Soulshine

There’s a reason why the term “Angel Eyes” has been popular for many years. When you look into the eyes of another person, you see through to their soul, to the angel inside of them. As you peer into the eyes of another, you touch their divine humanness. And in doing so, you allow them to touch your own soul as you open up your inner-angel to them. It takes a great deal of honest, naked vulnerability to look someone deeply in their angel eyes. And it takes loads of courage to keep your eyes focused on theirs as they look you right back in your angel eyes. Sadly, many of us fail to have such courage or naked vulnerability. We’ve been taught to refrain from looking people in the eyes for fear that we will somehow make too much, or too deep of a connection. The supposed fear is that we will then owe the other something, but I think the real fear is that we will have to acknowledge their sacredness as a human being. It’s easier to treat a person like they are a disposable obje...

“I’m sick of people worryin’ about what I do.” Mae West, I’m No Angel It’s easy to say “Amen!” to this superb quote from Mae West. We all know what it feels like to have people watching, worrying and judging our every move. It gets tiresome when others are always overstepping their boundaries by focusing their attention on our lives and our behavior. And it doesn’t take long for us to build-up tremendous resentments over having people constantly taking our inventory. Now here’s the catch: Most of us spend just as much time focusing on other people’s lives and on taking their inventories as well. We are every bit as guilty—if not more so—of the same crime. Think about it. While we’re resenting the fact that a certain coworker keeps count of every second we’re away from our desk on a break, we are equally guilty of keeping a mental log of how often this same coworker is late for work in the morning. We do unto others what we despise having done to us, and yet we often are...

Many codependents believe their purpose in life is to live for others. Unfortunately. It’s easy for us to believe this since we really don’t want to live for ourselves. We’d rather escape from our own selves—and our own lives—by focusing on the lives of others. So, instead of being responsible for our own well-being and happiness, we make ourselves responsible for everyone else’s. In doing so, we self-promote ourselves into being the architects for the lives of our spouses, children, parents, friends or anyone who will volunteer themselves into our hands. We work extra hard to please these people and to ensure their every ounce of happiness. We wipe away tears, make excuses for their behavior, comfort away their fears, pay their bills, match-make their romances and remember their birthdays. Day and night we are mentally and emotionally “on-call” for fear that someone may need us at any moment; and for fear that they may turn to someone else, who could eventually end up taking our plac...

So many people fail to make the connection between addictive behavior and lack of self-love. Addictions are a symptom. They are not THE problem. Addictions are symptoms of a deeper problem. And that problem is "I don't love who I am." When we feel we are unworthy, less-than and unlovable, we open up the door for addictive behavior. We can only handle the bad feelings of self-loathing for so long before we need to have a release: Something, anything, to help us alter our bad feelings about ourselves. And addictions provide that much needed temporary relief; even though they do so at a deep personal cost. The deep personal cost is that addictions lead to further self-loathing. They add to the problem instead of solving it. No amount of alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, sex, etc., can help us to love the person that God created us to be. The more we drink, eat, shop or gamble, the more we think we are worthless failures. It becomes a nightmare cycle of self-loathing--- se...