Soulshine

I’m learning that there is a fine line between the desire to lose yourself in someone and the desire to simply be with someone. So, how do we know when we’ve crossed over the line? We all have the need to be with others, and sometimes that need extends beyond casual friendship. The need can be for someone we feel safe with, someone we can open-up to and talk honestly with, someone we can laugh and cry with; and, ultimately, someone we can simply rest-in knowing that we are always safe and cared for in the arms of that person. The great comfort here is in our knowing that this particular person accepts us and we accept him/her unconditionally. There are no strings attached and thus no need to manipulate each other. And it’s not a matter of getting lost in each other, but rather, in supporting each other. The sort of “need” I just described is very different from feeling desperately “needy” for someone. And “desperate” may be the key word here. Neediness is driven by a deep...

Why am I afraid to practice Into-Me-See? Well, first off, I have some fears about what I will find when I delve inside myself. But my greatest fears around living “Into-Me-See” have to do with opening up to others. Primarily, my fear is that people won’t like what they see inside of me. I fear that they won’t like the real me and that they will reject and abandon me. This is especially true when it comes to family members, friends and love interests. My fear of rejection makes me desperate to control others. I want to control how they respond to me, and I’ve become accustomed to bending myself to be whomever others want me to be. I’ve learned that I can manipulate them by refusing to be vulnerable; by refusing to allow them to see inside to the real me. It’s of ultimate importance to me to be accepted, even if it means that I have to compromise myself; even if it means that I continue to engage in relationships with people who are toxic for me; and even if it guarantees that ...

  “God dwells within me.” Liz Gilbert, Eat Love Pray So many of us have cast-iron doors over our hearts. A massive attack by nuclear bombs couldn’t begin to blast open the doors that so vigilantly guard who we really are. Yup. For Many years now those doors have done a stealth job of keeping everyone out—including us. I’m just beginning to realize that most all of my life I, too, have been standing on the outside of the mega-iron doors that I built, placed and sealed over my heart. This is why I haven’t really known me, and this is also why other people haven’t really known me or been able to warm-up to me—including God. When I say God, I don’t mean that I have kept God out by having these big iron doors over my heart. No, quite the contrary. God dwells within me and within all of us. In reality, when I sealed those iron doors over my heart, I not only sealed myself out, but I sealed God inside. For many years now, I have been standing outside of my heart and...

“You’re giving me a song and a dance, a tale of romance, But haven’t I heard those words before? You’re telling me you’re gonna be true, but I shouldn’t listen to you For hasn’t my heart been fooled before? Oh, you’re giving me a song and a dance, and I’m falling for your romance But haven’t I heard those words before? You’re Giving Me a Song and a Dance , Marty Symes You’re Giving Me a Song and a Dance was a song made popular by the orchestras of Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman back in the 1930s. Peg La Centra sang the lyric for Shaw and Helen Ward sang it for Goodman. Every time I hear this song, it reminds me of the Codependent Trap. What’s the Codependent Trap? It’s when we engage in the dysfunctional, codependent Song and Dance that others spin for us and we spin for ourselves. It’s about the “song” with the codependent words that play through our heads; that old “song” of neediness. We known how it goes. We sing it to ourselves all of the time. It’s all abo...

Everyone desires intimacy and yet most everyone is afraid to be vulnerable before others. We want intimacy, but we don’t want into-me-see. Trouble is, you can’t authentically have one without the other. We have to be willing to open our heart-petals if we want people to see our true inner-beauty, and vice-versa. Building a good relationship with ourselves is the necessary foundation for building a good relationship with others. Once we are willing to honestly look inside ourselves we begin the process of into-me-see; and once we become comfortable with our “perfectly imperfect” true selves, we will gradually become more comfortable with opening up and allowing others to see inside of us. No one can become intimate with us unless we invite them in to know us. We have to allow them to see into the true us. This means we have to be secure enough in ourselves to open up our heart-petals and to be vulnerable before those persons who are important to our lives. In complete nake...

There’s age-old wisdom in the idea that if you wish to build a good relationship with another person, you need to start by building a good relationship with yourself. This is a difficult concept for those of us who, through our codependency, believed that building a good relationship with another person was all about rescuing that person from themselves while at that same time said person rescued us from ourselves. Certainly the idea of our first building a good relationship with ourselves was never on the table. In fact, to the average codependent, the very thought of building a good relationship with themselves is repulsive. Instead we think things to ourselves like “Me? Build a good relationship with icky old me? YUK! NO WAY ! I need to find someone who can rescue me from myself and make me OK!” There’s a lot of faultiness to this thinking. First off, if we find ourselves so repulsive, why in the world would we assume that there could be someone out there in this world...

“I used to love hotels,” says Anna. “Now I’m always in a new apartment or in a hotel somewhere... It makes it easy to leave people.” Oliver looks her in the eyes and says “You can stay in the same place and still find ways to leave people,”   “You are like that?” asks Anna, “It’s what you do?” Oliver nods his head in the affirmative. “So we are the same” says Anna. To which Oliver replies “I guess so.” From the film Beginners , 2010 Running away from people is the great American Pastime for many of us. We’ve built our lives on running away from ourselves, and we’ve been doing that since we were about five years old. A major problem with running away from one’s self is that it requires us to then run away from everyone. Subconsciously we know that if we can’t face ourselves, we can’t face anyone. I mean, if we’re not willing to face ourselves, what self do we have to show to someone? We have no sense of self. We’re just a name with a face and a body but not much mor...

“From an early age, Juanita’s mother would express disappointment when Juanita did something her mother disapproved of. Juanita’s fear of this disapproval kept her from sharing parts of herself that would disappoint her mother. As a result, her mother never really knew her.” Phil Stutz & Barry Michels , The Tools What do you hide from others, the world and yourself? A great many of us learned the same childhood lesson that Juanita did. We learned that if we said certain things, or acted in certain ways, it made our parents uncomfortable. And so we learned to hide parts of our true selves. Picture a five year old boy who innocently and sincerely says to his mother “When I grow up I’m going to marry a boy.” A deafening silence fills the room. Then Mom laughs nervously and exclaims “Boys don’t marry boys! Where did you get an idea like that?” After another sharp pause, Mom continues in a stern voice as she wags her finger in her son’s face: “Boys only marry girls! Wh...

Most everyone has a fear of naked intimacy. We are afraid to reveal our true selves to others. We are insecure as to whether or not we are good enough mentally, emotionally, spiritually or physically for others, especially someone we hope to engage in a lasting love relationship. In love relationships, our fear of intimacy begins with revealing small bits and pieces about our inner-selves. We’ll reveal a little, but for the most part we hold back waiting to see how the other reacts. If they like what we have revealed, then we’ll reveal another tidbit, but we rarely feel secure enough to reveal all there is to know even as we are getting more and more serious about this person. Time passes and we are enjoying each other’s company, seeing more and more of each other, and yet we still don’t feel safe enough to go any deeper than throwing out scraps or “pieces-parts” to each other. And these scraps are nothing more than whatever we have carefully screened and deemed will be a...