Soulshine

Recovery gives us the tools to be our TRUE selves. And I feel myself transitioning from who the world (mostly my mother) wanted me to be into being the REAL me. And it’s a GREAT feeling! I’m on vacation and decided to go to Disneyland by myself. I’ve done so in the past, but never felt comfortable. I didn’t want to be alone and often felt insecure when I went alone in the past. In fact, I wouldn’t get on any of the rides by myself. I felt like a geek or a loser, since everyone else there seemed to be with family or friends. Well, that all changed yesterday— and the real change was inside of me. I felt free to be me, and I felt good being me. I felt happy in my own skin. I ate and drank what I wanted, I bought some great Disney kids clothes for my 18 month old nephew, and I decided to get a Fast Pass for the Guradians of the Galaxy ride. Yes! I decided to ride by myself and it was a blast! In fact, I felt so good being me I decided to stay and ride the evening Halloween versi...

“I got a hole in my heart... And what I’ve found is my life is too heavy. So I’m waiting on a woman to take this load off me...I’m still waiting.... waiting on her, waiting on her.” Adam Friedman, Waiting on a Woman Codependents spend, or rather waste, a lot of time waiting on a man or woman to rescue them. We do this because we learned at a young age to make another person into our Super Power, or Higher Power. For years, we have mistakenly believed that we were powerless over our own lives and happiness. Some other person had to be out there who could rescue us from our worthless selves and our miserable lives. And so, as the lyric to this Adam Friedman song states, we kept “waiting and waiting and waiting” for our savior to appear. Time and again, we chose toxic people to be that savior because we were so tired of waiting. Well, the wait is over:There is no person outside of ourselves who can rescue us. We are that person. We are NOT powerless over our lives. We have gre...

Recovery has taught me it’s OK to have feelings. As a child I learned to stuff all of my feelings down to survive in our emotionless, alcoholic household. For most of my life I only felt numb, fearful and angry. Now I realize that God gave us feelings for a VERY important purpose: To help us process the good and bad in daily life. When we shutdown our feelings, especially the difficult ones, we aren’t able to process what happened and get our emotional balance back. Sadness is THE healing feeling. It helps us to cry-out the pain of betrayal, disappointment, hurt, shame, guilt and anger. We need to allow ourselves to be sad. It’s OK. It’s necessary— Sometimes. We can’t always be sad. If we are, we’re playing the victim and that’s no good. It eventually leads to depression. Properly processing sadness brings us to a point of release. We’re able to release the bad that happened, surrender it to our Higher Power, and let go of the hurt and sadness. Once we do, we gain the emotion...

I am now in my 22nd year of recovery for codependency. As I look back, I realize just how much I have shifted from unhealthy mental thinking and emotional behaviors thanks to CODA and Al-Anon. I’m not the same person I used to be. I’m no longer silent. I don’t hide from people and life anymore. I speak my truth now. I no longer hide it, or hide who I truly am. I’m no longer ashamed to be me, to express my beliefs and likes/dislikes even if they differ from those of others I love. Recovery has taught me the value of self-love, and self-love leads to authentic self-expression. I no longer tolerate abusive behavior from others, and have learned to refrain from manipulating others for my benefit alone. Through learning healthy boundaries, I now set them to protect myself and the other person. I tell others what is acceptable behavior and what is not acceptable. And I tell them that if they are not willing to respect my boundaries, I will remove myself from the situation or from the...

Ghosting is a new concept to me. Growing up, it was referred to as “the silent treatment.” I learned from my mother that if I was upset with someone, I simply cut them off by refusing to talk to them or even acknowledge their presence. I didn’t return phone calls, or answer my door if they came knocking. Recovery taught me that this was truly dysfunctional behavior. I think that ghosting is basically dysfunctional too. First, if we realize that a relationship is toxic for us, we need to bring it to a proper closure. We need to have the guts to tell the person in a kind way that things just aren’t working out, but that we still care about them and wish them well. In doing so we show respect both for them and for ourselves. Once we have had proper closure, it’s OK to become absent from that person’s life. At least now there is an understanding between us. To simply disappear from someone’s life because they “failed to appreciate my presence,” is simply revenge. It’s ending the r...

I bought two of these Japanese ninja dolls back in July. One was for a friend’s birthday and the other for me. I made the sign he’s holding in his hand as a daily reminder that our biggest enemy in life is never outside ourselves. It’s inside of us. Our greatest enemy is our inner-critic. That small but loud constant chatter in our heads that is repeatedly telling us “you’re bad,” “you’re worthless,” “you’re so messed up,” “you’re unlovable,” “you’re ugly,” or “you’re fat.” It’s up to us, through Recovery, to learn how to conquer this inner-enemy. It takes daily effort, but what I’ve learned to do is this: When that inner-critic offers an opinion to me, I tell my inner-critic to “go F**K itself.” I’m finished with giving my personal power away to a voice in my head that represents countless years of sel-abuse. No more. I refuse to abuse myself anymore with negative thoughts about me, and I will no longer be controlled mentally, or emotionally by this nasty, negative inner-vo...

  When we realize that we have re-engaged in unhealthy relationships, we have at least two choices: We can detach, cut the other person off and play the blame game. We can make every mistake their fault and choose to dislike or even hate them. Or we can choose to realize that we are both broken inside, that we both made mistakes and we can detach with love. Detaching with love is necessary. We can't rightfully blame the other person for everything that went wrong in the relationship. It truly takes two to tango. So we have to be willing to admit to our own mistakes and to admit that under the other person's brokenness, we did see beauty in their soul. Sometimes it's also necessary to detach with love because we are making spiritual/recovery progress and the other person isn't. We can't force anyone to be willing to work at recovery and to be wiling to fix themselves. And we cannot fix them. There have been many times when I've heard friends sa...