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"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." - (Quotations in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Codependency Recovery / Inner Child Healing Pioneer Robert Burney)

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"Codependency is about having a dysfunctional relationship with self!  With our own bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits. With our own gender and sexuality. With being human. Because we have dysfunctional relationships internally, we have dysfunctional relationships externally.

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Codependency is an emotional and behavioral defense system which our egos adapted in early childhood to help us survive.  We were raised in shame based, emotionally dishonest, Spiritually hostile environments by parents who were wounded in their childhoods by patriarchal, shame based civilization that treated children and women as property.  We formed our core relationship with self in early childhood - and built our relationship with self, life, and other humans based on that foundation.  Programmed to feel shame about being imperfect humans, and trained to be emotionally dishonest, we were set up to live life reacting to the emotional trauma and dysfunctional intellectual programming of childhood.  Because we feel shame about being human, we have a relationship with life that does not work to bring us Joy or inner peace. 

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We do not have the power to change others - we do have the power to change our relationship with self by healing our codependency / wounded souls.  We can access the capacity to accept, embrace, forgive, have compassion for, and set boundaries with, all parts of self.  Learning to Love our self will allow us to gain the capacity to Love others in a healthy way.  Changing our relationship with life can transform life into an exciting adventure."  ~   Robert Burney

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"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."

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"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."