Soulshine

I am on my first visit to Rome as I take on new responsibilities in my ministry. This week I have been a part of a culture that is new to me and have met many wonderful people from many different cultures. I have also had to deal with that nasty little voice in my head that we call the inner-critic. Initially, that voice had the upper hand, but now, by the grace of my Higher Power, I have the upper hand. It’s so important that we first have awareness of that nasty little voice in our heads. Awareness means that we are able to separate ourselves from that voice. The inner-critic is not who we are. It is a voice separate from our true selves. And that negative voice only has as much power as we are willing to give it. This week, I’ve fallen into the hole of giving my power away to that nasty voice, but I’ve also climbed out of that hole, with God’s help, and have made a burial grounds out of it— a burial grounds for my inner-critic. I want to put that nasty little voice to res

“Perfect” may only be two syllables, and yet it’s an awfully big word— big enough to damage self-worth, self-love and every relationship in our lives. Most of my life I found it impossible to love myself because of my unrealistic need to be “perfect.” That terrible need exposed all of my flaws and ruined my relationship with myself as far back as my childhood. It then made it impossible for me to have a healthy relationship with God or any other person. I had way too many unloved parts of myself. Some of them were physical, some were about personality, but the most devastating ones were centered on the inherent, unchangeable parts of me. Some of us are taught— at very young ages— to hate our skin color or ethnicity, our gender or sexual orientation, our intelligence level or even our inherited religious background. We quickly learn what is acceptable or unacceptable from adults, society and religion. The very people/institutions that should nurture us instead divide us through p

“Sometimes, there’ll be bad news on my welcome mat Trouble keeps calling, but I ain’t calling back Why does the midnight gotta treat me like that? Oooh. But I don’t mind, yeah I’ll be just fine Suddenly, I’m feeling all kinds of feelings Mama said, she said it’s alright to feel ‘em When you got tears streaming down that’s when you feel the realest Whether it’s good or it’s bad It’s OK to be sad Sometimes.” Adam Friedman , Sad (20 17) How much power do you give to your feelings? I’m in the habit of giving tremendous power to my feelings, as if they are the Boss and I have to quiver before them. And I’m really tired of feeling trapped that way. And who’s trapping me? The feelings? Not really. I think I’ve been choosing to trap myself by habitually giving all of my personal power to difficult feelings, like anxiety, sadness, hopelessness or panic, and allowing them to hold me hostage. I discovered the song Sad by Adam Friedman at a Panera Bread last a

The more we practice recovery, the more we accept, like and love ourselves. As our self-worth grows,  a Light does begin to glow from within us: It’s the Light of Love, of our Higher Power alive within us. This Light begins to take flame when we stop judging ourselves as not good enough, or as worthless. Suddenly, the reflection of ourselves in the mirror (or pictures), doesn’t make us cringe anymore. We actually begin to like what we see in the mirror and we no longer dread looking at pictures of ourselves. Suddenly, we begin to feel the glow inside us and realize that this very glow is the Spirit of our Higher Power, who has always loved us so much, and is so happy that we have accepted the invitation to begin loving ourselves. Yes, that inner-beauty is the divine Essence of our Higher Power. And it shows us that we have finally given up on trying to find happiness and worth outside ourselves (through alcohol, codependency on others, drugs, shopping, sugar, etc.) and that

This is a great quote from Eckhart Tolle. It contains wisdom that I have to keep reminding myself of every day: Work with each moment, accepting it as if you had chosen it. Over my lifetime I have been accustomed to fighting each moment, thought or feeling that came along. That tactic has produced nothing but misery and addictive acting-out. I’m learning to realize that I don’t have to like the present moment, or a particular thought or feeling, but I also need to accept it in order to retain my personal power. When we work against the present moment, thought or feeling, we empower it. There’s no way to fight reality and win— not in our heads. Fighting reality is a sure fire way toward making ourselves even more miserable. So now, I remind myself to work with and befriend uncomfortable thoughts, feelings and moments. Accepting what I am powerless to change brings peace and comfort; especially after I have admitted I am powerless and have surrendered it to my Higher Power.

Actually, for some of us, it may all begin in our guts. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). My brain doesn’t receive enough serotonin and it causes me to worry and be totally obsessed by fear at times. Serotonin isn’t produced by the brain, however. It’s produced by our digestive systems. So if we suffer from digestive issues, our bodies don’t produce enough serotonin for the brain. The past two days have been emotional murder for me. After spending a week in New York, I returned with my body out of sync. My sleep and digestion have both been off kilter. This has disrupted my serotonin production and has placed me into a whirlwind of obsessive, fearful thinking that has made an emotional mess out of me. The good news is that today everything seems better. The bad news is that even though I knew what was happening the past two days would pass, and I understood what was happening, I couldn’t control or make it better. I felt trapped in a very bad space by my own body.

I’m experiencing a feeling today that I’ve never felt before. The only title I can think to give it is “gratitude guilt.” I remember back in the late 1980s hearing the term “survivor’s guilt” for the first time. It was coined to describe how some gay men felt after learning that they were HIV free. Some men felt guilty because so many of their friends were dying of AIDS, and they were not. Gratitude guilt seems somewhat similar to me. I’m feeling grateful right now for all of the good, all of the blessings that have always been in my life, but I’m also feeling guilty for never truly having felt grateful in the past. Like Shakespeare, I’ve spent so much of my life focused on what I didn’t have— and crying about it. My focus was almost never on the good in my life, and if my focus should swing in that direction, I felt too cheated to acknowledge any gratitude. I never allowed my feelings to wander beyond the victim hood of lack. Last Tuesday, in Manhattan, I did see a man wi

Recovery is a miracle. And it begins to happen when we shift our thinking from fear to love. It begins when we are able to move past our fears of not being “good enough” and begin the process of accepting, liking and loving ourselves just as we are— which IS “good enough.” In the film “When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story,” we see Bill W. finally hit bottom, experience the grace of God, and begin his conversion to sobriety from alcohol. At the beginning of that journey, he realized that he felt better and stronger in his recovery when he spent time talking about his addiction and his redemption with others. The more he talked and released all of the emotional poison inside his system, the longer he stayed sober. I directed my Addictive Personality retreat this weekend, and I witnessed first hand, in a glorious way, how this process.of opening up and being vulnerable leads to healthy recovery. People who were holding on to family secrets, let go of them by sharing the

I spent too much time yesterday overthinking. I directed a mens 12 Step retreat on Long Island, New York, and it was a wonderful experience. I spent two days in Manhattan and that was crazy but fun. Yesterday was flight home day, and things didn’t go so well. My flight from Philadelphia to Dallas was delayed an hour because of mechanical problems. I had to rush across the Dallas airport to catch my Tucson flight by the skin of my teeth, and, of course, my checked bag didn’t make the Tucson flight. So what did I do during the two hours from Dallas to Tucson? Practice serenity? No. I tortured myself with angry thoughts about my bag being lost, or my having to go back to the Tucson airport today to get it. I created major chaos and drama in my head for quite some time, before I caught myself and said STOP! So I started listening to some Mozart on my iPhone and started repeating the Serenity Prayer to myself. I made a mistake in giving my personal power away to a barrage of nega