Soulshine

When we learn to balance our light sides with our dark sides, we find we can like who we are without liking everything about ourselves. Once we essentially like who we are, it’s easier to be reasonably happy and to feel like we fit-in with life and the universal flow.  This doesn’t mean that all is rosy and perfect. It means we accept that we still have dark issues from the past to work through and that we will still have days when we come up short in our behavior and don’t like ourselves very well. It means we know we will still feel sad or lonely, anxious or down on ourselves at times—and that it’s OK. It’s just part of being human. It’s the universal norm. I was at an amusement park riding roller coasters with a friend yesterday. As we walked around, ate Dippin’ Dots, and boarded the coasters, I noticed I felt really comfortable and in-sync with the world around me. I didn’t generally feel that way in the past. But yesterday I felt pretty happy with myself and my li...

One of my favorite mantras, which I repeat to myself daily is “Gently, lovingly, I heal all of the deep dark wounded spaces inside of me. With great love I fill-up all of my empty spaces with light, peace and well-being.” I say it slowly and with great reverence. I choose to offer myself love and to allow that love to gently stir within me and to gradually wash me clean of all my inner-wounds; be they spiritual, mental, emotional or physical. We have the power to heal all of the internal wounds that for too long have made us feel powerless over life. The healing process requires only one thing from us: That we be willing to help ourselves. Once we are willing, we can begin our healing journey by offering kindness and love to ourselves. By doing so, we finally make the life-affirming choice to treat ourselves with proper care and respect. Essentially we are making the necessary step toward choosing to value ourselves, and to believe that we are worthy of love and everything tha...

“I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt. I’m, I’m, I’m too sexy!” Right Said Fred I often encourage people to alter their morning ritual. I suggest that they make one little adjustment when they approach their bathroom mirror. Before shaving or applying makeup I tell them to sing a chorus of   “I’m Too Sexy for My Shirt.” And as soon as I make this suggestion, everyone does what you just did: They laugh out loud—or at the very least they allow a little smile to steal across their faces. In recovery, it’s important to be able to laugh at yourself. We codependents tend to take life way too seriously. We ruminate over our feelings of emptiness and worthlessness. Some mornings it almost seems unbearable to look at ourselves in the mirror. We’re sick of our self-loathing and our self-imposed loneliness. And a good way to rise above all of our gloom is to be able to laugh at ourselves. More importantly, if we stand in front of our mirrors and sing “I’m Too Se...

Once we’ve gotten recovery’s wake-up call, it’s easy to see ourselves as the victims of many abusive people. Suddenly, everyone we chose to be in a relationship with looks like an evil never-do-well. We look to the past and see our “innocent” selves as having been willfully abused by these people. We pretend that in every instance they knew what they were doing in hurting and victimizing us for their personal pleasure and gain. This way of seeing the past is called denial. And it’s denial because of one word: choice. No one forced us to be in relationship with anyone from our past. We chose to be in relationship with them. Nine times out of 10, we became obsessed with a particular person—not understanding that he/she was toxic for us—and we chose to pursue a relationship with him/her. We thought about this person obsessively, called him/her constantly and bent over backwards to please him/her until we succeeded in taking this person hostage. Once we had our great obsessio...

"… Just talk, I’m listening, Just talk. I know your tastes in food and wine, but never really what’s on your mind. What’s going on inside your head? I hear you say what you can or can’t. I’m never sure what it is you want. There’s always something left unsaid." Morten Harket, Listening  Being emotionally unavailable in a relationship is a major problem. It’s a form of abandonment. If we are emotionally unavailable to others it’s a sign that we have abandoned ourselves. We don’t believe we are worthy of voicing who we are, what we like, what we need, what we think or what we want. In all of these essential areas we remain silent and in being so, we stifle relationships and keep them from growing. The other person feels left out of our inner-world and thus abandoned by us. Over time, the more the other person tries to break through our wall of emotional unavailability, the further we distance ourselves from them for fear that they will find out we really aren’t good...

When I give spiritual talks involving recovery, people sometimes raise their hands and say “That’s great, but it doesn’t work.” I listen to their story and then I say “Let’s clarify something: Is it that it (recovery) doesn’t work, or that you didn’t work it?” Silence ensues and then the person usually says sheepishly “I didn’t work it.” Information and awareness are great to have. They are necessary. We can’t begin to understand ourselves or our old ingrained patterns of behavior until we have awareness of how we have been hurting ourselves and others, and information about healthier patterns of behavior. But information is just information and it’s easily forgotten if we don’t put it to good use. Recovery is a lifetime process. There’s no end to it until we breathe our last breath. It works when we work it. Working a recovery program for a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, a few months or even a few years isn’t going to cut it. The moment we stop working it, we gradual...

What’s missing from your life? If the answer isn’t “you,” in other words, if you’ve been showing up for yourself, but there’s still a sense that something’s missing, what is it and how do you find out? A good way to start is to look to your feelings. What makes you sad? If we feel great sadness about something, it could very likely be the missing piece. For example, often times the missing piece is hidden because we aren’t being truthful with ourselves. Maybe we’re comfortable with befriending ourselves now and we’re happy spending time alone with ourselves. We’re busy at work, probably busier than we’d really like to be. We keep in touch with family and we make time to have dinner or a cup of coffee with friends here and there. Everything seems good on the surface, but now that we’re really getting in touch with our feelings, we realize that there is a deep sadness inside. It’s a sadness we’ve been ignoring because it represents a difficult truth. And that difficult truth i...