Month: November 2013

All Isn’t Lost…

Have you ever been in that place in life where continuing forward seems like something that’s too difficult to surmount? If you have, then you’re not alone as I too have felt that way so many times throughout my life, especially in the past three years. There is a piece of irony though that always seems to come during those times and it usually arises at the precise moment when I’m really beginning to question whether my Higher Power has totally forgotten about me. What is that irony? It’s the fact that something always seems to come along my way to inspire me to keep going and not give up.

I’m not lying when I tell you that the idea of giving up is something that I’ve thought about frequently over the past year. If you’ve been reading any of my earlier posts, then you’ll know by now that I’ve been enduring chronic pain and have had little relief from it for quite awhile. Doctors, science, and medicine were unable to do anything for it except to offer me some pills to try to numb the pain. But I made the choice almost two years ago now to walk a path free from all of those pills and maintain the belief that my Higher Power will deliver me through and beyond this pain. Sometimes this decision really challenges my sanity, mainly when my pain levels remain heightened for days or weeks on end. But it is definitely true, at least in my case, that something always seems to come along to inspire me to keep going just when I feel like I can’t possibly care about living life anymore.

Today, happened to be one of those days where the thing to inspire me was a movie titled “All Is Lost” and starred only one person for its entire running time. While it’s not based upon a true story, the film is a gripping and almost completely silent tale of a man played by Robert Redford, who is lost at sea and battles one tragedy after enough until it appears he’s lost everything and has nothing left to live for. As I sat and watched him lose one thing after another, I squirmed in my seat thinking of my own life and how I’ve felt a lot like that in recent times. I began questioning why I came to see such a depressing movie given how I’ve been feeling lately, and that’s when the moment arrived where I was suddenly inspired to keep going. As the character Redford was playing cashed in his remaining chip in a last ditch effort to be saved from perishing at sea, it appeared to him it was done to no avail. But as he began to let go and let the ocean become his final resting place, his rescue arrived.

My Higher Power has rescued me time and time again during so many moments of my life where I have started to let go and follow in the footsteps of my father’s tragic demise. Living with constant chronic pain of any kind is something I would not wish upon anybody in this world. But for whatever the reason, my Higher Power always seems to know how best to communicate to me when I’m feeling so overwhelmed by that pain and enveloped in too much darkness. And it always seems to appear in the weirdest of ways, like it did with this movie “All Is Lost”.

If you are like me and suffering with any type of pain right now in life whether it’s spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical, please take a moment, breathe, and know you are not alone. It’s my hope and prayer that these words might become your inspiration to keep going through your own trials and tribulations. My Higher Power hasn’t abandoned me yet and I know that yours won’t either. So remember, just for today, that “All Isn’t Lost”.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Stop Punishing Yourself And Forgive Yourself…

Sometimes I think the person that’s been the hardest upon myself is really me. Throughout my life, I have had the tendency to beat myself up about various things I’ve done that I’m not very proud of. In recent years though, I’ve come to see how this type of self-abuse does nothing good for me whatsoever. Because of this, I’ve started practicing forgiving myself on a regular basis and am finding much better results.

Up until just a few years ago, I did a lot of things in my life that one would probably give a label of “pretty bad” towards. You might say that many of those things I did were filled with a tremendous amount of darkness and brought a lot of pain to other people’s lives, because the reality was they did. And for years, I punished myself over them by launching many waves of verbal assaults straight at my heart or falling deep into spirals of anxiety, depression and despair. In fact, it became common for others to see me living in self-pity on most days. The idea of forgiving myself for all those things I did which hurt others seemed too difficult to do, so I fell into a guilt and shame based life. By doing that, I ended up constantly repeating the same behaviors over and over again, which only led to me hurting even more people, including myself.

So what was the value of living with this guilt and shame from those terrible things I’ve done? And what good did it really do to punish myself time and time again over them? Was was it so hard for me to fully forgive myself for any of those terrible things I did?

I think the answer to all three questions was always the same. It’s my belief that my ego often convinced me that if I lived with guilt and shame and if I kept on punishing myself instead of practicing forgiveness, that I would never do any of those terrible things again. But it didn’t work. It just led me into doing other dark things and living in even more darkness, which in turn led me back into more guilt and shame, and more self-punishment. It was a vicious cycle that never ended.

The only way I ever found to end this vicious cycle once and for all was to seek God’s help. Left to my own vices, I was never able to find forgiveness for myself for any of the terrible things I did in life that brought great pain to others. But through God, I discovered the one thing lacking in my life was a deep love for myself.

You see, the more I did those terrible things, the more I didn’t love myself. And the more I didn’t love myself, the more I did even more of those terrible things. But when I started seeking God so much more in life, I started loving myself a lot more. And the more I began loving myself a lot more, the more I stopped wanting to do those terrible things. That’s only because that new and improved self-love helped me to see just how sick I became when I punished myself and lived in all that guilt, shame, despair, anxiety, and depression.

I’m totally convinced that forgiveness for any terrible thing we’ve done begins with asking God for help. I’m also convinced that God forgives us instantly and it’s only our egos that believe God doesn’t forgive us. The help I received from God after asking for it was to love myself so much more than I ever did previously in my life. In all those years when I didn’t have much love for myself, I really chose to live in a lot of dark behavior that ended up hurting so many of God’s children. But through God’s help, I turned all of this around and learned how to love myself so much more. Over time, that self-love showed me how to forgive myself for all those past terrible things I’ve done, but even more importantly, it prevented me from wanting to do any of those terrible things ever again.

So are you someone like I once was, who is living with a lot of guilt and shame, anxiety and depression, or despair and self-pity because of terrible things you’ve done in the past? If you are, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and know the only thing standing in your way of healing from them, is yourself. Ask God to start helping you love yourself a lot more and I can promise you that in time, you will. And when you do, I know you will begin to see that punishing yourself is not a very self-loving action. Instead, you will find that forgiving yourself is and that’s when you’ll experience true-freedom from all of your past transgressions.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

To Love Like Christ…

I truly believe it’s important to love everyone equally, including those we may not even like. Unfortunately, the ego often doesn’t let this happen as it has the tendency to convince us with any number of reasons why we should withhold it. Sadly I experienced this first hand a few nights ago when I was on the receiving end of it from one of the members of my partner’s brother’s family.

My partner has a rather large extended family that includes several aunts and uncles, a brother, a sister and a bunch of nieces and nephews. This is quite the contrast to my remaining family that consists of only my sister, her husband, and her children. For two years now, I have done my best to try to expand my family beyond blood relations to that of my partner’s extended family who live in his surrounding area. While I have been treating all of them with as much love and light I can muster, I haven’t been feeling the same in return from any of them. This became very apparent at his brother’s house the other night during a game night that had been organized. At one point, his brother’s wife commented on how nice the ring was that I was wearing and wondered where I got it. When I responded it was from my partner and that it had been his father’s ring, I was shocked at her response. She was rather upset that I was given this gift and said that a piece of jewelry like that should be sacred and reserved for their family. When I responded that I thought I was actually part of their family because of my relationship with my partner, I was very quickly told how I wasn’t. And for the next hour, I was judged by them on various aspects of who I was, how I was living, how weak my relationship appeared to them, how becoming a member of their family takes a long time and how I still wouldn’t be considered family even if my partner and I were married any time soon.

All of this saddened me greatly when I left their home at the end of that evening because it made me realize just how much the presence of love and light had been lacking. What frustrated me the most though was knowing that they are all very devout church going Christians trying to follow in Christ’s footsteps. And one of the greatest things I know that’s true about Christ is that He loved and treated everyone equally and like family. When I had asked them about this principle, I received their response that none of us can ever be like Christ and offer that much love. What they don’t understand though is that we all can be just as loving and embracing as Christ was. It’s only our our egos that tell us we can’t through any number of internal fears or resentments.

While I know I can’t make anyone like or love me, nor can I make any of my partner’s family treat me as part of their own, I can still do my part to live like Christ once did here on Earth. What that means for me is that I will continue to love all of Chris’s extended family members even knowing how they feel about me. While I don’t claim myself to be a Christian because I try to be all-encompassing of every walk of faith, I do cherish the principles that Christ taught and try my best to follow in His footsteps. Christ truly loved everyone, including those that hated him and he worked hard to move beyond his human ego to achieve that. I’m sure that He struggled at times internally with the people that didn’t like him, but his connection to God helped him to overcome that. Christ isn’t the only one that has been able to do this as there are many examples of people in this world who have walked a similar path. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Theresa are just some of the names that come to mind when I think of what Christ’s love once looked like.

The point I’m trying to make in all of this is that every person in this world has the same capacity to love and treat each and every person equally, no matter what, just like Christ once did. My partner’s brother’s family and all his other extended family members as well have that same potential. The only thing blocking them from achieving that is their ego which holds them in places of judging others and loving only certain people considered to be a part of their family. For Christ, and the many others who have lived their lives embracing as much love and light as they could offer, everyone was considered a part of their family worthy and deserving of their love. Hopefully one day, all of my partner’s extended family members will realize this, but until them, I will do as Christ once did, and love them with all my heart, mind, and soul.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson