Sitting In My Brokenness…

As I sit here in the Detroit Metropolitan airport and type these very words, I watch as one passenger after another walk past me with bags in hand, some heading to their gates, while others head to baggage claim and beyond. As each stroll on by, I imagine what their lives are like, especially those evoking strong outward emotions. And as I silently observe my outer world, I begin to reflect inward, becoming aware of my own inner state of being, one that is feeling so incredibly sorrowful right now in life.

Processing out a 10-year relationship that just isn’t able to work anymore in its current inception has been feeling so incredibly painful to my heart. While my partner Chris and I truly love each other still, and probably always will, he’s broken in his own way, and so am I. And two broken people just can’t function together in a relationship, especially when the reasons for their own individual’s brokenness clash almost every single day.

What I need most in a relationship is affection in non-sexual ways, something that has been absent more than not in most of my adult dating life. It’s taken me a long time to figure that out and now that I have, I’ve tried very hard to seek that more in Chris, but unfortunately, he has demons from his past that he’s facing and has been for a good while, demons that cause him issues with showing those forms of intimacy. What this translates to is simply me pushing for more and him pulling away more. It’s a pattern that has become well established for years now with us and one I can’t handle anymore, because my heart hurts, immensely, and needs to heal by being around those who will embrace it more with those forms of intimacy.

I’ve spent an entire life not having my heart embraced and instead accepted more than not my body being embraced instead. I’ve allowed myself to enter into one sexual encounter after another, some lasting for moments, and others lasting for years and beyond, where affection came mostly through carnal experiences but rarely through those deep forms of intimacy I’ve longed for ever since I was a kid, when I never got them back then either.

I’m doing my best now to embrace that little kid in me who never got those forms of intimacy and have been giving him the love he needs right now as I process out this relationship and deal with my inward brokenness. This may very well be the first time I’m not numbing that broken part of me with any addiction and instead just sitting in it. And man, it’s painful. So very painful. I’ve sobbed so much lately that sometimes I profusely shake in the midst of it.

So, as I process through all these painful emotions and this vast pit of emptiness I feel within from the end of a decade of life spent with Chris, I find myself silently observing all these people walking around here at the airport. With each of their smiles and frowns and empty gazes as they press on forward, I press on forward myself in faith and trust that God is finally able to heal me in all this stillness, allowing my heart to finally heal for what very well is probably the first time ever in my life…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I’m Dancing With Myself…

Ok, so I’m about to be deadly honest about a strange part of myself with something that I’m doing lately, that you may find yourself wondering, why the heck is he telling me this. There is a reason, but first let me state what that weird truth is.

Late at night now, typically after midnight, I have been listening to a form of music called “Micro House” or “Minimalistic House” where I dance erotically to in front of a large mirror in my living room. I learned long ago how to move my body quite well to this type of music where it often looks like I’m being sensual and making love to myself as I do.

Now, as to the why I’m telling you this. Over the past few months, I have felt completely unloved and unattractive, mostly because of the demise of a 10-year relationship with someone who doesn’t look at me anymore like he once did and hasn’t for a long time. What I have always found so special in every committed relationship I’ve been in is how that “in love” feeling gets shared between two souls and often becomes the very thing to turn any bad day into a good one instantly. I haven’t seen that from the man I’ve spent well over a decade with and it’s caused me to struggle immensely with loving myself. And all of this has led to my heart feeling completely broken on almost every single day, where that little boy within me, that inner child, feels just as broken because of it. So, I am doing things regularly now to repair my broken heart and cultivating a greater love for myself in the absence of it not being freely given to me anymore where one of those is essentially making love to myself in front of the mirror using my own unique form of dance expression.

I’m a good dancer and always was back in the day, even winning a few contests here and there somewhere along the way. The dance form I loved to do the most back then was to stand up on those high boxes and platforms in clubs and raves late into those weekend nights and well into the wee hours of the morning, where I’d listen to a type of house music that immediately moved me into a state of mind and body that always felt so incredibly blissful and was never brought on by any alcohol or drugs. It was always something that truly helped me to love myself a little more in a life where I was typically feeling unloved. That’s why I’m choosing now to return to that state, as I re-learn how to find my own unique expression of love all over again in this world by going back to an art I mastered long ago, one that absolutely cultivated greater self-love.

While I may be 50, you wouldn’t know that or even feel that if you somehow could be invisible and watch me do this unique form of self-love late at night. I am a very sensual person, always was and always will be, and while much of that came from having many lovers throughout much of my adult life, I’m now transmuting that energy into a much healthier expression, one that I can give to myself. And how I know this is actually helping me is precisely in how I feel after doing it, because each time I have, not only has it really increased my endorphins, but it’s also led to me smiling far more and my mood elevating incredibly as well.

I’m thankful I can move my body in this way still and find myself actually looking forward to going to a club again someday soon as my overall health continues to improve. Because no matter what my age, I know the spirit within me is pretty damn amazing and has his own unique form of self-love to express, including one he’s currently doing late into the wee hours of the night, as he dances erotically to himself, and in turn, shines a lot brighter within.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I Feel Like I’ve Been Chasing My Desire To Be Unconditionally Loved My Entire Life…

I feel like I’ve been chasing my desire to be unconditionally loved my entire life. From the onset from as far back as I can remember, I never knew what it felt like to receive love just because I existed. It’s a lesson that parents are supposed to teach their kids to show they matter no matter what. And it’s a lesson that kids are meant to learn from them to help form healthy relationships later in life. Unfortunately, I never was taught this lesson in my dysfunctional household where addicts were present more than not. Instead, I grew up feeling unloved by them more than not, that is unless I did some type of big action to gain some form of their love.

I realize now that every friendship and every intimate partnership I’ve ever had in life thus far has been on some level chasing this unconditional love my mother and father never gave me. In the process, I’ve given my time, my energy, my money, and even my body away to get that love and what I’ve gotten instead is hurt, repeatedly. Time and time again I’ve sought healthy connections with others only to discover that it was the same unhealthy connection I’ve always been in. When I looked to be consoled, comforted, and the like in each of those relationships, I typically never got it back and was told I was too needy. But it was those people who didn’t have that programming built into them just like my parents never did. So, they only reconfirmed the very thing I never received growing up.

I finally am facing this hard lesson and choosing consciously to not let my mother and father be in my friendships and intimate partnerships anymore. Sadly, this is one of the biggest reasons why my current partner and I aren’t doing well at all. Because we both have this absence of programming within us. Over the years, I’ve sought this from him, especially when I’ve really been in pain and needed some serious unconditional love, but since he doesn’t have this programming, it only led to me feeling more unloved than not.

What I long for the most now is to be connected with those who love my soul force, who see the true me, not the outside me. And I want to spend my life intimately with someone who loves me on that level as well, who isn’t spending time with me because of some hidden agenda, manipulative desire, sexual drive, or any other lower vibrational reason. My desire to hold and be held by someone who truly loves me from my soul and theirs is my driving force now and I no longer am seeking to create new connections that only reconfirm that which I already learned from all the other broken ones who never did quite love me unconditionally.

I’m done giving myself away to gain love back. I’m done trying to overachieve just to receive limited forms of love. I’ve learned to love myself enough now to know what I deserve and I don’t want to be in any connection anymore with those who can’t love me back with a level of love that I say is God’s love, something that goes far deeper than carnal and physical-based interests. I simply want connections in my life who know and love me on a level that is beyond what they can see. And I believe it’s out there, in both an intimate way and even in the platonic one as well.

No more will I enter any new pattern with another in life who can’t express a soul love to me, as ultimately, I do deserve better, and I do love myself enough now to know I always did…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson