Soulshine

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...