Month: August 2015

The Choices Of Free Will

If you’ve ever attended a church service then you probably have heard the term “free will” before. If you haven’t, it is often said during many of them that all of us here on planet earth are given this from the day we are born, to the day we die, and what we do with it is up to us. For the longest time I utilized that principle to the extreme by living my life exactly how I wanted to live it, regardless of how God may have felt about it. But as I began to work a lot more on myself spiritually, the greater I became willing to give up my free will and ask instead for what God would want of me. Lately I’ve been struggling to stick with this though, solely because of the health issues I continue to deal with.

You see I’ve come to understand one thing about what it means to follow God’s will. Sometimes it involves a lot of waiting. In other words, it requires a tremendous amount of patience. While I’ve grown in that department quite a bit in the past few years, this summer has been particularly trying given how many I’ve already had to watch go by from the sidelines. Some of those who have witnessed my frustration over this recently have suggested that maybe God isn’t going to deliver me out of this and that I should use my free will to pursue other options. A few years ago it was rather easy for me to ignore when people said things like this to me, but now I feel it’s becoming more and more difficult to do and it’s caused me to occasionally ponder the free-will based choices I could pursue.

The first is one that any person who has lived with chronic pain on any level for an extended period has probably considered at some point or another, and that’s to take his or her own life. My father did this very thing because of his own pain and honestly, it’s really the last thing I would ever want to do. Yet on those days when my pain has been through the roof, I’d be lying if I said those thoughts didn’t cross my mind.

The second choice is to go back to an addiction-laden life. Basically, what that means is to spend the rest of my days in a haze of booze, drugs, and sex, because my brain says it will help me have a little more ease and comfort with what I’m going through. Unfortunately, my brain also tries to forget all the intense pain and suffering each of those addictions caused me the last time I engaged in any of them.

The third choice is the one that people seem to keep trying to push my way the most, and that’s to go back to doctors and get some prescriptions to help make things a lot easier for me. Ironically, my mind tries to convince me I should do this on a regular basis, even knowing that the last time I tried this route that it ended with me in even greater pain after a year of pursuing it.

Lastly, the fourth and final choice I have is to do keep on doing what I’ve been doing to heal, to adhere to my holistic path, and to trust and remain patient with God like I’ve been trying to do, day in and day out for a good while now. This of course is the healthiest choice of them all, and truly the only one where I believe my free will matches that of God’s will.

Thus I believe it’s pretty clear what the best choice is for me. It’s the one where I continue remaining patient, enduring this pain, and maintaining faith that the path I’ve chosen will pay off. I’ve made it this far under God’s watch, so as much as my ego keeps trying to convince me to exercise my free will and try something else, I’m opting to stay with option #4, because it’s the only one that I truly believe will bring me to the other side of this…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

The Oracle Card’s Message

I own both a Tarot and Oracle card deck that from time to time, I actually pray to God holding one of them in my hand and ask for a guiding message to help me when I’m really struggling with some aspect of my life. Recently, I did just that on a day when I was beating myself up a little around why I haven’t gotten healthier yet given all the hard work I’ve been putting in to get there the last few years. Ironically the card I pulled out of my Archangel Michael Oracle deck that day was exactly the message I know I needed to hear in that moment and it’s something I know I truly need to pay greater attention to.

But before I speak to what the actual card said, I feel the need to first say that I don’t believe card readings are evil or devil worshipping in any way, unless that is the intention one tries to place into them. For myself, anytime I’ve ever gone and had a reading done or given myself one, I’ve always asked God to guide it and to show me a message for my highest good. This is precisely what I did the other day when I was sitting in my office feeling extremely blue while holding onto my Oracle deck.

As I shuffled the cards from it over and over again, I kept asking God to let me know something…anything…that might help me on the healing path I’ve been on with God for so long now. I honestly was in serious need of a little hope at that moment. Suddenly, in the midst of me shuffling the 44 cards in my hands again for the umpteenth time, a card flipped out of the deck face up that said “Be Gentle With Yourself”. Immediately I began to tear up as I read the words in the guidebook that accompanies it:

“Archangel Michael is guiding you toward honoring your sensitivity – emotionally and physically. You’ve been pushing yourself too hard, while often berating yourself for “imperfections,” which are in your imagination. This card serves as a reminder that you’re doing the best you can in the circumstances you’re dealing with. So give yourself a break, slow down, and be good to yourself.”

And the prayer that followed these words made even more sense to me with where I’ve been at lately:

“Archangel Michael, please guide me in treating myself with gentle, nurturing love in everything I think, speak, and do. Help me know that I deserve this compassion. I release any feelings of guilt to you so that I may experience lasting inner peace.”

The reason why this card was so fitting for me and ultimately continues to be even now as I write this entry days later is this. I often beat myself up thinking there’s some part of my life that I’m not trying hard enough in or doing well enough in, that’s somehow preventing me from getting better. But seeing those words that said I’m doing the best I can given my circumstances, caused me to sob for a few minutes.

You see, having been in the place I’ve been in with high levels of pain over the past three years, I’ve driven myself so hard at times to reach a level of spiritual perfection thinking it will hopefully bring me out of the depths of despair I often find myself in. And on that day when I was doing this reading, what I really was thinking inside while shuffling the Oracle cards was maybe God would show me some area of my life that I can still work on to get me in a much better state of health.

