The Dance of the Wounded Souls: A Cosmic Perspective of Codependence and the Human Condition

Robert Burney is a substance abuse recovery therapist (non-clinical)and this book is about changing the habits that lead to addiction. He offers practical advice on breaking these habits by facing the things that lead to them. Firstly, he states that you can’t find love without accepting that certain things make you angry. Secondly, you can’t find happiness without confronting the things that make you miserable. Third, repressed emotions drive us to rage.

Repressed emotions are written of at length in this book. They drive us to become workaholics, or become obsessed with our bodies, and no good ever comes of that. It’s something we’re taught through bad mentoring by poor role models. He compares to coming-of-age rituals in traditional society to the ones in the modern world as an example. Among aboriginal people, there are ceremonies to mark the beginning of menstruation, because that marks the girl as being biologically mature. In the USA, we have junior high school, where the kids learn bad habits and bad body image. The kids have nothing to do with themselves, so they end up getting in fights, shoplifting, and joining gangs.

Addiction isn’t something that you can just stop. You need to recognize that your lifestyle and living environment may be the underlying cause, and for that, you need to be willing to change them.