Soulshine

“One evening King David rose from his bed and strolled about on the roof of the king’s house. From the roof he saw a woman bathing; she was very beautiful. David sent people to inquire about the woman and was told, ‘She is Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, and wife of Uriah the Hittite .’   Then David sent messengers and took her. When she came to him, he took her to bed. ” 2 Samuel, The Hebrew Bible There are interesting parallels between the Hebrew story of King David and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story of Jay Gatsby. Both men see themselves as sons of God, destined for greatness. David conquers the Goliaths of his world and Gatsby conquers the Goliaths of his world. It seems easy for the two of them to conquer the men of their respective worlds. Maybe that’s because it’s part of God’s vision for their lives and the purpose that each one of them is meant to serve. But neither one of them is able to conquer the Goliaths they face of the opposite sex. In fac...

Manipulation : to control or play-upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means, especially to one's own advantage; to force change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one's purpose. Every codependent is familiar with manipulation. We have all engaged in manipulative behavior for the express purpose of getting from others what we were not willing to give to ourselves—namely love. In fact, for the non-recovering codependent or addict, manipulation becomes a way of life, a survival skill. We need to be needed or loved and so we engage in manipulative behaviors, like people-pleasing and caretaking. We falsify how we really feel about this or that in order to please (manipulate) someone into loving us. We bend over backwards to meet the needs of another person, not because we truly love and care about him/her, but because we want to manipulate him/her into appreciating us and making us feel good about ourselves. But there are other forms of manipulation that we,...