Soulshine

Across the Western world, many people are preparing for Christmas. We are busy about looking for the perfect gift to give. And what we lose sight of is the fact that we ourselves are the perfect gift. First, there’s no better gift you can give yourself this Christmas than the gift of self-acceptance and self-love. You are enough. You don’t need any “thing” or anyone to complete you or make you OK. God has already taken care of that through the very fact that God created you and made you a gift to yourself and the world around you. The problem for so many people is that they don’t believe that they are good enough, and that all of their wholeness and happiness is resting inside of them. No matter how many times I emphasize this to people, I still find many of them searching for someone or something outside of themselves to validate them and make them OK. And these are the very people who are miserable at this time of the year because they haven’t been able to find that special...

“I don’t want to die before I live” The Ramones , Cabbies on Crack Codependents aren’t known for living their own lives. Many of us have long been focused on living someone else’s life. And some of us have been focused on living everyone’s life. Either way, our intent was to escape from ourselves by walking in the shoes of others. Yes. We walked their walk and talked their talk. We liked whatever they liked and we danced to their tunes; for within these other persons we were to find our salvation. This sounds like insanity to me now, and yet I still feel the tug, the desire, of wanting to find my fulfillment in the life of another person. I know it’s not possible. Nothing from outside of me—whether it be a person, a new car, a drug, a role of the dice or a cinnamon roll—can bring me lasting comfort. Personal fulfillment comes from within, built on the foundation of I AM who I am, of being completely me, of being spiritually one with my Higher Power. I know this is the truth...

“No day is the same as any other, and every morning holds its own special miracle, its magic moment in which old universes are destroyed and new stars created.” Paulo Coelho , Love (Selected Quotations) 2015 Codependents can be notorious for judging themselves—and others—harshly. We look in the mirror and we don’t see our authentic selves; we see all of the mean judgments we’ve made against ourselves. Then we go about our day projecting our harsh self-judgments onto most everyone else we encounter. Sometimes we can be like the Pharisees in the Gospel story about Zacchaeus. The Pharisees have already judged Zacchaeus to be a “sinner” because of his profession as tax collector for the Romans. Yet, what do they really know about Zacchaeus? Do they really know the workings of his heart? No. But more often than not, neither do we know the workings of another’s heart when we judge them harshly. Jesus Christ comes along and instead of judging Zacchaeus, he reaches out to him...

“You read something so sad Some lonely boy just went mad.” Luke Temple, Love Won’t Receive Many codependents suffer from loneliness. It’s often a self-imposed loneliness that comes primarily from self-alienation. After all, most of us abandoned ourselves when we were very young. That same loneliness is also due partly to our sometimes fierce independence. We may often enmesh in others, but at the opposite end of the spectrum we like to pretend like we don’t have any wants or needs of our own. In other words, we won’t allow anyone to help us. In between codependent relationships, many codependents are loners. We can be very independent while we’re licking our emotional wounds, and this can lead us to being lonely as well. A few years ago, while I was in the throes of loneliness, I asked my Higher Power to help me. Then I discovered a book that had a chapter on loneliness. It suggested that we ask loneliness what it has to teach us about ourselves, so I did: “Loneliness...

“I disappear into the person I love. If I love you, you can have it all: My money, my time, my body. I will assume your debts; and I will project upon you all sorts of nifty qualities you’ve never actually cultivated in yourself. I will give you all of this and more until I am so exhausted and so depleted the only way I can recover is by becoming infatuated with someone else.” From Eat, Pray, Love (Columbia Pictures, 2010) This is the best description of codependent behavior that I have ever witnessed. Many authors have attempted to define codependency, but it’s extremely difficult because codependency is so multi-faceted. But this description of codependent behavioral patterns describes my own codependency perfectly, prior to recovery, and so I’m going to dissect the quote. At the height of my codependency, I always found myself disappearing into the person I was in “love” with, or rather, that I was infatuated with. Looking back, I realize now that it w...

“Love… cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession.” Paulo Coelho , The Witch of Portobello Codependents easily associate love with possession. In many ways, this is understandable. Western society, certainly in the United States anyway, has come to associate “love” with the “possession” of things. We see a vase in a department store, we immediately “love” it and we must possess it to be happy. Or we see chocolate eclairs in a bakery window, we “love” eclairs and we must possess or have one or two to be happy. This concept of “love” and “possession” easily lends itself to the language of addiction. The alcoholic loves her vodka and she must have it to be happy, and the shopping addict loves things and he must have them to be happy. Likewise, we codependents love certain people and we must possess or have them to be happy. The big difference between these three addictions is that the alcoholic and shopaholic are “in love” with possessing things (i...

“Say you'll share with   me one   love, one lifetime...   Lead me, save me   from my solitude... Say you want me   with you,   here beside you...   Anywhere you go   let me go too -   Christine   that's all I ask of you” The Phantom , Phantom of the Opera I saw the new Broadway rendition of Phantom of the Opera last night. I always find myself initially pulling for Raoul, while empathizing with the Phantom. And it’s my empathy for the Phantom that eventually leads me to pull for him toward the end, even though I already know what the outcome will be. I realized last night that my primary reason for empathizing with the Phantom is that his story parallels my own. Since my teenage years, I’ve always seen myself as hideous to look at. This started when I developed a horrible case of teen acne that literally ravaged my face and left it terribly scarred. Coupled with my ever-growing codependency, I had little hope...