Soul's Code

CONFESSIONS: “When my little brother said I was like a T-shirt for women who shack up with abusers, I knew I had hit rock bottom”

ANONYMOUS — Sometimes I feel fondly — even grateful — for hitting what I consider rock bottom . . . so long as I never have to visit there again.

If there’s a contest between life’s ups and downs, ups are in. Some people pop pills to stay up.

Up is nothing to sneeze at, certainly, but I also believe that down is a place where you can do some foundation work for a personal renovation.

My downward journey started . . .

An up-close and personal account of infidelity from a Soul’s Code contributor goes deeper than the public contritions of governors, celebrities and other cheaters

BY CASSANDRA KELLY — Sometimes, to amuse myself, I think about the parallels between my life and the lives of those that our society has deemed “famous” or “stars.” For instance, I grew up in poverty — so did Gloria Estefan.  I’m a pilates lover and so is Jen Anniston.

On the butt end of bullying? Here’s the spiritual argument against turning the other cheek.

BY JIM BOUCHARD – What if you could look inside the soul of a bully? What would you find? 

Conventional wisdom says the bully is insecure. He finds some sense of power and control in the world by using force to get his way. He’s often the progeny of a bully himself, was raised to bully others or at least knows no other way. The bully, we’ve been told, is a loner who is insensitive to the feelings of others and incapable of empathy. He finds his greatest satisfaction in the suffering of others. 

To be blunt, the bully is a jerk.

An enlightened person would be the opposite of the bully, right? If you are enlightened you wouldn’t think of taking advantage of others or causing pain and suffering to satisfy personal ambitions and desires. You’re always careful to consider other people’s feelings and when your needs and desires conflict with someone else’s, you’re willing to step aside to keep the peace. 

You’re a nice person who lives by the Golden Rules: Do no harm. Turn the other cheek. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 

But wait… does this make you an enlightened person or a coward?

I find my soulmate, but a cyber lover causes a rift in our bond

Read the Soul’s Code exclusive series, Sins of my Faith

In Marina’s last episode she begins therapy with a psychologist and realizes that she’s become estranged from both her creative, and feminine sides.

BY MARINA GIULLIANI — After years of hopping from bed to bed I’d finally found a place where I felt truly comfortable.  I sealed my promiscuous past in a vault at the back of my head and jumped at the chance for a normal relationship.

Chris was the love of my life, and we were involved in a full time relationship from first sight. The product of a nasty alcoholic father, and a mother who made up for all his father’s evil deeds, Chris had more goodness than any human being I’d ever met.

Recession pushed a real-life couple into therapy.  What they found when they got there: money was synonymous with love and security.

DAVID RICKEY — In early 1988 I began work with a couple, (we’ll call them George and Martha), whose relationship seemed to be a victim of the ’87 recession. Martha worked as an interior designer; George worked at a Wall Street investment firm.

The recession was the cause of his being laid off and it also saw a decline in her business. Before this upheaval they had lived a very comfortable lifestyle on the Upper Westside of Manhattan.

They came to me because they found that most of the time that they were together now, they were fighting or just irritable, and there was a big decline in intimacy. They thought all this had to do with the decline in their income and therefore the lowering of their “lifestyle”.

From down and out to pin-up: How a burnt-out fitness trainer was voted Playgirl’s ”Man of the Year,” and discovered that true beauty isn’t skin deep

GUEST COLUMN: KEVIN TALLEY — While some may debate whether angels or spirit guides really exist, from my life experiences I can state categorically that I am a “true believer.”

As a counselor, fitness trainer and motivational speaker, what helps me to aid people with their own life struggles are the tough times that I have gone through, and the lessons I have learned on how to overcome adversity.

Guides have played a huge role in my life, beginning when I was nine years old — and reoccurring when I was in my early 30’s and nearly committed suicide.

A single mother whom we’ll call by her first initial, “M,” to protect her and her daughters’ identity and location, wrote to us to ask for advice and prayers. She’s just had a relationship-shocker that she compares to the movie, American Beauty, and the secret life of Amber Frey’s notorious (and married) ex, Scott Peterson. If that were not enough, M also just lost her corporate job.

In M’s own words . . .

Little did the New York governor know at the time but another Democrat with presidential ambitions, John Edwards, would later make this moment of public shame seem quaint

BY PAUL KAIHLA — It fits the spiritual season we’re in — the last week of Lent — that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer made a public contrition a few hours ago for cheating on his wife (woman, left) with prostitutes.

Ego-eviscerating confessions like this usually take place in private between a sinner and his or her rabbi or priest, not the national press corps: I apologize first, and most importantly, to my family. I apologize to the public, to whom I promised better.

To elaborate James Carville’s words on CNN a few moments ago, we’re here not to judge but to advance the causes of forgiveness, redemption and transformation — and that’s not just because Spitzer was listed as Client No. 9 . . .

Why People Can’t Get Over a Lost Love

“You had me at cathexis,” is a line of real-life dialogue from one of our own nine love-lives. It’s also a pun on the signature line in the movie, Jerry Maguire. If break-ups are the most common form of loss around us today, then the term cathexis is the first key to un-locking their pain.

It goes way back to Sigmund Freud but it was Dr. M. Scott Peck who made it meaningful to the masses in his cross-over, blockbuster, The Road Less Traveled:

We must be attracted toward, invested in and committed to an object outside of ourselves, beyond the boundaries of self . . . Once cathected, the object is invested with our energy as if it were a part of ourselves, and this relationship between us and the invested object is called cathexis.

The best ways to handle anger: nude photo sessions, slutty behavior or destructive behavior

A woman left children entrusted to her care unattended to venture into the woods and pose for nude pictures, the Associated Press reports. The woman, a 20-year-old, said the photo session was designed to get back at her boyfriend.

It’s, indeed, a low point when we use sex to try and hurt those we purport to love, let alone put children in the way of harm or neglect. We’ve written about the benefits of nudity and highlighted different perspectives on sex. Let a quick thought from David Deida’s “Instant Enlightenment” serve as a commentary on this case: