Month: January 2013

I Better Pack My Bags, I’m Going On A Guilt Trip!

What is a guilt trip?

Google defines it as: “An experience of feeling guilty about something, esp. when such guilt is excessive, self-indulgent, or unfounded”.

I define it comically today as “An experience Andrew Dawson had often during his dysfunctional childhood.”

I don’t believe God can ever be present in a guilt trip. Guilt is a tool used by those who wish to selfishly gain off the manipulation of another. Those that fall prey to guilt trips and give what the other person is asking of them are people like me that were never able to establish healthy boundaries in life.

In the alcoholic family I grew up in, there were no boundaries. There was no unconditional love. Things got done more than not with a combination of fear, control, and guilt. I was not able to say no as a child to my father or mother on anything. The sports I partook in, the classes I signed up for, the places we went out to dinner, the vacations we took, the food that was put on my plate, I had no voice in any of it. When I spoke up and tried to establish my voice and a boundary, a guilt trip was usually the result.

When one spends the first 18 years of their life with guilt, it stands to reason that responding to it favorably for someone else’s benefit will continue to occur until one heals from where it started. Until the age of 39 years old, I could easily be guilted into doing just about anything for someone.

I fought very hard as a child for approval and I shouldn’t have. All I wanted as a child was for my mother and father to tell me they loved me and were proud of me for me. I wanted to be good enough just as I was. Why wasn’t sixth place out of 25 in my sectionals swim meet good enough? Why wasn’t the B in school ok? Ironically, they were. I just couldn’t tell myself that then. I listened to my mother and father about how I had to try harder.

Sadly, what I didn’t know then, was that they were just replaying the tapes from their childhood. They were only teaching me what they had learned themselves. And I’m sure their parent’s parents were the same and so on and so forth. Someone had to break the pattern and learn what unconditional love was all about. And at the age of 39 I was exactly like my parents.

I was guilting others to get what I wanted and being guilted by others into what they wanted.

“Will you do this for me. Please? You know that I’m so good to you…”

“Will you loan me some money? You have way more than I do, don’t be selfish…”

“Why don’t you buy dinner for us? You earn more money than me…”

“Can you clean my car for me? You don’t have anything better to do since you’re not working like I am…”

These are just a few of the guilt trips that I’ve experienced. Each one of them I’ve given into. Why? Because I didn’t feel like I was worthy and deserving of unconditional love. I never had it. I only got conditional based love. If I did those things, then I was given a hug, an embrace, and a thank you. If I was lucky, I got a “I love you for that”. That’s all I knew.

I didn’t know that it was ok to say no and that I could still be loved by the person I was saying no to. I didn’t know that there were people out there that might ask if I could do something for them but not put any condition on the end of the request. I didn’t know that those same people would be ok if I said no and still love me just the same. I didn’t know any of that because I was replaying the same tapes with my parents again and again in relationship after relationship.

The saying is true that when the pain gets great enough that a person will take action. For me it took a lot of physical, mental, and emotional pain. It took a lot of fighting and anger. It took a lot of my happiness.

And there came a day when I finally said “ENOUGH!” “Enough of the guilt, enough of the manipulation, enough of the conditional based love. My pain had manifested so great that the price of continuing in the same patterns from my childhood was greater than what I was getting from it. So I faced the people that were doing it to me and said goodbye. Who I was really saying goodbye to were my sick parents. And suddenly I found myself alone and just about friendless.

I had brought into my life so many people that were begging me to work through these issues with my Mom and Dad and finally I did. And I did the one thing that I needed to after I had done the massive cleaning of my house of friends. I spent time with me. I learned how to like me. I learned how to love me. I learned who I was, what I liked, and what I wanted. I realized that I would never be able to have a healthy friendship or partnership with anyone unless I had a healthy one with myself and was able to set boundaries with everyone else.

These past nine months have been a huge learning curve for me. I’ve had to say “no” so many times when my mind was saying yes to people giving me guilt trips. My landlord has asked me many times to take care of his dog when he was running off to do something else or had fallen asleep on the couch and didn’t want to get up. I know today that his dog is not MY responsibility. I took responsibility for so many other people’s things. Their animals, their money issues, their health issues, and so much more. I’m not responsible for making anyone else happy or sad. I’m not responsible for someone else’s life. I’m not responsible for someone else’s responsibilities. I’m responsible for me. Strike that. God is responsible for me and I’m responsible for serving God as best as I can.

Don’t get me wrong. I will help out those that need help and are ailing on some level. But I allow God to guide me now and not my brain which gave into all the guilt consistently my whole life.

Would I walk my roommate’s dog if he was sick? Of course.

There’s a fine line between selflessly helping someone who needs help versus being guilted into helping someone else’s selfish nature out.

The only way I’ve been successful in not falling prey anymore to these guilt trips is to developing that loving relationship with myself and learning about what is ok and what is not. I used to always be on the go and never slowed down to even think about any of this. Thankfully my body responded with enough pain that forced me to slow down and reflect on the state of my life.

I’m still in a learning process. I know I’ve grown though. And I’m very thankful for the progress I’ve made and the boundaries I have put in place.

While saying “No!” is still rather new and difficult, I know the more I practice it, the easier it will become to not pack my bags anymore and go on that guilt trip.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

How Did My Health Get This Bad?

The last few years of my life have been challenging as I’ve been facing physical health issues that surfaced. How I’ve handled them is ironic as it’s paying attention now to the messages I was getting when it all started.

Physical health issues more often than not are the result of imbalances within ourselves that began a long time before the first physical symptom manifested itself. April 27th, 2010 was the day the severe sciatica and numbness began in my left leg. This progressed into developing prostatitis and then other aches and pains that fell under the label of Fibromyaliga. For the first two years after the initial onset of these physical health symptoms, I looked for physical causes and physical treatments. What I didn’t realize is that this all began on a spiritual level a young age.

I, like everyone else, is a spiritual being in a human vessel. I believe we all come here to learn various lessons but in each of them, we are meant to love and embrace each other unconditionally. Sadly, along the way, life happens. Hardship happens. Bad things happen. And our focus shifts to preservation of self we we find ways to be happy that are very selfishly centered.

I was born into an alcoholic family and I was neglected and unloved by them and molested by an outsider in the first 16 years of my life. Spiritually, I had no conception of unconditional love, hope, joy, and peace. Shortly after turning 17, I found my solution to be alcohol and drugs. From then until the age of 23 when they no longer quieted my spiritual imbalances from my childhood, I found my mental thoughts becoming more and more negative. My outlook on life was looking more clouded. I was seeing things through a set of jaded eyes.

Between 23 and 35 years old, I sought out other addictions as my solution rather than finding spiritual peace within and healing from all that unrest as a child. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, I chased sex and love, gambling, caffeine, geographical cures, shopping, traveling, and more until eventually between 35 and 38 years old my emotional state went to a constant up and down with anxiety and depression.

I still didn’t listen to the messages my own body was giving me. I kept myself in unhealthy and abusive friendships and relationships, I chased after people who didn’t want to be with me, I indulged in things that were poisonous to my body, until I found myself in a relationship with a married man (to a woman) who was closeted, a homophobic, and an alcoholic. On some level, I had come back around full circle to my life as a child where I was a son to two very sick alcoholic parents. And then after many days of enduring incredible sadness with this relationship, and many days of carrying constant worry and fear about it, the physical pain started in my left leg. April 27th, 2010.

The messages to heal were there a long time ago. I got sick first spiritually when I grew up in a family that was unhealthy. I didn’t choose to work on releasing that sickness through therapy or some other healing modality when I left home, I chose things to numb those feelings. As time went on, I chased thing after thing and person after person, growing first mentally sick with constant negativity and doubt about my future and then emotionally sick with anxiety and depression. My intuitive self along the way continued to tell me that this person wasn’t good for me, this decision wasn’t the right one for me, this job wasn’t a good fit for me, and this relationship wasn’t healthy for me, but I wasn’t listening.

Those messages got louder, the pain got stronger, until it had to manifest itself somewhere and the only place it had left to go to release itself out of me was on the physical level. So here I am today, January 24th, 2013, still dealing with physical pain. There is a difference though. I realized I can heal and will heal but I have to start from the beginning.

About 9 months ago, I parted ways with all things toxic in my life including possessions, people, meetings and anything else that was perpetuating these life patterns of pain. I then had a baseline to start with and I reached out to God and said to please heal me from within. There are many drugs out there both legal and illegal that have been produced to bring about less pain. All of them on some level simply suppress the body’s own ability to heal. I went down that path for the first few years of this pain and got nowhere other than more angry in life and seeking out worldly things to cope with a miserable existence.

In the past 9 months, I have worked on my spiritual presence here. I pray throughout the day to live in my higher self and to serve a higher existence. I seek God to run my thoughts, words, and actions. I meditate at least 30 minutes in silence once a day. I spend between 30 and 45 minutes every day stating positive mantras. I listen to a spiritual message each morning for 20 minutes to start off my day. And I end my day with writing 9 different things to be grateful for to God in that given day. With all that work, my life has gotten better. First mentally. I noticed my thinking became more positive. My words became more positive. Life seemed a little less negative and clouded. And the more days that I continued to do all these actions, I noticed the depression and anxiety lessened as well. I added in bi-weekly acupuncture, polarity and reiki, and weekly therapy sessions and eliminated all chemical medications and caffeine in the process.

I have started to get some slight relief in my physical pain on many days. I believe that the more I continue my path of healing in the order I got sick, I will get better. I realized I decline first spiritually, then mentally, then emotionally, and finally physically. My healing has been in that same order. I had to work on the spiritual unrest from my childhood first and all the things. I followed on with that throughout my life. Then, I worked on my mental thought process through the mantras and therapy. Thought that and other positive actions, I found emotional healing taking place.

It’s just a matter of time with God at the center now for my life and my healing that the physical relief will come. In the meantime, all I have is today, one day at a time, and I will live it with having God at the helm guiding me on how to be the most loving, spiritual being that I can be in this lifetime.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

The Gay Stereotype

“Seriously, you’re gay?”

“You don’t look gay?!”

“You don’t act gay?!”

These are just a few of what many have said to me when I talk openly about my sexuality. It’s been 17 years now since I “came out of the closet” and began to deal openly with my sexuality. Before 1995 when I was on the other side and “in the closet”, I remember the many taunts at people that others viewed as gay even if they didn’t know if that person was gay or not. A lot has changed since then with both those that are gay and those that are not and well, a lot hasn’t changed either.

I’m 6’5″, about 170 pounds, with a short crew cut hairstyle and blue eyes. It’s hard not to notice me and most wouldn’t know upon looking at me or spending time with me that I am in a gay relationship. I don’t like labeling myself as gay primarily because of the stereotypes that are associated to the term and lifestyle.

Wikipedia describes a stereotypical gay male as the following: “Homosexual men are often equated interchangeably with heterosexual women by the heterocentric mainstream and are frequently stereotyped as being effeminate, despite the fact that gender expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation are widely accepted to be distinct from each other. The “flaming queen” is a characterization that melds flamboyance and effeminacy, remaining a gay male stock character in Hollywood. Theater, specifically Broadway musicals, are a component of another stereotype, the “Show Queen”, generalizing that all gay men listen to show tunes and are involved with the performing arts, and are theatrical, overly dramatic, and campy.”

I did a search on Google to see what many say a stereotypical gay person is like. The Wikipedia definition is tame compared to what some think. What’s sad about these generalizations is that they are the same as when I was growing up. In 40 years of my life, it hasn’t changed. Television continues to bring shows on the air such as Will & Grace and Modern Family depicting these stereotypes. People love these shows and they win a lot of Emmys. Modern Family is the latest to win year after year and have nomination after nomination for their portrayal of gay characters. Eric Stonestreet was nominated this year for that very specific role. It’s very believable that he’s gay when you watch him on the show. In real life, he’s not. Neither was Eric McCormack who played the gay man Will on Will & Grace. In a movie, most often a “gay male” is depicted as weak, feminine, flamboyant, and promiscuous. Are there gay males in the real world that are feminine and flamboyant, promiscuous, and like show tunes? Of course. Are there many other gay males out there that are completely different? Most definitely. It’s not even just with gay men. Lesbian women get the wrap with being described and portrayed as being overly masculine, having a deeper voice, short cropped hair, and wearing male clothes. The only main thing different with lesbians on TV and movies today is that they are showing more strikingly beautiful women be sexual with other women. My guess is because it is within many straight male fantasies to be with two women into each other and themselves.

When I tell people about my sexuality, I get a lot of dropped jaws and the questions that I began this posting with. I’ve even got the “but you play sports” and the “are you sure” comments. Is it difficult for mainstream America and really the world in general to embrace a masculine acting man who finds attraction in another man because of these stereotypical portrayals of a gay male? Lesbians don’t get the same treatment. It’s becoming more and more common to see a lesbian woman openly showing affection to other woman in public. I have seen it myself with many women holding hands and kissing in public. Television shows and movies are quick to show this as “it’s more accepted in society”. But have two men regardless of how masculine or feminine acting they are, hold hands in public and/or kiss, and it’s like a needle scratches across a record and the whole room looks up and stares negatively at you.

If the portrayal in mainstream media could shift their focus and start portraying men that are extremely masculine, such as in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain with Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, people might begin to remove those stereotypes in their thinking. I’m not living a promiscuous life. I don’t talk with a lisp. I don’t have a swish when I walk. I like sports. I’m not really into Broadway. I wear jeans and Harley Davidson shirts. And…I am attracted to men.

Unfortunately with Hollywood and media portraying the same characters over and over again that people remember easily such as Jack in Will & Grace, the judgments and labels easily continue within mainstream society about what a gay man is all about.

I used to make a joke a long time ago that the main difference between a gay man and a straight man is a six pack of beer. Interestingly enough there is truth behind this joke. I’ve met many men who are married and extremely masculine acting that like men and are sexual with other men. Even worse, it’s usually when their intoxicated on some level. And sadly, it’s usually those same men who are openly calling gay men “fags”, “homos”, and “queers” and spreading those stereotypical labels out there about what a gay man is like.

There is a lot more to a person that is gay then what television or movies portray. Just as there is a lot more to a straight person than what you see portrayed. Does the shift need to happen with Hollywood depicting gay characters and gay relationships as more masculine? Or do more people that are gay and not fitting those stereotypical images need to overcome their fears in public and hold hands and show affection?

There are no differences between gays and lesbians and heterosexuals other than what happens behind a bedroom door. These stereotypes and all others polarize each of us from loving each other. We are all God’s children and all connected in some way. Isn’t it more important to focus on developing unconditional love and acceptance of all people then on segregating each other with how we see things with our eyes, hear things with our ears, and label things with our words?

Peace, love, light and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson