Soulshine

    It’s that time of the year again. The parties and shopping are well underway and so is the urgent need to be happy. Christmas has always been a difficult time for me mentally and emotionally. It’s the one season of the year in which everyone desperately wants to feel loved; and yet many of us who grew up in dysfunctional households don’t know how to accept love, or allow ourselves to be loved. We didn’t receive the love we needed as children and consequently we never learned to love ourselves. This is the real problem. Recovery has taught me much about me and self-love. Looking back now, I see that over the many years and Christmas seasons of my life I was in fact loved by many people. But I never acknowledged that love because I didn’t have the inner-tools to accept that love. I didn’t know how to accept it because I didn’t know how to love and accept myself. So I learned to play the victim of the holiday season. I ached inside and moaned and groaned to myself e...