Soulshine

“In order to protect our emotional wounds, and because of our fear of being hurt, humans create something very sophisticated in the mind: a big denial system… We put up these barriers for protection, to keep other people away.” Don Miguel Ruiz , The Mastery of Love We can be in recovery for many years and wonder if we are ever going to get relationships right. Most of us have been so emotionally stunted and unavailable for so long that we have developed an intense drive for intimacy NOW. We are deflated inside and desperate to be touched, cuddled and passionate to the 100 th degree. We bounce between being depressed and being anxious about our inability to have intimacy with another person. So let’s honestly look at ourselves for a moment. If we did indeed emotionally shutdown as children, we long ago lost touch with our vast realm of God-given emotions. We have most likely spent our entire lives in-touch with two feelings: numbness and anger. If feelings of real int...

I have a friend named Ted who doesn’t take good care of himself. Ted doesn’t know how to love Ted. And I think that Ted has so disassociated himself from “Ted,” that he doesn’t even realize that he’s left himself behind. Ted felt abandoned as a child. No one was there for Ted: Not mom, nor dad nor anyone. So Ted learned to abandon himself at a very young age. He left Ted behind and became whomever made “you” happy— “you” being anyone who would even acknowledge his existence. Ted became a codependent, caretaking, people-pleasing chameleon as he grew into adulthood. As an adult, Ted became very good at taking care of everyone’s needs, except his own. He’s looked after the needs of the mom and dad who were never there for him emotionally. He’s looked after the needs of friends, other family members and total strangers. But he’s never looked after Ted’s needs because he thinks the Ted he left behind isn’t worth the effort. Part of the reason why Ted has never felt worthy ...

“I gotta new life You would hardly recognize me, I'm so glad How could a person like me care for you? Why do I bother When you're not the one for me Ooooo, is enough, enough? For so many years I've wondered who you are How could a person like you bring me joy? I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes I saw the sign and it opened up my mind! And I am happy now living without you I've left you I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes I saw the sign.” Lyrics from The Sign by Ace of Base In every codependent relationship we have ever been in, we have seen “The Sign” of addictive attraction. It pops up before our faces and flashes like neon across our blinded-by-addiction eyes; and, of course, we choose to ignore it. There are many warning signs that pop-up from the moment we find ourselves being emotionally or romantically drawn to a toxic person. These signs are sometimes referred to as Red Flags, and they exist for a reason. They are present...

I can look back over my life and see a pattern of my past becoming my present. I guess it’s not surprising since we humans like to stay in our comfort zones. We stick with what we know, and we rarely take the time to question whether or not what we know is good for us. If your past keeps catching up with you, it’s time to discover what it is trying to teach you. There’s a reason why it’s haunting you. Codependents are very good at playing the Blame Game, and I think this is a primary reason why we end up repeating our past. The Blame Game is a protection mechanism that allows us to deflect all of our faults onto others. By using the Blame Game, we focus solely on the bad behavior of others. It enables us to believe that the other person is 100 per cent to blame for all of the problems in a relationship because it enables us to turn a blind eye toward everything that we ourselves have done wrong. After all, to blame others is to pretend to be faultless. It’s easy to see wh...

“I used to love hotels,” says Anna. “Now I’m always in a new apartment or in a hotel somewhere... It makes it easy to leave people.” Oliver looks her in the eyes and says “You can stay in the same place and still find ways to leave people,”   “You are like that?” asks Anna, “It’s what you do?” Oliver nods his head in the affirmative. “So we are the same” says Anna. To which Oliver replies “I guess so.” From the film Beginners , 2010 Running away from people is the great American Pastime for many of us. We’ve built our lives on running away from ourselves, and we’ve been doing that since we were about five years old. A major problem with running away from one’s self is that it requires us to then run away from everyone. Subconsciously we know that if we can’t face ourselves, we can’t face anyone. I mean, if we’re not willing to face ourselves, what self do we have to show to someone? We have no sense of self. We’re just a name with a face and a body but not much mor...

Sometimes we take another person hostage within our hearts. Subconsciously, we want this person to give us something. And that something is usually the same something we wanted and needed our mothers or fathers to give us, like love, approval, affirmation, warmth or a sense of belonging. Mom and Dad weren’t able to give us these things. For whatever reason, they didn’t have them to give. And more often than not, the persons that we tend to take hostage in our hearts are exactly like Mom and Dad. They are equally unable to give us what we want and need because they don’t have it to give. The problem is that we rarely understand this. We don’t get it that the very people we are most attracted to are the very people who are most like our emotionally unavailable parents. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t good people. They may be kind, attentive and generous in other ways, but when it comes to what we really need from them—love and affirmation—their wellsprings have long been dry....