Month: November 2014

Restless, Irritable, And Discontent

Do you feel restless, irritable, and discontent in life much of the time? These three words often describe quite a number of individuals in recovery from a former addiction usually because of one reason and one reason only. They’re still trying to look for the solution outside of themselves.

Take an addiction to alcohol or drugs for example. Beneath the surface of someone succumbing to the evils of either is really just someone who’s fearful and insecure and trying to hide from themselves. And when they put their booze or pills down, those points don’t change. The 12 Steps are meant to get to the root of why someone is like that in the first place and when they do, they charts a course of spiritual healing for the individual. But unfortunately, it’s frequently not a pleasant process at all, which in turn leads many like my I once did to seek something outside of oneself to fill that empty pit within.

In my case, I chose many sexual affairs, caffeine, shopping, and more to temporarily fill that void but even when I did, I continued to feel those feelings of being restless, irritable, and discontent on a regular basis. I know of plenty of others who have been clean and sober for a while from their former addictions, yet they continue to choose other ones such as over smoking, sleeping around with an abundance of men or women, or buying various things for themselves all for the sake of trying to feel better. And it’s those same people who often have a tendency to say how they still feel those three uncomfortable feelings regularly in life.

I believe the only way they will ever rid themselves of those feelings on a daily basis is to seek the same solution I discovered after many years of searching externally and experiencing nothing but repeated failure. That solution was to go through each of the 12 Steps diligently and draw a whole heck of a lot closer to my Higher Power. In doing so, I found a wounded, hurt little boy within who only ever wanted to be loved and nurtured.

While the 12 Step process was not easy for me to undertake, its long-term benefits have been well worth it. I don’t experience much in the way of being restless, irritable, and discontent anymore these days, but if I occasionally still do, it’s always tied to a recent moment where I re-sought the solution outside of myself. Case in point, on Halloween night, I ate about 30 pieces of chocolate seeking some ease and comfort externally and I paid the price dearly for the next two days with both a physical and an emotional hangover.

The simple truth is that there are tremendous amounts of ways one in recovery can be mislead into believing happiness exists outside of them. Alas, I personally never found any one of those ways were able to produce a cure for being restless, irritable, and discontent. Going through the 12 Steps and procuring a Higher Power though has truly been the only solution that’s ever worked to ridding me of feeling them. But, if I ever hear of someone finding a permanent cure for those three feelings outside of themselves, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’m going to keep on practicing the 12 Steps every day of my life because the last thing I want to feel in life these days is restless, irritable and discontent.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

The Widening Gap Between The Rich And The Poor

I read an article in USA Today recently whose headline was “85 richest now have as much money as poorest 3.5B”. After reading it, I learned that this gap between the very rich and the very poor was only going to keep widening over time given its current trend. What saddens me the most about hearing this is how those richest could make such a huge impact in reducing much of our world’s poverty if they chose to. But then I thought about why I never tried to make any type of impact on it when I had a tremendous amount of money many years ago and the simple answer was greed and selfishness.

The truth is I had only two concerns in my life when my net worth was over one million dollars: what lavish ways could I spend my money and how was I going to continuing making even more of it. For approximately five years or so I did just that where all of my actions during that time period were grounded in nothing more than that greed and selfishness. Sure there were probably a few times here and there when I donated a small amount of it to a charity or someone else in need, but it never put any type of dent in my bank account nor with the level of poverty on this planet either. Karma eventually came back around though in 2010 to teach me an extremely invaluable spiritual lesson. After losing a bed and breakfast I owned and the $600,000 in cash I had invested into it, I began walking a path with a much greater appreciation for having much less in the financial realm in life. My life is far more humble now than it ever used to be, which has led me to wonder if those 85 richest people in the world know what true humility is.

