Month: April 2013

Finding Faith Through Hope…

There are days that I really have to try hard to maintain hope through what I go through mentally, emotionally, and especially physically. I continue to hold the belief that the majority of the pain I feel on any level is coming from a toxic clearing process from the life that I once lived as well as an ascension process to become a higher and more enlightened spiritual being.

It isn’t easy.

After spending much of the better part of a year or more trying to find medical answers and relief and getting none, I came to the acceptance that the only thing that would get me through all of this is to maintain hope in God that what I have been feeling is just temporary. I also find that I have to remind myself quite often that for two decades or so, I lived toxically and only began healing from all of it about a year ago. I have to admit though, it’s tough not being on medications and drugs to numb much of what I feel every day. Many people who experience pain will do whatever they can to band-aid it until it goes away. Unfortunately, that path doesn’t work for me as I seem to be detrimentally sensitive and side effect prone to just about every prescription I’ve ever been on.

My path to healing has felt long and arduous because of this. The only thing that has kept me going is clinging to hope. Hope for me doesn’t come from taking a drug or a pill. It doesn’t come from drinking alcohol. It doesn’t come from smoking a cigarette. It doesn’t come from gambling. It doesn’t come from overeating. It doesn’t come from a sexual act. It doesn’t come from buying something.

So where does hope come from for me then?

It comes from an inner belief and from things truly unseen and unknown.

My hope comes from a belief that an unconditionally loving God exists. It comes from a belief that God sees how hard I am trying to cleanse and purify my life from the darkness that I once lived regularly in. It comes from a belief that God is already healing me and that the pain is the result of the removal of all the blockages and junk I put into myself for all those years. And it comes from a belief that God has a calling and a plan for me beyond this clearing phase of my life.

I know that many people might be more of a realist on healing then I. My roommate is one of them. He relies upon science and medicine and believes most often that all pain can be fixed through some avenue of it. While I respect how he feels, I haven’t experienced much hope on that path if any at all. Instead I have experienced more setbacks, greater pain, and a lot of false promises.

Through daily prayer, meditation, mantras, writing, speaking at recovery meetings, eating healthier, and light exercising, I continue to create a foundation for God to work within me. By creating a foundation for God to work within me, I believe I am going to heal holistically and be cleansed by God from all of the impurities I placed within me. By believing I am going to heal holistically and be cleansed by God from all the impurities I placed within me, I am living with hope in my Higher Power. By living with hope in my Higher Power, I have developed a level of faith in God that everything will work out as it’s meant to. By having developed a level of faith in God that everything will work out as it’s meant to, I have been able to keep going each and every day in all the pain with just my hope.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Saying I’m Sorry – Part II

“I’m sorry!”

My previous entry spoke about my learning to not say those words and not taking ownership of all the bad things that happen around me. Well, there’s another side of this coin too where the phrase was overused in my life. For years I suffered at the hands of several addictions. No matter which one I was at the mercy of, there were many, many incidents where I created mishaps, pain, hardships, and wounds in others and felt the words “I’m sorry!” were enough. Sadly, they didn’t hold much weight when I continued to remain an active addict and live in toxic patterns over and over again.

Being at the mercy of any addiction, a person’s only focus is on getting a fix and staying “high”. All too often though, life comes in between them and their seeking of that fix and that’s when the addict will lash out most and create suffering for others. There were so many times that I had plans that I cancelled because it was more important for me to go get my fix. My only response in each of those times was to say “I’m sorry” to the people I was canceling out on. In my past, I stole, cheated, and lied to get my fix and if I was caught, the only thing I knew how to say was those words. They don’t hold much weight though when they’re said all the time.

If a drug addict steals from a friend or family repeatedly to get their drugs, is saying “I’m sorry” really going to hold any weight?

If an alcoholic has a terrible binge and is verbally or physically abusive to someone close to them one night, is saying “I’m sorry” the next morning when they are a little more sober enough?

If a gambler goes out and spends all their wife’s and his money that was set aside for a mortgage payment, is saying “I’m sorry” going to make her feel any better?

If a sex addict goes out and cheats for one night on their partner, is saying “I’m sorry” going to take the sting away from the infidelity?

All of those answers can be said with a resounding “No!”

