Soulshine

    Even if we have been in recovery for years, it’s still easy to fall back into the codependent crazies if we aren’t practicing strict awareness. We meet someone new and we may initially feel nothing special about this person. We like them and we enjoy seeing them. But as time passes we can suddenly catch ourselves thinking more and more about them, daydreaming about being with them, wanting to buy things for them, feeling empty and deprived when they aren’t around, wondering about what they are doing—in other words obsessing about them. When we feel the inner-turmoil of obsessing endlessly about the other person, we have fallen back into the codependent crazies and we are out of control. The painful feelings of obsessive love are a warning sign: they can lift the veil of denial and bring us back to reality. If, at this point, we truly open our inner-eyes we now have a choice: we can continue down the insane path of the codependent crazies by keeping our focus solely a...

Have you ever gone to a party expecting to meet Mr. or Ms. Right? I have. We enter the party and we’re already anxious because we are bearing a very heavy and unreasonable expectation. It’s an expectation rife with other expectations: Since we’re going to meet HIM or HER we must be on our best behavior, meaning we must be charming and witty; we must look “just right;” and we can’t make any mistakes or else HE or SHE will reject us. WOW!!! What a tall order! No wonder we’re anxious and quickly getting more and more uncomfortable in our skin as we scope-out the party looking for HIM or HER. As we look around, we lock-in on someone. HE/SHE has to be the one! We may have the courage to approach this person or we may not. If we don’t have the courage, we may spend the whole night pining over this person one moment and then beating ourselves up the next for being too cowardly to approach HIM or HER. If HE/SHE leaves before we do, or even if we leave first, we then spend days rippin...

“The whole point of focusing on ‘the NOW ’ is to end the search for happiness.” Robert Holden, Happiness NOW   Going with the flow of our day means getting out of our heads as much as possible. Sure, we have to be in our heads some. But the average person probably spends 80 percent of their waking day living inside of their head, and they only bother to leave it when the bump into the reality of the outside world. For example, you can be at work, sitting at your desk, fully engaged inside your head until your phone rings or someone knock on your door. These perceived interruptions take you out of your head and lead you back into the real world. They place you back into the flow of life, and yet we are often crusty about the fact that the real world is disturbing our little inner-world. Think of it this way: Our little inner-world is filled with expectations, shoulds and other such happiness-zappers. When we are constantly caught-up in our little worlds of “th...