Good day to everyone and welcome to this week’s Grateful Heart Monday where I write about a single piece of gratitude to start my week off with, which for today is being the honest and integrity-based person I always wanted to be.
You see, it wasn’t all that long ago that I was a far more dishonest person who lived out of integrity more than not in life. I used to lie and manipulate my way through everything and regularly failed to keep my promises with others. But, my recovery, my spirituality, all the pain I’ve gone through, and a renewed desire to be a disciple for God has definitely changed that.
I work really hard now to be fully honest with everyone, both in person, and through my writing. What you see with me or what you read from me is exactly who I am. I have nothing to hide and, on some level, it’s pretty freeing. While there might have been times in my past where someone could have blackmailed me with something to hold over my head, today, there is nothing where that could be done, as I have exposed all my past, my secrets, and my deepest truths. And I must say, it’s actually very freeing.
As for the integrity part. I used to make a lot of promises to people, especially with close friends and family. Yet, my addictions and toxic behaviors often got in the way of me ever keeping them. I let a lot of individuals down in the process. Thankfully though, I keep my commitments with others these days because I know how important it is to be a man of my word, given all the disappointment I once saw in others with whom I couldn’t keep my word with.
Honesty and integrity are now two of my best qualities that I feel I have to offer this world and are also two qualities that I look for in those I choose to spend my life around. I find it’s far better to be in connection with those who are real with me, real with the truth, even when it hurts, and real with their word, especially when they make me a promise. Because there are just too many people nowadays that aren’t honest people, not with themselves, not with their friends, and not with their loved ones. Instead, they go through their lives in denial on some level and hide in the shadows, hoping their deepest, darkest truths, never see the light of day. Because of that, they often tend to live in fear and create little lies over and over again to escape ever being fully exposed. And the more they do that, the more they become out of integrity. And the more they become out of integrity, the more they continue to lie to compensate. It then creates a vicious cycle until the person becomes someone they don’t even like very much, which is exactly what happened to me for much of my earlier years in life.
So, while there may be a few parts of my life, like my health issues, that I still struggle to like about myself, I am grateful to God and have learned to like myself for becoming such an honest and integrity-based person nowadays. I am also grateful that my friends and loved-ones get the full truth from me now, as does the rest of the world. Because frankly, honesty and integrity are two qualities that I see Christ was able to demonstrate time and time again, and thankfully, I can say I now do too.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
