Soulshine

Yesterday I was watching the film Eat, Pray, Love . It’s about a woman, Liz, who has little sense of self and strong codependent enmeshment issues.   Liz marries a man named Steven when she is very young. He was someone she chose to fade-into, even though they had little in common. Liz gave up her identity to become Steven’s shadow and has been living in the misery of being what he wants her to be for many years. As the movies opens we find Liz discovering that she no longer wants to be Steven’s mirror—and she tells it to him face to face that she no longer wants to be married before fleeing and filing for divorce. I realized while watching the film that there is a great paradox here that many codependents suffer from. First, I do not know of any codependent that enmeshes into someone who actually mirrors his/her likes and dislikes. For some odd reason, we have a tendency to enmesh in someone who is the total opposite of us in terms of personal preferences. We choose some...

I don’t know who I am. I’ve lived (existed) so many years, walked so many miles in my own shoes, and yet, I don’t really know who lives (hides) deep inside of my body, my heart, my brain. It scares me to realize and to admit this. Even worse is the fact that I don’t know how to really discover, connect with and begin to understand me. I’m 17 years into codependent recovery, and yes things are better. The real me has floated to the surface in magnificent ways. I speak-up more, say what I believe and feel, and allow myself to be goofy and humorous. I’ve even rediscovered the great singing voice I had as a child. And I give myself credit for all of this. I also understand that I was a people-pleaser, a caretaker and a fader (someone who constantly fades into another person to find a sense of value or purpose, or to simply escape from themselves.) I don’t people-please anymore. I don’t care-take anymore. But I do still have a tendency to want to fade into someone else. I stil...

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...

It’s the last day of 2012 and the world is moving forward. We must move forward with it. As 2012 evolves into 2013, take some time to realize, appreciate and be grateful for all of the many wonderful ways in which you have evolved for the better over the past 365 days. If you’ve been reading this blog, at the very least you have gained new-found awareness. That is a great gift. You are better aware of yourself, of your old self-destructive patterns of behavior and—most importantly—of your new-found power to choose healthy life-giving patterns of behavior. If you have been a notorious people-pleaser or caretaker, you know now that you don’t have to please anyone, aside from yourself; and the only person you can really nourish and care for successfully is yourself. You’ve hopefully learned to be more compassionate with yourself; kinder and gentler with yourself; and more open to totally accepting yourself just as you are. You’ve been learning, hopefully, to accept all o...

“Fatty, fatty two-by-four, can’t get through the kitchen door.” Nursery Rhyme I was a pretty skinny kid until around the age of 12 or 13. It was then that my sugar craving really kicked-in as a means of medicating away the emotional pain that I wasn’t willing to face. Lots of sugar and chips and little exercise, aside from walking to and from school, meant that my slim figure began to expand. And expand it did. The timing couldn’t have been worse. It was right at the age when you are becoming self-conscious about your body, which is already changing in multiple other ways with the onset of puberty. All I heard from family was razzing over having become the fat member of the family. And of course, we know how merciless other kids at school can be. My family was so emotionally unavailable that we never hugged, kissed or touch, and so I already was suffering from touch-deprivation—and feeling completely untouchable and unlovable. Now that I was fat, I saw myself as a c...

“Codependents often minimize, alter or deny how they truly feel. In recovery I embrace my feelings; they are valid and important.” Recovery Patterns of Codependence During the Holiday Season it can be easy to rely on old coping techniques to get us through difficult gatherings. One of the patterns that saved us during childhood was learning to deny, alter or minimize our feelings. This is a functional survival technique for a child who is unable to otherwise protect him/her self from emotional abuse. But it is a dysfunctional escape technique for adults who want to simply run away from reality. It’s important that we own our feelings. Every feeling we experience awakens us and brings us back into real life. In addition to adding necessary color to life, feelings guide us. They are our inner-compass. Feelings guide us into proper patterns of behavior and help us to set good boundaries. Feelings also help us to be true to ourselves. When we honor our feelings we hon...

Hope everyone has a very Blessed Christmas and Holiday Season. Remember to let go of expectations. Accept each moment and every person as they are by not demanding that they be as you want them to be. If you accept the moment as it is you will find joy in it. If you accept others as they are, you will find beauty in them. And if you accept yourself as you are you will find joy, beauty and complete peace!