Soulshine

"I am adorable!" Enough said.

Dear God, often I feel like a bad puppy—only worse. My puppy can be bad, but underneath its behavior, it is still lovable and adorable to me. I never feel lovable or adorable—just bad. As a result, I’ve developed patterns of addictive behavior. I think I’m a bad person, then I feel worthless and I don’t like feeling that way. So I buy sugary treats and gorge myself. Initially I feel better, but then I start feeling guilty for overeating. I think I’m a bad person again and the pattern of overeating repeats itself again… and again… and again. Sometimes my thoughts of being worthless lead me to feel deep shame. To release my shame, I’ve developed a habit of finding a target—often a loved one. I shoot angry words at that other person to belittle them. Immediately I feel better about myself, but after a while, I feel like a bad person again. Instead of owning and taking responsibility for my ugly behavior by apologizing, I reach for more sugar. Please help me, God, to admit I am powerl...

"I ams whats I ams, and dats all dats I ams" Popeye, the Sailor Man We could probably take a good lesson from Popeye and his famous line above. The cartoon character of Popeye wasn’t pretty, overly intelligent, terribly charming or overly ambitious. He was who he was and that’s all he was. He wasn’t bothered by his limitations or by simply being Popeye. He found comfort in accepting himself and made no excuses to anyone. If that wasn’t good enough for Olive Oyl, Wimpy or Pluto—well, too bad. It takes great self-awareness, self-love and self-esteem to be comfortable being ourselves. To be self-aware, we have to monitor our thoughts, especially the negative ones. We have to know when we’re repeating self-negating mantras, like “I’m worthless,” or “I’m a failure” or “I’m nothing but a nuisance.” Replacing these ugly, untrue thoughts is essential—and doable. To develop and maintain self-love, we have to replace our negative mantras with positive ones, like “I’m one of a kind...

“From now on I’m just gonna be myself, because when I’m myself I’m more like me than anybody else.” Gracie Allen, College Swing Gracie Allen always played the role of the “dumb” one in comedy routines with her husband George Burns. But sometimes the dumbest characters in a film are given the wisest lines in the entire screenplay. Gracie’s line toward the end of 1938’s College Swing is a case in point. As the character Gracie Alden, she is the great-great granddaughter of the founder of Alden College and she is shouldering the burden of returning ownership of the college to her family. All she has to do is pass a proficiency exam and the college belongs to her. Unfortunately, she’s already failed the exam nine years in a row and this is her last chance. Gracie is then manipulated by Bob Hope, Martha Raye and a host of other characters who want a piece of the property. She manages to pass the exam with the shady help of Bob Hope, but then finds herself opposed by the school’s curr...

“It is what you believe about yourself (I AM)  that is demonstrated through your actions.” Howard Falco, I AM  What we believe about ourselves and what we project to the world are often at opposites with each other. This is probably why we are seldom comfortable inside ourselves. If we are living with the belief that “I am unlovable,” we will find ourselves in conflict with the basic human need to be loved. Our stomachs will churn and we will live in a heightened state of anxiety. Worse yet, we will be forced to present a false image of lovability to others. This will then cause us to feel like phonies. Our anxiety will escalate twofold: 1) because we feel fake and 2) because we will be fearful of being found out. Oddly enough, our only relief will come in proving our original belief—“I am unlovable”—by being found out. Actually, we are never really “found out” because we work hard at giving ourselves away. We make our great secret well enough known to the world around us t...

Dear Lord, you know my heart is often heavy with shame. It was passed to me through the umbilical cord and through the belt-strap. Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter. As a child I frequently sensed the deep shame my parents tried to conceal behind frozen smiles and stoic expressions. I observed them running from their painful feelings and I learned to deny and run from our own dark feelings. “Don’t talk. Don’t feel” ruled our household, and kept our family members isolated from each other. Anger and fear intensified the isolation. My heart cried-out for love. All I wanted was to be loved and accepted. But it was a cry that fell on hearts that were too wounded to understand and to respond appropriately. As I grew older and ever-more desperate to be loved, I learned to run after it-- and away from it. I've been running all of my life: Running after love while running away from my supposedly “unlovable” self-- and from those who could love me if only I believed I was...

We humans have a bad tendency to take things others say and do personally, or rather, the wrong way. There’s an Alka-Seltzer commercial currently in rotation on TV that wonderfully illustrates this tendency of ours: Picture a mother standing over the kitchen sink and a father reading the newspaper at the kitchen table. Their teenage daughter comes running in all excited. We are then alerted to what the daughter actually says: “I just got accepted into one of the best colleges in the nation!” Mom jumps up and down with daughter-- all excited-- while Dad’s face drops. We’re then alerted to what Dad actually heard his daughter say: “I got accepted into one of the most expensive colleges in the nation!” The problem presented here is all about interpretation. Daughter said one thing and Dad heard something different. His brain put a spin on what his daughter actually said and so Dad heard what he wanted to hear, not what was actually said. As a result of Dad’s interpretive hearing, he ne...

"You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed. All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I must cry out, violence and outrage is my message; The word of the LORD has brought me derision and reproach all the day. I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it. Yes, I hear the whisperings of many: "Terror on every side!" Jeremiah 20:7-10 Some days-- more so than others-- we experience hearts that feel heavy, burdened and stony. We realize that every hurt, every betrayal, every disappointment has anchored a new stone into the flesh of our hearts. There are now many cracks and very few soft places. Our hearts, which were made by God to love, be compassionate and dance with joy, have instead turned to stone. It’s as if we carry a boulder in ...

I accept myself as I AM I am a unique reflection of the image of God I am a perfectly imperfect likeness of God I am intelligent I am delightful I am creative I am attractive I am lovable exactly as I am I love myself as I am: wonderfully made and I allow my Soul to Shine as I am.

A charming person can be wonderfully attractive while being equally as toxic; and individuals who suffer from codependency or low self-esteem are often attracted to charming people who ooze compliments and concern for them. Persons with low self-worth are sometimes desperate to have attention and validation from anyone who will look their way. They are very emotionally vulnerable. Unfortunately, they are also extremely susceptible to being abused by a charming man or woman who has learned to use their charm to get what they want at all costs. People with charming personalities are born that way. It’s a natural gift from God. But there are two types of charmers in this world: 1) healthy charmers, those who understand their gift and use it for positive reasons; and 2) unhealthy charmers, those who understand their gift and use it for manipulative, selfish reasons. A healthy charmer will understand when they have met an emotionally needy person and will treat them with compassion...

“To love one’s self is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Lord Goring, An Ideal Husband Love of self is essential to everyone’s well being. Yet few of us are taught, as children, to love who we are, and so we find it difficult to build good relationships with ourselves. Ideally, from the time we are small, we ought to be focused on knowing and growing into who we uniquely are and understanding how we uniquely fit into this world. Our first concern ought to be on befriending and having a good relationship with us—on building a lifelong romance with ourselves. Children need to know that it’s OK to spend time alone exploring who they are and being comfortable with who they are before they explore their relationship to the rest of the world. This is important because we can’t build a good relationship with others or the world around us if we haven’t first built a good relationship with ourselves. If I don’t like me, how am I going to build good relationships with others? How am I goi...

"I forgive you for not being the way I wanted you to be. I forgive you and I set you free." Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life There are many people in our lives that we need to forgive. The first one is us. No one has done a poorer job of loving and accepting us as we are than we have. As a result, we have cruelly criticized and victimized ourselves. We have spent a lifetime being ashamed of and angry with the person that we are-- simply because we could not be the person we wanted ourselves to be. It's time to wake up to reality. The person we wanted us to be is fantasy. The person that we are is reality. Fantasy is about perfection. Reality is about imperfection. Reality is about an imperfect world populated by imperfect people. We are one of those imperfect people and it's time we accepted it. As soon as we can accept our limitations and imperfections, we can begin to accept the person that we really are. The person who is beautiful despite his or her flaws; the...

"Lord, help me to always be the flame, not the moth. In the past when things were not the way I wanted, I moped. Like a moth I moped over not being good enough to be loved by others. And so I would not love myself. I moped over my lack of real friendships and I moped over always losing the love of my life to someone else; someone who was lovable in ways I was not. I moped over never having the best jobs, never being able to do my work perfectly; over never having the best cars, the best clothes, the best body or the best parents. I moped over everything like a moth that’s been continually burned by the beauty of a flame that’s unattainable. Now, I have little to show for my moping. Moping, like a sour frown, wins no friends, no lovers, no career opportunities, no luxuries, no life. And so today, Lord, I am so grateful to no longer be moping! Through Your graces, I am filled with passion for life. I am like a burning flame and the world is my desert to rage across; and to attra...

Dear Lord, it seems I’m always one thought away from being a codependent maniac! Negative thinking has ruled by mind and my behavior for so long that it’s effortless. I have been the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Funny thing is, at the same time, I have been desperately searching for the person who could be the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve searched everywhere for that special person who could love me unconditionally, fix all that’s wrong with me, and set me free from all of my misery. Yet I’ve failed to find that person, even though we cross paths everyday. Until this very moment, I never realized, Lord, that the person I’ve been searching for is me. I have to be the best thing that has ever happened to me. No one else can be. Once I become the best thing that’s ever happened to me, my happiness will be complete. Then and only then will I happen upon a special person who can compliment my happiness, but who can never be my happiness. Help me Lord to...

"But you shall be called My Delight; for the LORD delights in you... and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you." Isaiah 62:1-5 “I am God’s daily delight and God is my daily delight!” What could be better? Scream it from the rooftops! We can’t remain silent when our vindication shines forth as brightness before all the earth! And we are vindicated by God’s great love. Thus, we are victorious over the bad behavior of parents, teachers and siblings; over all of the hurtful words and actions we experienced as children, young adults and even as adults. We are also vindicated from all those to whom we have given power over us in the past; all of those that we laid down before like doormats. We are vindicated from the Lie that we are not good enough, and we are vindicated by God’s forgiveness of our own self-demeaning behavior. Our new-found self-love is a saving grace from God, and it is like a burning torch; a flame that spreads it’s ligh...

“As I let go of the ideas I had about who I should be, I let go of my resistance to who I currently was—and suddenly I was free.” Howard Falco, I AM The word “should” is constantly in conflict with reality. “Reality” is the way things are. “Should” is the way we believe things ought to be or the way we want things to be. When we look at reality and find it’s in conflict with what we believe or want, denial kicks in and we begin to rationalize about how reality “should” be. This is a path we consistently follow by denying reality with our “shoulds.” It’s a path to nowhere but the land of misery. Many of us have learned the hard way that we can’t fight reality and win, or be happy, unless that reality is something we actually have power over. The Serenity Prayer helps us to discern what we can change and what we are powerless to change about reality. It also teaches us that we must stop fighting, or “shoulding,” the reality we cannot change. We must eventually accept it in order to be...

Commitment to the new awareness we have gained through recovery is essential. So we must be steadfast in our commitment to recovery if we are to fully experience healing and continued newness of life. This is why it is so important to be an active part of a recovery community, or support group, like Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, Codependents Anonymous or Adult Children of Alcoholics. In addition to our need to be steadfast in our dedication to recovery-- despite our pain or our discomfort with change-- we need to be patient. Recovery is a lifetime process. It doesn’t happen over night and we are never ZAPPED and miraculously cured by our Higher Power. Recovery is about hard work. It's also about progress-- gradual, positive progress toward healthy thinking, feeling, being, and fulfilling relationships. This concept is foreign to most addictive personalities. We are so used to living by the motto "I want what I want and I want it NOW!" Waiting seems unthinkable, and so...

   One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house, and took his place at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.       Now when the Pharisee saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." And Jesus said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." And he answered, "What is it, Teacher?" "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon answered, "The one to whom he forgave more." And he said to him, "You have...

“Blocking or avoiding the truth is used anytime we don’t want to shatter a belief we are holding that we feel protects us from pain.” Howard Falco, I AM Denial is a protection mechanism. It helps us to avoid the truth we don’t want to face about life, ourselves or others. Subconsciously we know that facing the truth would force us to challenge our belief system. And we’d have to think beyond the steel walls we’ve erected to keep our little world safe. In this light, denial seems like a good idea—a sure fire way of avoiding emotional pain. But it rarely works to our advantage. Denial is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. The problem is our belief system. All of us have certain beliefs that we cling to tightly because these beliefs provide stability in our lives. Even the belief that stability is good provides a problem for us because life is constantly changing. The more we try to keep it the same, the more we bump our heads against reality and the more internal pain we cre...

"If you remain in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Jesus Christ, Gospel of John God is Truth and the Truth will set you free. Facing the truth of who we are opens the door to our own personal freedom. Accepting exactly who we are, by surrendering to the grace of God, sets us free. No one outside ourselves keeps us prisoners of the Lie; no one binds us to the misery of being divided against ourselves; and no one withholds our freedom to authentically be who we are. No one... but us. We have lived as prisoners of the Lie-- “You aren’t good enough”-- because we have believed it to be truth. We have lived in the shadows of the Lie, swimming in a dark sea of denial about our True selves. But today, we have a choice. The choice is ours. We can choose to step out of the shadows of the Lie and into the brightness of the Light. To do so is a step toward Truth; toward acknowledging that we are good enough just as God fashioned us. And this truth wi...

There is only one reality and yet it is as different as each and every one of us. It’s all a matter of how connected we are to the One Source and to each other. Do we see each other as kindred or as strangers? As friend or as foe? Are we motivated by love or fear?  I received this insight on the eve of October in 1997 and journal-d about it: “This morning I walked up to the University of Chicago bookstore. It was cloudy and cool as I strolled along University Avenue , splashing my feet through puddles from last night’s rain. The houses and trees sat sleepily, looking lonely as Autumn unfolds. Tired from the hot summer, they held little notice of me or the man approaching on the narrow sidewalk. A few brown leaves fell across the pavement before the approaching man and I brushed shoulders: cold shoulder to cold shoulder. Our eyes, on approach, searched nervously for comfort anywhere, everywhere but from the light within each other. After he passed me, I felt relieved yet sad. Wh...

"When you resist the truth that the event has offered you, you are extending the experience of it. Your continued resistance of it keeps it alive as a part of your existence." Howard Falco, I AM Facing the issues of our past is an essential step in recovery. It's how we reclaim our personal power. Once we face the past, we no longer fear it. And once we take the time to forgive those who have hurt us, they no longer have any power over our feelings or lives. Facing, accepting and feeling the hurt of past experiences are essential steps toward releasing our pain and resentments. Grieving is the process of healing. Once we have fully grieved our loses, we are able to forgive and forgiveness sets us free from the past.  Yet many of us resist grieving and forgiving. And as Howard Falco says, we extend the negative experience of what has happened by making it part of our very existence. It lives alive inside of us until we choose to drop our resistance. In essence, the pain...

"About myself I will not boast, except about my weaknesses. A thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong."   2 Corinthians, Chapter 12      Power is brought to perfection through weakness. Through the first three of the 12 Steps, in particular, we learn to accept our weakness and to surrender it to a Higher Power. In this way, by letting go of our willpower, we grow from being powerless over addictive behaviors to being strong enough to say “No more!” Like St. Paul, when we are weak we are bette...

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses." Gospel of Mark,  Chapter 11 We become what we believe. As children, many of us were told that we were “stupid,” “ugly,” “lazy” or worse. We heard phrases like “You never do anything right. You're a born loser” or “You're going to be fat just like your father's sisters" or "You're worthless. I don't know why I waste my time with you.” In these and other ways we were told by parents, teachers or other adults that we weren’t good enough. None of these lies were true, but they became our reality simply because we believed them to be true. Sadly, we believed their lies about us and we gradually became what we believed. There's probably nothing more devastating to children than learning t...

God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference; living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it be; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next life. Amen.                                               The Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Niebuhr Lasting happiness comes from within. It starts with intangibles like self-love, acceptance, forgiveness and gratitude. Nourished by these qualities, happiness gradually grows like a baby in the womb. ...