Month: November 2014

“Why Is It That…?”

A teacher saw a student crawling into class one day, and asked why he was doing that.

The boy said, “Because class has already started and you warned us not to dare WALK into class if we were late!”

Hi everybody, it’s your favorite person Andy, back for another day of writing! I hope you liked my little chuckle for the day, as I know I did. Anyways, Mr. Poopy Pants (that’s Andrew if you didn’t know who I’m talking about) took today off from writing another one of his thought-provoking (in other words, boring) blog articles. Clearly I’m the head honcho today and I have another neat idea to write about, which deals with the topic of asking questions. My Mom always said I asked them about everything from the time I popped out of her womb (which is totally gross by the way), but isn’t that just the nature of being a curious kid? So today I’m going to write a bunch of ones I still have in life, which I decided to title, “Why is it that…?”

Why is it that God never speaks to me directly with a voice?

Why is it that I never seem to be able to reach the end of any rainbow?

Why is it that parents think screaming and yelling at a kid will help make them learn something better?

Why is it that so many churches say that everyone is welcomed when they keep turning people away?

Why is it that there is a Fathers Day and a Mothers Day but no Kids Day?

Why is it that movie theaters won’t give me a discount if I bring in my own 3D glasses?

Why is it that the movie previews these days have to give away so darn much of the movie?

Why is it that parents think hitting a kid is ok when they wouldn’t want to be hit themselves?

Why is it that people start wars and do hateful things to each other all in the name of God when God is only supposed to be about peace and love?

Why is it that so many grown-ups never take the time to have fun and play (and no, I’m not talking about that icky bedroom kind either! LOL.)?

And…

Why is it that Andrew Arthur Dawson has to obsess so much about his yard that he goes outside multiple times each day with a vacuum to suck up every single leaf that falls on it? (Sorry Andrew but I was just dying to tell everyone this! 🙂 )

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Do You Tweet?

Do you tweet? If you think I’m asking whether you make bird noises or not then it’s probably safe to say you don’t have a Twitter account. The real reason why I’ve posed this question is actually due to the ongoing dilemma I’m having on whether to use Twitter in ways like so many others are doing these days.

For the sake of those who may not know much about Twitter at all, I think it’s best if I begin with a short explanation of what it is. Simply put, it’s a social networking tool that allows each user to send and read a max of 140-character messages, which are called “tweets”. Each Twitter user can also follow the tweets of other Twitter users as well, which is quite similar to how Facebook operates. The tool was created in March of 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass and as of July 2014, it had amassed more than 500 million users with the total number of tweets per day hovering close to a half billion. While I happen to be one of those who have a Twitter account, it’s actually something I hardly use.

Currently, the only thing that’s tweeted from my account on a daily basis is a link to each of my blog postings. I’m also not following anyone else’s tweets at the present time nor is anyone else really following me either. I’ve often asked myself why I continue to keep my Twitter account open knowing this. The only answer I’ve been able to come up with is that I hope to gain more blog visibility. So far after six months of usage it’s apparent I haven’t, which has often led me to thoughts of starting to tweet more like how most others do.

What I mean by that is how the majority of people generally tweet about their everyday life including what they’re doing or where they’re going, or they just tweet their random thoughts and opinions about something. But each time I dwell on whether to start doing this or not, I hesitate because of two very important reasons.

The first deals with knowing the only thing it’s ultimately going to do is feed my ego. Do I really need to feel that important in life by gaining thousands of followers through various tweets about things like what I had for dinner? As I ask this question, I’m reminded of when I watched America’s Got Talent this past summer where judge Howie Mandel consistently told all viewers each show what his twitter account was and how many followers he had. As much as my ego would probably love to have as many followers as he, I’ve worked pretty hard to move in the exact opposite direction spiritually through ego reduction. The fact is all the inspirational spiritual teachers I’ve studied and aspire to be never self-promoted themselves. And truthfully, I think if someone like Jesus or Gandhi ever had a Twitter account back in their day, their tweets would most likely only have been parables or spiritual thoughts for the day.

