Soulshine

As recovering codependents, the "some people" mentioned above are the people that we do NOT want in our lives. Unfortunately, many of us don't realize that fact. For years, we've believed quite wrongly that we were the problem if someone suddenly turned their back on us and deemed us "worthless." We mistakenly believed that these people were our friends, or sincerely loving family members, when in fact they were perpetrators-- they were agents of harm toward us. No one who truly loves us turns their back on us. Even if we do things to hurt each other, if we truly love each other, we will own up to our mistakes and we will make amends between us. That's not the case with people who treat us like we're important today and then treat us like we're worthless tomorrow. This can happen for many reasons, but the primary ones I have experienced are these:  We have chosen to trust or rely on the approval of someone who can't even approve of him/hersel...

  Prior to recovery, I never thought I could be someone who made ME happy. How can someone who thinks he/she is a complete loser-- because they are so wounded deep down inside-- provide happiness for themselves? Impossible. The thought that I could be the "someone" who was going to make me happy never occurred to me. No. That was someone else's job. It was my job to find that person who was going to rescue me from my self-hatred and make me happy. Of course, everyone I ever assigned that job to failed miserably. Now, I know that it wasn't their job to make me happy. But back in the heyday of my codependent crazies, I had no clue-- no matter how many people failed to make me happy. I'd just lick my wounds and then go hunting for someone else to be responsible for making me loveable. Of course, I believed that I was also responsible for making them feel loveable and happy. The old cliche "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" fits an active codep...

  It's one of THOSE days. I just feel miserable inside. I feel bluer than blue, but I can't cry--even though I feel the tears behind my eyes. I'd like to talk to someone, but I don't know who. I know this particular feeling. I've felt it a million times. It should be out of my system by now-- but it's not. I refer to it as the Parental Wound. Some people have Maternal Wounds, others have Paternal Wounds, but I have both. And this feeling is like a disease I just can't shake away, feel away or face away. I've tried and tried. I know we have to face feelings by FEELING them-- and allowing them to pass through us as they gradually wear themselves out. But this one never seems to be finally gone-- no matter how many times I face and feel it. And this makes me wonder if the feeling is a forever ghost from the past, or just a means of my being mean to myself-- when I have nothing else wrong in my life? Sure. I realize I'm lonely. I left the West Coast a ye...

Gee, you know, we codependents tend to have many bad days. Or do we? Is it karma? Do we have an invisible bullseye on our backs? Does everything really go wrong all day long? I'd say the answer to these questions is probably "NO." What we codependents often do have in common, though, is a victim mentality. All it takes is one wrong glance from a person in the office, one irritable spouse, or one assumption we just made about what a friend said a few seconds ago-- and suddenly our entire day is ruined. Codependents have an unwritten rule: "Where there is no chaos I will create it." We thrive on drama, where we're the unfortunate and undeserving victim, of course. Many of us could win Academy Awards for Best Perpetual Victim in a Supporting Role. Why? Because one little bad thing happens in the morning and we stew on it for the rest of the day, or week, or month or year. We tend to take everything PERSONALLY. If the coworker just took it on ...

"I heard you on the phone You took his number Said you were alone That you will call him soon Isn't he the guy The guy who left you crying? Isn't he the one Who made you blue? Oh When you remember those nights in his arms You know you got to make up your mind Are you gonna stay with the one who loves you? Or are you going back to the one you love? Someone's gonna cry when they know they lost you Someone's gonna thank the stars above." Glenn Frey, The One You Love (1982) As someone in recovery for codependency, these lyrics take on new meaning for me today. Back in 1982, I simply thought that this was one of the most beautiful, emotionally moving songs I'd ever heard. I didn't realize at the time that I was actually the girl (so to speak) in the song who was always in love with the wrong person. But now, when I look at these lyrics, I see how plainly and painfully true it is that I was the exact same type of person tha...

Bryant McGill is a very wise man. In this video, he points out eight things we need to work on to silence our inner-critic: That negative voice inside our heads that perpetually makes us miserable by reinforcing negative beliefs we've adopted over the years. Let's look at some of those negative beliefs brought to the surface by McGill. 1) Stop comparing yourself to others . This very nasty little habit leads to the continual belief that we don't match-up to other people, that we aren't as good as they are, that we are deficient as human beings and thus worth less than others. When we learn to stop comparing ourselves to others, we discover that we do have intelligence, skills and personality enough to make a positive difference in this world. 2) Stop worrying about the things you cannot change . For many addicts, this is a huge one. Actually, for almost everyone I've ever encountered, this is a huge one. We spend endless hours worrying about everything we a...

My codependency must have developed very early because I can remember wanting another person to rescue me when I was five years old. I remember thinking when I grew up, someone was going to marry me and make me so happy.  From the first day that thought ran through my head I felt hope, and I held tight to the belief I'd be rescued as I grew older. It was easy. I heard many an adult refer to their spouse as their "better half." People, in real life and on TV, said they were "two halves" that had become "whole" when they married. Love songs on the radio echoed the same sentiments. In high school one of my favorite songs was Harry Nilsson's "Without You." The lyrics said everything I felt: "I can't live if living is without you." I was probably 14 years old at that time and hadn't even lived life long enough to have met the person who I was aching over the thought of losing! But that's what my always-living-in...

One of my favorite songs fom the 1980's was "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Eurythmics. Of course, back in 1983, I had no clue that I was grooving on the song more for the lyrics than the hard thumping melody. But on a subconscious level, the lyrics were expressing my own personal patterns of ingrained codependent behavior: "Sweet dreams are made of this Who am I to disagree? I travel the world And the seven seas, Everybody's looking for something. Some of them want to use you Some of them want to get used by you Some of them want to abuse you Some of them want to be abused. Sweet dreams are made of this Who am I to disagree?" On a conscious level, I believed the exact opposite. I thought I was searching the world and the seven seas to find someone to love me beyond "death due us part." Consciously, I truly wanted REAL LOVE. But subconsciously, I didn't have a clue about what REAL love is. All I knew about love were...

So, how are you handling the coronavirus pandemic as a codependent? I'm actually surprised at how well I am handling it. A few years ago, my urgent codependent need to control my Higher Power's handling of the pandemic would have had me tied up in mental and emotional knots right now. Throw in the fact that I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which gives me an urgent fear of germs/viruses/bacteria, and I'd be on the verge of an emotional breakdown. But today that's not the case. Why? Well, through Recovery I've learned so much about how by brain functions. In particular, I've learned that most of my daily life and fears are controlled by my subconscious mind. We can spend 95% of our day reacting to chaos and drama that's playing in our subconscious mind, and not even begin to realize consciously what's actually going on. This is why we actually spend more time living in our heads than in reality. Years of Recovery are now paying off duri...

According to Dr. Bruce Lipton, DNA specialist, 95% of what we say and do in our daily lives is controlled by our subconscious minds. Think how terrifying that percentage is. It means we only act from our conscious minds five percent of the time each day. As codependents, those who were primarily raised in dysfunctional addictive households, it's especially distressing. But it also explains why we have made the same relationship mistakes over and over without learning our lesson. It explains why we have chosen one toxic person after the next to build relationships with, why we have fallen into the same hole time and again and never understood why. How many of us can relate to the lyric quote (pictured above) from the Roxette song "The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye"? Looking back over my past codependent relationships, these words say a great deal to me now. I remember when "I thought we were the chosen ones who were supposed to fly" int...

Recovery is all albout focusing on the lessons life teaches us. It's about finding answers that can change our lives for the better. And, it's about choosing to live those lessons through changed thinking and behavior. Before Recovery, so many of us repeatedly played the victim of our own thoughts and actions. We focused on the hurt-- a hurt that was often of our own making, even though we repeatedly blamed others for our hurt. Truth is, as we look back, we discover that through our own ingrained codependent thinking and patterns of behavior, we created our own drama and chaos. We, in fact, created most of the hurt and then we played it's victim. Before Recovery, we focused on the hurt, blamed others because we refused to acknowledge that we were the ones who had the REAL problem, and we perpetually played the ever-suffering victim. Now, through Recovery, we know the truth and we know we have a choice. We can continue to engage in relationships that are toxic ...

Many of us, as codependents, go through life looking like everything is just fine "from a distance." We're in a habit of not allowing other people to know that we're "angry, lonely, got no life to live." After all, from the time we were small, we were told we had no right to have any feelings, much less show, or reveal them to the world around us. So no matter how "hungry, thirsty for all love can give" we may be, we don't show it-- certainly not "up close" nor "from a distance." We put the false, happy little smile on our face and act as if everything is OK. If we can't bear our emotional pain any longer, and it begins to show in our eyes, we will still deny that anything is wrong, even when we are directly asked. Or it's actually called to our attention that our emotional pain is written all over our faces. Ever have a complete stranger walk up to you and say something like "Come on, it can'...

In the height of my codependency, I was constantly searching for the arms of someone who could rescue me from loneliness, from lovelessness, from despair. It was habitual for me to run from heart, to heart, to heart; expecting that I was going to finally find the RIGHT one to save me. It never happened. I can't begin to count the number of hearts and arms I ran to, but I can tell you this: Prior to recovery, it never occurred to me that there was only one right heart to run to, and that right heart was my very own. Recovery has taught me that I can only meet my true self and my true Higher Power within my own heart. The heart is the doorway to the soul. The soul is the divine dwelling space of our Higher Power. We can only meet our real selves and our real Higher Power when we cross over the threshold of that door that unites our hearts to our souls. Roxette- From One Heart to Another So, I learned the important lesson that I had to res...

It’s our responsibility to HELP people do what they can’t do alone. That’s called “providing a helping hand.” But we are not responsible for helping people who refuse to help themselves. Everyone has to be responsible for their own life and happiness. That’s why it’s impossible to “save” someone. No matter how many times you attempt to “save” people, it will never be enough because they aren’t willing to be responsible for their own happiness. So every time they’re unhappy— which can be every day— they come to  expect that you should be responsible for making them happy. In other words, you become their drug of choice. So by always taking on responsibility for their happiness, you’re making them dependent, instead of helping them to stand on their own two feet and learn to find happiness within themselves through God. Remember, you are not now, nor never will you be, God. But, you can always pray to God for those who need to learn to be responsible for their own lives and ...