Soulshine

According to author Rita Mae Brown “a controller doesn’t trust his/her ability to live through the pain and chaos of life.” Brown then goes on to say that “there is no life without pain just as there is no art without submitting to chaos.” Anyone who has ever suffered from codependency knows the fear of facing pain and chaos. And we codependents certainly do a masterful job of trying to control life in regards to emotional pain and daily chaos. My question, however, is this: Do we try to control life to avoid chaos and the pain it causes, or do we try to control life to ensure chaos and the pain it causes? I think we are often trapped between both the need to avoid and the need to create chaos and pain. After all, many codependents willfully choose to engage in relationships with people who are toxic for them. We invite chaos and pain into our lives based in our need to repeat the childhood patterns of chaos and pain that we are so familiar with. And yet once we have...

“Follow your bliss” is a popular ideal, but you have to follow your pain first. I mean there can be no true bliss to follow if it’s buried under the boulders of your unresolved pain. Bliss is the end result of a deepening, maturing spirituality. Pain is the path you must blaze in order to mature spiritually. Pain-- be it physical, mental or emotional— awakens the empty spaces inside of us. If we are present and open to our pain, it will take us to the very places where we need to find spiritual healing. Pain invites us to truly take a soul-journey. This journey into the inner-areas of the soul is beautifully portrayed in the 2008 Japanese film Departures . The film centers on the life of Daigo Kobayashi, a cellist in a Tokyo symphony orchestra, who carries a dark burden in his heart. That burden centers on his relationship with his father, who Daigo hasn’t seen in 30 years. When Daigo was six years old, his father-- who operated a coffee shop-- ran off with one of the waitresses. Da...