The other reason why I hesitate to do anything more with Twitter is due to the amount of times I see in the news lately where someone’s tweets have only led them to public outcry and backlash. Take people like Artie Lange, Jason Biggs, and Gilbert Gottfried who each tweeted things that did nothing more than damage their careers and cost them various jobs. Then there are people like Alison Pill, Dean McDermott, and Anthony Weiner who each landed in hot water when they accidentally posted risqué pictures for the public to see when they were only meant for a single person. And of course there are plenty of others who have gone on a rant about something including Alex Baldwin, Mark Cuban, or Lindsay Lohan, where each only gave them more of a negative image. The last thing I would want in life is to create any of this drama by tweeting something that could be deemed unspiritual, negative, or racist.

So I’ve decided for now to play it safe with Twitter by continuing to use it only for the sake of posting the links to each of my daily blog entries. The bottom line is that I truly don’t ever want to end up tweeting anything that could cause more of a negative image upon myself. Neither do I want to ever tweet things that might just end up inflating my ego. And while I may not have large numbers following me on Twitter at this time, that’s almost certainly a good thing if I want to keep cultivating more of what I seek the most of in life, which of course is peace, love, light, and joy…

Peace, love, light and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have You Ever Had Sexual Allure Towards Any Friend?

Do you have any friends currently a part of your life that you’re attracted to, consider beautiful or handsome, or are “your type”? I do, and it’s one my greatest challenges I still face in life given the fact I’m a recovering sex and love addict.

My sobriety and recovery program for this addiction began on April 23rd, 2012. At that point in time, fear of relapsing back into this disease and fear of all the damage it caused me plagued my every pore. So I did what many often do when they first come to any type of recovery program for an addiction, I removed as many triggers as I could from my life that might have jeopardized my ability to actually recover. One of those triggers was the fact I had a number of friends a part of my life that I still had some sort of a sexual allure towards. While some of them had been a part of my life for quite a while, others were only more recent. But in either case, my addictive thinking at the time couldn’t really differentiate between who was healthy for me and who wasn’t. Thus, I made the decision to totally remove this trigger by ridding myself of anyone who fit that bill, except of course for the man I was dating.

A year and a half would pass before I would make any type of changes to this “monk-type” living. By then, I started to realize it would be virtually impossible to avoid being around anyone I found sexual allure towards the rest of my life. The same held true for me in my recovery for alcoholism when I discovered I couldn’t avoid being around alcohol for the rest of my life either. So when those first few individuals came into my life I found that allure towards, I honestly wanted to run as far away as possible. But I realized if I wanted my recovery to grow stronger, I needed to learn how to set healthy boundaries with each of them. This was an action failed to do time and time again in the past when the sex and love addiction was active. So besides the obvious physical monogamy boundaries I needed to set and hold in place, there were a few others that became just as important. Things like not going into any type of intimate venue with someone I had that allure towards or not carrying on highly sexual charged conversations with them either were just a few of these other boundaries I had to establish.

Even though it’s been over two and a half years now since I began setting any of these boundaries, there are still plenty of moments where I seem to have the thinking of a sexually charged teenager. It’s really quite frustrating actually and I truly struggle at times with some of the lustrous thoughts that pop up in my brain from time to time with a few of my friends. But I continue to remain close to my Higher Power day in and day out, which seems to help keep all of my boundaries fully in place.

I’ve learned just how important it is to ensure these boundaries stay in place because I know where it would take me if I didn’t. But sometimes there have been people I have that allure towards who haven’t respected my boundaries and when they haven’t, I’ve had to remove them completely from my life. All in all though, that has thankfully been far and few between.

Most recently I found it quite interesting when I was on the receiving end of someone else setting these types of boundaries for their early recovery from this addiction. I had a friend who needed to place some greater distance from me because it was triggering him due to his own attraction to me. I was ultimately happy for him in the long run not only because of this gentle reminder of where I once was in my recovery, but also because it showed how much he was trying to heal as well.

So while I don’t believe I’m meant to return to my “monk type” living like this friend might be starting to face in his own recovery, I do know I must be vigilant in keeping my healthy boundaries in place with any friend I have sexual allure towards. Recovering from a sex and love addiction can be difficult at times especially with friends you have sexual allure towards, but through the strength of a Higher Power and maintaining those boundaries, it truly can be done one day at a time…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson