Soulshine

I pray open the door to love within my heart that I may be blessed by self-love and every form of love that embraces me. I pray open the door to clarity in my mind that I may move forward in life-giving ways. And I pray open the door to Higher Love in my soul that I may allow a Higher Power to do for me what I am not able to do for myself. Amen.

Sometimes we feel stuck. Life suddenly isn’t working. Maybe a relationship we cherish isn’t going anywhere, and we don’t know what to say or what to do to jump start the relationship. Or maybe we feel like we’re in a rut at work. We don’t feel challenged or we may feel like we simply don’t fit in our current position anymore. Or maybe our recovery seems to have stagnated. We were feeling really good about all of the new patterns of behavior we’ve learned to live, but suddenly now, we feel like we did years ago when we were hopelessly lost in our codependency. We feel miserable inside and we feel stuck in the mud of negativity. When we reach difficult crossroads like these, we need to pray for doors to open. First we need to pray for a door to open within our hearts. We need the door to self-love to re-open. This is the door that allows us to breathe-in self-approval and to feel worthy again to receive all that is good in life. There’s a reason why we’ve gone from feeling conf...

It’s the last day of 2012 and the world is moving forward. We must move forward with it. As 2012 evolves into 2013, take some time to realize, appreciate and be grateful for all of the many wonderful ways in which you have evolved for the better over the past 365 days. If you’ve been reading this blog, at the very least you have gained new-found awareness. That is a great gift. You are better aware of yourself, of your old self-destructive patterns of behavior and—most importantly—of your new-found power to choose healthy life-giving patterns of behavior. If you have been a notorious people-pleaser or caretaker, you know now that you don’t have to please anyone, aside from yourself; and the only person you can really nourish and care for successfully is yourself. You’ve hopefully learned to be more compassionate with yourself; kinder and gentler with yourself; and more open to totally accepting yourself just as you are. You’ve been learning, hopefully, to accept all o...

“Wait 30 seconds. You’ll gain clarity. And then you’ll know what to do.” Bradley Cooper, Limitless We are used to reacting to life. Life happens and we each have our own little reactions that require no thought and no effort—and that more often than not result in negative consequences. Then recovery supplies the new-found treasure of awareness. We realize that we don’t have to react to life anymore. We actually have a choice. We can default into reacting, or we can choose a different path. We can stop, breathe, relax for a moment and allow healthier alternatives to flash through our minds. Suddenly life has new possibilities. Life gets a little better. I was staying with some friends recently and forgot to bring their house key with me. One morning I left their apartment to go to Panera Bread. Once the door closed and locked behind me, I realized I needed the house key to get through the gate to the lot where my car was parked. My natural reaction was to panic and ring ...