Month: May 2014

A Test Of Lust And Temptation

I am totally convinced that there are always going to various tests to each of our spiritual walks in life. They frequently come in the least suspecting ways and are often in those areas that have proven to be the most challenging for us to deal with. In my case, one of those tests came in the form of a very simple e-mail I received late last night.

This test began when I checked for any new e-mail on my Iphone in the earlier part of the evening. I noticed there was a single one that had come from my website’s submission page so I clicked it open. Soon after, I realized it was from someone who had been a huge part of my former active addiction-based years. Without going into too much detail, let me just say that it was from a man who was the mirror image at one time of my own sex and love based addiction. But even more importantly to admit is the thing that connected the two of us together for many years and that was lust.

Lust is something that took me away from my Higher Power time and time and time again. It’s something that led me into sexual behaviors with people who weren’t healthy for my spiritual growth. And it’s something that ended up making me extremely spiritually sick each time I engaged in it. Thankfully I immersed myself into the 12 Steps a few years ago and started to draw much closer to my Higher Power. Through all of that work I learned I needed to cut off contact from anyone or anything that triggered me into my sex and love addiction. And the man who had sent me that e-mail last night was close to the top of that list.

Have you ever had to face one of these types of situations where you knew what you needed to do, but your ego was telling you otherwise? This man was someone I spent days, weeks, months, and even years, fantasizing about, lusting over, and occupying a large part my life. In other words, I allowed his presence to completely consume a huge part of me. While I knew instantly when I got his e-mail that I needed to delete it, my mind kept saying, “It’s ok, respond and say hello, you’re stronger now!”

This is addiction at it’s very best and worst. It’s what addiction does to someone and how it’s leads a person back into a relapse. It tries to tell you in a very innocent way that it will be better this time around. But what really is going on underneath those coy words is that the addiction is looking for a way to rear its ugly head again. To maintain sobriety and recovery, an alcoholic can NEVER take a single drink again, an addict can NEVER take a single drug again, a chronic gambler can NEVER go to a casino again, and a sex and love addict can NEVER give into their triggers again either.

And thankfully I didn’t!

I have a lot of gratitude this morning to my Higher Power for making the right decisions last night. Not only did I delete that e-mail without responding, I was also fully honest with my partner about it as well. My truth is that I don’t ever want to go back to the darkness I once lived in with that addiction. It destroyed my life, maybe even more than my alcohol and drug addiction did.

Whether that man I once lusted over and was tempted with regularly is healthier today or not doesn’t really matter. And whether I’m stronger or not in my life these days doesn’t really matter either. What truly matters is that I stay away from testing those waters ever again, because there’s a good chance if I do test them, I’m going to jump fully into them again, even if they are frigid or boiling hot to the touch.

So the bottom line is this. Whether you are recovering from an addiction or not, there’s always going to be tests that come to us in the least suspecting ways. Each is an opportunity for growth to see what’s more important in our life, our ego or our desire to be more spiritually grounded with our Higher Power. Choose the latter and your life is going to be filled with a lot less ups and downs and whole heck of lot more love and light.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Mantra For The Day – For Building Faith And Trust In Yourself

Building faith and trust in a Higher Power is an important thing to do, especially for someone like me who is in recovery from various addictions. But I’ve learned it’s also just as important to build faith and trust in myself given all the years of neglect and self-abuse I put myself through. It was a common thing for me to put myself down and doubt any of the decisions I made in life and even my own body’s natural ability to heal. Because of this I would go to friends, doctors, ministers, and many others and place my faith and trust into them, and often they would let me down. I never realized how much this was completely hindering my own spiritual growth. Today, I am using a daily mantra to correct this and it’s helping me to have a lot more faith and trust in myself and in the life I’m living with my Higher Power. If you are someone who struggles with having faith and trust in yourself, then I encourage you to utilize this mantra for a while as I know it will help to change that.

“I walk forward in faith and trust, and have acceptance that all that’s happening to me is in my greatest highest good.”

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

Finding Closure

The American justice system is all based around a person being innocent until proven guilty. Sadly, that’s not always the case though in many real life situations that occur outside of a courtroom. Recently I experienced this very thing with a men’s group when it’s members chose to suddenly remove me from it with no “trial”, explanation, or discussion. Unfortunately, their action left me struggling to find closure and fully let the situation go.

It’s probably best I initially give a short history on my involvement with this group. It began back in the fall of 2013, when I attended it one night while on travel to see my partner. My move to his home was still several months away, but I was attempting to establish a network of friends, groups, and things to be a part of before that day came. This men’s support group was one of those things I was trying to connect with and it was a part of an organization, the Mankind Project (MKP), that I’ve been a part of since 1999. I joined MKP all those years ago for one reason, to grow up and become a man who doesn’t hide in the darkness of his shadows. Over the years since then, I was part of several different MKP groups, all of which helped to shape me into someone that lives in honesty and integrity throughout my entire life. When I joined this group though, I had a few actions over the course of several meetings that led several of its members to feel unsafe with me. Even though I owned them and made my amends to the group, a decision was made without my input to remove me from its membership.

The night I was informed of their decision came on an evening that group was supposed to be taking place. As I was sitting there waiting for it to begin, one of the other members spoke up and indicated a new group was being created that wouldn’t be including me. When I tried to talk about this action, my request was denied and I was told it wasn’t up for discussion. Essentially my voice was silenced and I felt like I was given a guilty verdict without ever even having a chance to prove my innocence. When I left shortly thereafter, I began harboring a lot of anger and resentment towards the group and its members because of this and for the fact that MKP wasn’t built around this type of behavior. Since then I have been struggling to let the situation go because of my lack of closure with the group and its members. What I had really wanted was to state my case with them, except I never got the chance.

Trying to find closure with something when total control is taken away is an extremely difficult thing to overcome. While I’ve continued to send love, forgiveness, and peace to this group and all its members, I still find myself feeling a little unsettled with the whole matter. I decided I needed to write about this experience to help with that. While life initially may not seem to be fair when things like this happen, I’ve come to understand that it ends up always being for the better in the long run. Although I would have been willing to work through the ongoing difficulties I had with this group, I see now that if I had remained there, it might have worked against my spiritual growth with my Higher Power. That alone has helped me to come to acceptance and begin the process of finding closure.

Thankfully I’m also in the process now of building a new MKP group with several other men and so this action seems to be another one of those blessings in disguise. Nonetheless, anytime a person is given a guilty verdict without ever being able to prove their innocence, finding closure with it all can be an extremely difficult thing to do. But through acceptance and the sending of love, forgiveness, and peace, I know it can be done. It just takes time.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson