Soulshine

“Folks who have no vices have few virtues.” Abraham Lincoln It’s important to own our vices. In recovery, we refer to them as “character defects,” which seems a bit harsh to me. I’m not sure that there’s a nicer word for them. We could refer to them as “vices” or “flaws,” I suppose. But the truth is that they are the imperfections that emerge from our dark side. Every human being has a “light” side and a “dark” side. We are all part Dr. Jekyll and part Mr./Ms. Hyde. And we need to accept this fact. There is no such thing as a perfect person. No one is all light-- and no one is all darkness. What we often don’t understand is that light and darkness need each other. Think about a flashlight. Flashlights are worthless on a bright sunny day. It’s impossible to tell if the flashlight is on or off in the midst of sunlight. A flashlight is dependent upon darkness to make its light seen—and so are we. When we work Step 4 of the 12 Steps, it gives us the opportunity to r...

If you’ve been looking in your mirror recently and better understanding where Dr. Jekyll meets Mr./Ms. Hide within you, then you may want to start thinking in terms of positive spiritual principles versus negative spiritual principles. The Dr. Jekyll side of you operates out of higher, positive spiritual principles, like love, empathy, compassion and forgiveness. Conversely, the Mr./Ms. Hyde side of you operates out of primal, negative spiritual principles, like fear, hate, envy and resentment. It’s very easy to operate from the gut-level of negative spiritual principles. When someone cuts us off in traffic, there are few of us who have the immediate, natural reaction to bless the person in the other car. Instead, our animal instinct (which is governed by negative spiritual principles) kicks-in and we immediately swear and flip the bird his or her way. By reacting from our gut animal level, however, we give our peace of mind and our integrity away to the person who cut us off. W...

Everyday Dr. Jekyll meets Mr./Ms. Hyde in your mirror. Many of us don’t like to admit this fact. We prefer to look at other people and see the Mr./Ms. Hyde in them, but we almost never consciously see it in ourselves—even when we don’t like ourselves very well. Over the past few years, I’ve had a problem with a certain Mr. Hyde. He was blustery and a natural born bully. He bullied me and I allowed it, for the most part. Bullying happens in many ways. It’s not just a matter of someone using physical strength against their victims, nor is it just a matter of verbal abuse. We can also bully others through the silent treatment, or by discounting what they say. We can act arrogant as if everything they think or say is trivial, stupid or just out and out wrong. This is also bullying. Of course, I thought I was absolutely nothing like the Mr. Hyde I was having problems with. I’m not a natural born bully. I’m not physically the size of what we would normally consider to be a bully. ...