Soulshine

“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...

Little girl inside of me, I’m surprised you are still there, patiently waiting for me to see how much you need my care. Little girl your tears are felt, they fall across my face and all of that pain you’ve been dealt, I wish I could erase...Little girl I‘m going to hear all of the things you need from me and from now on I’ll hold you near with love eternally.                               Anonymous, Stepping Stones to Recovery Recovery is very much about learning to own your feelings. We all have emotions and every one of them is necessary. There are no good or bad feelings. Those are judgments we’ve made. Truth is every feeling you experience is essential. Feelings exist for our benefit. Every feeling is present for your benefit. Every feeling provides some form of healing. This is why it’s so important that we stop runn...

Harriet Craig : “Please understand, Mr. Fenwick, Walter’s a fine man… but sometimes he just seems to lose all sense of responsibility.” Mr. Fenwick : “But I’ve always thought of him as being most reliable.” Harriet Craig : “So long as he’s in his present job, yes. And so long as I’m nearby to look after him.” Joan Crawford and Raymond Greenleaf , Harriet Craig (1950) Poor Harriet Craig! Her husband, Walter, has been offered a promotion. Normally that would be good news, but there’s a catch: The promotion will require Walter to work in Japan for three months—without Harriet. She’ll have to stay home and she will be unable to be the center of Walter’s universe. On hearing the “good” news, Harriet immediately feels threatened and her codependent thinking kicks into high gear. Just looking at her face, you can see every manipulative wheel within her brain spinning. She quickly hits panic mode: How will she be able to keep an eye on Walter 24/7 when he’s thousands of miles...

Betrayal is the feeling of being duped. It is the gut-wrenching emotion that leads us to feel abandoned and to experience a sense of loss. The world as we have known it has suddenly changed in a way that makes us feel unsafe. Our well-being is disturbed. And our trust is shaken. Betrayal happens in many different ways. Sometimes we betray ourselves, or we may feel that our bodies have betrayed us. This happens when we develop a serious illness. The immediate feeling we have is that our body has in some way turned against us. It’s been unfaithful. It’s let us down. This sense of betrayal can often lead to a second sense, once we get past the initial shock of our illness: That we are the ones who actually betrayed our own bodies. We refused to eat well, or to exercise or to treat our bodies with proper respect by avoiding cigarettes or avoiding excessive alcohol or drug consumption. New feelings then arise: primarily guilt, shame and remorse. In a flash, we can be filled wit...