“You’re human!” I hear these words all the time from those who care about me, yet I find myself always trying to live above that fact. I say this because of something I’ve been quite frustrated with myself as of late. With all the spiritual work I’ve been doing on myself these past few years, I still have thoughts that occasionally pop up in my head that aren’t very spiritual at all.
Most of the time these thoughts are addiction-based and usually surround a physical or sexual attraction to someone else. But because I desire to live a pure and addiction-free life today, one where I’m doing everything I can to follow in the steps of Christ, I frequently feel that when these thoughts arise, that I must be doing something wrong.
Yet when I’ve spoken to other individuals about this, who are very much on their own strong spiritual paths and are quite monogamous in their relationships as well, they too have dealt with the very same thing of having thoughts manifest in their head from time to time of things that aren’t spiritual at all. Yet they don’t beat themselves up over them, they just acknowledge they’re human, they forgive themselves for having them, and then they move on.
But I don’t, because as my friend Steve puts it, I’ve been trying to live above a human existence. And my driving in doing so has become so exhausting. I have the tendency to believe that if I meditate, pray, and connect with God on a consistent basis, in every which way I can, that maybe I won’t have these types of thoughts anymore, that maybe they’ll just go away.
Yet I’m beginning to understand from my walk with Christ and God that I will always have a human existence and that things such as having sexual thoughts are going to occur, it’s only what I do with them that’s important.
So the good part about this is that I don’t engage in those thoughts anymore when they arise. Meaning, I don’t fantasize about them, I don’t add energy to them, I don’t relish them in any way, shape, or form. I used to, but I don’t anymore. What I need to do now is to not beat myself up over them when that happen and accept the fact that I am human and that as long as I continue living this human existence, that they will be a part of that.
I wish that weren’t so, but the reality is that they are. But beating myself up over them isn’t healthy and will only drive me farther away from the direction I want to head. That’s why I’ve decided the next time I have one of these thoughts, I’m going to forgive myself for having them and ask God to direct my thoughts elsewhere. And I’m sure in doing so I’m going to feel far better about myself and about the fact that this is just part of being human…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson