Soulshine

“Feeling compassion for other people is not about becoming obligated to them or feeling responsible for their lives.” Howard Falco, I AM Codependents often confuse compassion with a strong sense of obligation. When we first enter recovery, we may believe we are responsible for the lives of everyone we have grown attached to, or taken hostage. We are so used to linking our compassion for others with a deep sense of being obligated to fix their lives. Their every feeling has become our feeling and their every disappointment, failure or hang-nail has become ours to own and heal. We have made ourselves responsible for making their world all sunny bright. As a result, separating feelings of obligation from feelings of compassion can be very difficult for many newly recovery codependents. Initially, compassion without obligation seems like a cop-out. We feel as though we are letting others down by relinquishing responsibility for their lives; when, in truth, we are showing true compassio...

Life isn’t about rewards. It’s about being who you are. But if you still want a really great reward in life, look at it this way: Be who you are and allow other people to be who they are. There’s no greater reward for we humans than being exactly who God made each of us to be. Stop existing in the hollow shell of who you “should” be. Many people are stuck there. They spend a lifetime hiding inside the false shell of you “should be” a good boy or good girl. This shell requires that you deny your dark side. Family, society and church created this shell (remove the “s” and notice that the word becomes “hell”). They decided who you “should” be. Then they told you how to act, what to wear, what to say, what to believe, who to trust, etc. And they often used fear, guilt and shame to coerce you into conformity with their will. As adults, we have to grow beyond this (s)hell. We have to take responsibility for our lives. We have to decide what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable—for us. ...

“People are people so why should it be that you and I get along so awfully?” Depeche Mode, People Are People People are people. Rules are rules. Love is love. Right is right. So why can’t we human beings get along in this world? I think it has a lot to do with rules getting in the way of love, and the fact that we often don’t do what’s truly loving, what’s truly right concerning some people, because we want the reward of approval from certain other people. If you look at Christian Scriptures you will see that Jesus Christ often did the “wrong” things for the right reasons. He picked grain on the Sabbath. He healed the sick on the Sabbath. And he socialized with the “dregs” of society. His behavior was seen as wrong in the eyes of pious people, and he was severely criticized. But he didn’t care. He wasn’t concerned about winning the approval of the self-righteous, or about achieving some great reward if he followed all of the “right” rules of his faith. He was concerned about doing th...

You can’t let someone down who has never been willing to pick him/her self up. Yet many people feel extremely guilty over their inability to rescue a friend or family member from addictive acting-out. Rescuing others is the stuff of Superman or Wonder Woman. It makes for exciting fiction, but it rarely applies to real life—unless you’re a fireman, police officer or medic. And even in these situations, we’re talking about the physical rescue of persons who can’t save themselves; not the emotional rescue of people who refuse to help themselves. No person can perform a true emotional rescue on people who refuse to help themselves. After all, how can you help someone who isn’t willing to admit they have a problem? How can you help someone who isn’t willing to own their problem and to take responsibility for their own life? You can’t. And if you try hard to rescue them, you will find yourself eventually enabling them to stay stuck in their addictive nightmare. People who insist on rescui...

“If you cannot accept what is outside, then accept what is inside. Do not resist the pain. Allow it to be there. Surrender to the grief, despair, fear, loneliness, or whatever form the suffering takes. Witness it without labeling it mentally. Embrace it. Then see how the miracle of surrender transmutes deep suffering into deep peace. This is your crucifixion. Let it become your resurrection and ascension.” Eckhart Tolle, Practicing the Power of Now Life pummels all of us with hardships we resist. Many of these hardships seem unbearable. Something terrible happens and we don’t want to even begin to go there, or to touch the reality of the horror it holds. Sometimes we go on emotional lockdown. We are determined not to stray past our carefully constructed force-field of denial. We just can’t accept what the “outside” is offering us. It isn’t easy to accept a diagnosis of melanoma. It isn’t easy to watch a son or daughter waste away under the grip of bourbon or cocaine. And it isn’t ...

"In my mind, I have shot you and stabbed you through your heart. I just didn't understand the ricochet is the second part. ‘Cause you can't hide what you intend. It glows in the dark. Once you've sought the path of revenge, there's no way to stop. And the more I try to hurt you, the more that it hurts me… And the more I try to hurt you, the more it backfires, the more it backfires, the more that it backfires."   Revenge by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse   At some time or another, we all experience a need for revenge. Someone we love betrays us, or someone we work with is purposely ugly toward us, and we are gripped by hurt, sadness and anger. If we allow the anger to escalate we may find ourselves dehumanizing our perpetrator by calling him/her a “bastard” or a “bitch.” Once we have dehumanized them, we have set a course toward revenge. Our hearts are now running on hatred and the need to get back at the person who has caused us agony. As we plot and then carr...

" You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing… You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well… I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing. "I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this." State Senator Roy McDonald, R-New York Many people want someone else to be responsible for their moral decisions. It keeps them from having to think for themselves and from being responsible for their own lives—or so they think. People with religious brain-freeze are often very fearful of life in general. And they tend to live their lives believing whatever religious leaders tell them to believe. They allow others to dictate “the law” of their religion to them and they never question it...

I don’t know many people who want to have enemies. Likewise, I don’t know many people who actually pray for their enemies. And so is it any wonder that these people still have enemies? No. As long as I continue to consider someone to be my enemy, they will be. I will see to it through my attitude toward them. And it makes no difference if they started the fight. I am choosing to perpetuate it. The solution is as simple as one small daily prayer: “Dear God, please soften the heart of (place name here) toward me, and please soften my heart toward him/her.” One prayer. Two miracles. As I say this prayer, my heart begins to soften toward my enemy. When I next encounter him/her, I greet him/her with a softer, more positive energy. My softer, more positive energy encourages the return to me of a softer, more positive energy from my “enemy.” I notice the change almost immediately. As the prayer and the positive energy continue over time, I find that I know longer have an enemy in this p...

Anytime we feel stuck and it seems as if life is standing still, it’s because we are fighting change—a change, or changes, that we are powerless to control. The character of Oliver Bradford in The Enchanted Cottage is a perfect example of someone who is frozen in time; and frozen in his pain. Oliver refuses to accept the physical changes his body has endured as a result of his injuries during combat. World War II is a fact. His participation in it as a fighter pilot is a fact. His being shot down by enemy forces is a fact. And his physical disfigurement as a result of the accident is also a fact. He can’t change any of these facts. They are permanently written into his history and yet he refuses to accept them. He wants to turn the clock back to a previous time before the war when things were as they “should” be. But he can’t. As a result, Oliver’s life indeed screeches to a halt. He is trapped in time between what is (reality) and what he desires (fantasy). Mentally and emotional...

“What’s there really to be sad about? The secret is that you love each other. You have a gift of sight not granted to other people. Cherish it. Keep the fire of your love burning and you’ll never be anything but fair and handsome to each other. That’s the charm, the only enchantment the cottage holds, and it’s of your own making.” Mrs. Minnett, The Enchanted Cottage The Enchanted Cottage (RKO, 1945) is one of my favorite movies. This film is filled with tremendous emotional power—on behalf of the actors and the audience. The primary characters are Oliver Bradford (Robert Young) and Laura Pennington (Dorothy McGuire). Both face tremendous personal struggles as the movie unfolds. Laura’s began as a child when it seems she was dubbed an ugly duckling. Believing herself to be ugly, Laura grew up to be the homely old maid of the small New England town where she was born. She looks, acts and projects homeliness to the world around her. For the most part, she keeps to herself, and when sh...

David and Trina are an imaginary brother and sister in the land of emotional dysfunction. David’s convinced Trina to jump off her merry-go-round for a few hours and have coffee with him at the Caribou near her house. Let’s listen in: David : “What are you feeding your soul?” Trina: “Chocolate chip cookies.” David: “That’s not feeding your soul.” Trina: “But it makes me feel better.” David: “No, it medicates your bad feelings away and that’s not feeding your soul.” Trina: “Yeah, whatever.” David: “Feeding your soul is taking time to nourish yourself spiritually, like going for a leisurely walk, spending quiet time with just yourself and your Higher Power, or taking a bubble bath. Soul food is also connecting with God in a spiritual, creative way, like writing poetry or sculpting.” Trina: “I don’t have time for that stuff. You know I’m working two jobs, taking care of three kids and going through a painful divorce. There’s too much to worry about…” David: “That’s why you need to stop, b...

“When the power of love is greater than the love of power, the world will know peace.” Anonymous Let’s take the above quote, which is sometimes attributed to Jimmy Hendrix, and look at it in this light: When the power of love (for myself and others) is greater than the love of power (to manipulate and control others), the world (I— and everyone around me) will know peace. Is this a winning statement for recovering codependents, or what? All honest, positive forms of power flow from the heart of Love. When we connect with Love (our Higher Power) we are transformed from within. We do what’s best for us and for others. We flow with life. And we have no further need to disrupt that flow because love overpowers our character defects. We are washed free of feelings of insecurity, jealousy, envy, worthlessness and arrogance by the power of love. Without these and other fearful feelings, we have no need or compulsion to manipulate and control people around us. We will never know peace wit...

“Can you imagine what it would be like if you arrived at a point where you overcame all of your fears?” Howard Falco, I AM What would you do today if you had no fears? Would you dance across the daybreak? Would you sing loudly in the shower? Would you shout from the rooftops “Here I am world! Love me or lose out!”? Would you simply let go and let your real self out of your self-imposed imprisonment? There are many freedoms we’d all discover and immediately treasure if we could just let go of our fears about us. Paramount among our numerous fears is probably this one: “What will others think of me?” Paramount among our new beliefs needs to be: “Who gives a rat’s ass what anyone else thinks of me!” We waste way too much energy and lose way too much of our natural lives being fearful of what other people think of us, and trying to remake ourselves over to be acceptable to people—many of whom we don’t even know. If we choose to go skipping down the sidewalk humming to ourselves and w...

One of my favorite quotes, which I’ve used before, is “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” Every time a crisis hits us, or we’re faced with a loss or new problem, or we’re simply experiencing resistance to change, we tend to think the world is over and we want to wallow in our cocoons. As we retreat deeper into the inner-darkness of our cocoons, we may fearfully, angrily scream at God “Oh, if only I could have one day, just one day, without a single problem or headache! Can’t you arrange for that God?” I remember frequently shouting that very statement at God almost daily. I just wanted one day with no inner-insecurities, no threatening people, no self-hatred, no problems. I wanted to be in my cocoon, away from the world and completely safe. I wanted sunshine, Captain Kangaroo and chocolate chip cookies. In effect, I wanted childhood warm-fuzzies, comfortable sameness, peace and understanding. I wanted to go back to being the caterpillar of m...

There are many lessons to be learned from the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ; lessons that we can apply to daily life. We experience little deaths when life doesn’t work out the way we wanted, or the way we planned. We all face serious illness, economic woes, love gone sour and many other small deaths throughout our lifetimes. The question is do we process them all carefully while we’re in our little tombs, allow ourselves to heal, to be resurrected by our Higher Power, and thus rise above these little deaths? Many of us don’t. We wallow in our emotional graves feeling sorry for ourselves and refusing to take back our personal power. In doing so, we prevent ourselves from being resurrected and ascending to new heights in our lives. We stay stuck. When bad things happen we need to accept and grieve them as they are, and give them to our Higher Power. Then we need to talk with someone we trust about what we have experienced. Once we begin grieving our little death, we...

“Just take my hand and stop the moonlight fading Just take my hand and lead me up the stairs Just take my hand and make me feel amazing 'Cos I don't feel amazing now” Fyfe Dangerfield, I Don’t Feel Amazing Now Once we start recovery, life can feel amazing at times. We begin to see ourselves, and thus the entire world, in a new positive light. We have a Higher Power on our side, we have new recovery friends and we have a new attitude toward ourselves. This makes for an amazing transformation. But it doesn’t mean that we are on the road to perpetual bliss. There will be days when we don’t feel amazing; when it feels as if we’ve returned to the black hole of dark existence. Our old feelings of worthlessness return and the many fears that we thought we had left behind return to torment our souls. We find ourselves wondering if all the effort to change has been worth it. And we are tempted to wave a white flag and declare ourselves hopeless; to simply give up. We may then be ...

“I look at you and I fantasize, you're mine tonight, now I've got you in my sights… With these hungry eyes, One look at you and I can't disguise, I've got hungry eyes.” Eric Carmen, Hungry Eyes   Hungry Eyes was a very popular song (peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100) from a very popular movie (Dirty Dancing) back in 1988. At the time it made me, and apparently a lot of Americans, think about just how hungry the eyes often are. Seems my eyes were always hungry for some eye-candy back then. And, yes, there was a lot of fantasizing—and a lot of emptiness. If the eyes are truly windows unto the soul, then hungry eyes are the symptom of a hungry, empty soul. I think I probably knew this subconsciously back in 1988, but I didn’t know what to do about it. All I knew was that I couldn’t possibly love me, and so I’d have to search elsewhere for soul-sustenance. How can we feed an empty soul when we refuse to give it love—the only food that can sustain it? Well, the onl...