Month: September 2014

My Mom told me again and again when I was a little kid that I should never use the word hate. She said always said that hate is such a hateful word. And while my mother might have had her shortcomings that stemmed mostly from her alcoholism, I can honestly say I don’t remember her ever muttering the word even once. Unfortunately the same wasn’t true of me and it took me a long time to figure out how unhealthy it was not only myself, but also the rest of the world, each time I said it.

Merriam-Webster defines the word “hate” as an intense hostility and aversion towards something, usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury. It also defines it as an extreme dislike, detest, or antipathy of something.

All of the words in these definitions are very ugly sounding to me today, but there was a time when I actually liked the toxic weight of them. There was a period when I really enjoyed projecting the ugliness of them onto others that I held some type of resentments towards. “ I HATE YOU!” was something I probably said far more than I wish to recollect these days and it was always towards people or things I felt hurt by in some way. During each the years I got drunk and high, I used the word hate even greater and that would continue far beyond the days after I became clean and sober as well. Why that was is quite simple. I hated myself and who I had become, but it was far easier to hate everyone else instead.

It took a lot of work for me to actually stop hating myself and to get there took forgiving everyone and everything I ever held any serious dislike towards, including me. But once I did for the majority of whom I had harbored that negativity towards for so long, I no longer had an attraction to using the word hate in any of my sentences. In fact, anytime I did after that point felt grossly wrong within me, as if I was stabbing my own heart and soul. I had a good reminder of this the other day when I had a weak moment with a pesky squirrel that’s been digging up my yard quite a bit lately. After discovering another patch of grass dug up, I yelled, “I hate you squirrel” and immediately felt pretty awful afterwards.

I believe I felt that way after shouting at this squirrel is solely because using the word hate towards anything only sends a wave of toxic energy into the world and back into myself. If you don’t believe me, try screaming “I HATE YOU!” as loud as you can the next time you are in a good space, but alone where no one else will be affected except yourself. See how you feel afterward in saying those words. I can emphatically say I always feel worse afterwards when I say them, and it’s my hope you might feel this way as well if you should ever speak them.

I truly feel that using the word hate in any language is not healthy for any of us in this world. It’s my belief that it only fills the planet and each of us up with a lot more darkness. To prevent this from happening and to reverse the trend altogether is going take all of us becoming free of every resentment we have towards anyone or anything, including ourselves. Once we do, I honestly believe that none of us will want to use the word hate in any of our day-to-day vocabulary.

So while my mother may have had her downfalls in life, I definitely think she was on to something when she said that hate is such a hateful word. Thank God I totally see that now and hopefully you do as well…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Many gifts can often come with some type of a price tag to those who receive them. In other cases, many gifts can often be given at the same time the action is self-serving the giver. In either case, both are extremely selfish in nature and are acts I once did with great frequency. Thankfully, my growing spirituality has clearly shown me this and led me more on a path to selfless gift giving.

Here are 10 examples of what my selfish gift giving once looked like:

1. Giving two tickets to a friend for some type of a show where one of them was actually meant for myself.
2. Buying tickets for a partner to some type of a show that I knew was really not the kind of thing they were into.
3. Taking someone out to dinner to a place that was really my favorite restaurant and not theirs.
4. Helping someone out with some type of a chore, only to store the action away for a future “You owe me”.
5. Giving any type of a gift to someone hoping it will lead to a sexual favor later.
6. Telling someone they can call anytime for support, solely because I have sexual interests in them.
7. Treating someone to a movie that is really in a movie genre I only like.
8. Buying any type of gift solely to defuse another selfish action.
9. Taking someone on a lavish vacation in the hopes that action will make them never want to leave me.
10. Giving money to someone in a financial crisis as a gift only to ask for it back sometime later, even when I don’t need the money.

These are just some of the many ways I once used gift giving so selfishly. In my own mind I always believed I was being quite virtuous with each of these type of gift giving actions. But in fact I was not. Deep down inside, the only thing I was essentially concerned about was what I was going to get out of it, whether at the time of me offering it, or sometime later.

Selfless gift giving is nothing like this. It’s something that strictly comes from the heart and soul and never has any hidden agenda attached to it. I wasn’t able to ever achieve that for a very long time because I lived more in my ego than in my heart and soul. Once I made the decision to turn my entire will and life over to the care of a Higher Power, I began feeling guilty every time I tried to do even a slight bit of selfish gift giving. Fortunately, I find myself offering more and more gifts today to others that are not self-serving me in any way. Nor are they containing any hidden price tag either. Instead, I’m just finding myself wanting to see people happy these days in receiving a gift that is solely about them and them alone.

Here are 10 examples of what that might look like:

1. Buying a pampered massage for someone to enjoy alone.
2. Taking a person out to a restaurant they particularly enjoy, even when it’s one you might not like.
3. Buying two tickets to a show for a friend where you have no intention of going whatsoever and insist that they take someone else.
4. Buying the entire purchase for a person in line behind you at a coffee shop.
5. Sending flowers to someone just because and not letting them know it’s from you.
6. Dropping whatever you’re doing to spend time with someone who reaches out for help.
7. Paying for someone else’s bill and not letting them know you did it.
8. Cooking a favorite meal for someone, even when it’s not one of your favorite dishes.
9. Watching a movie with someone that you know they’ll love, even when it’s one you know you won’t.
10. Donating money to someone’s cause that you have no connection to on any level.

There are plenty of other ways as well that selfless gift giving can occur in this world, but it’s important to remember that nowhere in any of them is there room for a “You owe me later” type of attitude. Selfless gift giving is truly unconditional in nature and feeds the soul too. I’m just glad that I’ve been taught this principle on my path to spiritual enlightenment.

So the bottom line is this. Selfish gift giving certainly is something that comes with a price tag or a self-serving reason. And while some might say that selfless gift giving still benefits the giver on some level as well, I can honestly say I never feel guilty anytime I do it. With that being said, I take that as a sign from my Higher Power which type of gift giving I’m really meant to keep right on doing…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson