Soulshine

“No day is the same as any other, and every morning holds its own special miracle, its magic moment in which old universes are destroyed and new stars created.” Paulo Coelho , Love (Selected Quotations) 2015 Codependents can be notorious for judging themselves—and others—harshly. We look in the mirror and we don’t see our authentic selves; we see all of the mean judgments we’ve made against ourselves. Then we go about our day projecting our harsh self-judgments onto most everyone else we encounter. Sometimes we can be like the Pharisees in the Gospel story about Zacchaeus. The Pharisees have already judged Zacchaeus to be a “sinner” because of his profession as tax collector for the Romans. Yet, what do they really know about Zacchaeus? Do they really know the workings of his heart? No. But more often than not, neither do we know the workings of another’s heart when we judge them harshly. Jesus Christ comes along and instead of judging Zacchaeus, he reaches out to him...

“Love… cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession.” Paulo Coelho , The Witch of Portobello Codependents easily associate love with possession. In many ways, this is understandable. Western society, certainly in the United States anyway, has come to associate “love” with the “possession” of things. We see a vase in a department store, we immediately “love” it and we must possess it to be happy. Or we see chocolate eclairs in a bakery window, we “love” eclairs and we must possess or have one or two to be happy. This concept of “love” and “possession” easily lends itself to the language of addiction. The alcoholic loves her vodka and she must have it to be happy, and the shopping addict loves things and he must have them to be happy. Likewise, we codependents love certain people and we must possess or have them to be happy. The big difference between these three addictions is that the alcoholic and shopaholic are “in love” with possessing things (i...