Soulshine

“Have you ever been hit so hard by life that you just don’t care anymore?” June Lang, Redhead (1934) Yes. I have. That’s how I feel right now: Hit so hard by life that I can’t seem to muster enough interest to care anymore. I am facing the big birthday (the one that ends in 9) before the BIG Birthday. And looking back on my life, I realize that I have never been true to myself. I’ve long been true to my mother’s image of who I should be, to society’s image of who I should be and to the church’s image of who I should be. But I have never been true to who I authentically am. And I don’t have any snappy recovery jargon to make everything rosy in light of this realization. People-pleasing to earn approval and love is so deeply ingrained in me and it has squeezed every ounce of happiness out of my life, year after year. This is true even after 20 years of recovery. I still wear the chains my mother imposed on me at age five. I’ve just never been able to shake myself free of them...

What does it take to be happy with yourself? What does it take to love the person God created you to be? TOTAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE. Complete, unconditional self-acceptance is the doorway into self-love. Self-acceptance opens the flood-gates and it allows self-love to flow in and naturally fill-up your inner-emptiness. Self-acceptance means we have to become aware of, dismantle and let go of all the judgments we have made against ourselves over the years. It also means that we have to begin living our lives authentically, which requires us to throw-out all of our “SHOULDS.” Shoulds and negative self-judgments go hand in hand and they cause of to feel shame and guilt about our natural selves. They force us into living through idealized, false selves that betray who we really are and make us feel even more inadequate. “I should look like this” (You look just fine as you are!), “I shouldn’t act like that” (People who really love you will see beyond your behavior and love you anyw...

Higher Love, I‘m not good at trusting You will make all things right, if I simply surrender to Your will. And I’ve been long afraid that if I reveal my true self to the world, everyone I love will abandon me. As a result, I have made a mess of my life by refusing to be me and by choosing to be anyone others want me to be. I’ve been dishonest with myself and with everyone else. Instead of opening up my heart-petals and trusting in You, in Higher Love, I have chosen to shut-down and manipulate my way through relationships; most of which have ended in flaming disaster. But no more. Today I choose to trust in your Higher Love for me, and I will make the effort to love myself as You love me. I will open up my heart-petals and share my beauty with everyone. In doing so, I will be strengthened by those who reject me because I will choose to believe I am worth more than their shallow opinions of me. And I will be rewarded by those who accept me exactly as I am, Your heave...

“Imagine lying to everyone you know, all the time. Imagine feeling your soul is distorted, evil, and broken. And imagine believing that, because of something you cannot change, God hates you. What would you do?” Jay Michaelson, God vs. Gay Many people don’t need to imagine what Jay Michaelson proposes. They’ve lived it. And many have been living this nightmare since they were small children. At some point in life, they learned that because of their sexual orientation, or the color of their skin, or their gender, or their ethnicity that they were somehow distorted, or evil or broken in a way that made them unlovable—even to God. Unfortunately, there are even those who, as children, were sexually molested and then made to believe that it was their fault. The perpetrators of these crimes told their young victims that they were to blame for what happened because they were evil little devils; and that if they ever told anyone, the whole world would come to know how evil they were and eve...

“He smiled whenever he saw me. And we could have built a life on that.” Frances McDormand, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day In the 2008 English film Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day , Frances McDormand plays Guinevere Pettigrew, social secretary to Delysia LaFosse (Amy Adams) for one incredible day. Delysia is a night club singer in 1930s London, and she’s busy juggling three men: Nick, her boss at the Scarlet Peacock Night Club; Philip, a West End Play Producer; and Michael, a penniless piano player. She’s also busy trying to escape from her true self: Miss Sarah Grubb of the Pittsburgh Grubbs. Both Nick and Philip allow Delysia to indulge her fantasy of mega-stardom as they provide her with luxury and the promise of a glamorous future. Neither knows that she comes from a lower class family amidst the American steel mills, and neither would pursue her if they did know. Michael, on the other hand, knows and loves the Sarah Grubb who’s hiding under the elegant make-up of Delysia LaFosse....