Soulshine

“In order to protect our emotional wounds, and because of our fear of being hurt, humans create something very sophisticated in the mind: a big denial system… We put up these barriers for protection, to keep other people away.” Don Miguel Ruiz , The Mastery of Love We can be in recovery for many years and wonder if we are ever going to get relationships right. Most of us have been so emotionally stunted and unavailable for so long that we have developed an intense drive for intimacy NOW. We are deflated inside and desperate to be touched, cuddled and passionate to the 100 th degree. We bounce between being depressed and being anxious about our inability to have intimacy with another person. So let’s honestly look at ourselves for a moment. If we did indeed emotionally shutdown as children, we long ago lost touch with our vast realm of God-given emotions. We have most likely spent our entire lives in-touch with two feelings: numbness and anger. If feelings of real int...

“I gotta new life You would hardly recognize me, I'm so glad How could a person like me care for you? Why do I bother When you're not the one for me Ooooo, is enough, enough? For so many years I've wondered who you are How could a person like you bring me joy? I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes I saw the sign and it opened up my mind! And I am happy now living without you I've left you I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes I saw the sign.” Lyrics from The Sign by Ace of Base In every codependent relationship we have ever been in, we have seen “The Sign” of addictive attraction. It pops up before our faces and flashes like neon across our blinded-by-addiction eyes; and, of course, we choose to ignore it. There are many warning signs that pop-up from the moment we find ourselves being emotionally or romantically drawn to a toxic person. These signs are sometimes referred to as Red Flags, and they exist for a reason. They are present...

“You knew all along What I never wanted to say Until I learned to love myself I was never ever lovin' anybody else Happiness lies in your own hand It took me much too long To understand how it could be Until you shared your secret with me.” Madonna, Secret Until you learn to love yourself, you will never love anyone else is a “secret” that every codependent must learn, and the sooner the better. I know it seems like a vulgar idea. The very thought of loving myself seemed hopelessly twisted to me early-on in my recovery. But it is totally essential. I wasted much of my life hating me. My self-hatred kept me running from myself and into the arms of anyone who would have miserable, worthless me. It took me on an endless bad trip into the lives of countless toxic people, who also hated themselves. And that bad trip didn’t end until I realized it was impossible for two people who hate themselves to build any type of redeeming relationship. Toxic person pl...

“The hardest thing for me was understanding that letting go didn’t mean letting go of people, places and things,” Darlene’s friend said. “It was letting go of my ideas about how life should go.” Melody Beattie, Choices Letting go is not about giving up on life or about abandoning people, places or things that we love. Letting go is about accepting everything about life that we have no power to control or change. It’s about accepting reality as it is, not as we want it to be, or how we think “life should go.” Reality is also about accepting people exactly the way they are and about discerning boundaries. Boundaries tell us where we end and others begin. People in recovery rarely enter with good boundaries. We are so enmeshed in others that we can’t separate our lives from theirs, or our problems from the problems of those we care about. Here is a good litmus test for setting boundaries in terms of what problems are ours to own and what problems are not: My problems direct...

“Rick Von Slonecker is tall, rich, good looking, stupid, dishonest, conceited, a bully, liar, drunk and thief, an egomaniac, and probably psychotic. In short, highly attractive to women.” Nick Smith , Metropolitan Nick Smith is a character from the 1990 movie Metropolitan , and he makes a good point: Toxic people are always attractive. Why is that? Well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that so many of us in our society are raised by toxic people; and what we know, we gravitate toward. Many of us grew up in households where addiction was a problem. Dad was an alcoholic and mom was codependent on his addiction, or vice versa. We watched and we learned. Addictive behaviors became the norm for us. We didn’t like them, but they became familiar and comfortable. The older we got, the more we learned we could hide behind addictive behaviors and we gradually developed our own addictive personalities. As we grew toward adulthood, we subconsciously recognized the signs ...

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter; and those who matter don’t mind.” Dr. Seuss We tend to think of the term “made for each other” as purely romantic. But I believe we can broaden the definition in the following way. God created certain people to be important in our lives. These people were made for us and we were made for them. In other words, part of God’s plan for the human race is to create a support system for all of us. God created certain people who would be there for us to help us grow into being the people we were created to be, and to help us accomplish our intended purposes in life. And, likewise, we were created with the intent of being part of a support system for specific others in our lives. Everyone’s support system includes parents, siblings, extended family members, friends, neighbors, love partners and God. In this light, there are many people in our lives that the phrase “made for each other” can apply to in a...