Soulshine

I knew I'd see your face again. I know you have the best intentions. So I leave my heart out on the door. You knock it down just like you did before. Hold me closer than the needle. Fill the emptiness I feel. Hold me closer, I am real. I'll fill the emptiness you feel. We feel. The Lonely Wild, Closer Than the Needle No one else can “fill the emptiness I feel.” Why? Because the emptiness I feel, I created. And the same is true for everyone when it comes to inner-emptiness. We created it over many years through self-negation. Little by little we gave chunks and pieces of ourselves away through self-rejection and self-abandonment. We chewed ourselves up and spit ourselves out and left a big empty void inside of us. And NO ONE can fill up that inner-emptiness we have created—except for us. The active codependent doesn’t understand this process. First, they don’t understand that they created their own inner-emptiness. Most addicts blame others for their emp...

Living the lives of others is a very codependent trait. I was watching an old John Ford movie last night from 1933 called Pilgrimage . It was about a widow named Hannah living on a farm in Arkansas with her young adult son, Jimmy. World War I is raging across Europe and there’s a war raging inside of Hannah. Hannah doesn’t know how to live her own life. She isn’t willing to be responsible for herself and her own happiness even though she is actually a very strong person. She’s made Jimmy into her crutch and she’s living vicariously through him. This seems to work fine until Jimmy meets Mary and falls in love with her. Now Jimmy wants his life back and on his terms. He loves his mother and he has love enough in his heart for her and Mary. Jimmy wants to get married and Hannah is totally opposed. She isn’t willing to release her hostage. Hannah tries everything to keep herself enmeshed in Jimmy. She threatens him, spies on him, goes to Mary and threatens her—and all in th...