Soulshine

I spent the last two weeks of October on vacation in Los Angeles. Every year I go and spend time with my roller-coaster buddy, and I was expecting to do the same this time; but it didn’t work out that way. When I arrived, I learned that he would only be available to me for a day. Before recovery, I would have gone into a terrible tailspin at this point. The fatalist in me would have been devastated and the victim in me would have taken over immediately: “Oh, woe is me! My whole vacation is ruined before it’s even started! Nobody loves me! I might as well go back home! Boo hoo, boo hoo, boo hoooooooooooooooooooo!” But it didn’t happen that way this time. Sure I was initially disappointed and I allowed that disappointment to be present. But I was also aware of my expectations and I wasn’t about to give my personal power away to them or the disappointment. Sure, I expected that my friend should be available to me. But I no longer allow such expectations to spoil my happiness. Af...

“In the end all that matters is how well did you love, how well did you live, how well did you learn to let go.” Anonymous The addictive personality thrives on control. It is hypervigilant and aggressive about making sure that all is as it “should be.” The need to control never sleeps. When we’re in this control-life-at-all-costs mode, we run on adrenaline and fear 24 hours a day. We are constantly monitoring everyone and everything around us. We must make sure that all of life cooperates with our desires, expectations and assumptions. Whenever we discover a threat to our imagined serenity, we are quick to move into Terminator mode and stamp it out as quickly as possible. So we pull out our inner-arsenal of manipulative behaviors, like flattery, caretaking, people-pleasing and self-righteousness to beat down anyone who might be standing in the way of our perceived happiness. As a result, we “love” and “live” poorly. Notice I said “imagined” serenity and “perceived” ...

“Nothing changes until you do.” Mike Robbins Deeply engrained in codependent thinking is “everyone else needs to change and it’s my job to see that they do.” God knows that before I entered recovery that was my entire philosophy on life. There was good reason for it. I had been taught from an early age to always look outside myself to find happiness. And finding happiness outside of myself meant that I needed to control life, including everyone and everything. It didn’t take long to realize that it was easier to control things than it was to control people. And this marked the beginning of my addictively acting out with things. After all, a chocolate chip cookie can’t scream “Don’t eat me!” Food has no power to stop us from over-consuming it as a means of seeking false happiness. The same is true for alcohol or any other substance. Likewise, clothes in department stores can’t stop us from buying them as a false means of alleviating our self-loathing. Controlling things ...

“Today become aware of the beliefs to which you are attached; allow yourself to become free of them and to live as you choose.” Don Miguel Ruiz Jr, Living a Life of Awareness Many of us suffer from attachments to beliefs that serve us poorly. And we aren’t even consciously aware that our attachments to these beliefs are making us miserable. For example, we may believe that we have to find Mr. or Ms. Right in order to be happy. Or we may believe that we can’t fully accept the fact that one of our children is gay because the religion we practice won’t allow us to fully love a person who is gay. Or we may believe that we will never be lovable until we are as thin as a fashion model. These are just a handful of bad beliefs that people often get attached to. They then use these beliefs to put their lives on hold. If I am waiting on Mr. or Ms. Right to come walking along and sweep me off my feet so I can then finally be happy, I’m putting my happiness on hold indefinitely...

“You love people for what you want them to be, not for what they are.” Ted Bessell, That Girl Codependents certainly do love people for who they (the codependent) wants them to be, not for who they actually are. I know before recovery, my job was to rescue and remake people. I’d subconsciously choose a very needy person and befriend them by caretaking their every need and soothing their every drama. In the back of my head, I knew who I wanted these people to be. I had an idea about how to remake and remodel each and every one of them to be the person that I needed them to be. They were like clay and I had to reshape their personalities to ensure that they made me happy in all the ways I thought I needed to be made happy by them. This sometimes went on for months or years before I finally realized that they didn’t appreciate being rearranged to meet my needs. This “realization” was purely on a subconscious level, though. I never got it consciously before recovery. ...