Soulshine

“Shit happens.” Ancient Catholic Proverb A major part of addictive recovery is getting back in touch with feelings. Many of us learned to shut-down our emotions when we were small children. It was a protection mechanism that allowed us to survive life in chaotic households. But being emotionally numbed-out doesn’t serve us well as adults. In fact, it causes us to act-out. In order to suppress the feelings we don’t want to face we drink, over-eat, compulsively shop, or busy ourselves with work, exercise, TV, etc. It’s important to me to keep track of the feelings I am learning to own. And I had a vivid experience of how well I am progressing this week. My car was at the dealership for some bumper repairs. I went on Wednesday to pick it up. As one of the dealership employees was driving my car around to me, another employee in a parked SUV didn’t see him coming and backed right into the side of my car! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I stood there in shock-- and shock was...

Sometimes we fill-up our codependent emptiness by being obsessed with something other than a particular person. Looking back over my life it’s easy to see that I’ve consistently had something or someone to be obsessed over. In those times when my radar wasn’t glued to one particular person, I’d easily find other things to be wildly crazy about. For example, last year I was mesmerized by the new Great Gatsby movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. I saw the movie five times in the theater and I wanted every piece of Gatsby merchandise I could get my hands on: posters, soundtracks, press kits, photos, etc. That obsession lasted about a month before I started wondering why I was so hyped over Gatsby. Then, I was watching The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn and suddenly I was interested in everything about Errol Flynn. After a couple of weeks, I was over Errol Flynn in the same way I was over Gatsby. Next I rediscovered singer Donna Summer and I was on Ebay looking ...

Codependent crazy love is all about a constant rush of anxious needy feelings. This anxious rush compulsively pushes the codependent into accelerating everything about a romantic relationship. Patience and common-sense fly out the window of the codependent’s mind. It’s like the codependent has his/her inner-accelerator pushed to the floor with no intentions of ever hitting the brake pedal. Insanity informs the codependent that this new person is truly Mr. or Ms. Right, and so all caution and all boundaries are thrown to the wind. The codependent is ready to hop in bed and rush to the altar—without really knowing anything of significance about the object of his/her desire. The codependent may know little about Mr. or Ms. Heartthrob, aside from his or her name. The codependent may not know where this person is from, his/her family background, if they are currently or ever have been married, where they work (if they even have a job), what their spiritual beliefs are, or whet...