Soulshine

      I want to be accepted and loved for who I am. I want the whole world to give me this gift. But it has yet to happen. Why? Because I must be the first person to gift myself with unconditional acceptance and love.  No one else can provide me with this gift until I first provide it to myself. Once I begin the practice of accepting and loving myself unconditionally, others will gladly wrap their arms around me and love will naturally flow forever in my favor.

      Over the past 15 years I’ve come to value the power of setting boundaries. For many a year, I’ve joked about going home for my “annual dysfunctional family Christmas.” Family gatherings, for any reason (holidays, weddings, etc.), were often painful because I either didn’t know how to set boundaries, or didn’t feel worthy of setting them, much less having them respected. But in recent years that has changed. I decided a few years back that I would no longer be party to negativity at family gatherings. Our family has long been divided by religious beliefs, political leanings and various levels of self-righteousness, as many families are; and I no longer wanted to participate. So I set the boundaries that I would no longer participate in political or religious conversations. Instead, I urged that we talk about those things that unite us and bring harmony, instead of those things that divide us. Of course I couldn’t enforce these boundaries on anyone but mysel...