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Robert Burney MA

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Codependency Recovery / Inner Child Healing Expert

Robert Burney Quick Facts

Main Areas: Codependency recovery, inner child healing, spiritual integration & emotional balance, relationship dynamics, grief process
Best Sellers: Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls, A Cosmic Perspective on Codependence and the Human Condition
Career Focus: Author, Teacher, Speaker
Affiliation: Joy to You & Me Enterprises

Robert Burney M.A. is an author, counselor, Spiritual Teacher, and a pioneer in the field of inner child healing / codependency recovery. His book Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls has been called "one of the truly transformational works of our time" - and he has been referred to as "a metaphysical Stephen Hawking." A counselor / coach and Spiritual Teacher whose work has been compared to John Bradshaw's "except much more spiritual" and described as "taking inner child healing to a new level," Robert has developed a holistic strategy for emotional healing that is the next level of recovery that so many people have been seeking.

Robert’s work is firmly grounded on twelve step recovery principles and emotional energy release / grief process therapy. He specializes in teaching individuals how to become empowered to have internal boundaries so they can learn to relax and enjoy life in the moment while healing. It is the unique approach and application of the concept of internal boundaries, coupled with a Loving Spiritual belief system, that makes the work so innovative and effective.

His belief is that we are Spiritual Beings having a human experience and that the key to healing (and integrating Spiritual Truth into our emotional experience of life) is fully awakening to our Spiritual connection through intellectual reprogramming, emotional honesty, grief processing, and inner child work. It is not necessary to agree with his Spiritual beliefs to apply the inner healing approach he pioneered to help people transform their experience of life into an easier, more Loving and enjoyable journey. He consider Spirituality to be a word that describes one's relationship with life - and anyone, regardless of religious belief or lack of it (who is not completely closed minded), can benefit from doing this work.

The Author's Foreword to his first book that gives a short version how his recovery led him to writing Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls.

“When I first came into contact with the word "Codependent" over a decade ago, I did not think that the word had anything to do with me personally. At that time I heard the word used only in reference to someone who was involved with an Alcoholic - and since I was a Recovering Alcoholic, I obviously could not be Codependent.

I paid only slightly more attention to the Adult Children of Alcoholics Syndrome, not because it applied to me personally - I was not from an Alcoholic family - but because many people whom I knew obviously fit the symptoms of that syndrome. It never occurred to me to wonder if the Adult Child Syndrome and Codependence were related.

As my Recovery from Alcoholism progressed, however, I began to realize that just being clean and sober was not enough. I started to look for some other answers. By that time the conception of the Adult Child Syndrome had expanded beyond just pertaining to Alcoholic families. I started to realize that, although my family of origin had not been Alcoholic, it had indeed been dysfunctional.

I had gone to work in the Alcoholism Recovery field by this time and was confronted daily with the symptoms of Codependence and Adult Child Syndrome. I recognized that the definition of Codependence was also expanding. As I continued my personal Recovery, and continued to be involved in helping others with their Recovery, I was constantly looking for new information. In reading the latest books and attending workshops, I could see a pattern emerging in the expansion of the terms "Codependent" and "Adult Child." I realized that these terms were describing the same phenomenon.

I was troubled, however, by the fact that every book I read, and every expert with whom I came into contact defined "Codependence" differently. I began to try to discover, for my own personal benefit, one all-encompassing definition.

This search led me to examine the phenomenon in an increasingly larger context. I began to look at the dysfunctional nature of society, and then expanded farther into looking at other societies. And finally to the human condition itself. The result of that examination is this book: Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls, A Cosmic Perspective on Codependence and the Human Condition.

This book is based upon a talk that I have been giving for the last few years. I have edited and reorganized, expanded, added, and clarified information in adapting the talk to book form, but there is still the flavor and style of a talk throughout much of this book. I have not attempted to change this for several reasons, the main reason being that it works in conveying the multi-leveled message that I wish to communicate.

One of the reasons for the human dilemma, for the confusion that humans have felt about the meaning and purpose of life, is that more than one level of reality comes into play in the experience of being human. Trying to apply the Truth of one level to the experience of another has caused humans to become very confused and twisted in our perspective of the human experience. It is kind of like the difference between playing the one-dimensional chess that we are familiar with, and the three-dimensional chess played by the characters of Star Trek - they are two completely different games.

That is the human dilemma - we have been playing the game with the wrong set of rules. With rules that do not work. With rules that are dysfunctional.

I was terrified beyond description the first time I gave this talk in June of 1991. It seemed as if emotional memories of what it felt like to be stoned to death by an angry mob were assaulting my being. I went ahead with it anyway, because it is what I needed to do for myself. I needed to stand up in public and own my Truth. I needed to own the Truth that I had come to believe in, the Truth that worked for me to allow me to find some happiness, peace, and Joy in my life. I found that other people found Joy and peace in my message also.

So now I share this message with you, the reader of this book, in the hopes that it will help you to remember the Truth of who you are, and why you are here. This information is not meant to be absolute or the final word - it is meant as an alternative perspective for you to consider. A Cosmic Perspective that just might help to make life an easier, more enjoyable experience for you.” - Author's Foreword from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls

Robert's principle website http://Joy2MeU.com/ provides over 200 pages of free original content on codependency recovery, inner child healing, relationship dynamics, alcoholism/addiction, fear of intimacy, Twelve Step Spirituality, New Age Metaphysics, emotional abuse, setting boundaries, grief process, and much more.

In July 2011, he published his second book. Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in The Light Book 1: Empowerment, Freedom, and Inner Peace through Inner Child Healing (aka A Formula for Spiritual Integration and Emotional Balance)

Other Programs & Highlights

All three of Roberts books are available in e-book format through Amazon Kindle & Barnes & Noble Nook

Robert offers telephone counseling which has proven an effective way of teaching the formula he pioneered for inner healing http://Joy2MeU.com/PhoneCounseling.htm

He also offers periodic day long workshops in San Diego to teach people how to apply my inner child healing formula. http://Joy2MeU.com/seminar.htm

Favorite Quotes & Thoughts from Robert Burney

Some quotes from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney

"This dance of Codependence is a dance of dysfunctional relationships - of relationships that do not work to meet our needs. That does not mean just romantic relationships, or family relationships, or even human relationships in general. The fact that dysfunction exists in our romantic, family, and human relationships is a symptom of the dysfunction that exists in our relationship with life - with being human. It is a symptom of the dysfunction which exists in our relationships with ourselves as human beings."

"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."

"In order to start be-ing in the moment in a healthy, age-appropriate way it is necessary to heal our "inner child." The inner child we need to heal is actually our "inner children" who have been running our lives because we have been unconsciously reacting to life out of the emotional wounds and attitudes, the old tapes, of our childhoods."

"Codependence deals with the core issues of the human dilemma. Codependence has grown out of the cause from which all symptoms arise. That cause is Spiritual dis-ease: not being at ease, at one with Spiritual Self."

"We are not sinful, shameful human creatures who have to somehow earn Spirituality. We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience."

"It is necessary to own and honor the child who we were in order to Love the person we are. And the only way to do that is to own that child's experiences, honor that child's feelings, and release the emotional grief energy that we are still carrying around."

"Codependence is an emotional and behavioral defense system which was adopted by our egos in order to meet our need to survive as a child. Because we had no tools for reprogramming our egos and healing our emotional wounds (culturally approved grieving, training and initiation rites, healthy role models, etc.), the effect is that as an adult we keep reacting to the programming of our childhood and do not get our needs met - our emotional, mental, Spiritual, or physical needs. Codependence allows us to survive physically but causes us to feel empty and dead inside. Codependence is a defense system that causes us to wound ourselves."

"Codependence is a very vicious and powerful form of Delayed Stress Syndrome. The trauma of feeling like we were not safe in our own homes makes it very difficult to feel like we are safe anywhere. Feeling like we were not lovable to our own parents makes it very difficult to believe that anyone can Love us."