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Site index page Robert is the author of the Joyously inspirational book Codependence:

The Dance of Wounded Souls



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Joy to You & Me Enterprises is offering a series of Intensive Training Days with Spiritual Teacher, inner child healing pioneer Robert Burney. Learn his innovative Spiritual Integration Formula for Inner Healing. For the locations and dates of upcoming appearances go to Day of Intensive Training.



Applying Twelve Step Spiritual Principles This is the fourth in a series of articles by codependency therapist/inner child healing pioneer/Spiritual teacher Robert Burney, focused on different manifestations of codependency and how the Spiritual principles of twelve step recovery can be applied to facilitate learning to have healthier relationships. This article - Obsession / Obsessive Thinking Part 1 - was originally published online April 28 2002 on Robert's Inner Child / Codependency Recovery page on the Suite101.com Directory. There is a list of - and links to - the other articles in this series on Suite 101 on the Suite101 Articles page. T his article was used to create this page on Joy2MeU in late August of 2003. Obsession / Obsessive Thinking Part 1 By Robert Burney "We were taught to approach life from a perspective of fear, survival, lack and scarcity. . . . . . We were taught that life is about destinations, and that when we get to point x - be it marriage or college degree or fame and fortune or whatever - we will live happily ever after. That is not the way life works. You know that now, and probably threw out that fairy tale ending stuff intellectually a long time ago. But on some emotional level we keep looking for it because that is what the children in us were taught. We keep living life as if it is a dress rehearsal for "when our ship comes in." For when we really start to live. For when we get that relationship, or accomplishment, or money that will make us okay, that will fix us. We do not need fixing. We are not broken. Our sense of self, our self perception, was shattered and fractured and broken into pieces, not our True Self." "Life is not some kind of test, that if we fail, we will be punished. We are not human creatures who are being punished by an avenging god. We are not trapped in some kind of tragic place out of which we have to earn our way by doing the "right" things. We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience. We are here to learn. We are here to go through this process that is life. We are here to feel these feelings. Doing our emotional healing allows us to feel clear about what is in front of us instead of torturing ourselves by obsessively thinking, trying to figure out what's right and what's wrong." (All quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls) Obsessive thinking is an emotional defense that, like all of the various manifestations of codependency, is dysfunctional. 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. It is dysfunctional because it keeps us focused on the future or the past - we miss out on being alive today. It is dysfunctional because our attempts to escape unpleasant feelings causes us to generate more unpleasant feelings. Worry - which is negative fantasizing - is a reaction to fear of the unknown which creates more fear, which creates more worry, which creates more fear, etc. This fear is not a normal human fear of the unknown. It is codependent fear: a distorted, magnified, virulent, mutated species of fear caused by the poisonous combination of a false belief that being human is shameful with a polarized (black and white, right and wrong) perspective of life. This self perpetuating, self destructive type of obsessive thinking feeds not only on fear, but on shaming ourselves for feeling the fear. The disease of codependency is a dysfunctional emotional defense system adapted by our egos to help us survive. The polarized perspective of life we were programmed with in early childhood, causes us to be afraid of making a mistake, of doing life "wrong." At the core of our being,we feel unlovable and unworthy - because our parents felt unlovable and unworthy - and we spend great amounts of energy trying to keep our shameful defectiveness a secret. We feel that, if we were perfect like we "should" be, we would not feel fear and confusion, and would have reached "happily ever after" by now. So, we shame ourselves for feeling fear, which adds gasoline to the inferno of fear that is driving us. The shame and fear that drive obsession becomes so painful and 'crazy making' that at some point we have to find some way to shut down our minds for a little while - drugs or alcohol or food or sleep or television, etc. It is a very dysfunctional, and sad, way to relate to life. The fear we are empowering is about the future - the shame is about the past. We are not capable of being in the now and enjoying life because we are caught up in trauma melodramas about things which have not yet happened - or wallowing in orgies of self recrimination about the past, which can not be changed. Codependents do not really live life - we endure, we survive, we persevere. Obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior is caused by, and fed by, fear and shame. The feeling that the world will come to an end if ____ doesn't happen, or that it has come to an end because ____ happened, is a feeling coming from the wounded inner child. It is the result of early childhood emotional trauma - and the subconscious programming adapted by our egos to help us survive at a time when we were helpless and powerless. An adult is not helpless and powerless. We are, however, powerless to know that, as long as we are unconsciously reacting to repressed emotional energy and subconscious programming. It is impossible to see our self or life clearly when we are caught up in trauma dramas (internally and externally) that feel life threatening. In our codependency, we are in denial of our emotions at the same time we are allowing the feelings of the wounded child within to define and dictate our lives. Getting into recovery from codependency, starting to learn how to do the inner child work, will help a person take power away from the fear and shame that drives the disease - that causes the obsessive thinking. Learning to be compassionate in our relationship with our self - by not shaming ourselves for being wounded human beings - will help us to take power away from the obsessive thinking. Starting to choose to believe that there is a benevolent Force in the Universe, a Loving Higher Power, will facilitate taking power away from the fear of the unknown. Love is the answer to obsession - but not the love of another person. Learning to be Loving to our self - and remembering that there is a Loving Higher Power, is the best way I have ever found to stop obsessive thinking.