Spiritual Integration and The Co-dependent Recovery Process

"Recovery is not a dance of right and wrong, of black and white - it is a dance of integration and balance.   The questions in Recovery are:   Is it working for you?   Is the way you live your life working to meet your needs?   Is the way you are living your life bringing you some happiness?"

"My own personal Spiritual belief system is one form of spirituality.   It is certainly not the only one.   Mine works for me very well in helping me to have a relationship with life that allows me to be happier today.   It is not necessary for you to accept my belief system in order for you to use the tools, techniques, and perspectives that I have developed for emotional healing / codependence recovery / inner child integration."

"For the purposes of this discussion of spiritual integration, I would now define what I refer to as a Spiritual Awakening in the quote above, as:   being open to a larger perspective - awakening from being trapped in a limiting perspective.   In this regard, spiritual would be a qualifier, an adjective, that describes the quality of one's relationship with life."

"This adjective, spiritual, would be (in my definition) a word describing an expanded level of consciousness.   A level of consciousness, of awareness, that is expansive and inclusive and facilitates personal growth - as opposed to limited, exclusive, rigid, and inhibiting growth, development, and alternative view points."

"By this definition, any religion that claims to be the chosen one, that excludes alternative perspectives or certain people, is not spiritual."

"The objective, the function, of developing a spiritual relationship with life is to explore ways of living that work better than the ones which have resulted from the limiting belief systems that have so impacted the course of human history.   Unless your life is happy, fulfilling, and working just as you want it to, then it is important to look for alternate ways to do life.   A different set of rules to play by.   It is important to become aware that it is possible to stop being a victim of life not being what we want it to be, in order to start changing our relationship with life into one that works better for us each individually."

next: Feeling the Feelings