Soulshine

“We accept good things from God; and should we not accept evil?” Book of Job As a codependent with a victim mentality, I have always focused on the bad, or evil, in my life. Everything happened to me. If something could go wrong it did. Or did it? A lesson recovery has taught me is that when we’re always expecting troubles, we will find them, or they will find their way to us. Part of my problem with bad things happening to me is that I never wanted to accept them, so I moaned and groaned or I fought them. It never occurred to me that maybe I should just accept the bad things, acknowledge that I was powerless over many of them, surrender them to my Higher Power and look for ways to move forward. It was just easier to sulk and feel sorry for myself. Of course, I also thought that playing poor pitiful me would elicit attention from others who would then comfort poor me and take care of me. Was that hope every truly realized? No. Seeking sympathy never really worked to any gre...

“If these Christians want me to believe in their god, they’ll have to sing me better songs; they’ll have to look more like people who have been saved; they’ll have to wear on their countenance the joy of the beatitudes. I could only believe in a god who dances.” Friedrich Nietzsche In recovery it’s important to know a Higher Power, or God, who dances. We need a Higher Power who smiles when we rise in the morning, who understands when we’re frustrated, who offers empathy when we hurt inside, and who loves us no matter how bad our behavior has been throughout the day. And we need a Higher Power who will love us to sleep each night no matter how bad we may feel deep down inside about ourselves. In other words, we need a Higher Power who is ON OUR SIDE. Too many of us grew-up in households where God was a tyrant, a hanging judge; and some of us grew-up in households where there was no God at all. Either way, we never knew a God who danced with us. We never experienced an...

“If you really, really want to do something, no one can stop you. But if you really don’t want to do something, then no one can help you.” James A. Owen, Drawing Out the Dragons When it comes to recovery, there is certainly great truth in what James A. Owen says above. The day we decide we really, really want a better life for ourselves is the day that we can make the choice to start building that better life—and no one can stop us aside from ourselves. Of course this means we have to “really” want a better life bad enough, and for most addictive personalities, wanting a better life “bad enough” usually means we have hit bottom. The day we hit bottom is the day that life becomes so painful and so unmanageable we are finally willing to say “I surrender.” It’s the day that we finally acknowledge that we can’t make it on our own any longer. It’s the day we finally reach out to a Higher Power and to others who can help us piece our lives back together. Back in Octob...

Higher Love, I‘m not good at trusting You will make all things right, if I simply surrender to Your will. And I’ve been long afraid that if I reveal my true self to the world, everyone I love will abandon me. As a result, I have made a mess of my life by refusing to be me and by choosing to be anyone others want me to be. I’ve been dishonest with myself and with everyone else. Instead of opening up my heart-petals and trusting in You, in Higher Love, I have chosen to shut-down and manipulate my way through relationships; most of which have ended in flaming disaster. But no more. Today I choose to trust in your Higher Love for me, and I will make the effort to love myself as You love me. I will open up my heart-petals and share my beauty with everyone. In doing so, I will be strengthened by those who reject me because I will choose to believe I am worth more than their shallow opinions of me. And I will be rewarded by those who accept me exactly as I am, Your heave...

I f you have trouble owning your personal power over the Holidays, turn things over to your Higher Power and accept the help you need to be at peace. I hope this prayer helps! Dear God, I’m powerless over family members and friends during the Holiday season. It’s impossible for me to own their issues by attempting to fix them all. Please help me to let go of my need to control family, friends and their behavior this Christmas. Help me to, instead, focus on my own feelings and behavior. I surrender all of my imperfections to you. And my prayer is that you will help me stay balanced and focused on relating to others from a loving place within me. Please remind me to never take anything that anyone says or does personally. The bad behavior of family and friends is not about me-- It’s about them and their own personal brokenness. When I am faced with negative comments or behavior, I will trust you Lord to help me breathe, acknowledge my feelings and think. I want to ...

I first posted this two years ago at Christmas. I think it’s worth re-posting this year and maybe every year as a reminder that we need to work at owning our own power at Holiday gatherings. It’s the only way we can truly enjoy them. Merry Christmas! “Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer”… OK well maybe not. I mean, yeah, it’s Christmas, but the happiness and cheer is debatable. This time of the year most everyone wants to be happy, but let’s face it, family gatherings sometimes play out like real Nightmares before Christmas. Across America most every family has an Uncle Eeyore, who makes the Winnie the Pooh character seem like the Sugar Plum Fairy; an Aunt Grinchella, who’s conniving and controlling; and a brother Ebenezer, who is bitter and angry at the world. So much for happiness and cheer-- unless we adopt a new attitude toward family and the holiday. First, we have to choose to accept Eeyore, Grinchella and Ebenezer just the way they are by empathizing with ...

“Everything is just as it should be.” Andrew Weil, M.D., Spontaneous Happiness Most days I need to get out of my own way. I have a lot of “shoulds,” a lot of personal inner-demands and wants that I place on myself, others and even nature. And these mostly irrational demands do nothing less than cause me misery. Life is not about how I want it to be. Life is about how everything actually is, despite my objections. People are who they are, the weather is as it is, the day begins and flows as the universe flows. I am a small, but important part of that flow, and I need to be open to moving with the universal flow. When I am, everything is just as it should be. Awareness is the key to getting out of the way-- of both myself and the universal flow. Conscious surrender and release of my inner-demands is the next step. And acceptance that life is exactly as it should be—moment by moment—rounds out my active choice to live life as it is. Living life in the flow requires being focused in th...

Who are you responsible for rescuing in this life? NO ONE except yourself. Unless you are a firefighter, a police officer, an emergency medical worker or a hazmat worker, you are not responsible—or capable—of rescuing anyone from any tragedy or life-threatening situation. So get over the fact that you are not a superhero. God never made you responsible for saving everyone in your little world. Somehow, some way you made yourself into the savior of the world. And you can relinquish the title at any time to its rightful owner: God. Any compulsion you have to rescue your significant other, your children, siblings, parents, friends, coworkers—or anyone—from themselves or their problems is a misguided illusion. Surrender them all to God and allow God to do for them what you have absolutely no ability to do—rescue them. Listen to them, validate their feelings and help them to feel loved, but don’t dawn your superhero cape. Don’t make their problems your problems. Don’t bail ...