Soulshine

In her book Facing Codependence , Pia Melody points out the fact that codependents tend to bounce between extremes. We can bounce from low self-esteem to arrogant, from too vulnerable to invulnerable, from good boy/girl to bad and rebellious, from overly dependent to anti-dependent, and from controlling to chaotic. I know what it’s like to bounce between all of those extremes. Before recovery, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing when I allowed myself to swing like a pendulum between extremes. Now I do. I am aware when I go from feeling empowered to totally disempowered. And that’s a really painful bounce for me because the feelings of being disempowered are ingrained from childhood. Mentally, they make no sense to me. I know I’m not truly disempowered, but my feelings don’t agree. In fact, my feelings violently disagree. At least now I know that these feelings of disempowerment are not really about the NOW. They aren’t about the reality of the present moment. They are a...

Why am I afraid to practice Into-Me-See? Well, first off, I have some fears about what I will find when I delve inside myself. But my greatest fears around living “Into-Me-See” have to do with opening up to others. Primarily, my fear is that people won’t like what they see inside of me. I fear that they won’t like the real me and that they will reject and abandon me. This is especially true when it comes to family members, friends and love interests. My fear of rejection makes me desperate to control others. I want to control how they respond to me, and I’ve become accustomed to bending myself to be whomever others want me to be. I’ve learned that I can manipulate them by refusing to be vulnerable; by refusing to allow them to see inside to the real me. It’s of ultimate importance to me to be accepted, even if it means that I have to compromise myself; even if it means that I continue to engage in relationships with people who are toxic for me; and even if it guarantees that ...

Most everyone has a fear of naked intimacy. We are afraid to reveal our true selves to others. We are insecure as to whether or not we are good enough mentally, emotionally, spiritually or physically for others, especially someone we hope to engage in a lasting love relationship. In love relationships, our fear of intimacy begins with revealing small bits and pieces about our inner-selves. We’ll reveal a little, but for the most part we hold back waiting to see how the other reacts. If they like what we have revealed, then we’ll reveal another tidbit, but we rarely feel secure enough to reveal all there is to know even as we are getting more and more serious about this person. Time passes and we are enjoying each other’s company, seeing more and more of each other, and yet we still don’t feel safe enough to go any deeper than throwing out scraps or “pieces-parts” to each other. And these scraps are nothing more than whatever we have carefully screened and deemed will be a...

When relationships end, we often hear about how the two people involved “grew apart” from each other. I wonder if that’s really true. It seems to me that many people in serious relationships never allow themselves to “grow together.” It’s mind-boggling to me that people can be in committed relationships and yet   never communicate honestly with their significant other. What’s even more mind-boggling is the fact that this seems to be more the norm than not. Many people commit to each other on a surface level. They do fun things together, share similar friendships and talk about fluff until they feel comfortable enough to get physical. Before you know it they’re married—often because the sex was great—and they’re having kids. But deep down, they don’t even really know each other at all. They’ve never allowed themselves to be vulnerable to the point of truly unleashing who they are, what they need, what they want, what they’re deepest hurts and joys are, what they truly belie...