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 Love had to be earned and it could be withdrawn at any second of any day.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...

“When true love is lost, life can bleed of all meaning. We are left blank, but the possibility of destiny remains. What we are meant for may yet be discovered.  And…that journey to find our destiny may defeat even time itself.” From the film Winter’s Tale (2014) Life without love certainly does bleed of all meaning. I’ve often thought about the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians “If I have faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Life without love is pure nothingness. And this is why life is often so painful and devastating for people who suffer from codependency and other addictions. Early in life, addicts lose all perspective of self-love. They thus completely lose their grounding in life. They lose the roots of who they are: Love itself. And they gradually become a living, breathing form of nothingness (the sense of being left blank). And in their nothingness, they look desperately outside themselves for validation, for love, for approval and...

Sometimes we fill-up our codependent emptiness by being obsessed with something other than a particular person. Looking back over my life it’s easy to see that I’ve consistently had something or someone to be obsessed over. In those times when my radar wasn’t glued to one particular person, I’d easily find other things to be wildly crazy about. For example, last year I was mesmerized by the new Great Gatsby movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. I saw the movie five times in the theater and I wanted every piece of Gatsby merchandise I could get my hands on: posters, soundtracks, press kits, photos, etc. That obsession lasted about a month before I started wondering why I was so hyped over Gatsby. Then, I was watching The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn and suddenly I was interested in everything about Errol Flynn. After a couple of weeks, I was over Errol Flynn in the same way I was over Gatsby. Next I rediscovered singer Donna Summer and I was on Ebay looking ...

“Do whatever you want with me, anything you want with me, fill me up with your memory.” Foxy, Lady of the Streets (1979) I believe love and sex addiction are derived from codependency. Some people have such a giant void inside themselves that nothing can seemingly fill it up aside from physical touch. In the same way that a sugar addict needs a donut or a shopping addict needs a new pair of shoes when they are ultimately feeling bad about themselves, a sex addict needs physical fulfillment. The root cause of this addiction can be complex. Some sex addiction is rooted in the fact that a person was sexually abused as a child. But much of it derives from the fact that all addictive thinking is rooted in a deep sense of self-worthlessness. Addicts believe that they are inherently unlovable and that they have to earn love. For some addicts, sex becomes a viable way of earning love—or some form of validation of their worth from others that they actually mistake for lo...

“Are you gonna be there? Are you sure you gonna call back? When I'm calling up and all that? Did you know that I'm sick? Did you think I would quit? Did you think I'll go home? Can't you hear I'm sick? I'm lovesick Can't you hear its bump? Like my heart is quick I'm lovesick Can't you hear its bump? All down Can we make it up? You don't know me You don't know anything I’m lovesick.” Lindstrom & Christobelle , Lovesick (2010) Codependent lovesickness emerges from a growing sense of neediness inside of us. The neediness is easy to understand. It’s about the ever-enlarging inner-hole in our souls. It’s about all of the love and approval that was withheld from us when we were children by our parents and other significant adults. And it’s about our perpetuating that emptiness by continually withholding love and approval from ourselves. We treat ourselves the same way our parents treated us. We do this bec...