Soulshine

Recovery is a partnership. It is a partnership between God (Higher Power), ourselves and other people whom we can trust. Recovery is never an act of praying to your Higher Power and then expecting your Higher Power to suddenly zap you with instant wellness, and make everything OK. That's not prayer. That's magical thinking.   We have to first be willing to do whatever work is necessary to make our lives better; to change our patterns of thinking and behavior from negative to positive. Recovery always starts with "me." Once we are willing to do our best to change our character defects into character assets, then our Higher Power can help us.  We first need to do for ourselves whatever we can do to make our lives manageable and functional. What we aren't capable of doing for ourselves, we need to surrender to our Higher Power and allow that Higher Power to handle all that is beyond our control.  We also need to be willing to reach out to others we tr...

Disney’s Pinocchio takes on the theme of developing an informed conscience. If we are to be honest with ourselves and with others—as recovery requires us to be-- we need to know how to judge right from wrong and how to be responsible for the negative consequences of our own behavior. In many ways Pinocchio represents the typical child. We witness his birth shortly after Geppetto, his creator, wishes on a star for Pinocchio to become a real boy. The Blue Fairy appears and grants his wish. Pinocchio becomes animated and alive and yet he is not yet a real boy. Why? Because he has yet to develop a conscience. So Jiminy Cricket is called upon to act as a conscience for Pinocchio. We all go through the human process of developing an informed conscience. At a young age we begin the process of learning the difference between right and wrong, kind and mean-spirited, sharing and hoarding. Some of these moral choices are taught to us, but many of them we must learn for ourselves through...

“A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: I’m not going to take anything away from you.  You have to give it to me.” Anne Lamont, Help-Thanks-Wow I’ve come to believe that prayer needs to be very simple and that it needs to be a partnership. Prayer, to me, is simply talking with a Higher Power; no need for rote prayers. The most honest prayer comes from the heart. I write it myself with my honesty and vulnerability. Prayer is a partnership in that I ask a Higher Power for help with the things I am powerless over, and in that I accept responsibility for the things I need to do to help myself. Prayer isn’t about asking a Higher Power to do everything while I sit back and wait. This partnership means I work hand-in-hand with a Higher Power to resolve life’s burdens, and it often leads to a partnership with others as well. I struggle with terrible bouts of sadne...

“Too many times I let my feelings hide. I act like it's all alright. You don't know how I feel inside. I act like nothing's on my mind, I act like nothing's on my mind But there's something on my mind. It's easier to hide.” Maya Jane Coles, Easier to Hide I grew-up believing I didn’t have the right to have wants or needs, thoughts or feelings. As a child, I had received the message many times that my wants and needs, thoughts and feelings didn’t count. So I learned to hold them tightly inside of me, or to outright dismiss them as invalid. When I was small, it worked for me to deny expressing myself. I was simply labeled the “shy” child and people thought it was cute. But as I grew into a young adult, being the “shy” child became a problem for me. I found that when I wanted to express myself, I couldn’t. Either I didn’t really know what I wanted or needed, or thought or felt; or I didn’t have the self-esteem to open up and express my...

Many of us grew-up having our needs denied, especially our emotional needs. We may have had warm houses to live in, food on our tables, proper clothing and toys to play with. But many of us didn’t have the kiss on the cheek, the heart-felt hug or a hand to hold ours when we were sad or hurting emotionally. As a result, we grew-up misunderstanding our emotional needs. Some of us learned to disassociate from these needs. We learned to feel so much shame about having needs or wants that we went into a complete denial about our even having such things at all. In doing so, we became extremely independent. We came to believe that we didn’t really have any emotional needs or physical wants. We became men and women of steel. To compensate for the needs we were ignoring, we subconsciously began to confuse our needs with our wants when it came to taking care of ourselves. Any time we experienced an emotional need, we learned to satisfy it by securing something we wanted. As a child...