Soulshine

      Recovery marked the first time I was ever able to see life through more than one lens. Actually, before Recovery, I didn't have any idea that there was more than ONE lens to see life through. It took me 37 years to realize I had been living my entire life through my mother's view of life. And her view was through the lens of Codependency.   I was very much like the man in the image above. Every time I came across a toxic person, my addictive personality saw one thing: "I love you." In fact, however, what this person was really saying to me-- each and every time-- was "I wanna waste a couple of months of your life." And, likewise, my "I love you" meant that I wanted to waste a few months of their life, too, until we both hit bottom with each other.   Hitting bottom in these relationships never meant to me what it means in Recovery. I'd hit bottom with a person, break up the relationship and then bounce back in my quest to find my next fals...

 Practice is the word of the day. I've read plenty about staying in the NOW but I don't practice what I've learned very well. Instead, like the above meme says, my mind always seems to be stuck in memory or imagination. And when I say "imagination," I really mean "nightmare." I constantly misuse my imagination by creating nightmare "could happen" scenarios in my head. I also take actual, REAL problems that I face on a weekly basis (as all of us do), and make them into bigger than life, monster-sized problems. I reek chaos through my whole body with obsessive-compulsive thoughts that are truly blown out of proportion to the REAL problem. And I'm sick of it. In recent weeks, my thoughts have clearly been in control of me, instead of me being in control of my thoughts. Granted, we don't always choose the thoughts that come into our heads. But we can choose to either reject them or to create total chaos out of them.  Staying in the NOW requ...

 How well are you owning your personal power today? I woke up this morning and realized that I wasn't owning mine very well. And it was obvious to me why: I was caring about what other people think and trying to please them. I could feel the anxiety in the pit of my stomach and my heart was racing. Why? Just because someone placed a disagreeable comment on a digital media page that I am responsible for operating. First, I had to admit to myself that the comment really wasn't that negative and that I was taking it personally. Instead of immediately saying to myself "Everyone has a right to their opinion, we don't have to agree and that's fine," I was taking it as an attack. And not just an attack on the post itself, but a personal attack on me-- when in fact, it wasn't. Even after 25 years of Recovery, this is one of those areas I still struggle with from time to time. Owning my personal power is still so new to me, that I easily fall back into the habit of...

As recovering codependents, the "some people" mentioned above are the people that we do NOT want in our lives. Unfortunately, many of us don't realize that fact. For years, we've believed quite wrongly that we were the problem if someone suddenly turned their back on us and deemed us "worthless." We mistakenly believed that these people were our friends, or sincerely loving family members, when in fact they were perpetrators-- they were agents of harm toward us. No one who truly loves us turns their back on us. Even if we do things to hurt each other, if we truly love each other, we will own up to our mistakes and we will make amends between us. That's not the case with people who treat us like we're important today and then treat us like we're worthless tomorrow. This can happen for many reasons, but the primary ones I have experienced are these:  We have chosen to trust or rely on the approval of someone who can't even approve of him/hersel...

  Prior to recovery, I never thought I could be someone who made ME happy. How can someone who thinks he/she is a complete loser-- because they are so wounded deep down inside-- provide happiness for themselves? Impossible. The thought that I could be the "someone" who was going to make me happy never occurred to me. No. That was someone else's job. It was my job to find that person who was going to rescue me from my self-hatred and make me happy. Of course, everyone I ever assigned that job to failed miserably. Now, I know that it wasn't their job to make me happy. But back in the heyday of my codependent crazies, I had no clue-- no matter how many people failed to make me happy. I'd just lick my wounds and then go hunting for someone else to be responsible for making me loveable. Of course, I believed that I was also responsible for making them feel loveable and happy. The old cliche "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" fits an active codep...

  It's one of THOSE days. I just feel miserable inside. I feel bluer than blue, but I can't cry--even though I feel the tears behind my eyes. I'd like to talk to someone, but I don't know who. I know this particular feeling. I've felt it a million times. It should be out of my system by now-- but it's not. I refer to it as the Parental Wound. Some people have Maternal Wounds, others have Paternal Wounds, but I have both. And this feeling is like a disease I just can't shake away, feel away or face away. I've tried and tried. I know we have to face feelings by FEELING them-- and allowing them to pass through us as they gradually wear themselves out. But this one never seems to be finally gone-- no matter how many times I face and feel it. And this makes me wonder if the feeling is a forever ghost from the past, or just a means of my being mean to myself-- when I have nothing else wrong in my life? Sure. I realize I'm lonely. I left the West Coast a ye...

Gee, you know, we codependents tend to have many bad days. Or do we? Is it karma? Do we have an invisible bullseye on our backs? Does everything really go wrong all day long? I'd say the answer to these questions is probably "NO." What we codependents often do have in common, though, is a victim mentality. All it takes is one wrong glance from a person in the office, one irritable spouse, or one assumption we just made about what a friend said a few seconds ago-- and suddenly our entire day is ruined. Codependents have an unwritten rule: "Where there is no chaos I will create it." We thrive on drama, where we're the unfortunate and undeserving victim, of course. Many of us could win Academy Awards for Best Perpetual Victim in a Supporting Role. Why? Because one little bad thing happens in the morning and we stew on it for the rest of the day, or week, or month or year. We tend to take everything PERSONALLY. If the coworker just took it on ...