Soulshine

   Feelings are my friends. Say it over and over. Make it your daily mantra. We humans have been blessed by God with a myriad of feelings— all of which are present to help us process life and grow into healthy mental and emotional states. Yet, many of us learn at a very young age to avoid our feelings at all costs. We learn to run from them or to turn them off completely. Either way we end up become emotional pressure-cookers.    Emotionally unavailable people are left feeling nothing but an underlying numbness or shame-based anxiety. Sooner or later suppressed feelings cause us to explode into anger. This anger always ensures that shame will raise its ugly head and stare us in the eyes. And if we are unable to face this shame, we will run from the shame and into the arms of our addiction of choice.     What most of us fail to understand is that every time we are greeted by an uncomfortable feeling, like shame or guilt, we anxiously reach for the fire...

“Shit happens.” Ancient Catholic Proverb A major part of addictive recovery is getting back in touch with feelings. Many of us learned to shut-down our emotions when we were small children. It was a protection mechanism that allowed us to survive life in chaotic households. But being emotionally numbed-out doesn’t serve us well as adults. In fact, it causes us to act-out. In order to suppress the feelings we don’t want to face we drink, over-eat, compulsively shop, or busy ourselves with work, exercise, TV, etc. It’s important to me to keep track of the feelings I am learning to own. And I had a vivid experience of how well I am progressing this week. My car was at the dealership for some bumper repairs. I went on Wednesday to pick it up. As one of the dealership employees was driving my car around to me, another employee in a parked SUV didn’t see him coming and backed right into the side of my car! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I stood there in shock-- and shock was...

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...

The past few days I’ve been on a real emotional rollercoaster. Since 1998, I had been taking 200 milligrams of Zoloft everyday for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Last year I talked with my doctor and decided to start weaning myself off of the Zoloft, which I had started taking as a means of increasing my natural serotonin production. It helped with my OCD, but later I learned that it also was emotionally numbing-me-out. Deciding that I wanted to start feeling the full rainbow of my feelings again, I began working my way down to 100 milligrams of Zoloft a day; then down to 50 milligrams a day. Last week, I took the last Zoloft I had. Since that time, emotions have started gushing out like crazy. Last Sunday evening I was watching an old Ginger Rogers movie called Romance in Manhattan . Rogers plays a New York showgirl who chance-meets a newly-arrived Yugoslavian immigrant (played by Francis Lederer). They go up to the top of her apartment building one evening; and as Led...

Many men think they have to be towers of strength for everyone else around them. They perceive themselves as men of steel who shoulder life’s burdens fearlessly, when in fact they are mental/emotional basket cases because they refuse to face their feelings and to share them with others who can help them. This crack in the masculine armor really begins to make itself visible when these same men become fathers. Let’s face it: Father’s have lots to be concerned about. In addition to themselves they have spouses, children, house payments, car payments, educational expenses, credit card bills, employment issues, et al to get their stomach’s churning. It’s true that most spouses work and shoulder much of the burden today, but there are still more men than not who feel 100 percent responsible for their families. So, it’s no wonder that most Dads suffer from heartburn and other digestive issues. They have many problems to juggle and they rarely, if ever, allow anyone to truly help...

To grieve is to feel the flow of emotions as they arise within and pass through your heart and soul. It is allowing the flow of feelings to happen naturally. It is sitting with those feelings no matter how uncomfortable they may be. It is accepting those feelings just as they are and allowing them to bring their healing ingredients into our lives. Proper grieving means we give up our struggle to control our feelings. It means we allow tears to well-up in our eyes and flow down our cheeks. It means we fully breathe, feel and release each feeling on its terms-- not ours. There are many reasons why we need to grieve. Life gives to us and it takes away from us. Sometimes life gives us surprises we aren’t prepared for-- a bad medical report, a pink slip, or a serious accident. And sometimes life takes away the very breath from our lungs through the loss of a loved one or the ability to participate in those things that we have always found to be life-giving. Ultimately, life is ...

Sometimes it’s just necessary to be sad. I can’t speak to the rest of the world, but in the United States , we don’t like to be sad. We’d rather be medicated on prescription or illegal drugs, or with alcohol or sugar, or sex, or with ANYTHING that will keep us from facing the discomfort of sadness. Today I feel very sad, but I am resisting the temptation to fight it. I don’t want to chocolate my way, or shop my way to feelings of happiness. Nor do I want to kick the sadness into orbit by using a “keep the stiff upper lip” mentality, or by using a “look on the brightside” pep talk on myself. Some days there is no brightside. Some days you just need to feel the clouds, acknowledge them and experience them. I am experiencing dense soul-clouds. I can’t see them, but I can feel them. They are filled with tears that tug my heart downward, but that never reach my eyes. And that’s OK. I can’t truly control them and I no longer want to. I just want to feel the sadness. It could be about ma...

“Maurice’s folks won’t meet me: Not over their dead bodies,” said Adrienne. To which her sister Coco replies “So let them die.” Coco Before Chanel , Sony Classic Films 2009 Coco Before Chanel paints a vivid portrait of its heroine. French actress Audrey Tautou gives Coco Chanel a mysterious and intriguing edge. Through Tautou’s eyes, Coco is introverted yet daring, determined yet meek, comfortable in her own skin/designs yet edgy inside, cool and yet tender. She knows what she wants in life and she manages to remain focused despite her contradictory feelings. It seems as if Coco ’s great ability to stay focused in the present moment enables her to find balance between her extremes. Despite the many challenges she faces, she is always able to return to the center of her being; to the essence of Coco by following the flow of her feelings. We could all take a few good lessons from this portrayal of Coco Chanel. We need to allow ourselves to feel that tug and pull of our many emoti...