Soulshine

“Your destiny is not just to find love; it is to be the most loving person you can be.” Robert Holden, Loveability As an active codependent (for most of my life), I failed miserably at being the most loving person I can be. And even as a recovering codependent over the past 20 years, I have still failed at understanding and thus knowing how to be a truly loving person. To me love has always been about giving of myself to get something back from others. Love, as it was modeled for me as a child, was something you earned. It was the great pay-off; like receiving a paycheck for doing a good job at work. I watched my mother earn the love of everyone around her by looking after all of their needs and doing, doing, doing for everyone. She only stopped doing if she didn’t get her paycheck (the love from others she thought she had earned). If someone didn’t love her for all she was doing, then she’d withhold her love (doing) until they showed some sort of remorse and renewed apprec...

“Who am I to judge?” Pope Francis Codependents, like most all addicts, spend a great deal of time playing prosecutor, judge and jury. Most of our attention is focused on ourselves. This is actually one situation where we do focus our attention on us—unfortunately. When it comes to negative energy, we have an abundance of it for ourselves. We are critical, merciless and unforgiving with our every fault or failing. Of course, this pattern of negative behavior causes us eventually to be just as easily critical, merciless and unforgiving towards others. I’ve come to believe that the people in this world who are most critical of others must either be codependent/addictive thinkers, or those who are totally obsessed with following rules, or both. And I’d like to see this all change. We need to make this world a kinder place. That means that we need to focus on being kind to ourselves, first and foremost. Once we can empathize with ourselves, we will stop being so self-criti...

“Today I look in the mirror and say ‘I love you. I really love you. You are the joy of my life.” Louise Hay I was up early this morning and the Abbott and Costello movie Lost in a Harem was on Turner Classic Movies. In one of the scenes Abbott asks Costello “Did you ever take a good look at yourself in a mirror?” to which Costello replies “No. Why should I hurt my own feelings?” Costello’s comeback was funny and yet sad. So many of us with addictive personalities have difficulty looking at ourselves in mirrors. Before we even look, we already know that we are going to be uncomfortable with what we see, and we don’t want to hurt our already fragile feelings any further. I know that when I look in a mirror myself, I see all of my deformities and shortcomings—or at least the ones that are in my head, the ones I project onto the mirror image of myself. The deformities I see are the ones that society tells me are unacceptable, like wrinkles, lines, sagging, love-handles, ...

No one can help us until we are first willing to help ourselves—not even God or our Higher Power. I grew up hearing “God helps those who help themselves,” and I’ve learned through recovery that this is certainly true. Neither God nor anyone else could help me until the day I finally cried out “I need help! I don’t know what’s wrong with me! Why can’t I build good relationships? God help me!” I finally decided on that day that I had to seek therapy. For years I had refused because my parents had raised me to believe it was taboo. My mother was very much like the Mary Tyler Moore character in the 1980 film Ordinary People . She was horrified over the idea that anyone in our family could be considered crazy enough to need a therapist. It was shameful to her, after all, what would the neighbors say? Well in October of 1995, I decided I didn’t care anymore what the neighbors might say. Screw them. I needed help and I was going to seek it out. So I did. And once I was ready to help...

Everyone has multiple opportunities to become the hero of their own life story. In Disney’s Maleficent , we focus primarily on the character who is portrayed as the evil fairy in the traditional story of Sleeping Beauty. We learn her complete story: The fact that she began life as a good fairy who was the champion of her people against an evil king, who was then betrayed by her close friend and the future heir to the evil king’s throne, Stefan. We thus learn why Maleficent became so bitter and why she cast an evil spell upon her betrayer’s first born child, Aurora. Maleficent, like all of us, was not born evil. Redemption was always within her grasp. And, although we are addicts, redemption is always within our grasp as well. It’s completely up to our being willing to choose to redeem ourselves from addiction. That’s the first step: admitting we have a problem and that we are now willing to do something to help ourselves. And how is Maleficent redeemed? She is redeemed throug...

Disney’s Pinocchio takes on the theme of developing an informed conscience. If we are to be honest with ourselves and with others—as recovery requires us to be-- we need to know how to judge right from wrong and how to be responsible for the negative consequences of our own behavior. In many ways Pinocchio represents the typical child. We witness his birth shortly after Geppetto, his creator, wishes on a star for Pinocchio to become a real boy. The Blue Fairy appears and grants his wish. Pinocchio becomes animated and alive and yet he is not yet a real boy. Why? Because he has yet to develop a conscience. So Jiminy Cricket is called upon to act as a conscience for Pinocchio. We all go through the human process of developing an informed conscience. At a young age we begin the process of learning the difference between right and wrong, kind and mean-spirited, sharing and hoarding. Some of these moral choices are taught to us, but many of them we must learn for ourselves through...

Disney’s Tangled places a new spin on the Grimm Fairytale Rapunzel . We meet Disney’s Rapunzel just before her 18th birthday. She has a spirit of adventure. Every year on her birthday, she has seen lanterns light-up the night sky, and her heart is telling her to follow the lanterns. She is anxious to do so. But Mother Gothel stands in Rapunzel’s way. Mother Gothel is vain, selfish and manipulative, and as a codependent I can unfortunately relate to her need to control someone to ensure her own happiness. Gothel kidnapped the infant Rapunzel because she (Gothel) is able to retain her youthful beauty by simply touching Rapunzel’s golden, radiant hair. So she is determined to keep Rapunzel a prisoner in the tower by infusing her with fear concerning the dangers of the outside world. Fear becomes the major obstacle that stands in the way of Rapunzel’s quest for adventure and freedom to live her own life. She has developed a comfort zone in the tower with Mother Gothel. Part of he...