You see the more money I had in life, the more I got blinded from the good it could do with things such as reducing poverty and the more I also walked away from experiencing humility. While I’m sure many of those 85 richest people experience a little humility by giving at least a million dollars to various charities each year, there’s an interesting fact when it comes to their annual donations. Take for example someone such as Bill Gates. If he were to donate 1 million of his dollars to a charity every single day, it would actually take him 218 years to exhaust all of his money. But ironically, that would never happen either because his money actually makes well over that amount in interest alone each day.

So when I read that one of those richest individuals in the world, such as Russian mining tycoon Vladimir Potanin, has a net worth of $13.9 billion and spent $95,000 of it on a four pound white truffle, it reminds me of my gluttonous past. It reminds me of the days when I would trade in one brand new car with only a few thousand miles on it for another brand new one just because it was a little shinier and a little more extravagant and really just because I could.

The bottom line is that if the world’s richest gave something like 10% of their net worth to all those in poverty, I’m quite positive the impact on the lives it would change in this world for the better would be immeasurable. Unfortunately, greed and selfishness and also the fear of becoming poor (like I once faced) are the things that will most likely continue driving most of the richest people away from using a large portion of their money to help heal our planet.

But I still have hope for my Higher Power that one day I may see a headline on USA Today that’s just the opposite from the one I recently read. Maybe it will say, “85 richest donate one billion each to help the poorest 3.5B”. Regardless of whether that ever happens or not, I choose to remain humble and free of greed and selfishness by ensuring I never let money rule my life again like it once did. And I pray that my Higher Power will continue to guide me on all the ways I can make my own impact on reducing the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“On The Anvil”

Do you sometimes wonder where you are on your own spiritual journey? It’s a question I often ask myself, which a friend helped me to answer a little better by sending me the following short parable of sorts. It’s a small excerpt taken from Max Lucado’s 1985 book titled On The Anvil.

“In the shop of a blacksmith, there are three types of tools.

There are tools on the junk pile: outdated, broken, dull, rusty.  They sit in the cobwebbed corner, useless to their master, oblivious to their calling.

There are tools on the anvil: melted down, molten hot, moldable, changeable. They lie on the anvil, being shaped by their master, accepting their calling.

There are tools of usefulness: sharpened, primed, defined, mobile. They lie ready in the blacksmith’s tool chest, available to their master, fulfilling their calling.

Some people lie useless: lives broken, talents wasting, fires quenched, dreams dashed. They are tossed in with the scrap iron, in desperate need of repair, with no notion of purpose.

Others lie on the anvil:  hearts open, hungry to change, wounds healing, vision clearing.  They welcome the painful pounding of the blacksmith’s hammer, longing to be rebuilt, begging to be called.

Others lie in their Master’s hands:  well tuned, non-compromising, polished, productive. They respond to their Master’s forearm, demanding nothing, surrendering all.

We are all somewhere in the blacksmith’s shop. We are either on the scrap pile, in the master’s hand, in the tool-chest – or being pounded and reshaped, on the anvil.”

I wish I could definitely say I was completely useful and in my Higher Power’s hands at the present time, in a state of being totally sharpened, primed, defined, and mobile. But I’m not, at least not yet that is. What I can unquestionably state though is that I’m not on some junk pile either where I’m nothing more than a tool that’s outdated, broken, dull or rusty. Those days are hopefully long gone, as back then my life was useless solely because I riddled it with so many addictions. It took a lot of pain, anguish and despair to pull me out of that discarded heap and place me on the anvil, and that’s where I believe I still remain now.

While being on the anvil may not be the most pleasant place to reside, I truly do look forward to becoming whatever tool of usefulness my Higher Power has been forging me into. In the meantime, my heart remains as open and hungry to change as can be and my old wounds and past transgressions continue to heal as well. Soon that veil which has been over my eyes for far too long will finally be fully lifted. And when it does, I know I’ll have become a very unique spiritual tool who’s ready to fully serve my Higher Power and who’s well tuned, non-compromising, polished and productive.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson