Divine. Your talent is a gift. I will be sharing your work with others. It has helped me feel better about myself just in reminding me that it is a process and I have come so far. Something to celebrate!"
"I am writing from Australia and just letting you know that your message is being received down under. I have had the privilege of receiving your CD version of Codependence : The Dance of the Wounded Soul, from a very good and insightful couple of friends. . . . Eight years on and meeting many spiritual and healthy people, I was introduced to your work. WOW. It cut through me like a knife, and finally I found another person who had the courage to tell me the truth and without the bullshit. . . . I wanted to thank you from my spirit and heart, for your courage, honesty and cutting through the illusionary bullshit around us. Co-dependence has caused so much dis-ease in my life that I finally wanted to unveil it and see for what it really was. . . Thank you again for allowing my wounded soul to dance again and lifting the darkness off Co-dependence. With Great Respect and Kind Regards."
"How are you, myself I’m doing good, thank you so much for your book. Wow what a wonderful learning experience, I have lived to be here at the presented moment. I started reading your book and what it taught me, I feel reading your book gave me a good understanding for myself. I feel no more being stack in the past. Why you explain everything with the truth, and right to point. . . . Thank you my friend for sharing your knowledge, and what its doing for me is beautiful. Keep up with the great work your doing. . . . What I acknowledge since I’m on my healing journey, you gave me hope. By what you shared in your book. I hope my friends with find their answers to."
"I live in South Africa and came upon your website in my search for information on healing the inner child. Thanks for your very informative website. . . Your website has helped me immensely in my own work on healing my inner child (children) and in working with my therapist in working through the traumas."
"I have been so troubled these past few days. I met someone that I knew would be a gift or a lesson., triggering something in me that I couldn't explain. Becoming needy, obsessive and clinging is so opposite of who I thought I was. I have felt so grounded and truly ME that, well, I still shake my head with puzzlement. What happened in a few short minutes to bring me to this unpleasant state of affairs? I sometimes forget that Spirit wants us to be happy, joyous and free. It shocks me that I can give up my power so easily when I have fought so hard to take it back after so much sadness and confusion.
Finding this site is easing me. I have found words here to stop the cycle of self loathing and questioning, always questioning. IT WAS MAKING ME CRAZY!!! I am a very loving and accepting person and it has been very difficult to accept the fact that I am not past this point of foolishness. I now know that that this man is both a lesson and a gift. Mostly a gift and I also know that I still have so much work to do...damn it!!. Anyhow thanks for helping me get somewhat centered again. It is such a relie"
"I received and read your book and it helped me to love myself through a really rough patch Thankyou"
"Thanks...your web site is very inspirational...my brother sent it to me"
"I received your book yesterday and have read 1/2 of it already. Wow! I am getting so much out of it. I wish I could even memorize it. I am fully aware of my co-dependence, and have been working the 12 steps since this past February. I am 51 years old and realize this will not come easy or happen overnight. . . I also want to thank you so much for signing my book. I was so impressed by that. I didn't even think you would know I was buying your book!"
"Your site is an incredible. Thanks so much for giving such a gift to us. I have to say that I really don't know where to begin in order to get the most from the site, but I will just dive in."
"I stumbled across your web page by putting in emotional healing in the google search engine. It has been a revelation to me. I felt like crying when I read the quote Robert wrote about being born at a heart chakra level of conciousness and then had to shut down our hearts. He said that is why it hurt so much because we were expecting something kinder and gentler and about feeling as though we had been born on a whole different planet. (this refers to the article Jesus & Christ Consciousness) I have felt this all my life."
"I went to google.com and typed "Broken heart". I found your texts translated in Finnish. (links to those articles can be found on the Romantic Relationships index page) I read them once. Started from beginning and read them again. I spend the whole night reading. Reflecting my life, I found a bit of comfort in them. It made sense. The whole thing. . . The bottomline is, your writings made me feel better and there seems to be correlation."
"I wish to thank you for having made your pages of Applying Twelve Step Spiritual Principles available to readers. Though I have read only several different pages, I know I will go to your words every day."
"Finding your web site came at the perfect time on my journey. A coworker loaned me the book, "Perfect Daughters. Adult daughters of alcoholics" and saved my life. I mean that! From there, I began searching for more help. That's when I found your site. I sent a link to the friend with the book and we have both been printing and reading all of your information. I want to express to you what an incredible gift your willingness to share your journey means to me!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"What a wonderful website you have! I am learning so much in reading, but still am having difficulty putting the stuff into action. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences."
"you deserve a huge thank you!!! Your web site is highly informative and very stimulating to read!!!"
"I wanted to write to you and tell you that I feel really grateful to have found your book/CD it was great. I really identified with everything you had to say. I am about 9 months in CODA recovery and I have turned on the tap of self awareness and its flowing so fast, it is great, but I sometimes wish I could turn it off!!"
"I just need to tell you how important your site has been to me and how much your writings have helped me. I haven't looked at your site in a long time (probably a year). Tonight I really needed a word from God. I am really down...Your words were a source of comfort, power, and understanding all wrapped up in one. Thank you for your words of hope and light and encouragement. Thank you. I really felt desperate tonight qnd decided to look on your site in my favorites...and wow...there it was...A New Year ~ 2006....It said it all! I wish I could send you a thousand dollars because you have meant so much to me"
"THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING ! I HAVE LEARNED ALOT FROM READING WHAT YOU HAVE WROTE. I AM STARTING TO UNDERSTAND FOR THE FIRST TIME HOW MY BRAIN THINKS AND WHY. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FITNESS HEALTH. BUT FOR THE FIRST TIME MY MENTAL HEALTH IS GROWING. I AM FOLLOWING A NEW PATH TO HEAL FROM THE PAST WOUNDS AND KNOW IT WILL ALWAYS BE A ON GOING HEALING AND GROWING PROCESS. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE"
"BY THE WAY I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT THANKS TO YOU I FINALLY KNOW WHAT TO SPECIALIZE IN AFTER I GRADUATE FROM COLLEGE, HOPEFULLY NEXT YEAR. I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF THEREAPIST I WANTED TO BE UNTIL I READ YOUR TITLE.-CODEPENDENCE THERAPIST. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I HOPE TO BE CALLED SOMEDAY IN MY FUTURE. AS WELL AS A SPRITUAL AND SELF ESTEEM TEACHER. I REALLY ADMIRE YOUR WORK."
"DEAR ROBERT I JUST RECENTLY RECEIVED YOUR BOOK, WHICH I HAD ACTUALLY PURCHASED FOR MY WIFE, WHO IS AN ALCOHOLIC. MY WIFE IS NOT A READER, BUT WHEN SHE STARTED READING YOUR BOOK, SHE COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. SHE READ THE WHOLE BOOK WITHIN ONE DAY. NEEDLESS TO SAY, THE BOOK CAPTIVATED HER. I HAVE NOT READ IT YET, BUT I WILL. I JUST FELT TO LET YOU KNOW THIS AND TO SAY "THANK YOU"."
(August 13, 2006)
"I have
purchased a copy of your "Dysfunctional Relationships" E-book for my wife and myself.
I recently shared it with the therapist who leads my SAA recovery group.
she has 17 years in the field and did a fellowship with Patrick Carnes in
the late 80's. She was impressed enough to have it included in our group work."
"Robert my name is _______ I am a recovering codependant. May I say that your work is for me life-saving and vital to the growth in understanding of not only myself and my own recovery but i believe of the whole of humanity as a dysfuntional entity."
"I have been feeling hopeless and depressed for as long as I can remember. I have been on your web-site reading for the past three days. I just ordered your book and I am so excited to get it and finally find an answer to the emotional pain that has plagued me for years. I have 17 years of sobriety in a 12 step program but have not been able to overcome the loneliness and pain that caused the addiction in the first place. While reading your web pages I felt hope. It just felt right and made sense to me. I have been working on me for awhile but keep ending up in the same places. Perhaps this will be the key that releases me from the past so I can live in the present. Thank you for the hope!"
"I just wanted to say thanks for having such a site. It helped a few times in what felt like the darkest of hours...............have a good night!"
"I have read your book, Dance of Wounded Souls, I gave my first copy away and then bought another. I come back to your site often to read your special message. You are a very gifted person. Living in the now and learning in the now is so great to be a part of. I have shared this site and bought your book for a Lady friend I meet at a 12 step meeting. She was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. She is amazed with your book and insight about the 12 steps and the Higher Power sneaking it in this program for all. She feels we were alcoholics so we could get the message and help spread the word as I do. The messages you put out for free are so good. I just wanted to say thanks to a very gifted and special Spirit, Thanks Robert."
"I love your website."
"Your work, web-site, insights, etc, by the way, excels anything I have read on co-dependance -- as the "global" issue it really is. You have really been blessed with the determination to see and express this issue where it needs to be seen and understood. However, as a researcher and writer myself, this is no job for the meek of heart or mind, and I so simultaneously envy and admire the Olympic and "productive" effort you willingingly undertook to achieve it. Whew.
I forgot to add that your insight on counter-dependence (Narcissism) is a critical missing, (or masked) link to the whole picture and one I am hoping to see you elaborate more on. In fact, I just read an essay by Nathanial Brandon, called Counterfeit Individualism which "intellectually" hits this right on its masked and covertly co-dependent nose. God bless!"
"your website is great! had to buy the book.. thanks a million"
"Your writing has given me many of the tools and perspectives I need to love myself, to feel my feelings, to heal my old wounds--to becoming a recovering codependent."
"dear robert, i have been reading your posts for a year now and so has my husband. we are processing much inner child stuff this past 2 years. i would just like to say how much your web page sharings have meant to us both - your honest emotional sharing have helped us both to be more honest with ourselves and each other. i have been a coda person for l9 years now and am amazed and sometimes disheartened at the amount of emotional stuff i am still doing. thanks again for your personal sharings. they have brought much clarity to the present 'tearing down' situation my husband and i have been dealing with for the past 2 years."
"I have been reading your web site and cry every time I do. The things you write about are EXACTLY what my issues are."
"I love your site, thank you for doing it and writing what you have written."
"From my heart I wish to thank you for sharing your story about Shorty. (Grief, Love, & Fear of Intimacy) I sit at my computer in tears for it has touched a very deep part of my heart and my soul. I have been working recently with my very own wounded 3 year old who was so defiant who has sabotaged so many of my relationships - externally and internally within me, between my heart and my Spirit and Higher Self. Today I find your website and I know I directed by Source to find the missing pieces of what else is left to heal.
Thank you so much for being so truthful and honest and for bearing your soul, so that others like me can read, learn, heal, cry and grow. I appreciate you for all that you offer to mankind in their quest for union - not only with another, but more importantly with themselves. Bless you for your insight and work. Many thanks from New Zealand"
"I felt I needed to write and say how much I enjoyed and related to your book. Thanks you for your book. After all of the self-discovery-help I have read on my journey. This is one I know I will keep."
"It was a pleasure getting your latest newsletter. I'm glad to hear your second Intensive was a success and your plans for the next two are moving on so well. . . . From the newsletter, which I have not processed entirely yet, it sounds as though you are in a great personal and spiritual place and your life with Susan and Darien sounds not only interesting but rewarding. I have 4 children: two are grown and two still teenagers. My youngest is a 17-year-old boy, who is at once both one of the most lovable persons I know and one of the most exasperating. And yet, I find solace in your words about setting boundaries without being judgmental, for I, as you, was reared in an atmosphere where judgments came fast and furious and were seldom positive. So while my ___ and your Darien are far apart in age, their need for love and guidance is still the same. Reading that in your newsletter made me feel good and gave me a positive stroke for myself, because I know that as I heal my Wounded Soul, I am becoming a more loving and accepting person. I hope this job of mine eases up soon, just so I can re-emerge myself in the language and literature of recovery, which, I will tell you, emanates from you and your communications in abundance. I always feel good after reading you."
"I want to say thank you for sharing your great knowledge with me. I really enjoy reading your email and all the work you had put into the computer. Continue with your journey and hope for the people of this nation. . .You had taught me many things I had no knowledge off, continue with your journey."
"I want to thank you for your website, it has truely turned my life around. I have finally discovered why over all the years even in childhood I was unable to have any long term relationships even with friends and I am truely grateful for that, it has saved my life, I now know love. I feel like I am born all over again and life is beautiful. You are truly special."
"I came across your web page today Joy 2 me you and proceeded to read a lot about myself and my relationships. The descriptions were very accurate and it has lifted a great deal from my shoulders. Thank you so much for making this public. I hope to find out more and read more on co-dependency from your sources"
"I have enjoyed your writings immensely. I am a recovering alcoholic, but still struggling. I am a member of AA, and do the do things they suggest. Your writings have certainly been an encouragement to me."
"I am sure you have to have heard this before many times.... I am so blown away by what I have read so far on your site ...I have no words to explain the feelings inside me right now!! I am so emotional moved and excited I can barely type. I'm sure you know how much you work has changed the quality of life for people like myself. It is truly like a miracle! Thank you very much for your time and for you incredible wisdom."
"Robert, I believe that a large part of the reason why I have found the serenity and peace which accompanies me these days, is the understanding which I have and share, about just what happened and how it happened. This enlightenment is recent and I believe is a direct result of enmeshing into spiritual philosophies which you describe. Thank you."
"I have a friend I want to share the book and CD with. You helped me tremendously in breaking out of the co dependent cycle I was in, and what I learned has helped me avoid new entanglements as time has gone on. I am truly thankful for the part you have played in my healing."
"I was on the internet looking for a recovery center that had inner child counseling and I came across your incredibly informative website. Thank you! So much of what I read seems to associate with the way my life is going right now. I am desperately searching for spirituality (mostly through Buddhism) and I have recently discovered/uncovered that I have slowly been cutting myself off from the world; which really scares me!!! I seem to have high anxiety and live in constant fear of people/the world."
"Will my friend I thank my god for a wonderful spiritual teacher, who he has giving the great knowledge to share with others spiritual being. I feel fortune to know you Robert. I feel I was guided to find you by searching for answer. I feel honored for your teaching my friend. Keep up the great job your doing. People need your help"
"i have been reading for 2 days almost, as much as i can of what you have written, because it is True. The day before i started reading i met my Inner Lover, and now there are all these children. I just wanted to say something to you really,because its been such a turning point , but where do you write about the Inner Lover_with total appreciation and waiting for your book to arrive"
"Dear Robert:
"That critical parent voice sneaks
in there and translates the
feelings in a blaming, negative way - it is nasty."
(my replies to an e-mail)
Yes, that is just exactly what it does and what it is.
"So, do the positive affirmations and shut up the critical
parent voice - and nurture yourself through the
grief."
I feel like I have just received the equivalent of Isaac Newton's calculus. Emotional calculus. How a Magnificent Spiritual Being having a Human experience moves through an emotional process. I am deeply grateful for the richness of your response and in a state akin to numinous awe at the manifest genius in every sentence. I just wanted to say that before I scurry away to a more private space to unpack these insights and exclaim over each one: "Oh, I needed this one so much! And this one! And that one!" Thank you so very much, Robert. "
"I searched on "alcoholic spiritual" and found your site. Just browsing your site has brought me comfort."
"i found your information and read with interest your articles on co-dependency and sibling roles on the internet while searching for answers to my troubled family relationships. Your descriptions of sibling roles struck so many chords for me."
"Thank-you for your great web site, it is very informative."
"Your website has really helped me... you explained the way to focus my mind in a way that just clicked with me... I understood the concept that I was reacting to certain situations out of my old emotional wounds but could only fathom it at a consious level and found it very hard to actually make any progress in not being trapped in those thoughts (in my case focusing all my energy on the fact that a certain girl i am seeing would, hurt me, leave me, let me down etc.) I finally have been making huge progress and know that the relationship is not the be all and end all and I am able to just relax and be in the moment and not always have to listen to messages of impending doom... I am getting better at knowing when my inner child who was let down badly is trying to drive the bus and I have been talking to him. (and yes I felt really silly in the beginning). Obvously its an ongoing thing and the fear is still there but its not even half as intense adn controlling as it was. I tried running away and even sabotaging the relationship as the fear I had was so bad. But it never felt that it was the right thing to do and that I should at least see where it would bring me... even if i was to get hurt in the end surely not knowing or being open to it out of fear would be worse. My partner has the same fears, so she has started reading your website and we have been more open and able to calm each other down when we are having a row thats not to really do with the situation and we are reacting to old wounds... her the little girl who's father left her and me the mother who let me down. no matter what happens now though... I know it WILL be ok in teh long run. and I thank you for that."
"Hi Robert , I have read your book and found it to be a remarkable and inspiring read."
"My name is _____. I just got done reading most of the articles on your sight. I had found your site a couple of years ago-but then lost the link. I found it this weekend again-I am so glad-while I was researching this weekend-and one of sites I went to-linked to you. I have your link safely on a favorites tracking log-so I am not likely to lose it again."
"Thank you so much Robert - for all the info on your website AND for the book you wrote. I have been reading it all week and it has touched me deeply and encouraged me with the most perfect timing as I've been surrendering and grieving my old ego-self for the past 10 days or so. Haven't quite gotten to the celebration point, but as I sense it is coming, I have an undercurrent of excitement at the prospect!"
"I found your site and contacted you about a year ago at the early stages of a relationship with a wonderful man. With the help of your site, I was able to understand as he underwent therapy to heal his toxic shame, and simultaneously was able to grow myself, lovingly and spiritually. This wonderful man and I are getting married in October and I was wondering if you would mind if one of the readings we do at our ceremony contained some of the wonderful and loving quotes from your site. I would credit you, of course. Your words are love, strength, hope, life. I can't think of a better song to the Universe and to each other."
"I would like to say that by reading your articles on the web have really helped me at a very, very difficult time in my life. I realise that you probably thousands of these letters a day, but if you’ll permit me I'd like to tell you what has happened to me recently and how your words have eased the pain in my heart."
"I love your site, thank you for doing it and writing what you have written. . . You showed such tremendous insights in your articles"
"My friend and I have been on a search for a long time, using the internet. This search,through many different sites has helped us find out "Who in the heck are we.who are they, why we are like we are, so_on and so-on! We are both spiritually minded believing our higher power is God, that will never change. But we both feel that God has led us to you. There is no comparison to the other sites that could just put it out there in a magnificent way as you. I am overwhelmed,and deeply thankful to my friend for calling me,with such excitement, and eming your site to me. There will be no other sites, YOUR IT, OUR BROTHER! I thank you for sharing your wisdom and others with us. I just know we are at the point of growth that God has truly led us to you for the much needed help I need. The inspiration and excitement that I have been given, knowing that in this search of ours, you are our final "find"! Please, may I be part of the most inspiring of all sites on this web. My appreciation,again for your wisdom and sharing to so many of me and my brothers and sisters. I would do anything I can to help you keep these powerful lessons of me so I can be an example to others that they may ask me "What has happened to you" What a gift of God you have. I am still trying to find my spiritual gifts vs fruits To end . Please help me grow up! and add me to your site. Thank you so much "
(June 17, 2006)
"I
was reading your article this a.m. (I have all the
articles on codependence and healing the inner child from
your website printed out and sitting on my table and every
a.m. I read one while eating breakfast) on interrupting the
negative messages that the inner child sends with positive
messages, and I was really tickled by your progress in replacing
your "I want to die" message with the "I want to live message."
as well as the more theatrical "I feel pretty. . ." message
that emerged one a.m. (Union Within - healing
the inner child - 5 years later)
I just wanted to share with you how much progress I have made in healing my inner child in the last year and that I believe your messages have been instrumental in helping me to become whole -- at least more whole than I have ever been in my life, and that is nearly 57 years. One of the signs has been my lack of fear in signing up for your day-long seminar on Apr. 23. When I received the announcement, I immediately wanted to attend. Then when I saw it was being held in San Francisco (a place I have never been but have always wanted to visited) I wanted to go so bad I could taste it. After only 10 min. of self-doubt, I decided to sign up for the seminar. That's been nearly four days, and I haven't had one moment of regret or fear about it. When you consider I live on the East Coast and so had to pay for airfare, hotel and rental car as well as meals, entertainment, etc., the cost factor is not insignificant. In the past I would have found a thousand reasons not to go and a million reasons to regret having signed up. But none of that this time.
I know that attending your seminar and having the chance to visit S.F. are not only two things I want to do, but that doing them will be good for me and good for my mental health.
So today, I also feel "pretty, and witty and wise." And one of the reasons is that I have become wise enough to follow the lead of others like yourself, rather than trying to be the "know-it-all" codependent expert that characterized so much of my former life.
So I'm flying in on Fri. a.m. and spending a couple of days visiting S.F. and environs before attending the seminar, and I want to thank you for helping me take advantage of such a wonderful and serendipitous opportunity." (This person did attend the Intensive Seminar in San Francisco - and among his comments afterwards is this quote "Robert Burney's intense training seminar on Codependence was everything I expected it to be and a whole lot more." - which is shared on the Testimonials for Intensive page.)
"quite honestly the benefit I've gained from your material has been so great that you deserve way beyond the price of admission to the training anyway. I am very happy paying the $200 registration price."
"Just received your newsletter, I am VERY VERY HAPPY that your program
was a success. I am glad you are holding
more training. And yes, surely I don’t think
the day might be far when you take your wonderful work
and wisdom to far away lands [like mine!! :-) India] and help the people there. THANK
YOU FOR MAKING OUR WORLD A BETTER PLACE. I HOPE SOMEDAY
I CAN HELP YOU IN THIS!!!!
I am
really and truly so grateful that i found you and your
site. i know i told you this before too, but i really
cant do justice to my appreciation for your help and work
in words. Bye!!!"
"I read thru much of your website and I am very inspired by it. I have been feeling that something is missing from the 12-step CoDA meetings and now I know it is true."
"I really want to thank you for your wonderful article on Setting Boundaries. (Setting Personal Boundaries - protecting self) I am a lay teacher and help other women experience emotional healing and growth. I really enjoyed this article and was able to share it with someone I am working with. . . . Please know what a dynamic influence your work can have on others. I appreciate your sharing your knowledge in this way online."
"I would like to first tell you that your website is awesome and that I am grateful for discovering it."
"Thank you for the wonderful website. I want to say again how much I enjoyed the workshop in Ft. Erie, Ontario when you were there and the book is great. It is in my car at all times as I read when I have to wait for my Aunt or my mom or someone or something. And, I must say you look great and younger without the facial hair. Congratulations on the family you have attained."
"Your work is brilliant and from what I've read on your website I am just utterly blown away by this material. It's like finally someone has put this mess of codependance into perspective so it can be healed!"
"Hi Robert! I don't know if you remember me emailing you last year about wanting to recover from my addictions or not. I was really struggling. You were so kind to reply to my email and I'll never forget it! Well I finally did it! Picked up my white chip Feb. 12th! Just wanted to share that with you and thank you again for your kindness!"
"Your writing is more insightful and instructive for change than Bradshaw and Melody Beattie of codependence no more. Pia Melody's pretty good but you're more broad thinking in concepts and more compassionate too. . . I have been in therapy since I was 19, I'm 48 and am just learning about boundaries and not from the help of my therapist unfortunately. She knows inner child work but not how boundaries directly relate to it. Your work has been an invaluable resource as I read it tonight."
"Can't wait to get the book! Spend the whole weekend reading up on your web. Wow, I certainly like your angle on relationships. Got to your site after searching for passive-aggressive behaviour on Alta-vista. Most of what I have read so far resonates with me. And thanks a million for all the info that you do have available. Wish that most sites are like that!!!! South African greetings."
"I am new to your site and your work but in a matter of 3 days I have learned and been extremely comforted by your writings. I thank you!"
"I'm studying alternative medicine in Beijing, China being raised in traditional Chinese culture, growing up in Muslim society, going to Catholic schools, becoming protestant, have western education background, I've been longing to find the Truth, and I'm so glad and thankful I read your writing, I can't wait to do my own spiritual healing and let my Truth sets me free. Thank you Robert."
"Thank you - you may have saved my sanity...I had forgotten that I'm worthwhile."
"i have been reading tons of stuff lately on your web pages and am finding the info helpful in advancing my own healing work. . . my husband and i are both finding much helpful stuff on your site to continue to help us both process feelings. and 'buttons'. you validate a lot of things that i had discerned over the years on your pages. so much of what you say rings so true."
"Thank you for your beautiful words. As I read more with each passsing day I feel as though I am moving closer to a better understanding of my True Self. You have helped me open my eyes and see true meaning in each and ever moment I experience. Thank you for your time and for sharing your amazing journey."
"Thanks for getting the book and tapes out right away-and by priority mail. Just wanted to let you know that I have really enjoyed reading so many selections from your site and have been sending friends there as well. . . I think you are very talented and gifted. I would like to thank you for sharing your philosophys and experiences so that others may learn and grow. Sometimes its nice to know that we're not the only ones going through things...or having a "human experience"...growing. Thanks again!"
"I’m very empowered and inspired just by reading parts of your website!"
"Yes i have found your book very valuable. At first i thought that i would be able to read quite quickly but found that i had to keep putting it down and then return to it later. It was as if i was looking into a mirror, and reading things that i thought were only personal to me, you even on occasion used actual phrases that i have used myself. I'm still reading it at the moment and have talked about it so much to my friend that i have ordered her a copy to stop her from stealing mine. You could say shes worse than me! so i think it will be a great help to her, and if that wasn't enough i am just about to order another copy for someone else."
"great book thanks so much"
"I have discovered your website yesterday and I have been reading as many of the articles as I can fit in before and after work and in the middle of the night! I am sure I will settle down but in truth the honesty and wisdom is extremely refreshing and totally appropriate to where I am at the moment. After years of healing I have spent much of the last 6 months getting in touch with my emotions and that has lead to an extraordinary amount of crying. Your words have put this grief in context and a lot of my healing now makes more sense emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. I look forward to reading more and buying your book but I just wanted to take a brief moment to say THANKYOU for your calm, soothing and wise words."
"I just want to say what a most amazing book you have written, it totally blew me away to think that someone else has the exact feelings and problems. The way you have expessed and explained what we are going through is quite extrodinary and you work is of great importance to people."
"Robert, Your writing today has been a blessing, a joy and a painful acceptance of my codependancy for most of my life. I have learned that being honest with my feelings is what will keep me safe and healthy... thanks.. God bless you greatly and gives you the energy and resources you need to share this truth with many others."
"I've been reading the articles on your website for the last couple of weeks, and they have really struck a chord with me. Someone recently gave me a Border's gift card that was good at amazon.com, so I decided to buy your book, and I'm really looking forward to reading it. Thank you very much, and keep up the great articles online :) Wishing you continued success"
"I love what you have written generally and specifically on the inner child - it certainly matches all of what I have experienced and taught over the past 20 years."
"First of all a big Hearty thanks! Your site has and is helping me on my journey to recovery from my dysfunctional family and self."
"I have just been on your site and must thank you for your work on behalf of myself and all the other people who have benefitted from as a result of your valliant effort's"
"I want to thank you for your extraordinary website. It is literally changing my life day by day as I begin to understand so much about myself, my life. I look forward to reading your book and have ordered the ebooks . . . . . . You are saving lives, Robert, helping me reclaim mine I feel. Again thank you so much."
"I purchased your book, "Codependence: Dance of Wounded Souls" a short time ago and have been reading your articles on your web site on a nearly daily basis. I am learning to heal my inner child(ren) due to your insightfulness and efforts to share what you know to be Truth. I won't elaborate. Just want you to know that your work is truly appreciated. YOU are truly appreciated!"
"I just found your site last week and wanted to say thank you for your piece of this great puzzle. Your words resonate with my sister and I, who have been recovering from Ritualistic Satanic Abuse behind the Mormon Church."
"Again thanks heaps for your work Having subscribed to Dancing in the Light. I was wondering how long it will take before I receive a username and password and link and start dancing! I am v keen. In the meantime I will practice patience :) and read the 3 million other worthy words you have posted so generously for free."
"Your site is fantastic. I have turn on everyone I know to it. It says what is happening. I may not like what I read, but then that’s why I’m looking at your site. To get some insight as to why my life seams so in the toilet."
"I know you are a very busy man but would just like to thank you for your book and tapes which I found extremely helpful as a starting point in my recovery!"
"I'd like to thank you for your book,'Dance of wounded souls' and tapes-have gained so much from them. I'm also gaining so much from your website, you would never even imagine. I was going through a time in my life when i just couldn't get any answes from anyone, and then I came across your website. It has answered so many of my questions-thank you!"
"About half a year ago I had stumbled upon your site and ordered your book, The Dance of The Wounded Souls. I know I have much work and healing to do in many areas and I am very glad for the sharing you do and your dedication to help others who are looking within."
"I wanted so much to take the time to tell you how much I appreciate your book . . . thanks for the help on my journey back to myself . . thank you again for your guidance and enlightenment"
"I was taking a look at your piece on boundaries actually. I had been attempting to set this boundary with my new love ____, and was not able to maintain it, and usually I am pretty good at that. When I read your piece, it became clear to me why I couldn't maintain it - I was trying to manipulate her - it wasn't a boundary. I called her immediately and owned that. Thanks again man - such an incredible giveaway."
"I have been reading your web-site all morning and have allowed myself some tears that are indeed part of my own healing. . . It is great that there are people like you in the world that have faced their shadow and looked it is in the eye and are willing to share your knowledge. Your web site is a credit to you and thank you for your truth and good luck on your journey."
"i read your site on a regular basis.....it is a life saver to me."
"Certainly my reading your book proved to be a pivot point in my story, as nothing before it, made me really recognize just how codependent I was, and the effect it had had on my life. Those realizations were like bold brilliant lashes of paint on the canvas of my life. I am living differently now, more alive, vital and becoming more centered although not in a straight line."
"i'm enjoying navigating through the many pages of your work. thank you for making it available!"
"Thankyou for your email thanking me for purchasing your book. Im really looking forward to reading it if not a little apprehensive aswell. Having read your website certain things that you talked about hit home with a sledgehammer and for the first time in my life ive decided to take positive action to try and sort my life out once and for all."
"I love you. I love what God has placed in you to help others. Could you please schedule one of your training sessions in the Washington, DC area? I would love to attend and learn more from you what God has blessed you with."
"Your site and books are so very helpful to me. I have often heard about healing the inner child."
"Your book has been fantastic to read. I have only a couple of pages left. I let a family member (who reads fast) read it because she just got out of rehab for substance abuse. I am on a spiritual journey and my journey led me to your web site and ultimately to your book. I have been so inspired by your words"
"Just wanted to say thank you for putting up that site, it has helped me."
"I stumbled upon your web page while looking for some answers for myself. Reading your articles is like reading about my life. I am that parent you speak of; the one enabling my son to continue. I want to help him, he's even asked for help. But it seems that all I've been doing is helping him financially which is only allowing him to continue. 99% of his pay check is gone within hours every week. He's in a lot of debt and that's where I thought I was helping him...but I'm hurting him. I don't know where to stop or start! But by reading your articles I feel that my life and his is text book...and it is possible to help him. Thank you"
"i found your website when i googled 'grief'. thank you for the beautiful
writing on your web page. i am visiting
it more often now, and sharing it
with
my group."
"I have been on your web site and it is fantastic! There is so much useful information that I have only begun to review. I really appreciate all the work that has gone into putting together such a web site as it is so helpful to so many people! Your openness to have it available to everyone is really a wonderful selfless service."
"As I have prayed for several years, and patiently waited for the answers, I have come across your web site and have received many answers to many questions. . . . I wish to thank you at this time for your commitment to follow what your spiritual journey had in store for you. With this knowledge and spiritual connection, as you say " intigration" is a wonderful gift which you have shared with many. I greatly Thank You! !"
"Happy to find your website and the information contained within."
"I've been reading your web pages off and on for about a week now. Thank you for sharing your journey. It takes a great deal of courage to do so."
"I just wanted to drop you a quick line to confirm that I received your book in the mail yesterday. Thank you. I look forward to getting into it as soon as I finish up some of the other material that I printed off from your website; it has become part of my daily ritual to read it on my ride to and from work."
"I would like to thank you for the amazing information that I have discovered about myself. In the past 8 or 9 monthes I have been going through a situation with a guy and a lot of what was wrote on the website has helped me begin closure on the issue."
"I read your book I think it is excellent and sums up how I feel as a wounded soul and it has been very helpful and insightful. I am now hoping to start on healing the inner child."
"I jumped around on your website. Good Stuff. You write about a lot of feelings and issues men experience"
"Thanks for your honest and thoughtful web pages describing codependent, counterdependent and other associated behaviors. I'm well along in my recovery but it's always refreshing and affirming to see my own experiences captured so well in another's work. Anyway, good job, blessings to you, and keep up the good work."
"I very much enjoyed the article that I just read, it was produced in 2004 and I can only identify very strongly with the internal tapes and children that run my life."
"I am now reading "The Dance" and am glad to be able to read it in it's entirety. I think your work is extremely important and I equate you to a loving beacon that's able to provide knowledge, light/love to sooo many dark and scarred hearts, globally. I came to your web-site with the search word "Letting Go". You have provided me with knowledge on how to love myself and that I AM loved unconditionally by our creator who resides within my heart. I have had many self realizations since my husband died and one was that God is love. To me that's the only word we really need to know and internalize. How beautiful it was when I made this discovery. For many years I was not sure where God was.....now many pieces of the truth are fitting together, it is very exciting. My life is now being filled with meaning/purpose and love. It's great to enjoy this gift of life with a WHOLE new perspective than the sad and SEPARATE existence I was enduring. Thank you again for your light and love.......you are an amazing spiritual being."
"The words I have read so far from your web site have been absolutley remarkable. I look forward to reading your book and hearing your tapes."
"Hello, congratulations for your book, I love your concepts and I'm trying to implement them to my life. They have been such a treasure for myself. Thank you!"
"I have discovered your website couple of years ago and have been learning so much from it. On your website, I have found many answers either for my self or for my clients. Everything on your web site is written with such a compassion and care for people and humankind. Every time I open the website I feel excited, energized and full of love and hope. GOD BLESS YOU. Everything you talk about there is resonating within my perception of the world and people. I am thankful to you and all the work you have done to spread truth, love and hope. I have fully discovered my spirituality in February this year and ever since my life has changed. Reading your website has contributed to that a lot. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU GOD BLESS YOU"
"This is only the beginning for you to go global and help more people in the world that need you! Thank you so much for all your help. The timing was so critical for me."
"Thank you for sharing yourself with everyone and writing a book and having a website that can help others so much. God bless you for your understanding and your gifts in helping others."
"I am nearly finished reading your book. I have stopped to group my thoughts and decided to share the results of reading yours and other books these past several weeks. I must say, you put an excellent picture together that make it easy to understand once the heart is open for that. I appreciate the time you took to write all of this, and want you to know you have helped me immensely understand a difficult processing of information. It has also given me courage now to stand up for myself and prepare to move on. Whatever is in store is mystery now, but will appear daily bit by bit. Thanks again"
"I am so pleased for you - delighted that things are flourishing. Your writing has helped me more than I can say, and if I lived in the USA I would definitely attend one of your programs!"
"The deepest spirit in me thanks the deepest spirit in you. I had begun the work before I received your book and tapes, however, they have been immensely helpful in helping me get through the darkest time in my life (to this moment), to recognize the opportunity to finally break out of my half-alive, scared to fly utterly walled-in wounded child. . . Your insights and sharing have played an important part in my healing and hopefully the healing of my marriage."
"The door for healing was opened for me through your personal sharing. In November, 2004 was the beginning of grieivng over the child wounds, at age 68 with 29 years of recovery. I could not even begin to accept this process until I realize my concept of God had many distortions and continues to evolve. Then I was able to face my many hurt feelings with acceptance. I kept away from mother for about six months. 2005, Christmas time, mother got sick and I was able to show up with 'real compassion" and to my surprise I had been responsing to her as an adult rather than from a lost little girl. Yes, I had my own feelings, but I knew they were mine without shame. And it has been uphill since. I was asked to be the speaker on Mother's day at AA's anniversay. I invited mother and she has agreed. I never invited her before. I am ready to share my experiences, strength and hope without blaming myself or her, but being responsible for my own sickness. Now I am almost 70 and she is 94. I have been able to say to her, "Thank you for Everything" Yes, this process affected all of my relationships with people. Anxious, Yes, at times because I don't yet trust it, but I am getting stronger with my focus on where my help really comes from. The one door opened many other doors from many resources that helped me to continue to moving forward. I call these surpises...Divine surprises and they keep showing up. Robert, God bless you and Thank You."
"I've seen your website read the section "Inner Child Healing". I can only say that it is a great work you have made there. I've learned many things and began to see myself and others in a different way."
"Thank you so much for this web site and your journey into full recovery, 1 day at a time. Thank You Robert for you insights and sharing your journey."
"I came across your site and found it to be amazingly uplifting. Excellent material. Site is fabulous"
"I would like to thank you for the level of deep honesty and self acceptance you are showing in this site...I am falling apart as I read it. Thank you for your dedication and wisdom."
"Several weeks ago I was seeking information on the internet. I am grateful I found your website.
A. What I have learned over the past 22 years of concious recovery and healing through so many agencies, therapist, books, etc were beautifully summed up on your website. I needed to have these truths reitterated, my sure state had been shaken up.
B. A man I have been involved with has displayed wounded soul syndrome and my best efforts were futile in a concious change in his belief system and behavior. Your website eloquently spoke in a genltle loving way what I knew he would benefit should he endeavor to explore the truths you present. He has since purchased the book and tapes, which I have listened to and THANK YOU! He has been in contact with you. He and I have and will discuss what we learn from your book."
"Today was my first visit to the website, and I must say that I appreciate your opinions and your gentleness of approach that you use. Your writing shows a deep respect for people and their belief systems which is not usually found in the areas of faith and teaching. . . May God Bless you in your work."
"Love your site! Thanks for sharing so much info!"
"I have been searching your web site for the example you give of the little boy who remained unfazed in a group meeting in which his mother was crying. (Emotional Incest - emotionally devastating child abuse) He had learned it was okay to cry; he wasn't responsible for his mother's feelings. The example popped into my head as I was thinking over the events of the past few days and suddenly realizing what a profound transformation in my response to life has occurred in a very few short years. . . Day after day, Robert, things have worked out in surprising ways. But, it is the deep-down change within for which I am most grateful, the feeling that I am standing up on the inside, while my inner children play. I am so grateful for the adventure my life has become. I feel like I have crossed a threshold. It's now midnight~and I hear a blackbird singing in the dead of night. Gratefully ~and Flying"
"Your site is fantastic. I have turn on everyone I know to it. It says what is happening. I may not like what I read, but then that’s why I’m looking at your site. To get some insight as to why my life seams so in the toilet."
"Thanks for writing the book. It helped to open my mind up to the process."
"Hi! My name is ______. I'm not religious at all and coming across your website was purely by chance of me "googling" for more insight to the case of Jesus being married. Now, that I didn't know till I read Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code". Curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to know more facts.... The piece you wrote in regards to Jesus & Mary - if it was true, I would believe it readily because that would be ultra normal for a mortal to have feelings. I would rather believe Jesus as being a very kind and understanding soul . . . I am glad to have found your site because to me it feels I'm on neutral ground. I find now when Jesus is being referred to is more human like to me than a God - does that make sense? . . . it brought tears to my eyes (or, I was just to sensitive a bit emotional - typical woman traits). All I wanted to say, it has been enlightening and I am very lucky I came across your site."
"i just wanted to thank you for the wonderful site that you have created. as a recovering catholic and sufferer of PTSD from child abuse issues and a lot of un fortunate events throughout my life, you are of great help to me and my effort to begin a healing journey at the age of 56."
"I have written to you before and you answered me, for which I am extremely grateful. Your website and your book, along with Charles Whitfield's "Healing the Inner Child" and "Memories and Abuse" books have been amazing recovery tools for me. . . . It is as if you talk to the soul."
"Thank you for your information, it helped in healing me with-in. . . Thanks again, I read to keep me focused on building my self esteem."
"I have found your web-page and am enjoying it immensely. I feel I could have written it myself. I am a recovering alcoholic and addict. I have been through numerous treatment and counseling. I am recovering from everything that pulls me away from God basically. I agree with all that I have read on your page. Especially the belief that you can't bring someone to a place you yourself have never been. . . I have found only one person in North Dakota so far that I trust and is on the same path. I know hundreds in 12 step programs and so few have found the wisdom you seem to have acquired."
"I discovered your site tonight. I love it: I have eagerly read much of the material. Thank you so much."
"About a month ago I ordered your book after realizing with the help of my therapist that the reason I had tolerated an abusive relationship for 4 years has do to with my dependent personality. Prior to that relationship I was following a spiritual path of mediation and self realization that was incredibly fulfilling for me and so one would think I wouldn’t have allowed it much less taken my young son on the journey with me, but I did.
Your book has helped me with the clarity that we are spiritual beings having human experiences. That one message alone has helped tremendously in my healing. It has leveled the playing field from Hitler to Mother Teresa inside my soul, helped me let go of a good amount of anger and realize that what happened, happened for a reason.
Your book has a beauty of simplicity and honesty along with a few human and well chosen expletives that resonate deeply with me and shall be a resource for my ongoing healing over this life time. Thank you so much again! I have already begun to recommend your book to others with different struggles still possessing (of course) their own wounded inner child."
"I am enjoying your website. I learn so much there. Thank you for creating it."
"Having just read a few excerpts from your book on-line, I've found them to be a source of consolation and significant revelation to me about my emotional issue."
"I've already read it/listened to all the tapes. I'm so glad you chose to share your insight. I have really been helped by it…so far, so good. I actually heard my inner voice speak to me yesterday afternoon for the first time in many, many years. I was laying in bed taking a nap with my son. I've just recently been going through a very bad divorce. My voice told me that I almost wasted my life in despair and self-abuse. It said that this is my second chance. What a gift. I go through pain and crying every day these days. But with the type of insight your words (and others) are giving me, I can at least understand what is going on with me. I feel like I truly am healing. I feel like I visualize myself as the type of wounded soldier walking back from the battlefield with bloody head bandages, crutches, bruises, casts, etc. It helps me remember that this is how I feel, and I need to treat myself just like I am wounded. It helps me remember to take my healing seriously."
"Thank you for your incredible guidance in to Co-Dependancy through your book and your letters that comes always as a big unexpected surprise!"
"You expression of your truth has helped me in a life where help was rare and valued."
"Your site is absolutely wonderful!! I came across it when I was looking for some reading material to recommend to my cousin, who is unfortunately still in denial (I am trying to help him break his defense mechanisms in order for him to save himself from our dysfunctional family as well). Since you have experienced the happiness of finally seeing the truth yourself, I am sure you know how painful it can be when people that you care for are unable to see the truth and to care for themselves and for their inner children (because they are scared of acknowledging their suffering and the ego is maintaining the illusion of control)."
"I got your book yesterday and could not put it down. I'm in chapter 3 now and it is so right on! This is the first book I have found that has most all of my beliefs, higher truths consolidated into one book. . . . Have you tried to send it to oprah? Thank you!!!!! so much...."
"I love your writing. I can't tell you how many times your pages have been the calm, safe place I seek out when the storm is raging. . . Thanks for all your help"
"That night I looked up codependend on my pc and came to a list of 20 signs of codependency I have at least 19 of them then I came to your web site and started reading I sat here with tears streaming down my face as I read thru the pages. I ordered your book and am wanting with all my heart to find me to step towards my recovery to find me who got lost so many years along the way."
"Wow. I have been reading on your web site for quite some time and ordered your first book......... Many aspects of my life as a 42 year old female have come full circle over the last year or so. I am currently going thru a divorce from a marriage of 23 years from a codependent. Your book and website has given me such insite to my own dysfunctional upbringing as well as his. I am much better and just now feeling alittle comfortable in my own skin. Thank you so much for your enlightenment."
"Dear Robert, Your work has divinely touched and spiritually inspired me......I came to your site in my desperate hour and found so many truths, I couldn't hide anymore. I made the choice, to face the fear, look inside through the darkness and pain, to feel who I was and why. . . . You have given me much healing through your generous gifts that I would like to share with you my love, appreciation and gratitude. I am sending a donation ___. Thank you so very much. Blessings and Abundance Always" (Donations to the cause / spiritual Tithes are always appreciated: Love Offerings.)"
(March 22, 2006)
"Just
to thank you for mailing your book, which arrived
here last Thursday, and for enabling me to find an
important piece of the jigsaw. Your writing has arrived
in my life at just the right time, and I need you to know
that your courage and compassion are helping me with a long-overdue
healing process."
"On a personal note, I want to share with you that I am a clinical psychologist. Your writings have deeply resonated with me and have greatly facilitated my personal work... recently *enlivened* by a painful relationship break-up. In turn, I hope my ongoing healing will conribute to my professional endeavours as a therapist. Thank you sincerely for sharing your insights and your personal experience."
"My name is ______ and I am 65 years. Your books and articles have been an answer to my prayers."
"Simply, I want to thank you with every fiber of my being for having the courage to have put together this website. You are making a difference in my life. I am on a journey to recover from my past. I was sexually abused by my brother when I was 11 years old (I am now 45). My wounds are not so much from the abuse but from the lack of support of my parents. All my life it has seemed that they have supportive my schizophrenic older brother (abuser) and left me by the way side. Anyway, your site is giving me hope that my life can be joyous. Thank you again for this tremendous gift. With Respect and Gratitude"
"Thank you very much for writing your book and making your wonderful website. I'm not even sure how to express how much it means to me. But thank you so much. . . Again, thank you so much for your website. It contains so much truth I've read the same pages many times and I'm still learning from it."
"i apreciate your website very much."
"I really feel compelled to write to you and have been meaning to for what seems like a long, long time. But everything has unfolded so quickly for me that it is only now that I can truly sit back, want to share my experience, feel proud of where I've got and really really want to tell you how much you have helped me in reaching this point.
One evening I decided to look up more about therapy and how it could really help and it was as if I was being pulled to your site and my mission was to read everything that was on it. It was the first time ever that I had literally dedicated time to helping me. Before this point everyone else in my life had always been my absolute priority. I spent hours and hours reading, and re-reading. I returned the following day and spent the entire evening reading. As I read I started to cry, and it became so intense that I could not stop crying, yet I wasn't afraid, and it didn't feel like depression tears, more like tears that were unraveling a truth that would help me so much. From that moment on I thought such loving thoughts towards you. I wondered if I'd ever meet you and how proud I was of you. It felt like someone had helped me so much, yet I didn't know who they were. Funny eh that you go through life thinking that the people close to you are the ones that help you, and then you discover true love from a complete stranger. So from the deepest part of my heart I want to thank you."
"Thanks for offering that website to the world, as of itself, I feel it began to facilitate healing for me.I've pretty much read all of it and resonated with it deeply."
"thanks for your courage and your website. Your insight is profoundly helping me. Do you still do counseling? If yes, I would appreciate any information you could give me about your sessions. I am looking forward to receiving my book and audio tapes. Thank you again. You are an inspiration."
"I stumbled on your site after being in a short term relationship that went from hottttttttt to luck warm and cold so fast. I needed some answers and found it here. Thank you. I have been sharing your site with everyone."
"I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for your book: Codependency, the dance of wounded souls. I have been very angry all my life, but did not know what I was angry about. I found myself in an abusive relationship and I began to research emotional abuse and came across your website, I order your book and tape. After reading the book and listening to the tape, I began loving myself and was able to gain strength and got out of the abusive relationship and I am now truly living a joyous life. For the first time in 20 years, I went to Florida for a vacation. I am truly delivered and I would like to enroll in a certificate program to provide this type of counseling to others. I Thank God for you."
"I am very happy to have found your website. You have put together some very interesting and informative information."
"Bravo to you sir, by accident I came across your website in regards to Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Yours is like a voice that cries out in the wilderness on the subject matter ringing true yet threatening a belief system that is so rooted in the world. People are defined by their belief systems and to be challenged on them causes them to react ferociously. Your voice not only challenges the individual but a power structure firmly entrenched into the mind the masses and the global definition of religion. Dialogically clever were those who set into motion the Christianity we know and were raised on. Dogma to restrict us, guilt to bind us. Instead of allowing the true nature of Jesus Christ to flow from him which is love and one who truly loves acts with restraint in all areas as not to harm the object of their love. No need for dogma and guilt the love will guide. I would be most disappointed in the Jesus I have come to know if he did not have a relationship with Mary Magdalene. In order to be our advocate to the Father he needed to know and feel and experience all areas of humanity and the highest of all of these is the ability to give love, touch love and be given it back starting on a one to one bases which transcends the rest of humanity and graces them with the overflow."
"Thanks a lot. And the articles on your web site are excellent, exactly what I have been looking for."
"I've been reading articles on your website. From what I've read so far the part that resonates most with me is where you say that you used to think/feel that at the very core of you was the desire to die, to not exist.. Most of the time this is how I feel. I feel as though your website has thrown me a lifeline (and this is after years of therapy)."
"I am lookng forward to taking responsibility for the rest of my life with my new found hope and awarness. I was impressed by your words / views on the matter at your website and am looking forward to reading your book / listening to the tapes."
"I am very much enjoying your book, and I wanted to thank you. I am constantly visiting your website and re reading everything on there as well. Thank you so much."
"I wanted to tell you that I received your book yesteday and have begun reading it. Thank you for your message and autograph. As a newly graduated Marriage and Family Therapist, I find your message very accurate for all people, not just those who come from disfunctional families. In fact, I have yet to meet anyone who does not come from a disfunctional family. I am sure I will use and share the words you have written with my clients. For myself, it is very soothing and enlightening to discover that the difficulties I have had negotiating life are common and curable and it is especially delightful to continue realizing that the power to bring happiness to my life comes from within and not from trying to please and take care of other people. Thank you for spreading the message of your truth in order to add positivity to the world. As a Third Culture Kid, I know that we are all part of the same body and that only by working together can we heal this difficult and contentious world."
"I'm a 39 year old man and came across you article today and I want you to know that I have lived your life as you have mine. I am not going to try and show this woman how great we could be together. I could wax on but I shall spare you the drama. Let me just say that I must move on a be greatful that this has all come to surface after 7 weeks and not 7 years. I will read more of your work. You have help a grown man today that was looking for help."
"I just recently separated from my wife after just 14 months of marriage. This has been a difficult period, not the worst but in the top three. I have found your web site incredibly useful in dealing with this situation. It has really taught me what is a healthy/healthier approach to this and all life events."
"I've been in aa recovery here for many years, but I have not yet found someone that I connect with the way that I do with your writing since my sponsor died a few years ago. He was an amazing spirit and finding your site has given me hope that he wasn't unique. I resonate with everything that you speak about and have reached very similar conclusions through my own experience. Sadly, however, I don't find many in the aa fellowship who share it. It's good to know there is another out there who shares my insights, as well as those of my old sponsor. I know he would have liked you a lot! I'm dipping into your site on a daily basis and it feels like having a good meeting. I hope that I will be able to give some of it back to my homegroup, over time, if they are willing to be open-minded! Unfortunately, no CODA here, but I don't think that matters as much as the real insight that co-dependency is totally relevent to alcoholics. I'm quite sure that we are busy, as a species, with that next step that Bill W called "The Next Frontier"."
"I have just discovered your web site couple of weeks ago. I want to thank you first of all for sharing your wisdom and knowledge. . . . But only through finding your site have I gotten any practical blueprint on what to do."
" I LOVED YOUR BOOK!! Thank you for confirming what Ive believed for so long ... just need it to to be reenforeced.. And Im at work so I have to make it quick, but thank you for trying to make people understand what Jesus was REALLY all about LOVE (yourself and all others) AND PEACE AND JOY AND FAITH AND FORGIVENESS -esp yourself and your 'inner child'...!! Anyway -thank you may god (dess) bless you :)"
"Its ______, guess you all ready know that, from Australia, I am still listening to your tapes . . . . . I am healing and finding more about me and my journey as I trudge the road to happy destiny, there is a lot of pain involved, I am glad they didn't tell me I would have to go through all this when I first got sober, and my GOD has used seemingly brutal methods to get me to look at me, I am learning to follow the carrots...I don't want the stick anymore, I am now studying Social welfare, and it is an amazing journey. I hope your good Mate, keep learning so I can to!"
"I would like to thank you too for your web site. You cannot believe how much I have gained from it. I've been searching for so many answers,and came across your site at an amazing point in my life. May u continue to do the wonderful work that you are doing!"
"I had emailed you a few years ago after reading your book and listening to your tapes. It was the only thing that got me through a really rough time in my life."
"I found your website incredibly helpful. Thank you for sharing your insight, compassion and strength. Your writing came to my attention at just the right moment!"
"I am in a 12 step recovery program myself and am currently facing my own relationship issues. It is amazing to have reached yet another new level of consciousness and to be acting in love and health although this is often the hardest choice to make. I am also training as a counsellor and have read your pages about counsellors and agree very much with the comments about therapists and counsellors only being able to help in so far as they have addressed their own 'stuff'. Thanks and best wishes."
"Both my partner and myself are reading your website at the moment. In fact my partner was skeptical aoubt inner child work before reading your pages, now he is finding your stuff really helpful."
"Big "HI!" to u from India!!! Im a 16 yr old girl
from Mumbai and I just don't know how
to begin thanking you...thanking you for everything!!
I have gone through so much that you have yourself
gone through. And I am still doing all that you used to do
as a kid....trying to hurt them in any possible way even
by scoring low....BY WRITING ABOUT THIS AND MAKING ALL
OF IT AVAILABLE ON NET I KNOW YOU HAVE HELPED INNUMERABLE
PEOPLE LIKE MYSELF AND FOR THAT I THANK YOU OVER AND OVER.
I earnestly believe that it was one of my Angels
that led me to discover your site a few months
ago. I'm just recovering from a two year long term
of depression where I would begin to cry anyplace, anytime
and I didn't know why I did it except that it felt like
a load off my heart. You see as you have explained on
some of your pages, I grew up in a dysfunctional family and
I still have so many feelings pent up inside of me.......I
FEEL LIKE I AM ADDICTED TO PAIN AND CAN'T WEEN MYSELF OFF OF IT.
I have quite a few friends but none that I can
relate to or talk about this to. I feel like I
am A BIG LIAR for not letting others know who I actually
am, what I actually am like as a person. I'M AFRAID. And
any guy who shows interest in me- I treat him like dirt b'coz
he likes me. I Don't know why.
Just telling all this to another living being
feels great and i hope you spend a precious little
of your time reading this. I just hope to know how I can
forgive my parents and myself because it seems impossible
right now.
I have so completely spoiled my grades that now
even if I try i am not able to put them rite- i feel
lost and stupid. I don't wanna screw up my life and was
hoping for a few words of healing that you could give me/ guide
me to?
Sincerely grateful for your time and help,
[ once agin] THANK YOU!!!"
"Glad to hv heard from you. I'm grateful for your advice and am eager to start applying that to my life. And please do add me to your list. Also, I don't think I'm ever gonna stop visiting your site. Your work is amazing."
"Hi Robert, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your reply to an email of mine late last year regarding counselling in Sydney Austraila. You were very helpful and I really appreicate it. I have finally had the courage to start counselling here and know there is hope:) Thanks and best wishes"
"Thank you Mr.. Burney!!!!! I am seeing a counselor now and she is helping me tremendously. She has heard of your books too! I am beginning to not be so hard on myself and blaming myself for everything wrong in my life."
"I enjoy your website and have found a wealth of valuable information to assist me on my journey in recovery. Thank you for all you do for us."
"Thanks for responding personally to me...my husband and I have been search for answers to alot of his feelsings and your internet site...making reference to your book was delivered to us via God. My husband finally felt like someone was writing from his heart about his feelings...which have been closed for many years. your words are a comfort in a world full of mystery."
"I found your website out of pure luck and feel as if I have answers to questions I have been asking myself my whole life. . . But I found your website and stayed hooked to it for an hour and a half. In these past 3 years I have seen a counselor because I knew there was something wrong with me. They put me on medication (which would have been better given to my wacko parent) and I took it for a while, but that wasn’t the fix, I wasn’t depressed, anything but. I get angry so they gave me an anger management book, well, that didn’t seem to fit either. It would appear that I represented many classic cases of a stay at home mom that needed a life (one therapist told me this), another thought that everything would be fine once I set some boundaries (good helped a little) and then I decided I needed time. Read a bunch of books and reached a plateau. Then I found your web site which fills in all the missing wholes. I had even gone to some alanon meetings but I was still angry that these people had so much power in my life I couldn’t see the connection and didn’t feel it was for me. I can’t wait to read your book."
"I have been sharing your book and some information with many Nar-Anon members and all have been inspired by your wisdom. The problem I have is that every time I lend it out to one of our "group members," it doesn't come back. So, from now on, they may look at it, but it will not be offered for loan. I guess it's just too good to return."
"I am currently reading some of your Inner Child Healing work, as it has become apparent that I am most definitely a internalized toxic shame driven individual. I think that your stuff is brilliant and immensely valuable, and I believe that I told you before how impressed I was with your giveaway. . . . you already have my immense gratitude for your giveaway. Your work has helped me, and continues to help me tremendously, and I have recommended your site to many of the other men and women that I work with."
"I look forward to reading & listening to your book & tapes. I have a sponsor & will use your ideas and insights to help me with my prayer & meditation to keep me in the now. (My sobriety date is 10-09-05) Can I have your permission to share with other AA members for group discussions similar to the Joe & Charlie tapes we listen to at Big Book meetings I attend? For now I need to concentrate on my own healing but what works for me can work with another human being.
Thanks again for your dedication, I'm grateful for being broke down enough to have a Spiritual awakening & to have discovered the 12 steps which I am slowly trying to understand, work & follow, without it I'd die an alcoholic death."
"Hi Robert,
I have to tell you that your writings and
your website are a magnificent godsend. I have been
on a sacred healing journey for just over a year. And I
have autonomously discovered everything that you have
written, even so far as the quantum physics. (I have a
little snowflake frame that contains the saying..."Do without
Doing". So, you can imagine my intrique at seeing all the things
that I have learned, on my own...hunting, pecking and divining...wrangled
into your website in one big package. You must really
help many people with your work. I have basically used
Adlerian group coursework, Native American Medicine Wheel
and other sacred journeys, ceremony and rituals, Goddess and
Archetypes, crystals and stones, candle, chakra work, esoteric
healing, journaling, poetry, books, oracles, divination,
my own intution and psychic abilities to discern the Truth.
I also use the internet as an oracle and it has been the most
massive resource that I have used.
Now, the last thing that I am working on is my deep grief work. I think I am finally ready to deal with the deep rage and grief from the pain of my childhood and my adulthood. I have chosen to use a therapist to help me do this work. Odd how the brutal death of a friend led me to seek counseling to help me properly grieve her death...and I find myself working on myself. She was apparently one of my angels. Anyway, I simply had to write you. I am a web designer by trade and I am also writing a book and creating a web portal for codepency and addiction issues. I would love to link to you when my site is completed. I count you among my blessings! Thank you for all your good work, Robert."
"I have purchased and read and absolutely loved your first book “Dance of Wounded Souls” about a year ago . . . . I still refer to "Dance of Wounded Souls" when I get depressed and I truly love reading your work."
"A FRIEND/NEIGHBOR/??...PUT ME ON TO YOUR ARTICLES DATING BACK TO MARCH OF 99...HE PRINTED THEM OFF FOR ME...AND BAM!!....RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES!...I FOUND MYSELF SOBBING UNCONTROLLABLY ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS!!...BOY!...DID IT EVER HIT HOME WITH ME!...THIS WAS ME/IS ME IN A NUTSHELL!...THIS IS HOW I HAVE BEEN LIVING MY LIFE....MY RELATIONSHIPS...MY FEELINGS/HURT...ANGER!!...ME,ME,ME!!
CONSTANTLY FEELING LIKE I HAD TO MEASURE UP!...WIN LOVE,ACCEPTANCE AND
APPROVAL!!...JUMP THROUGH HOOPS!!...IN
THE END PUTTING MY HAPPINESS/FEELINGS ASIDE...AS
A RESULT LOSING ME!! THERE ARE SO MANY INSTANCES/SITUATIONS
THAT YOUR ARTICLES HELPED ME SEE WHAT I WAS DOING"
"I'm so happy to hear of your new found wealth of joy :-) I wish you the best. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you also for helping me at a time when my heart was aching and I was so confused. . . Thanks for your help. Congratulations on your happiness. You deserve it."
"Your welcome for the donation. I have a little extra money this time of year. And I was reading your update and got to the part about your book. Towards the end when you were pleading and you were asking for anyone who had been impacted by your work to donate. Your book, your web-site, and these sessions have all made a big impact on my life and my recovery. Everytime I tell my story in a Coda newcommers meeting I remember the night I found your web-site and read and read for days. It was the first time I realized why I was so sick and the first time I could ever remember having some sort of voice come from under the pain, a voice that sounded like the real me. For that and some many more reasons I know that I'm on a path to more joy and love. And that God intended me to meet you, so I could learn about the real me. Thank you so much."
"Just read your your Update Newsletter 2006 and what has been happening in your recovery adventure. I am so happy for your wonderful news. May God of the Universe and all the Magnificent Angels continue to bless and keep lighting your path. I will also keep you in my prayers that the "Dance" keeps going out to more spiritual beings who need to know about the dis-ease at a much deeper level! I know I have benefitted from so much. You are such a dear En-Lightened-Being and I truly hope the best for you and yours. I did send you a small Love-offering through PayPal and may the God/Goddess encourage more Magnificient Spritual Beings who have been so wonderfully and miraculously helped do their part in "giving back" to the Universe to assist in keeping the "Dance" going on. More souls need to encounter the Divine message you have communicated. In Light, Love and Prayers."
(This person is responding to the subscription to
Dancing in Light; that I sent to
people who donated - and that is still available on
the Help Page.)
"Dear
Robert:
Thank you for the subscription to Dancing in Light;
I had missed having access to that material. I would
be hard pressed to cite a single paragraph that I wouldn't
deem worth fifty dollars to me. . . . . . But your January
Newsletter with your characteristic honesty and willingness
to share both the glory and the grief of working this path
reminded me of the very precious Truth that my path is unfolding
perfectly according to a Divinely arranged plan, even when,
and especially when, it feels more like some Cosmic game
of "Wack-a-mole" (as in, just when you poke your head up, it feels
like you get clobbered). Within a day or so of having read the
Newsletter, I got myself out of a very dark place by simply recognizing
my right and my need to grieve (and doing so), and, to me, just
as powerfully by being grateful. Among the reasons to be grateful
are just the love and joy you describe in your life now, Robert:
I rejoice along with so many other people in the pictures of your beautiful
family. Yet, once again, you have taught me that I can feel more
than one emotion at a time: I grieve at the prospect of any of your
work not being available. Please consider my earlier suggestion that
I would be willing to subscribe on a regular basis. I read on average
a book a day. No where else can this material be found. Your body
of work is incomparable."
"I just donated not because I'm altruistic - but because I keep loaning out my copies of the book (and once the tapes) and they never seem to find their way back to me - so I need to order another copy for myself (again!) and of course from now on I'll just be referring people directly to you for their own copies. Peace and prosperity to you and yours...."
"I am not on your e-mail list yet, as this the first time I have messaged
you; however, I have been reading the
articles you have on the website, particularly
those on co-depencence and healing the inner child. I
am in recovery in a 12-step program and I have been
working
on my issues for over 10 years. When it became clear
in therapy and through my reading that my issues lay
below the surface addiction, I went on the internet and did
a search on co-dependence. Your site was one of the top 3,
so I took a shot. I have since
become
an avid reader. I read your request for donations
to have the book, which I have not read yet, printed.
I will be sending a gift through PayPal. I can't afford
much because my life is in transition, but what I can afford
I will send. Thanks for you work and your inspiration."
"....thank you for sharing your need with everyone. I know that everything will be in place, exactly when you need it to be. :-) I was only able to share $25.00 but if everyone did $25.00 .... it is amazing how people realize the expense to *carry the message* Blessings to you"
"Thanks, for all the information that you share. I can relate to so much and I am so grateful for recovery. I appreciate you."
"I have benefited tremendously from your writings"
"Well the site has made such a difference in my life and understanding myself (it's a great supplement to my therapy sessions) I had to thank you in some way!"
"I wish you all the best, Robert. Your book and audio tape were of great comfort to me, and I enjoy your web-site."
"I purchased your book several years ago, and visited and studied your site for quite a while. It really helped me get through a tough stage I was going through. Truthfully, I have not thought about it for quite some time, as life as gone on as it does. However, this morning, I was reflecting on some goals I have when your site popped into my head. I wanted to be sure to include a link to your site and acknowledge you online for a variety of reasons, once I got my idea up and running. But I couldn't remember the site name. I put it down in my thought list to be sure to look it up. Then I got home, and there was this email from you. If I have received emails from you recently, I was not aware of it as I rarely use this address anymore as it is so clogged up with spam anymore. But there you were, hitting me in the face. I am not a believer in coincidence. I contributed what I could at the moment, but also felt compelled to write to you. At the moment I don't have much else to offer you except support and encouragement to not quit. What you have written and are committed to in your personal life, and ambition to help others is a terrific life's work. It reached me, a stranger, and I am sure that there are many others out there. I also admire your courage to reach out and ask for help."
"Your book was one of the first books i read in recovery and I am now 21 mnths clean and sober!!! Thank you for your wisdom! I will pass your link to friends I think will benefit from reading it. It really helped me!"
"I was able to donate $10 to your cause. I'm sorry it couldn't be more. You touched my life in a very critical time and I am forever grateful."
"you are a very big part of my healing and I am grateful. I am happy to do what I can and wish it was more...Thank you for all that you have contributed to me... all my blessings in your journey"
"I *so* wish I was rich and could help you right now because your web site has helped me incredibally and I want to thank you."
"i have benifited so much from your giving and sharing and human-ness. i have prayers to contribute, i also, have no money, and i have great prayers and great belief and God provides me with opportunities, yay, prayers are with you, my friend."
"Thanks for your email, good luck with the print run. I have enjoyed, and leaned a lot reading your websites and book. I am co-dependent alcoholic in recovery, and making progress, thanks !"
"It is my pleasure to support the important work you are doing. I bought audio tapes of Dance of Wounded Souls and have listened to them many, many times. Your insights are wonderful. I am also grateful for your courage to share your personal life on your webpage. I do receive your newsletter and enjoy it very much. Thank you for access to The Dancing in Light page. Wishing you much success "when one follows one's dream the whole universe conspires to achieve it.""
"I hope the Book publishing is going well for you. I believe your work has touched many and the Universe will find a way for your words to reach many more. I also believe that the Universe will manifest the financial well being that you need and so deserve, coming out your generosity, to continue your work."
"I had emailed you about two or three years ago and you responed back to me. (you may not remember) I was quite surprised to see an email from you. It was funny, becauce about a month ago, I was searching for your website...and do you think that I could find it.. NO. I couldn't. Then I log on this evening and see an email with your address plain and clear. I guess things happen for a reason, eh. I praise you for having the courage and strength to ask for donations. If I had a lot of money, I would donate all that you needed. I would. However, with that not being the case, I can only donate a small amount of $10. I will mail it to you, ok. I am very proud of you. You are a wonderful man. Don't forget it."
"You are welcome Robert. One day I asked for help and you were there to help me. I am happy to be helpful to you now. Thank you for the Dancing in Light subscription....your writing has always inspired me to heal and find my way...again, thank you. Happy, joyous and free"
"Just sent a donation. It's been years since what you wrote gave me a lift. It wasn't about the personal soul mate journey stuff, it was the truth of the past impacting me today that hit me. I wasn't crazy after all. I had amnesia because of the trauma, and reading what you had written was helpful in confirming I was on the right path. It resonated."
"I opened my eyes this morning, looked around at
the light filling the room, and smiled,
happy to be awake, happy to be alive, happy to be
who and where I am. I leaped out of bed. A little later,
while getting ready for work and doing my gratitude work, I
had just come to the part where I express gratitude
for the gift of feelings, when I gasped, "You woke up happy,
______!"
Happy right now.
Happy in this moment.
WOW!
Joy to you and your
family, Robert!
Dancing
Robert, I just accessed Dancing in Light,
clicked on a link I was drawn to, and read this passage:
"It also helps to realize that most of the people who have power and riches are not old souls. Old souls have lived a lot of lifetimes and were born at a heart chakra level of consciousness in this lifetime. Their life paths are about following their heart path - not the power and acquisition path of those who are coming from a solar plexus chakra level of consciousness. In fact, many old souls are out of balance in relationship to their solar plexus consciousness (and therefore money and material possessions) because they did not know how to allow themselves to open up to manifestation without betraying their heart path. Many of us had the experience in past lives of abusing our power and are terrified of doing it again. We are also terrified because in past lives when we owned our power we got punished for it."
I am soooo grateful for this passage and the A-HA moment of recognition of intuitive Truth! This is so Amaaaaaaazing-zing-zing! Every bit of crap, ah, fertilizer in 2005 blows away like so much dust compared with this. I gave myself a hug at how delicious this is. Please hug yourself and anyone else you've a mind to! Thank you soooo much!"