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Dysfunctional Family = cultural harvest
"Dysfunctional families are the product of an emotionally dishonest, shame based, patriarchal society based upon beliefs that do not support Loving self or Loving neighbor." - Robert Burney
"The point that I am making is that our understanding of Codependence has evolved to realizing that this is not just about some dysfunctional families, our very role models, our prototypes, are dysfunctional.
Our traditional cultural concepts of what a man is, of what a woman is, are twisted, distorted, almost comically bloated stereotypes of what masculine and feminine really are. . . . . . .
When the role model of what a man is does not allow a man to cry or express fear; when the role model for what a woman is does not allow a woman to be angry or aggressive - that is emotional dishonesty. When the standards of a society deny the full range of the emotional spectrum and label certain emotions as negative - that is not only emotionally dishonest, it creates emotional disease.
If a culture is based on emotional dishonesty, with role models that are dishonest emotionally, then that culture is also emotionally dysfunctional, because the people of that society are set up to be emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional in getting their emotional needs met.
What we traditionally have called normal parenting in this society is abusive because it is emotionally dishonest. Children learn who they are as emotional beings from the role modeling of their parents. "Do as I say - not as I do," does not work with children. Emotionally dishonest parents cannot be emotionally healthy role models, and cannot provide healthy parenting.
Our model for what a family should be sets up abusive, emotionally dishonest dynamics."
Our traditional cultural concepts of what a man is, of what a woman is, are twisted, distorted, almost comically bloated stereotypes of what masculine and feminine really are. . . . . . .
When the role model of what a man is does not allow a man to cry or express fear; when the role model for what a woman is does not allow a woman to be angry or aggressive - that is emotional dishonesty. When the standards of a society deny the full range of the emotional spectrum and label certain emotions as negative - that is not only emotionally dishonest, it creates emotional disease.
If a culture is based on emotional dishonesty, with role models that are dishonest emotionally, then that culture is also emotionally dysfunctional, because the people of that society are set up to be emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional in getting their emotional needs met.
What we traditionally have called normal parenting in this society is abusive because it is emotionally dishonest. Children learn who they are as emotional beings from the role modeling of their parents. "Do as I say - not as I do," does not work with children. Emotionally dishonest parents cannot be emotionally healthy role models, and cannot provide healthy parenting.
Our model for what a family should be sets up abusive, emotionally dishonest dynamics."
- Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney
Roles In Dysfunctional Families
By Robert Burney M.A.
I wrote this column years ago adapting several different lists that I had. I do not remember the original sources. If anyone knows the original source of any of them, I would be more than happy to give credit where credit is due.
"We have come to understand that both the passive and the aggressive behavioral defense systems are reactions to the same kinds of childhood trauma, to the same kinds of emotional wounds. The Family Systems Dynamics research shows that within the family system, children adopt certain roles according to their family dynamics. Some of these roles are more passive, some are more aggressive, because in the competition for attention and validation within a family system the children must adopt different types of behaviors in order to feel like an individual."
- Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney
The emotional dynamics of dysfunctional families are basic - and like emotional dynamics for all human beings are pretty predictable. The outside details may look quite different due to a variety of factors, but the dynamics of the human emotional process are the same for all human beings everywhere.
The basic roles which I list below apply to American culture specifically, and Western Civilization generally - but with a few changes in details could be made to fit most any culture.
There are four basic roles that children adopt in order to survive growing up in emotionally dishonest, shame-based, dysfunctional family systems. Some children maintain one role into adulthood while others switch from one role to another as the family dynamic changes (i.e. when the oldest leaves home, etc.) An only child may play all of the roles at one time or another.
"Responsible Child" - "Family Hero"
This is the child who is "9 going on 40." This child takes over the parent role at a very young age, becoming very responsible and self-sufficient. They give the family self-worth because they look good on the outside. They are the good students, the sports stars, the prom queens. The parents look to this child to prove that they are good parents and good people.
As an adult the Family Hero is rigid, controlling, and extremely judgmental (although perhaps very subtle about it) - of others and secretly of themselves. They achieve "success" on the outside and get lots of positive attention but are cut off from their inner emotional life, from their True Self. They are compulsive and driven as adults because deep inside they feel inadequate and insecure.
The family hero, because of their "success" in conforming to dysfunctional cultural definitions of what constitutes doing life "right", is often the child in the family who as an adult has the hardest time even admitting that there is anything within themselves that needs to be healed.
"Acting out child" - "Scapegoat"
This is the child that the family feels ashamed of - and the most emotionally honest child in the family. He/she acts out the tension and anger the family ignores. This child provides distraction from the real issues in the family. The scapegoat usually has trouble in school because they get attention the only way they know how - which is negatively. They often become pregnant or addicted as teenagers.
These children are usually the most sensitive and caring which is why they feel such tremendous hurt. They are romantics who become very cynical and distrustful. They have a lot of self-hatred and can be very self-destructive. This often results in this child becoming the first person in the family to get into some kind of recovery.
"Placater" - "Mascot" - "Caretaker"
This child takes responsibility for the emotional well-being of the family. They become the families 'social director' and/or clown, diverting the family's attention from the pain and anger.
This child becomes an adult who is valued for their kind heart, generosity, and ability to listen to others. Their whole self-definition is centered on others and they don't know how to get their own needs met. They become adults who cannot receive love, only give it. They often have case loads rather than friendships - and get involved in abusive relationships in an attempt to "save" the other person. They go into the helping professions and become nurses, and social workers, and therapists. They have very low self-worth and feel a lot of guilt that they work very hard to overcome by being really "nice" (i.e. people pleasing, classically codependent) people.
"Adjuster" - "Lost Child"
This child escapes by attempting to be invisible. They daydream, fantasize, read a lot of books or watch a lot of TV. They deal with reality by withdrawing from it. They deny that they have any feelings and "don't bother getting upset."
These children grow up to be adults who find themselves unable to feel and suffer very low self-esteem. They are terrified of intimacy and often have relationship phobia. They are very withdrawn and shy and become socially isolated because that is the only way they know to be safe from being hurt. A lot of actors and writers are 'lost children' who have found a way to express emotions while hiding behind their characters.
It is important to note that we adapt the roles that are best suited to our personalities. We are, of course, born with a certain personality. What happens with the roles we adapt in our family dynamic is that we get a twisted, distorted view of who we are as a result of our personality melding with the roles. This is dysfunctional because it causes us to not be able to see ourselves clearly. As long as we are still reacting to our childhood wounding and old tapes then we cannot get in touch clearly with who we really are.
The false self that we develop to survive is never totally false - there is always some Truth in it. For example, people who go into the helping professions do truly care and are not doing what they do simply out of Codependence. Nothing is black and white - everything in life involves various shades of gray. Recovery is about getting honest with ourselves and finding some balance in our life. Recovery is about seeing ourselves more clearly and honestly so that we can start being True to who we really are instead of to who our parents wanted us to be. (Reacting to the other extreme by rebelling against who they wanted us to be is still living life in reaction to our childhoods. It is still giving power over how we live our life to the past instead of seeing clearly so that we can own our choices today.) The clearer we can see our self the easier it becomes to find some balance in our life - to find some happiness, fulfillment, and serenity.
6/9/08 I received an e-mail from
Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse
pointing out that the four roles originated in her book Another Chance - Hope and Health For The Alcoholic Family published in 1981. I acknowledge her on my recommended book page as one of the Pioneers of the Adult Child / Codependence recovery movement.
Quantum Physics - Expanding my Spiritual Paradigm
I mentioned in February's column that Richard Bach's book Illusions was a major factor in my quest to understand how there could possibly be a Higher Power, a God-Force, that was Loving. In April's column I talked about Dr. Paul's chapter of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the impact it had on my Spiritual Belief system. This month I am going to focus on another major influence in enlarging my perspective of how the Universe works, in expanding the intellectual paradigm that was dictating my relationship with life - Quantum Physics.
(I am using a quote about quantum physics from my book at the end of this column - as well as several short ones within it - instead of the beginning, because it works better that way.)
The groundwork was laid for paradigm expanding concepts of quantum physics by a mystical messenger named Albert Einstein. There are several quotes that I use on the page facing the copyright page in the beginning of my book that come from individuals whom I consider to be mystical messengers.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain (All quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain (All quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)
This quote from Mark Twain speaks to the reality of human internal dynamics that I keep repeating throughout my writing. Our intellectual paradigm - mental attitudes, definitions, and beliefs - determine our perspectives and expectations, which in turn dictate our relationships and emotional reactions. If our intellectual paradigm is limited - if we cannot imagine a larger perspective of life - than what we perceive is limited, is out of focus. If we cannot use our imagination to open up to different interpretations of what we are seeing, then we are wearing blinders and can only see a limited view.
As an example: A traditional therapist / psychologist / psychiatrist has a limited perspective that restricts them to labeling behaviors - that are symptomatic manifestations of codependency in my belief - in such a way that they fit into the boxes their intellectual paradigm dictates. A Freudian will twist everything to fit into the second chakra perspective that Freud was viewing life from. A Jungian will come from more of a heart chakra centered point of view because Carl Jung reached that level of consciousness - but even then emotions are usually discounted.
Someone who believes that brain chemistry is the higher power in determining emotional health, will look for chemical solutions. (For more on this topic, see the addendum to my article Obsession / Obsessive Thinking Part 1 - which was originally published here on Suite 101.)
Einstein was not saying that knowledge was unimportant - what he was talking about is how the growth process works. Here is a paraphrase of a paragraph in which I describe this paradigm / perspective expansion in another work of mine.
What I found, is that every time I let go of how I viewed some aspect of self, other people, and/or life, and surrendered to my intuitive guidance - I was led to a larger intellectual paradigm in which to view life. By trusting my emotional, intuitive side, I was led to a larger perspective of life, a higher level of consciousness. And I found - when the dust of my old shattered definitions had settled, and I started looking around and exploring the new perspective of reality / or some aspect of my reality - that everything eventually made perfect sense in a logical rational way. I could not get to the new level through logic, but once I had trusted my intuition to guide me to it - it was perfectly rational. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place because I was looking at the puzzle of life from a larger perspective.
(Intellectual growth in relationship to some concept / topic / area - physics for example, or a new invention of any kind - works dynamically through these intuitive, imaginative leaps of perspective. The same dynamics apply to the emotional and spiritual growth process - and can cause emotional turmoil because what we need to let go of to grow emotionally are ego definitions that are limiting our relationship with self and life. There is an inherent conflict between the human ego and the nature of the life experience for humans that I wrote about in this article: Loving and Nurturing self on your Spiritual Path.)
Einstein was able to make huge leaps in knowledge because he was willing to surrender to expanding his intellectual paradigm by trusting his intuition to guide his imagination into seeing the puzzle of life from a larger perspective. He was able to think outside of the box - and make huge breakthroughs in understanding - because he learned to follow his intuitive, mystical guidance to higher levels of consciousness that afforded him expanded perspectives of whatever aspect of the puzzle he was looking at.
Albert Einstein stated that there were dimensions beyond the concrete three-dimensional one that humans experience.
"Physicists have now proven through Einstein's Theory of Relativity and the study of quantum physics that everything we see is an illusion.
Einstein, in looking at a macroscopic perspective of the Universe, said in his Theory of Relativity that there are more than three dimensions. Human beings can only visualize in three dimensions. We can only see three dimensions so we have assumed that that is all there is."
Einstein, in looking at a macroscopic perspective of the Universe, said in his Theory of Relativity that there are more than three dimensions. Human beings can only visualize in three dimensions. We can only see three dimensions so we have assumed that that is all there is."
Einstein's pioneering work paved the way for the revolutionary, mind expanding concepts of quantum physics.
"One of the fascinating things about the Age of Healing and Joy that has dawned in human consciousness is that the tools and knowledge that we need to raise our consciousness, to awaken to consciousness, have been unfolding in all areas of human endeavor over time, and at an accelerated rate in the last fifty to one hundred years.
One of the most fascinating things to me, and a key in my personal healing process, is in the area of physics."
One of the most fascinating things to me, and a key in my personal healing process, is in the area of physics."
I was so desperate to find some meaning and purpose to life that I was willing to go wherever I was led in my quest to find a concept of a Higher Power that could possibly Love me. I was open to the messages that were coming my way - and willing to buy Illusions when I discovered it in a grocery store at only 3 months of sobriety. I was later willing to start reading and trying to understand quantum physics when I was led to books like The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukov.
And, let me tell you, I hated science in school. In college I took geology to fulfill my science requirement - even though it involved twice as many course hours - because I hated physics and chemistry and such. (I ended up really getting into geology by the way - fascinating stuff.) So, we are talking a major surrender here.
I don't remember now how I was led to studying quantum physics - or when exactly on my Spiritual growth path it happened - but it was a major influence for me in a multitude of ways. I will be sharing some of the ways this impacted my Spiritual beliefs in some future columns. The following quote from my book however, is kind of a bottom line as I see it.
"Quantum physics has now proven that everything we see is an illusion, that the physical world is an illusion.
Everything is made up of interacting energy. Energy interacts on a subatomic level to form energy fields which physicists call subatomic particles. These subatomic energy fields interact to form atomic energy fields, atoms, which interact to form molecules. Everything in the physical world is made up of interacting atomic and molecular energy fields.
There is no such thing as separation in the physical world.
Energy is interacting to form a gigantic, dynamic pattern of rhythmically repeating energy interactions. In other words, a dance of energy. We are all part of a gigantic dance of energy.
This Universe is one gigantic pattern of dancing energy patterns.
Separation is an illusion. There is energy traveling at thousands of miles per second in your body right at this moment. There is energy interacting between, passing between, you and the chair you are sitting on, you and the air around you, you and any other beings in the room.
We are not separate.
Physicists have scientifically proven that separation in the physical world is an illusion. . . . We are all part of one gigantic, dynamic dance of energy.
Oneness is the Truth, the scientifically proven Truth, on this physical plane. . . . . The mystical Truth that we are all ONE in God has been known through the ages."
Everything is made up of interacting energy. Energy interacts on a subatomic level to form energy fields which physicists call subatomic particles. These subatomic energy fields interact to form atomic energy fields, atoms, which interact to form molecules. Everything in the physical world is made up of interacting atomic and molecular energy fields.
There is no such thing as separation in the physical world.
Energy is interacting to form a gigantic, dynamic pattern of rhythmically repeating energy interactions. In other words, a dance of energy. We are all part of a gigantic dance of energy.
This Universe is one gigantic pattern of dancing energy patterns.
Separation is an illusion. There is energy traveling at thousands of miles per second in your body right at this moment. There is energy interacting between, passing between, you and the chair you are sitting on, you and the air around you, you and any other beings in the room.
We are not separate.
Physicists have scientifically proven that separation in the physical world is an illusion. . . . We are all part of one gigantic, dynamic dance of energy.
Oneness is the Truth, the scientifically proven Truth, on this physical plane. . . . . The mystical Truth that we are all ONE in God has been known through the ages."
We are all connected. We are all part of the ONENESS that is The Source. The Great Spirit is present in everyone and everything.
Feeling the Feelings - grief / emotional energy release
By Robert Burney M.A
By Robert Burney M.A
"Attempting to suppress emotions is dysfunctional; it does not work. Emotions are energy: E-motion = energy in motion. It is supposed to be in motion, it was meant to flow.
Emotions have a purpose, a very good reason to be - even those emotions that feel uncomfortable. Fear is a warning, anger is for protection, tears are for cleansing and releasing. These are not negative emotional responses! We were taught to react negatively to them. It is our reaction that is dysfunctional and negative, not the emotion."
"The way to stop reacting out of our inner children is to release the stored emotional energy from our childhoods by doing the grief work that will heal our wounds. The only effective, long term way to clear our emotional process - to clear the inner channel to Truth which exists in all of us - is to grieve the wounds which we suffered as children. The most important single tool, the tool which is vital to changing behavior patterns and attitudes in this healing transformation, is the grief process. The process of grieving.
We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional."
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Emotions are energy that is manifested in our bodies. They exist below the neck. They are not thoughts (although attitudes set up our emotional reactions.) In order to do the emotional healing it is vital to start paying attention to where energy is manifesting in our bodies. Where is there tension, tightness? Could that "indigestion" really be some feelings? Are those "butterflies" in my stomach telling me something emotionally?
When I am working with someone and they start having some feelings coming up, the first thing I have to tell them is to keep breathing. Most of us have learned a variety of ways to control our emotions and one of them is to stop breathing and close our throats. That is because grief in the form of sadness accumulates in our upper chest and breathing into it helps some of it to escape - so we learned to stop breathing at those moments when we start getting emotional, when our voice starts breaking.
Western civilization has for many years been way out of balance towards the left brain way of thinking - concrete, rational, what you see is all there is (this was in reaction to earlier times of being out of balance the other way, towards superstition and ignorance.) Because emotional energy can not be seen or measured or weighed ("The x-ray shows you've got 5 pounds of grief in there.") emotions were discounted and devalued. This has started to change somewhat in recent years but most of us grew up in a society that taught us that being too emotional was a bad thing that we should avoid. (Certain cultures / subcultures give more permission for emotions but those are usually out of balance to the other extreme of allowing the emotions to rule - the goal is balance: between mental and emotional, between intuitive and rational.)
Emotions are a vital part of our being for several reasons.
- Because it is energy and energy cannot just disappear. The emotional energy generated by the circumstances of our childhood and early life does not go away just because we were forced to deny it. It is still trapped in our body - in a pressurized, explosive state, as a result of being suppressed. If we don't learn how to release it in a healthy way it will explode outward or implode back in on us. Eventually it will transform into some other form - such as cancer.
- As long as we have pockets of pressurized emotional energy that we have to avoid dealing with - those emotional wounds will run our lives. We use food, cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, work, religion, exercise, meditation, television, etc., to help us keep suppressing that energy. To help us keep ourselves focused on something else, anything else, besides the emotional wounds that terrify us. The emotional wounds are what cause obsession and compulsion, are what the "critical parent" voice works so hard to keep us from dealing with.
- Our emotions tell us who we are - our Soul communicates with us through emotional energy vibrations. Truth is an emotional energy vibrational communication from our Soul on the Spiritual Plane to our being/spirit/soul on this physical plane - it is something that we feel in our heart/our gut, something that resonates within us.
Our problem has been that because of our unhealed childhood wounds it has been very difficult to tell the difference between an intuitive emotional Truth and the emotional truth that comes from our childhood wounds. When one of our buttons is pushed and we react out of the insecure, scared little kid inside of us (or the angry/rage filled kid, or the powerless/helpless kid, etc.) then we are reacting to what our emotional truth was when we were 5 or 9 or 14 - not to what is happening now. Since we have been doing that all of our lives, we learned not to trust our emotional reactions (and got the message not to trust them in a variety of ways when we were kids.) - We are attracted to people that feel familiar on an energetic level - which means (until we start clearing our emotional process) people that emotionally / vibrationally feel like our parents did when we were very little kids. At a certain point in my process I realized that if I met a woman who felt like my soul mate, that the chances were pretty huge that she was one more unavailable woman that fit my pattern of being attracted to someone who would reinforce the message that I wasn't good enough, that I was unlovable. Until we start releasing the hurt, sadness, rage, shame, terror - the emotional grief energy - from our childhoods we will keep having dysfunctional relationships.
I don't remember anything that he said to me that day - what I do remember is that as I sat in his house watching him pack I had a feeling, and a visual image, that I had just opened Pandora's Box - the monsters were loose now and I would never be able shut that box again.
Doing the grief work is absolutely terrifying. The word I came up with to describe how I felt was terrif***ingfying. It felt like if I ever really owned the pain, 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. That is not what happened. The Spirit guided me through the process and gave me the resources I needed to release great quantities of that pent up, pressurized emotional energy. To release enough to start learning who I really am, to start seeing my path more clearly, and to start forgiving myself and learning about love.
I still need to do the grieving/energy release work from time to time. There is still a hole in my soul - a seemingly bottomless abyss of wish-to-die-pain, shame, and unbearable suffering. But it is a much smaller hole and I don't have to visit it very often.
The wounds don't go away. They have less power to dictate my life as I heal. I needed to own that wounded part of me in order to start getting to know, and have compassion for, me. I also needed to learn to have a balance because we can't live in those feelings. We need to own them and honor them in order to own and honor ourselves - but then we need to learn to have internal boundaries that will allow us to find some balance in our life, allow us to to trust the process and our Higher Power.
We are on a Spiritual journey - and the Force is with us. It will help and guide us as we face the terror of owning how painful our human experience has been. The more we are able to feel and release the feelings / emotional energy, the more clearly we can tune into the emotional energy that is Truth - and Love, Light, Joy, Beauty - coming from The Source Energy.
Inner Child Healing - How to begin
"Recovery involves bringing to consciousness those beliefs and attitudes in our subconscious that are causing our dysfunctional reactions so that we can reprogram our ego defenses to allow us to live a healthy, fulfilling life instead of just surviving. So that we can own our power to make choices for ourselves about our beliefs and values instead of unconsciously reacting to the old tapes. Recovery is consciousness raising. It is en-light-en-ment - bringing the dysfunctional attitudes and beliefs out of the darkness of our subconscious into the Light of consciousness.
On an emotional level the dance of Recovery is owning and honoring the emotional wounds so that we can release the grief energy - the pain, rage, terror, and shame that is driving us.
That shame is toxic and is not ours - it never was! We did nothing to be ashamed of - we were just little kids. Just as our parents were little kids when they were wounded and shamed, and their parents before them, etc., etc. This is shame about being human that has been passed down from generation to generation.
There is no blame here, there are no bad guys, only wounded souls and broken hearts and scrambled minds."
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Inner child work is in one way detective work. We have a mystery to solve. Why have I have I been attracted to the the type of people that I have been in relationship with in my life? Why do I react in certain ways in certain situations? Where did my behavior patterns come from? Why do I sometimes feel so: helpless; lonely; desperate; scared; angry; suicidal; etc.
Just starting to ask these types of questions, is the first step in the healing process. It is healthy to start wondering about the cause and effect dynamics in our life.
In our codependence, we reacted to life out of a black and white, right and wrong, belief paradigm that taught us that is was shameful and bad to be wrong, to make mistakes, to be imperfect - to be human. We formed our core relationship with our self and with life in early childhood based on the messages we got, the emotional trauma we suffered, and the role modeling of the adults around us. As we grew up, we built our relationship with self, other people, and life on the foundation we formed in early childhood.
When we were 5, we were already reacting to life out of the emotional trauma of earlier ages. We adapted defenses to try to protect ourselves and to get our survival needs met. The defenses adapted at 5 due to the trauma suffered at earlier ages led to further trauma when we were 7 that then caused us to adjust our defenses, that led to wounding at 9, etc., etc., etc.
Toxic shame is the belief that there is something inherently wrong with who we are, with our being. Guilt is "I made a mistake, I did something wrong." Toxic shame is: "I am a mistake. There is something wrong with me."
It is very important to start awakening to the Truth that there is nothing inherently wrong with our being - it is our relationship with our self and with life that is dysfunctional. And that relationship was formed in early childhood.
The way that one begins inner child healing is simply to become aware.
- To become aware that the governing principle in life is cause and effect.
- To become aware that our relationship with our self is dysfunctional.
- To become aware that we have the power to change our relationship with our self.
- To become aware that we were programmed with false beliefs about the purpose and nature of life in early childhood - and that we can change that programming.
- To become aware that we have emotional wounds from childhood that it is possible to get in touch with and heal enough to stop them from dictating how we are living our life today.
We need to become aware, to raise our consciousness. To create a new level of consciousness for ourselves that allows us to observe ourselves.
It is vitally important to start observing ourselves - our reactions, our feelings, our thoughts - from a detached witness place that is not shaming.
We all have an inner critic, a critical parent voice, that beats us up with shame, judgment, and fear. The critical parent voice developed to try to control our emotions and our behaviors because we got the message there was something wrong with us and that our survival would be threatened if we did, said, or felt the "wrong" things.
It is vital to start learning how to not give power to that critical shaming voice. We need to start observing ourselves with compassion. This is almost impossible at the beginning of the inner child healing process - having compassion for our self, being Loving to our self, is the hardest thing for us to do.
So, we need to start observing ourselves from at least a more neutral perspective. Become a scientific observer, a detective - the Sherlock Holmes of your own inner process as it were.
We need to start being that detective, observing ourselves and asking ourselves where that reaction / thought / feeling is coming from. Why am I feeling this way? What does this remind me of from my past? How old do I feel right now? How old did I act when that happened?
One of the amazing things about this process, is that as one starts to become more aware of our own reactions, we also start to become more aware of others. We start seeing when the people in our lives are reacting like a little kid, or adolescent, or teenager, or whatever. The more we become aware of their reactions, the easier it becomes to stop taking their behavior personally - which then makes it easier to detach from our own reactions and observe ourselves.
It is an amazing, miraculous process, that can help us to change our relationship with our self, with other people, and with life. Becoming more aware, becoming conscious of a new way of looking at ourselves and life is the beginning of a process of learning to forgive and Love our self.
A detective always looks at cause and effect. By becoming a detective, solving the mystery of why we have lived our lives as we have, we can start to free ourselves from our past. By doing the inner child healing, we can start to learn how to really be alive instead of just surviving and enduring.
Further Journeys to the Emotional Frontier Within - Emotional Defense
By Robert Burney M.A.
"The way to stop reacting out of our inner children is to release the stored emotional energy from our childhoods by doing the grief work that will heal our wounds. The only effective, long term way to clear our emotional process - to clear the inner channel to Truth which exists in all of us - is to grieve the wounds which we suffered as children. The most important single tool, the tool which is vital to changing behavior patterns and attitudes in this healing transformation, is the grief process. The process of grieving.
We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional."
Quote from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Last month I mentioned two of the ways that many of us learned to distance ourselves from our feelings - 'talking in the third person' and 'avoiding owning our feelings verbally,' - a third very prevalent technique is story telling.
This is a very common method of avoiding our feelings. Some people tell entertaining stories to avoid feelings. They may respond to a feeling statement by saying something like 'I remember back in `85 when I. . .' Their stories might be very entertaining but they have no emotional content.
Some people tell stories about other people. This is the stereotypical Codependent of the joke about when a Codependent dies someone else's life passes before their eyes. They will respond to an emotional moment by telling an emotional story about some friend, acquaintance, or even a person they read about. They may exhibit some emotion in telling the story but it is emotion for the other person, not for self. They keep a distance from their emotions by attributing the emotional content to others. If this type of stereotypical Codependent is in a relationship everything they say will be about the other person. Direct questions about self will be answered with stories about the significant other. This is a completely unconscious result of the reality that they have no relationship with, or identity as, self as an individual.
Perhaps the most common story telling diversion is to get very involved in the details of the story 'she said. . . . . then I said. . . . then she did. . . . .' The details are ultimately insignificant in relationship to the emotions involved but because we do not know how to handle the emotions we get caught up in the details. Often we are relating the details in order to show the listener how we were wronged in the interaction. Often we focus on how others are wrong in reaction to the situation as a way of avoiding our feelings.
Here are two very typical examples of this type of emotional distancing I witnessed recently. A person in obvious pain spoke for twenty minutes about a loved one who was dying. For 19 and 1/2 minutes of that twenty the person talked of what the doctor and nurses were doing wrong, of the details of incidents which happened. For a few brief seconds the person touched on their own feelings and then very quickly jumped back to the details of what was happening. The other example is the woman who is terrified of having a stroke and being partially paralyzed for several years like her mother was. Recently her older sister had a stroke. This woman, in talking about what is happening, cannot talk about her fear or pain, instead she talks about how her sister's children are behaving incorrectly.
I am very sad to see people in this kind of emotional pain. I am sad that they do not know how to be emotionally honest about what they are feeling. This is very typical and common in this emotionally dishonest society. We have been trained to be emotionally dishonest and need to go through a learning process in order to retrain ourselves to allow ourselves to own the feelings.
An integral part of that learning process is grieving the wounds from our childhood and earlier life. By not grieving earlier losses there may be so much suppressed energy that any current loss threatens to burst the whole dam of emotions. This literally feels life-threatening.
When I started to do my own emotional healing it felt like if I ever really started crying that I wouldn't be able to stop - that I would end up crying in a padded room someplace. It felt as if I ever really let myself feel the rage that I would just go up and down the street shooting people. It was terrifying.
When I first became willing to start dealing with the emotions it felt as if I had opened Pandora's Box and that it would destroy me. But I was led by my Spiritual guidance to safe places to start learning how to do the grieving and safe people to do it with.
Doing that grieving is overwhelming terrifying and painful. It is also the gateway to Spiritual Awakening. It leads to empowerment, freedom, and inner peace. Releasing that grief energy allows us to start being able to be emotionally honest in the moment in an age-appropriate way. It is, in my understanding, the path that the Old Souls who are doing their healing in this Age of Healing and Joy need to travel to get clearer about their path and accomplish their mission in this lifetime.
