Soulshine

A major problem for most codependents is where they place their focus. Unfortunately, most of us were taught as children to place our focus outside of ourselves. And as a result, we developed a stifling emptiness inside of our souls. The day we began to look outside of ourselves for fulfillment was the day that a hole ate through our hearts. It was the day we chose to abandon ourselves. And so we began the quest of finding someone, anyone, to fill up the emptiness we anxiously felt. Day after day we took up the quest to find love and approval outside of ourselves. We looked to mom and dad, siblings, grandparents, friends and teachers to give us the validation that we no longer knew how to give to ourselves. Sometimes we received the approval we sought, but if never managed to fill-up the emptiness of the hole that was rapidly expanding inside of us. As we grew into being teenagers and young adults, we began to feel overwhelmed with the landfill that was expanding insi

Harriet Craig : “Please understand, Mr. Fenwick, Walter’s a fine man… but sometimes he just seems to lose all sense of responsibility.” Mr. Fenwick : “But I’ve always thought of him as being most reliable.” Harriet Craig : “So long as he’s in his present job, yes. And so long as I’m nearby to look after him.” Joan Crawford and Raymond Greenleaf , Harriet Craig (1950) Poor Harriet Craig! Her husband, Walter, has been offered a promotion. Normally that would be good news, but there’s a catch: The promotion will require Walter to work in Japan for three months—without Harriet. She’ll have to stay home and she will be unable to be the center of Walter’s universe. On hearing the “good” news, Harriet immediately feels threatened and her codependent thinking kicks into high gear. Just looking at her face, you can see every manipulative wheel within her brain spinning. She quickly hits panic mode: How will she be able to keep an eye on Walter 24/7 when he’s thousands of miles

A major character defect shared by most all codependents is manipulation. Engaging in manipulation is fueled by the need to control. A codependent person cannot trust life or others. Of course, life is a fact that we have limited control over. And, unfortunately for the fear-filled codependent, we all need others no matter how independent we pretend to be. This fact provides a serious dilemma for the codependent person. The all-too codependent need to manipulate others plays out magnificently in the 1950 film Harriet Craig . Harriet needs her husband Walter and her cousin Claire, and yet she mistakenly believes she can’t trust either of them. Harriet’s never sure if Walter might betray her at any moment and so she keeps a tight grip on him. She almost never lets him out of her sight, and she’s learned that she needs to keep his leash short. You see, Walter has friends—both men and women—that he ran around with before he met and married Harriet. Those friends are now a thr

Meet Harriet Craig. She is the title character from the 1950 movie of the same name. And Harriet Craig is a woman of steel. As such, she is very aptly played by Joan Crawford, who was almost always portrayed as a woman of steel. Despite being a mere 5 foot 2 inches tall, almost all of Crawford’s portrayals were of women who stood 10 feet tall, and who could stare a hole right through your soul, nearly killing you instantly. And Harriet Craig is no exception. Harriet Craig is not a very likeable person. When we first meet her it’s obvious that she is extremely unapproachable. She puts on a good appearance: She dresses immaculately in the latest fashions, her hair is perfectly sculpted around her head and she has great physical beauty. But as we approach Harriet and begin to see her up-close, we realize that she is made of steel and we immediately grow uncomfortable in her presence. Harriet has no warmth to her. In fact, she has daggers in her eyes. And she is so rigid that

“A life lived in fear is a life half lived.” Spanish Proverb Living a life based in fear is as normal as breathing air for many people. And this is probably twice as true for those of us who have addictive personalities. As children. we embraced one major fear—“I’m not good enough”— and then found ourselves buried under an avalanche of life-destroying anxiety and worry. It wasn’t long before “I’m not good enough” developed into a mile-long laundry list of all the many reasons why we weren’t acceptable people. All of these fears were then further complicated by another major fear: Fear of abandonment. Once we deemed ourselves as unacceptable, it didn’t take us long to realize that we now had deep-dark secrets we needed to hide from others. After all, if people we loved found out just how defective we were, they’d say a swift “Goodbye” and never look back as they quickly ran away from us—or so we imagined to our great detriment. So life became on long series of fear-d

Most addictive personalities have difficulty with trust. We grew-up in families where trust was discouraged, or simply not possible to maintain. As a result we now struggle with the very concept of being able to trust anyone or anything. In recovery the first person we need to learn to trust is ourselves. That’s a hefty assignment for most of us, but an extremely necessary one. We can start by beginning to believe in our own personal value. Everyone has value in this world. There are no exceptions to that one fact. Once we start seeing ourselves as lovable, valuable and unique individuals, we can choose to move forward by trusting ourselves to make life-giving decisions. We will see that we are equal with everyone in this world in that we all have a purpose for being here. We will see that we all share the same purpose of fully growing into being the persons we were created to be. And, as we begin to grow mentally, emotionally and spiritually through our recovery programs

Today I choose to let go of all of my fears and of all my need to control life I allow myself to flow with the Universe in my rightful place and I choose to flow with complete freedom with self-love and the joy of knowing that all is as it should be whenever I choose to keep myself from getting in the way of the natural flow of the Universe. Let’s flow together world toward our Divine purpose. Amen.