Making amends to all the people that an addict has harmed isn’t as easy as saying “I’m sorry” and moving on. It begins first with recovery and becoming clean from the addiction. Then it involves prayer and finding a Higher Power who can help the person become less selfish and more selfless in their life. And finally, it leads that person through their new God centered life to making a true amends to the people they have harmed. To make an amends is not just to go to those that were harmed and say “I’m sorry.” It involves a lot more. It means being honest to those people the addict has harmed telling them where they were selfish, self-centered, dishonest, and afraid. Even more importantly, it involves asking those people that were harmed how they felt and what they need to truly heal from what happened.

I always thought that saying “I’m sorry” for all my bad behaviors would be enough. It wasn’t. Until I began living a life that was centered with God, I didn’t know that. Today I do my best to live my life with a Higher Power guiding it. I don’t just say those words anymore for something where I did cause suffering to someone else. I work on changing the behaviors that caused it in the first place, and I do everything I can to offer restitution to those that I’ve harmed. And even better, I’ve found that the more that I seek out God’s will in my life, the less I even have situations arise anymore where I might have once just said the words “I’m sorry!” to deal with it.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Saying I’m Sorry – Part I

“I’m Sorry.” Two words I’ve said many, many times throughout my life.

There are two ways I’ve said I’m sorry in my life that weren’t healthy and meaningful for my spiritual growth. This entry talks about the first of them.

The first time I ever mouthed the words I’m sorry can be traced back to when I was just a child, living in the home of my alcoholic-based family. My parents fought all the time. Yelling and screaming were common. Deafening silence was also just as common. Everyone was always on edge and my sister and I did everything we could to stay out of the way of upsetting our parents anymore then they always seemed to be.

For any person active in any addiction, things that go wrong are never their fault. At least that is what they tell themselves. It’s always everyone else’s fault. The fingers are pointed. The blame is directed outward. With my parents, blame came my sister’s and my way quite a bit. After my mother passed away some years ago, my sister and I found letters in her house that we both wrote as kids saying we were sorry for all the yelling and screaming they did. We wrote many words on many pieces of paper to them apologizing for all the fighting they did.

Sadly, there were many things that happened in my childhood home that were never mine or my sister’s fault yet we took the blame. We said “I’m sorry” almost as if it might make them be happier with each other and with us. Life in an alcoholic household always seemed to be like a ticking time bomb to when the next rage filled discussion was going to happen. I can remember feeling like I was walking on a tightrope with everything I did. Alcoholics aren’t happy when themselves and because of that, they aren’t happy with anything around themselves either. So for my sister and I, anything that we did regardless of how much perfection we tried to place into it, always seemed wrong in my parent’s eyes. Thus there were many days that those words “I’m sorry” came out of our mouths.

Unfortunately, living that way for so many years created a pattern for both my sister and I. Throughout our lives since leaving home, we have found ourselves saying those words in many different situations that weren’t our fault. For me, I continued to take the blame for things happening negatively in my places of employment, with friendships, with relationships, and with anything for that matter even though I knew inside it wasn’t my fault.

I have to work very hard today to realize that when things go wrong around me, they aren’t always my fault. In fact, in most cases today with me living in a God-centered life, rarely are they my fault. My last stint of having to face this issue head on, to conquer it and move on came over a year ago when I was hanging around with an active drug addict who I thought I could help save. His marriage was falling apart. His finances were falling apart. His world was crumbling all around him and he was lashing out at me day after day after day. He blamed me for everything going wrong in his life and I began to realize at some point that I was taking ownership of his crazy life saying “I’m sorry” for things that weren’t my fault. Thankfully, I parted ways with that person after coming to understand this lesson.

One of the main things that I’ve had to do since then to ensure my spiritual growth towards God is to remove all the people in my life who are actively suffering from any addiction. Sadly, for those people that still are, they live in the footsteps of people like my mother who refused to look at themselves and take ownership of the chaos they were creating around them. They will always blame everyone else for their problems until they are ready to look in the mirror and point the finger at no one but themselves.

Living as best as I’m capable today in a God-centered, selfless reality has helped me to see that I’m not responsible for all the bad things that might happen around me even when people say it’s my fault. Through my spiritual growth and a deeper connection with God, I am able to see clearly now when someone is projecting their stuff on me as well as when it really is something I need to take ownership of.

Thank God today I don’t find myself saying “I’m sorry” for everything bad that happens. I feel a lot lighter because of it.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson