Soulshine

    Addicts typically engage in self-sabotage. This behavior is based in our dire need for chaos and drama. So many of us were raised in families where there was constant chaos, endless drama and very little—if any—stability. As we grew older and developed addictive personalities, we also developed an incessant need for self-sabotage by way of chaos and drama. As adults, we often times find ourselves split between loathing the chaos/drama and desperately needing it. We are split because we have two personalities: Our natural-born personality and our unnatural addictive personality. On a conscious level, our natural personality is tired of chaos and drama. But on a subconscious level, our addictive personality is thriving on creating as much chaos and drama as possible. We are thus often times conditioned for daily chaos and drama. And when they don’t naturally exist, we will create them for ourselves—and everyone else in our lives. There are a plethora of ways in whi...

“Who am I to judge?” Pope Francis Codependents, like most all addicts, spend a great deal of time playing prosecutor, judge and jury. Most of our attention is focused on ourselves. This is actually one situation where we do focus our attention on us—unfortunately. When it comes to negative energy, we have an abundance of it for ourselves. We are critical, merciless and unforgiving with our every fault or failing. Of course, this pattern of negative behavior causes us eventually to be just as easily critical, merciless and unforgiving towards others. I’ve come to believe that the people in this world who are most critical of others must either be codependent/addictive thinkers, or those who are totally obsessed with following rules, or both. And I’d like to see this all change. We need to make this world a kinder place. That means that we need to focus on being kind to ourselves, first and foremost. Once we can empathize with ourselves, we will stop being so self-criti...

My CODA group is currently reading the book Conquer ing Shame and Codependency by Darlene Lancer. Recently one of the members mentioned to me that he found the book difficult to read. I believe I understand where he was coming from, although he may not yet understand that fact about what’s going on inside of himself. Often times when we find a recovery book 1) doesn’t resonate with us, or 2) is difficult to read, it is a clue as to what is really going on inside of us subconsciously. I believe in both of these instances, our denial is being unearthed and disturbed. When a recovery book doesn’t resonate with us at all, we are most likely so bound-up by our denial that the book seems totally foreign to us. We say to ourselves, “Well, this isn’t me at all” as we read about the fact that codependents engage in caretaking and other manipulative behaviors. So we put the book aside and allow it to gather dust. This has been the beginning of the story for many people who I have talked w...

“But now I know That the world still turns And the sun still burns And that’s what I’ve learned without you And the days roll on And my heart gets stronger too Don’t think I didn’t love you Just because I made it through But I learned to love myself Without you.” Reba McEntire, Myself Without You Throughout most of my life I have been a fiercely independent codependent. The only times I ever wavered from being fiercely independent were when I met someone who pushed all of my buttons in all of the right ways; meaning a person who had just the right addictive personality to match mine. Anytime my addictive “yin” met an addictive “yang,” I’d swing almost immediately from the extreme of being fiercely independent on myself to the opposite extreme of being miserably dependent on that other person. Of course, once we both sucked all of the life out of each other and the relationship ended, I’d go defiantly back to being fiercely independent; even though my...

“I didn’t know I was broken until I wanted to change.” Bleachers, I Wanna Get Better (2014) No one suffering from codependency, or any other addictive personality defect, knows that they are “broken” until one day they decide they need to change. That day happened to me in early October of 1995. Prior to that day, I had no idea that I was the one with the problem. I knew I was rarely happy and I knew that most all of my relationships had a pattern of falling apart. But I thought it was always the fault of the other person and that fact that they refused to change in the many ways that I insisted that they change. It never once had occurred to me that I was the one who truly needed to change because my patterns of behavior were dysfunctional and extremely broken. The only change I was willing to engage in was a false sense of change known was people-pleasing. Yes, I would pretend to be whomever someone else wanted me to be; meaning I would pretend to like what they ...