Soulshine

“Would you like to see the Lord?” Eknath Easwaran , Timeless Wisdom In his book Timeless Wisdom , Eknath Easwaran shares a childhood story involving a New Year’s Day tradition in his homeland of India . He says that every New Year’s Eve, while most of the family is sleeping, someone erects a shrine made of “yellow flowers, brassware, gold jewelry, ripe fruit, lighted oil lamps” and garlands. On New Year’s Day, the family is then led to the shrine—eyes closed—and asked “Would you like to see the Lord?” They are then invited to open their eyes: “and shining in the midst of this bright setting” each individual sees his/her own face reflected through glass. Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are all unique reflections of the image and likeness of God— especially when we’ve screwed-up in some way and we’re really being hard on ourselves. Today, when you look in the mirror, remember that you are seeing the Lord reflected back to you in your own unique represent...

“I’m depressed. I need a cookie.” Sophia Petrillo , The Golden Girls If you’ve seen the sitcom, The Golden Girls , you know Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty) as the wisecracking mother of Dorothy (Bea Arthur). The great thing about sitcoms is that there’s a lot of hidden truth underneath the wisecracking, and there’s none greater than the truth in the above quote—if you’re used to escaping your uncomfortable feelings through food. Many of us who struggle with body weight do so because we subconsciously—and sometimes consciously—medicate our emotional pain away with food. Sugar and salt are two of the primary addictive substances that are excellent for making us feel better, at least initially. I love sugar. There isn’t any greater comfort food than chocolate chip cookies or cheesecake (I hear the Golden Girls applauding). But the problem with sugar is that it always bottoms-out. We experience our sugar-rush and then there’s the big blood sugar drop soon after. The high...

“What you have believed, let it be done for you.” Jesus Christ , Matthew 8 Ralph Waldo Emerson said every person is a doorway through which the Infinite passes into the finite. If this is true, and it sounds reasonable to me, then it sheds light on the above words of Jesus. We are all doorways and God flows through each of us into the world. As such, what we believe is crucial. If we believe in spiritual healing, our belief opens our inner-door and allows the power of God to bring healing to us. Thus what we believe is done for us— by God. If we believe we are worthwhile, lovable, attractive and capable people, it will be done for us. If we believe we deserve the best in life, it will be done for us. Likewise, if we believe we deserve to have the dark, wounded places healed within us, it will be done for us. Is this magic? No. If we believe we are worthy of all that is good, we will attract what we need to make our lives better. For example, if we have deep inner-wou...

“Everything must find fulfillment or perish.” Ernest Holmes , This Thing Called You In This Thing Called You , Ernest Holmes says that a “rose exists to express beauty.” I believe this is also true of humans. We exist to express beauty; in particular the beauty of love—a love that can only come from within us. And yet, it seems we spend much of our time expressing ugliness—an ugliness that, likewise, can only come from within us. Why is this? Well, maybe it’s because we aren’t finding fulfillment in our own personal beauty. If we aren’t finding fulfillment in our own personal beauty, we are slowly perishing within ourselves. With each passing second of each passing day, we lose touch with the great love that resides within us. We disconnect from our life-source and from our true selves. An empty space develops and that empty space is quickly filled with sadness, bitterness, frustration, fear, hopelessness and all of the other necessary ingredients for inner-ugliness. I...

I used to despise it when people would ask me “How are you doing (feeling) today?” First off, I didn’t believe anyone REALLY wanted to know the answer to that question. And secondly, I often times didn’t know, or didn’t want to face, how I was feeling. Can you identify what you’re feeling today-- right now—in this moment? Are you feeling content, sad, happy, anxious, afraid, cautious, mad, bored, impatient, tired, excited or restless? Or are you feeling “fine,” which usually means numb or basically out of touch with your feelings all together? A major problem for people suffering from codependency or other forms of addictive behavior is that they are completely out of touch with their bodies and thus their feelings. They’ve grown use to living inside of their heads and out of their bodies. So they can’t tell in any given moment what they’re feeling, shy of anger, fear or frustration. I remember telling someone once about a friend who had lied to me. We were supposed to...

“Sorry is born in the hasty heart.” Richard Todd, The Hasty Heart The hasty heart is the obsessive-compulsive heart. It’s the heart that’s always a jump away from reacting to life. And it’s the heart that plunges head-long into something without ever involving the thought process. Truly, “sorry is born in the hasty heart.” And yet, so many of us who suffer from hasty hearts find it difficult to say “I’m sorry.” We say ugly things that we quickly regret. We react and do things that are hurtful toward people we love. We act manipulatively to get what we want. And even after we have experienced our guilt trips, even after we have accepted that we have been hurtful toward others, we still find it nearly impossible to fess up and take ownership of our behavior. Why is this? If we want to change this bad behavior of ours, we have to get to the bottom of it through some soul-searching. If you’ve said or done something recently that you need to take ownership of through an a...

“It’s just my imagination running away with me.” The Temptations, Just My Imagination It’s the 4 th of July and that means fireworks. If you want some real fireworks in your relationships, however, just try being suspicious, controlling and distrustful of the people you believe you care most about in your life. Oh my God! Do I remember those days and all of the relationships I destroyed through by obsessive-compulsive thinking. In the past, I could never believe anyone was really interested in me, much less loved me, because I didn’t love myself and wasn’t interested in helping myself. So I’d enter a relationship and everything would be good at first. But the more I saw the person, the more insecure I’d become. I mean, how could this person possibly love icky old me? So I’d start obsessing about who they were looking longingly at if we were eating in a restaurant, or dancing in a club. When we were apart, they’d be on my mind constantly. What were they doing? I know. ...