Soulshine

I’ve long believed that the root problem for all addicts is extreme lack of self-love. We are very mean to ourselves, and this self-loathing and self-hatred destroy our souls. When we can no longer bear the pain, we then turn to some addictive behavior as a means of temporarily rescuing ourselves from our own self-abuse. The remedy for this situation is obviously a healthy dose of self-love, but that’s not easy to accomplish when we’ve spent years self-destructing through self-criticism. So a necessary first step is the daily practice of being kind to ourselves. Self-kindness is the first step toward healing. And being kind to ourselves can be expressed many forms. We can start by speaking words of kindness to ourselves. We are long used to sharply criticizing everything we say, think or do. We criticize our bodies, our personalities, our abilities, our loveability and our self-worth. It’s time we replaced our very harsh criticisms of ourselves with compliments and other word...

“All we’ve ever wanted Is to look good naked Hope that someone can take it God save me rejection From my reflection, I want perfection.” Robbie Williams , Bodies All my life I have struggled with body-image. As a kid it was no problem. I don’t remember thinking anything negative about my body—until I hit 7 th Grade, that is. Around the age of 12 I learned to medicate my emotional pain with Payday candy bars, Lay’s Potato Chips and lots of sugary sodas. I wasn’t an active kid, aside from walking to and from school, and so it didn’t take long for me to start my compulsive over-eating journey toward becoming “fatty, fatty two-by-four.” And as fate would have it, just as puberty was beginning to make me self-consciousness personified, I had to face all of the family and public scorn that came with suddenly being fat. At one point, I got so self-conscious that I did everything within my little pubescent range of thinking to hide the fat. I wore bulky sweaters—even ...

There’s a reason why the term “Angel Eyes” has been popular for many years. When you look into the eyes of another person, you see through to their soul, to the angel inside of them. As you peer into the eyes of another, you touch their divine humanness. And in doing so, you allow them to touch your own soul as you open up your inner-angel to them. It takes a great deal of honest, naked vulnerability to look someone deeply in their angel eyes. And it takes loads of courage to keep your eyes focused on theirs as they look you right back in your angel eyes. Sadly, many of us fail to have such courage or naked vulnerability. We’ve been taught to refrain from looking people in the eyes for fear that we will somehow make too much, or too deep of a connection. The supposed fear is that we will then owe the other something, but I think the real fear is that we will have to acknowledge their sacredness as a human being. It’s easier to treat a person like they are a disposable obje...