Soulshine

“Your destiny is not just to find love; it is to be the most loving person you can be.” Robert Holden, Loveability As an active codependent (for most of my life), I failed miserably at being the most loving person I can be. And even as a recovering codependent over the past 20 years, I have still failed at understanding and thus knowing how to be a truly loving person. To me love has always been about giving of myself to get something back from others. Love, as it was modeled for me as a child, was something you earned. It was the great pay-off; like receiving a paycheck for doing a good job at work. I watched my mother earn the love of everyone around her by looking after all of their needs and doing, doing, doing for everyone. She only stopped doing if she didn’t get her paycheck (the love from others she thought she had earned). If someone didn’t love her for all she was doing, then she’d withhold her love (doing) until they showed some sort of remorse and renewed apprec...

“Who am I to judge?” Pope Francis Codependents, like most all addicts, spend a great deal of time playing prosecutor, judge and jury. Most of our attention is focused on ourselves. This is actually one situation where we do focus our attention on us—unfortunately. When it comes to negative energy, we have an abundance of it for ourselves. We are critical, merciless and unforgiving with our every fault or failing. Of course, this pattern of negative behavior causes us eventually to be just as easily critical, merciless and unforgiving towards others. I’ve come to believe that the people in this world who are most critical of others must either be codependent/addictive thinkers, or those who are totally obsessed with following rules, or both. And I’d like to see this all change. We need to make this world a kinder place. That means that we need to focus on being kind to ourselves, first and foremost. Once we can empathize with ourselves, we will stop being so self-criti...

“Today I look in the mirror and say ‘I love you. I really love you. You are the joy of my life.” Louise Hay I was up early this morning and the Abbott and Costello movie Lost in a Harem was on Turner Classic Movies. In one of the scenes Abbott asks Costello “Did you ever take a good look at yourself in a mirror?” to which Costello replies “No. Why should I hurt my own feelings?” Costello’s comeback was funny and yet sad. So many of us with addictive personalities have difficulty looking at ourselves in mirrors. Before we even look, we already know that we are going to be uncomfortable with what we see, and we don’t want to hurt our already fragile feelings any further. I know that when I look in a mirror myself, I see all of my deformities and shortcomings—or at least the ones that are in my head, the ones I project onto the mirror image of myself. The deformities I see are the ones that society tells me are unacceptable, like wrinkles, lines, sagging, love-handles, ...