Soulshine

Oscar Wilde said it perfectly: “be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” We were created by God to be ourselves: The unique individuals that God empowered with a specific purpose for the betterment of our generation on this earth. So “rejoice” in who you are by choosing to see yourself in a favorable light, by retaining the personal power God blessed you with at birth and by using that power to bless humanity. No one can take our personal power away from us. Even our parents weren’t able to do so when we were children. We freely chose to give our personal power away to Mom and Dad because we believed they had to be right and we had to be wrong. As disempowered children, we developed victim mentalities that caused us to give our power away to most everyone. As a result, we never learned to build good boundaries. When other children bullied us, we ran instead of standing our ground; when people insulted us, we took it on the chin while we quietly died inside ourselves; and whe...

“I do not explain, defend or justify my life to anyone. I am my own creation, intent on being myself.” Dr. Chris Michaels Many codependents spend a lot of time explaining, defending and justifying their lives—even their existence—to others. Someone criticizes something we said or did and a panic alarm goes off inside of us. We then bend over backwards to whitewash ourselves. We back pedal on our beliefs or our values and desperately repaint ourselves in the color that this critical person wants us to be. Before recovery many of us were like chameleons. Every hour of every day often led to a change in our color or in our song and dance. It was always more important to us to sing the song someone else wanted us to sing, or to dance the dance that made other people happy. Yup, we were champions of giving our personal power away to everyone we thought was better than us. And by the time we entered recovery, many of us didn’t know our own voices anymore. We had complet...

“Gee Baa Baa, here I thought I was making you over… and you’ve made me over good as new.” Tim Osbourne , Lucky Star (1929) Codependency causes many of us to work extra hard at making other people over in our own image and likeness. We can develop a sometimes desperate need to make someone into the person that we want them to be. It’s this deep-seated need that pushes us to manipulate that someone in every way possible until they become what we want. The manipulation involved in making someone over can include lying, withholding information, flattery, criticism and coercion. It can also involve shopping or gift giving. For example, say we’ve targeted someone to be Mr. or Ms. Right, but we don’t quite like the way he/she dresses. So, in order to make them over as we would have them be, we voluntarily buy clothing for them—the clothing that we’d like to see them wearing. We don’t care what they want, or whether this clothing is a natural fit for them. It’s all about maki...

There is photo that has recently gone viral on the internet. The photo shows two Middle Eastern men. The two men are holding individual small signs in their hands. The man on the left has a sign that says “I’m Jewish and I’m from Israel ,” and the man on the right has a sign that says “I’m Muslim and I’m from Palestine .” Together both men are holding a larger sign that says “Why can’t we all just get along.” And there’s a peace symbol at the top of the large sign. After studying the photo, I thought about how easy it would be to substitute so many other words onto their small signs. Instead of saying “I’m Muslim” and “I’m Jewish,” the small signs could also say "I'm White” and “I'm Black”-- Why can't we all just get along." Or they could say "I'm Gay,” “I'm Straight." Or "I'm American,” “I'm Iranian." Or "I'm Democrat,” “I'm R epublican."—“Why can’t we all just get along.” The list could go on an...