Month: September 2017

Does anyone embrace rejection well, especially when it comes from a person or people they care about? Have you ever personally experienced this? Twice now it’s happened to me since moving to Toledo and it’s something that’s really been difficult to deal with.

In both cases, I was attempting to be part of two different groups of men that were in an organization I’ve been a member of for over 18 years. And while others continued to be accepted just fine at each and welcomed in with open arms, I personally was given a rejection stamp and told it wasn’t me specifically as a person, it was just that they felt I would be too triggering for others already in the group.

Too triggering for what you may ask?

Well, I wondered that myself and inquired further. And the answer was something I’ve often spoken about in many of my previous writings.

My personality seems to be a magnet for people to see parts of themselves that are still broken and haven’t been worked through within them yet. In other words, I somehow tend to trigger people into seeing things about themselves they either don’t want to see or they’re not ready to see.

I’m often told I’m just like someone’s mother, or father, or uncle, or sister, or brother, or boss, or someone else they have issues with, usually anger. And in the cases of both of these groups that told me I wasn’t welcomed, it was told to me that too many of them saw me as that mirror and didn’t want to deal with the stress of having to face those issues week to week in their circles.

At first, I was extremely angry and frustrated, as I’ve learned in life to work through things like this instead of run from them. There are plenty of people who are a mirror for myself with personality quirks I haven’t worked through yet. But I welcome those people in my life because I want to spiritually grow and not remain stagnant. I want to be challenged so that I may walk through those uncomfortable situations with people who trigger me until I’m not triggered anymore. And you know what? I do it every day in many of my social settings and become a lot healthier because of it.

But far more important, I also think of Jesus who never rejected anyone, neither did Mother Theresa, or Martin Luther King Jr., or Gandhi, or plenty of others as well. Each welcomed every single human being into their circles and spent time around countless individuals who probably made them feel uncomfortable, yet they worked through it and loved them anyway.

With that being said, in the long run, I’m actually starting to feel a little grateful I received those rejections, because God closed a few doors for me that wouldn’t have represented the unconditional love I know God stands for, and in turn showed me a few other doors to groups which did. And because of this, I’ve acquired some acceptance and find myself feeling a whole lot better about the whole thing.

So, the next time you find yourself receiving a rejection stamp from anyone and/or told you are too triggering for whatever the reason, be grateful as you’re probably being led away by your Higher Power from something that really isn’t in alignment with your spiritual journey. Instead, try to have some acceptance that a healthier door will open or is already open to you somewhere else to people who will embrace you with open arms and love you no matter what…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I’m a firm believer that God can use us in plenty of ways to achieve a purpose greater than ourselves and sometimes that seems to come in the oddest of ways like it did for me on my recent trip to visit my sister’s family in the Nashville area.

On my flight out, I was the first one to board the plane and in turn, quickly grabbed a seat in the front row by placing one of my articles on it because of the extra leg room there. Given how tall I am and how uncomfortable it often gets for me when flying, especially when the seat in front of me is reclined directly onto my lap, I was convinced that nothing could make me give up the precious seat I had gotten. That was until an elderly husband and wife boarded the plane and opted to sit next to me. Their middle-aged daughter, who was also travelling with them, chose to take a seat behind the one I had yet to sit down in. As the husband passed by me while I was getting something from the overhead bin, I caught a very strong whiff of his body odor and instantly felt sick to my stomach. Being that I am extremely sensitive to some smells, body odor definitely being at the top, I immediately decided to give my seat to the man’s daughter and get as far away from him as possible. While the family took this as a gracious act, I honestly felt a little guilty and somewhat judgmental as I grabbed a new aisle seat in the second to last row of the plane.

Shortly thereafter, an announcement was made letting all the passengers know that the plane was almost full and I silently wondered if my hasty act was only going to put me into an even more uncomfortable situation that I would have to deal with. At that point, I never once considered that God’s plan for me might actually had involved my sudden move and was part of something much greater at work.

Nevertheless, as the last of the passengers boarded, a very attractive woman in her mid 30’s was the one who ended up choosing to sit in the window seat of my row, while the middle seat between us ironically remained one of the few left unoccupied on the plane. Soon, the airline attendants began their pre-flight procedures and it was then I decided to strike up a conversation with this pretty woman and ask her why she was travelling to Nashville. She told me she was going to visit her sister to have a few days of downtime from her busy life, which I told her was ironic because I was visiting my sister as well. She also said she was feeling really nervous because she had never flown alone before.

It was then I opted to tell her about my own fears of getting away, with all my health issues and such, and how I hadn’t travelled anywhere in some time because of them. I continued to share with her a good portion of my spiritual journey and many of the fears I had overcome so far in life, which in turn helped her to open up about much of her life too. And for what seemed like a mere blink of an eye, an hour and twenty minutes passed just like that.

As we de-boarded the plane, my new friend looked at me, smiled, and said it had been one of the most pleasant flights she ever had and that she had felt relaxed the entire time. She thanked me for making that happen, which led me to smile and say that maybe God was the one who deserved the credit.

After all, maybe God knew that the only thing that could ever motivate me to move from a seat that had far more comfort than the tiny row I eventually found myself in, was to have some guy with extremely strong body odor sit directly next to me. Anything else, I know I would have simply accepted and remained there. So perhaps God really did know that’s what it was going to take for me to be of service for His greater purposes that day, to help a total stranger find a little peace during her flight…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson