Soulshine

“It doesn’t matter what I want. You’re telling me what’s good for me, what’s proper… You’ve been telling me since I was three years old and I’m sick of it. You’ve glared and scolded and frightened me… and now I’ll tell you something you’ll never forget: What I do is none of Lynnfield’s business. I invite the whole town to take a jump in the lake!” Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunne), Theodora Goes Wild (1936) Don’t allow anyone to judge you. Stand right up to them and retain your power by setting them straight. No one has the right to tell you who you should be, how you should live your life, what you should or shouldn’t do, what you should wear, how you should act, or who you should or shouldn’t associate with. In the film Theodora Goes Wild , Theodora Lynn (played by Irene Dunne) hits bottom with her meddling self-righteous Aunts and their equally as intrusive friends. She’s tired of dressing like a frump, acting like a dead saint and of being told who she can or...

As we journey into the new year, there are many gifts we can give ourselves and others. The greatest gift we can give is and always will be love. Love is the only gift that guarantees lasting happiness. I learned a valuable lesson about the gift of love/happiness in a recent visit with some friends who just had a baby. Shortly after I arrived at their house, Dad and his Mother-in-Law got into a tiff with each other. Apparently something had been brewing between the two of them and they allowed it to spill over—onto all of us. Why? Because they were neither one coming from a loving place. And they were willing to sacrifice their happiness by holding on to their rightness. They chose to be justified in their perceived rightness rather than to be justified authentically by swallowing their pride and allowing love to carry them to a higher place. What they didn’t understand was that in choosing to stick to their rightness, they both sacrificed their happiness. We were about t...

“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...