Sometimes I think God and his angels and archangels have a good sense of humor because the answer I got from the card that flipped out of my deck then was exactly what I needed to be reminded of. I haven’t been gentle with myself much at all lately and I know I need to focus a lot more on doing that then I have been.

So in the end what I’ve taken away from the single card reading I did the other day is quite simple. I’m doing the best I can and truly the only thing I need to concentrate on is being a little more kind and loving to myself, because really, I think that’s something we all need to start doing a lot more for ourselves in life, especially me, don’t you agree? 🙂

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

To The 1.1 Billion Who Still Smoke Cigarettes…

Have you ever seen those commercials on television that show you the horrors of cigarettes? I know I have and honestly, as much as I wish the people who are still smoking would pay attention to them, sadly most of them won’t. How do I know this? Because I used to smoke and I remember how powerful that addiction was when I was doing it.

It’s probably best that I clarify something right off the bat first. I’m not writing this entry to convince you to stop smoking if you happened to be one of those 1.1 billion people who still do. I’m just writing this to tell you a little about the years I myself was hooked on them.

The first time I ever actually smoked a cigarette was on a hot summer night when I had been drinking alcohol pretty heavily. I was hanging out with a guy I was secretly smitten with and I thought I’d impress him by trying one. After pulling out one of the Newport menthols from his pack and lighting it, I tried to hold it in my mouth like he did and then inhaled. Like all those movies and television shows that often portray what happens when a person first tries to smoke a cigarette, I began to cough and gag uncontrollably. But I was determined to be more like this guy, hoping somehow it would draw me closer to him. Little did I know though that the only thing it would draw me closer to is an unhealthy life? Needless to say, once I got past those initial problems, its effect on me was electric. Not only did it give me a buzz and a sense of ease and comfort, it also enhanced the effect of all the booze I was beginning to consume in greater and greater quantities.

For a while I’d only smoke when I was drinking and I’d often tell myself I wasn’t addicted to cigarettes because of this. I’d usually only consume maybe five or six throughout an entire evening while I drank, but the thought of doing them the next morning when I awoke was initially never there. In fact the smell of them on the two fingers I used to smoke the night before, as well as all over my clothes and pretty much the rest of my body, totally repulsed me at first. But as I grew more restless, irritable, and discontent with my life, I found that I wanted to get more of that ease and comfort during the day when I wasn’t able to drink. I found I could get a little of that by smoking a cigarette after lunch and after dinner. Soon it became one of those things I had to do after every meal or I just didn’t feel relaxed and complete.

Then came the stress from various aspects of my day-to-day living. At this point in my life, I was in college and deeply closeted. Cigarettes began to offer me some relaxation either before or after big exams, or while hanging out with someone I was attracted to but couldn’t admit to it. Eventually, it felt as if everything else there started to get to me as well, like traffic around campus for example. The more I became stuck in it, the more smoking a cigarette seemed to help me deal with it somehow. Then I noticed I had problems moving my bowels in the morning, but smoking a cigarette always corrected that somehow. And just like that, cigarettes soon became my answer for all of life’s problems.

Like any addiction, the bad effects of this growing habit didn’t happen right away. The first negative thing from doing it didn’t really occur until a few years down the road when I began to easily get winded while playing sports. My stamina in turn then became less and less the more I kept on smoking. Soon my white teeth started becoming really yellow and my breath more and more foul, and then I began to go through regular episodes of bronchitis.

Yet I continued to do this habit and would even try to enhance the buzz at times by using chewing tobacco, which was definitely a sign of this growing addition. But one day when I lit up a cigarette as always and inhaled the first puff, something happened. My throat spontaneously closed, almost as if it was attempting to reject the nicotine all on its own. I’d try several more times to inhale the smoke and only got the same exact result. Unfortunately, I was completely oblivious to the notion my body was trying to send me a warning message to kick the habit. Instead, I kept on doing it, finding ways to distract my mind so that I could override the constant strange throat reaction and inhale the smoke.

When I began suffering from serious anxiety and depression and found that cigarettes (and alcohol) were only making it, and the rest of my health worse, I knew I needed to do something. That’s when I sought a Higher Power for help through a humble prayer on my knees. The result was swift when the compulsion to do both was immediately lifted. I truly consider myself one of the lucky ones these days because of this. I have seen plenty of the horrors that an addiction to smoking cigarettes ultimately leads to, from COPD, to heart disease, to high cholesterol, to poor vision, and of course many forms of cancer. I knew most of this when I used to smoke yet I kept on doing it.

You see that’s the problem with all addictions. Once a person finds some ease and comfort from the substance of any addiction, it becomes next to impossible to have any desire to stop doing it until the pain and suffering gets great enough from actually doing it. This is why anyone who is a prisoner to smoking isn’t ever going to give much mind to all those commercials on television that constantly show people on breathing apparatus, or having lost limbs or parts of their face, or even the ones lately that are trying to cater to the young crowd by showing a pack of cigarettes come alive like one of those creatures from the Alien movie series.

That’s why I feel it’s so sad that 1 in 3 adults on our planet continue to engage in a habit that could eventually destroy their mind and body and possibly even take their life the more they do it. I have plenty of friends totally addicted to cigarettes that constantly tell me they plan to quit, but the reality is they won’t until something really bad happens. Hopefully each of them and anyone else suffering from this addiction will one day wake up like I did and ask their Higher Power to guide them away from something that’s so deadly.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson