Soulshine

I first posted this three years ago at Christmas. I think it’s worth re-posting this year and maybe every year as a reminder that we need to work at owning our own power at Holiday gatherings. It’s the only way we can truly enjoy them. Merry Christmas! “Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer”… OK well maybe not. I mean, yeah, it’s Christmas, but the happiness and cheer is debatable. This time of the year most everyone wants to be happy, but let’s face it, family gatherings sometimes play out like real Nightmares before Christmas. Across America most every family has an Uncle Eeyore, who makes the Winnie the Pooh character seem like the Sugar Plum Fairy; an Aunt Grinchella, who’s conniving and controlling; and a brother Ebenezer, who is bitter and angry at the world. So much for happiness and cheer-- unless we adopt a new attitude toward family and the holiday. First, we have to choose to accept Eeyore, Grinchella and Ebenezer just the way they are by empathizing wi

“Too many times I let my feelings hide. I act like it's all alright. You don't know how I feel inside. I act like nothing's on my mind, I act like nothing's on my mind But there's something on my mind. It's easier to hide.” Maya Jane Coles, Easier to Hide I grew-up believing I didn’t have the right to have wants or needs, thoughts or feelings. As a child, I had received the message many times that my wants and needs, thoughts and feelings didn’t count. So I learned to hold them tightly inside of me, or to outright dismiss them as invalid. When I was small, it worked for me to deny expressing myself. I was simply labeled the “shy” child and people thought it was cute. But as I grew into a young adult, being the “shy” child became a problem for me. I found that when I wanted to express myself, I couldn’t. Either I didn’t really know what I wanted or needed, or thought or felt; or I didn’t have the self-esteem to open up and express my

Many of us grew-up having our needs denied, especially our emotional needs. We may have had warm houses to live in, food on our tables, proper clothing and toys to play with. But many of us didn’t have the kiss on the cheek, the heart-felt hug or a hand to hold ours when we were sad or hurting emotionally. As a result, we grew-up misunderstanding our emotional needs. Some of us learned to disassociate from these needs. We learned to feel so much shame about having needs or wants that we went into a complete denial about our even having such things at all. In doing so, we became extremely independent. We came to believe that we didn’t really have any emotional needs or physical wants. We became men and women of steel. To compensate for the needs we were ignoring, we subconsciously began to confuse our needs with our wants when it came to taking care of ourselves. Any time we experienced an emotional need, we learned to satisfy it by securing something we wanted. As a child

At a CODA meeting I remember someone saying that he grew up thinking he was worthless because his father had a habit of saying to him “Everything you touch turns into shit.” As a result of taking this phrase literally, this person grew-up unable to follow through on projects because he subconsciously believed they’d all “turn to shit.” For most of his life, he was never able to make the connection between the fact that things never seemed to work out right for him and his hidden belief that everything he touched turned to shit. Once he made the connection, it was eye-opening. He finally understood that his failures were self-sabotage based in the mistaken belief that everything he touched was destined to end in disaster. This was a great leap forward for him. He now could stop sabotaging his endeavors by changing his thinking. He could stop believing that everything he touched turned into shit and begin believing that everything he touched could turn into gold. But, h