Soulshine

Self-love is a tough one for most everyone who enters a Recovery program. So many of us as children were taught, or programmed, to loath ourselves. We were constantly criticized by our parents and rarely, if ever, received positive recognition. We were taught by them that we were not valuable, that we did not count and that we were basically unlovable.  Growing up in my own household as a child, I learned I was lovable if I did all of the right things to please my parents, but otherwise, I was NOT lovable. Love had to be earned and it could be withdrawn at any second of any day. This led to a fear of abandonment as well as self-loathing inside of me.  Life became a hell of emotional instability for me. One day I might be lovable in the morning, but by afternoon, I was getting the silent treatment or hearing words like "I'm ashamed to even call you my son!" As an adult I firmly believed I needed someone who could love me unconditionally into loving mysel...

  There are people who honestly love us for who we are; for the beauty they see in our souls. That's the truth. They have no secret agenda. The only thing they may want from us is to be loved and respected for the beauty of their own souls, too. When we won't allow these people to honestly love us, eventually they walk away. Not because they've stopped loving us. They do love us. But because they can no longer face the pain of our rejection of ourselves, of them and of their freely given love for us. They have finally realized that they can't get through the stone wall we've erected around ourselves. And that it's impossible to knock down that wall. No amount of their love can do it. Only we can knock down that wall by finally accepting the fact that we are indeed loveable and worthy of their love. So with heavy hearts, people walk away from us. They are exhausted and they are hurting inside themselves. They feel disrespected and rejected because we ...

Recovery has taught me the difference between codependent love and authentic love. And the difference is eye-opening. For most of my life, all I knew was a codependent love; one in which I “loved” others for the sole purpose of being loved back by them. This codependent love I experienced was filled with anxiety, neediness, insecurity, manipulation, fear, unreasonable expectations, fear of abandonment and the constant urge to cling desperately to the person I “loved.” It was horrible. And it was not love. Love and codependence cannot coexist with each other. They are polar opposites. If we reach out to others from a deep, dark needy emptiness within ourselves, it is not love we are attempting to share. It’s a desperate cry for intimacy, for a sense of belonging with another person, but it is not love. It is codependence. And codependence always has strings attached. It is strictly self-serving. Authentic love flows freely. It does not arise from a deep, dark, needy place ...

Be-You-tiful: It’s the only way to be. I was watching an episode of Will & Grace last night. It was set at Thanksgiving. Will is hosting Thanksgiving dinner and he’s invited Grace, Karen and Jack. He also has a surprise dinner-guest: Jack’s mother. When Jack finds out his mother is coming to dinner, he freaks. Afterwards, Will and Grace learn that Jack has never told his mother he’s gay. For 30 years, Jack’s mom has been living in a fantasy-like world where she simply ignored all of the obvious clues that her son is gay. And Jack played along with her. Why? Because Jack believed he couldn’t be beautiful in her eyes as a gay man. He was afraid of being rejected and abandoned by her if she knew the truth. And so, as a result, Jack was never able to be “be-You-tiful,” or his true beautiful self, around his mother. Many of us have lived our lives for way too long with the same sort of terrible fear that plagues Jack in this episode of Will & Grace . We’ve exhausted o...

“If you were raised in a family where closeness was not a reality, you are much more prone to form an addictive relationship for two reasons: first, you were taught to distance yourself from people, not connect with them; second, growing up in this type of family left you with a deep, lonely emptiness that you’ve wanted to have filled.” Craig Nakken , The Addictive Personality I grew up in a family that was emotionally and physically distant. In many ways we were like six separate people living in the same house. We were more like strangers than a family. We greeted each other in passing, but we rarely made attempts to do much with each other. Sure, we knew each other’s temperaments, and we definitely knew how to push each other’s buttons, how to evoke drama and invent chaos. We also knew how to hide from each other. We only talked when necessary and we shared—on an emotional level-- no more than we had to, mostly out of fear of abandonment. I was too afraid to reveal t...

I don’t believe the compulsion to control another person is ever for the benefit of the other person. It’s all about us. We feel insecure, we feel unlovable, we feel empty spaces growing inside of us and so we desperately turn to others to quiet our codependent crazies. When others aren’t being what we want them to be, when they aren’t making us feel OK about ourselves, we then do everything within our power to manipulate them into pleasing us. A good example of this theory comes from the novel Now Voyager . Jerry Durrance, a major character in the novel, is married to Isabel. It’s not a happy marriage because Isabel guilted and shamed Jerry into marrying her. Isabel is extremely insecure in herself and she must have all of Jerry’s attention. Unfortunately for Isabel, too much of Jerry’s attention goes to their younger daughter, Tina. Isabel feels terribly threatened by Tina. As a result, Isabel is always trying to make Jerry choose between her and Tina. When Jerry choose...