Soulshine

I’ve talked with many people recently who are struggling with their concept of a Higher Power having to be “God.” So I’ve suggested that they think of Love as being their Higher Power. It doesn’t have to be Higher Love, just love itself. Even if a person doesn’t believe in God or some form of higher being or even Spirit, he/she will more often than not acknowledge to me that they believe in love as a powerful force within themselves and within the world. I don’t personally know of anyone who doesn’t believe that love is a spiritual experience. Love is a spiritual experience and a powerful force that guides each of us from within. In doing so, love connects us and unites us; making it a truly powerful force throughout this world we live in. It’s also easy to pray by substituting the word “love” for the word “God.” For example, we can say the Serenity Prayer in this manor: Love grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can a...

Most every family suffers from favoritism. In other words, it’s easy for mom or dad to have a favorite child and to be partial to that child at the expense of their other children. Probably the best way to illustrate the damage that occurs through parental favoritism is the story of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat , which is based in the Bible. Jacob (or Israel ) has several sons, but his favorite is his youngest, Joseph. Jacob isn’t shy about acknowledging that Joseph is his favorite and he has no problems lavishing love, compliments and gifts on Joseph-- alone. Unfortunately, Jacob seems to be oblivious to the devastating effect that his behavior has on his other children. The older sons all end up feeling like they are worthless in the eyes of Jacob. They also feel cheated by him and so they grow envious and jealous of Joseph. Any time a parent plays favorites the other children in the family will feel like they are some how lesser-than. They’ll feel defective, de...

You stare at me in disbelief You say for you there's no relieve But I swear I'll prove you wrong. Don't stay in your lonely room Just staring back in silent gloom. That's not where you belong Come with me I'll take you where the taste of life is green And everyday holds wonders to be seen. Come with me, leave yesterday behind And take a giant step outside your mind. Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Take a Giant Step  In reality, there’s only one world. Yet nearly all of us have created parallel universes inside our heads. Addicts, in particular, seem to spend way too much time inside their head-worlds. I suppose this is because the real outer-world didn’t feel safe to us when we were children. So we chose to escape from it by withdrawing into a little dream world inside our childhood heads. Unfortunately, with each passing year, our childhood dream worlds slowly eroded into adult nightmare worlds; probably because we became more and more reliant up...

Most everyone wants approval from others. And it can be very emotionally painful for some of us if approval is withheld. I didn’t realize how a devastating feeling from the past can arise from needing approval in the present moment until just last week. I was helping-out with a week-long retreat for Catholic nuns. The first of my two talks was one I call “Have I Loved Well.” In that talk I speak of the fact that when our day comes and we stand before God, He isn’t going to ask us how much money we made, or if we were good at bridge, or how well we ate. He’s only going to ask us one question “Did you love well?” As soon as I made that statement, one of the nun’s raised her hand and said “Oh, I don’t think you understand nuns. We don’t have bank accounts, and we don’t play bridge.” It threw me initially because 1) I made no mention of bank accounts. Sure, nuns may not have individual bank accounts, but they still have to “make money” to support their communities;   and ...

"His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God... and he must be about His Father's business: beauty... and to this conception he was faithful to the end."                                                            F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby It makes no difference where we have come from, who are parents were or how our past has shaped us. We are not prisoners to any of it, or anything. As adults, we have stewardship-- ownership-- of our own lives. We are all sons and daughters of God an...

Little girl inside of me, I’m surprised you are still there, patiently waiting for me to see how much you need my care. Little girl your tears are felt, they fall across my face and all of that pain you’ve been dealt, I wish I could erase...Little girl I‘m going to hear all of the things you need from me and from now on I’ll hold you near with love eternally.                               Anonymous, Stepping Stones to Recovery Recovery is very much about learning to own your feelings. We all have emotions and every one of them is necessary. There are no good or bad feelings. Those are judgments we’ve made. Truth is every feeling you experience is essential. Feelings exist for our benefit. Every feeling is present for your benefit. Every feeling provides some form of healing. This is why it’s so important that we stop runn...

Codependency robs us of our personal power. When we are shamed as children into believing that we aren’t good enough, we begin the process of giving our personal power away to others. We make others who are “good enough” into our false higher powers, and we mistakenly think that only they can rescue us from our lovelessness. As a result, we lose all sense of ownership over our lives and we fail to develop proper boundaries with others. As soon as our focus centers on pleasing people to gain approval, we give all of our personal power away to others. We also give them complete power over our feelings about ourselves. If they offer us crumbs of approval we may feel some value or self-worth. But if they withhold their approval, or worse yet, slap us with disapproval, we may feel like we are worthless and completely unlovable. Personal empowerment is all about learning to take responsibility for loving ourselves. It’s about making the conscious choice to declare “I am lovable...