Soulshine

    Even if we have been in recovery for years, it’s still easy to fall back into the codependent crazies if we aren’t practicing strict awareness. We meet someone new and we may initially feel nothing special about this person. We like them and we enjoy seeing them. But as time passes we can suddenly catch ourselves thinking more and more about them, daydreaming about being with them, wanting to buy things for them, feeling empty and deprived when they aren’t around, wondering about what they are doing—in other words obsessing about them. When we feel the inner-turmoil of obsessing endlessly about the other person, we have fallen back into the codependent crazies and we are out of control. The painful feelings of obsessive love are a warning sign: they can lift the veil of denial and bring us back to reality. If, at this point, we truly open our inner-eyes we now have a choice: we can continue down the insane path of the codependent crazies by keeping our focus solely a...

Codependent crazy love is all about a constant rush of anxious needy feelings. This anxious rush compulsively pushes the codependent into accelerating everything about a romantic relationship. Patience and common-sense fly out the window of the codependent’s mind. It’s like the codependent has his/her inner-accelerator pushed to the floor with no intentions of ever hitting the brake pedal. Insanity informs the codependent that this new person is truly Mr. or Ms. Right, and so all caution and all boundaries are thrown to the wind. The codependent is ready to hop in bed and rush to the altar—without really knowing anything of significance about the object of his/her desire. The codependent may know little about Mr. or Ms. Heartthrob, aside from his or her name. The codependent may not know where this person is from, his/her family background, if they are currently or ever have been married, where they work (if they even have a job), what their spiritual beliefs are, or whet...

“Real Love is about the insanity of loving someone for simply being who they are and allowing them to love us for simply being who we are. And there are no strings attached to this love. Love is all about “being” in the moment and loving the moments you share with someone whose “being” you love.” Charlie Wehrley , Soulshine As a codependent, I often lived by the mantra “Within you my heart has found a home.” Basically, my heart was homeless because I never welcomed it inside of me. I never allowed my heart to find a home inside of me. So all of my focus was on finding someone who would have my heart, who would give it a home, but that never happened. Today, I’m questioning whether or not our hearts can find homes inside of others. It almost seems like insanity to believe this could be possible. But then the question of true love gets in the way. Isn’t true love, unconditional love, insanity? It certainly is for many of us. We can’t begin to understand how anyone can ...

Who makes you happy? In reality, no one can make you happy. People in your life can enhance your happiness through sharing your interests. Or they can add to your frustrations by pushing your buttons. But no one can be responsible for your happiness or your misery—aside from you. One of the biggest problems for codependents is that we too often enter relationships looking for everlasting happiness. We expect that the person we choose to attach our dreams to should be responsible for making us happy. In our minds, we fantasize that he/she will be focused solely on us, will spend every waking hour with us and will do everything in his/her power to insure that we are as happy as we can possibly be. In other words, we assume this person will meet all of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs in the same way that we plan to meet all of his/her needs. In our little dream world we will smother each other with attention and we will both drip with the honey of happiness. R...