Month: October 2022

Grateful Heart Monday

Welcome to another Grateful Heart Monday, where gratitude gets expressed at the start of every week, which for today is for a realization I didn’t want to face, but most certainly needed to, that being that my very own actions have led to my partner’s heart becoming more closed than open and us being more apart than together now.

I find it so ironic sometimes how the Universe often reveals things we need to see to spiritually grow in the oddest of ways. In this case, ever since a new connection came into my life who I’m helping to open their heart, I’ve been seeing more and more how I’ve done the exact opposite with my partner. To help someone open their heart, it doesn’t come through force, control, yelling, demanding, lecturing, or anything of the sort. While I have steered completely away from doing any of those things in this new connection, which have led to many beautiful God moments, I haven’t done the same with my partner for a very long time. Instead, I’ve been trying to force my partner’s heart open through countless actions that came off as controlling, yelling, and demanding. I’m not proud to admit this to the world because it’s quite humbling and ego shattering.

To be a good spiritual teacher and leader in this world, something I desperately hope to become one day for God, I know that great change will never come through any sort of force whatsoever. Opening the heart center especially takes a certain delicate operation, one that involves embracing, being patient, praising, uplifting, and letting the other know how proud you are of them. Doing those things for another most certainly will help their heart center open and offering such things is definitely a sign of a great teacher, something I know now I’ve failed miserably in with my other half.

I honestly don’t know if my relationship with my partner can heal from all the massive brokenness we have now. While some of that brokenness is indeed his responsibility as well, 12 Step recovery has most assuredly taught me to always own my side of the street. I see so clearly now how my very own words and actions have led to my partner’s heart being more closed than open. Helping this new individual in my life where I’ve done the exact opposite has certainly shown me that. Why I couldn’t see this and practice this long ago when my partner started pulling back when he first began struggling with various aspects of his life that had nothing to do with me, I don’t know. What I do know is that when he did begin to pull back all those years ago, instead of doing what I am doing now in my life to embrace another’s heart so delicately, I came at it with such force that it was nothing more than me being a scolding parent, which is truly no different than the controlling mother I once had.

I have great sadness over this new realization, yet immense gratitude as well, at least to know now how I hold a lot of responsibility in all this, in this brokenness my partner and I have. The only thing I know I can do know is practice restraint, to give space, and to not engage in any force anymore trying to get what my heart so desperately wants in life, which is simply just to feel loved, something I feel so very devoid of in life and have for a long time.

So, on this Grateful Heart Monday, I’m thankful in a very humbling way that the Universe has shown me a truth about myself and my relationship with my partner, a truth I pray and hope to never repeat again with him or anyone else…

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

Thought For The Day

Today’s quotes surround yesterday’s Daily Reflection that discussed how the path of your life can change in an instant…by even the simplest of things…

“Some people cross your path and change your whole direction.” (Anonymous)

“Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.” (Keri Russell)

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them, that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” (Lao Tzu)

“Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.” (Hugh Prather)

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

Daily Reflection

“The path of your life can change in an instant.” (Ann Brashares)

Sometimes it seems like you can be walking down a path in life you think you know so well when suddenly, something diverts you completely off of it and onto another, where you then see far more clearly a number of things about your life you just weren’t able to see before. This happened to me quite recently, one that has changed me so much, that it’s showed me how close I have been to slipping back into addiction.

When the Universe, or God if you may, recently threw a wrench like this in my life, it came in the form of a fraternity brother needing help. I didn’t think twice about helping them when they asked, as it’s just who I am these days. What I didn’t know was that in helping them that my heart would open up more than it has in years, maybe even in this lifetime, enough to see that I have been slowly straying away from my calling and ultimately my sobriety in sex and love addiction (SLAA).

I always tell people in my motivational speaking on addiction and recovery that the disease of addiction is always doing push-ups around the corner waiting for us to breathe life into it. I firmly believe that I was heading in that direction until I met this individual, who in the process of helping, helped me to reflect more deeply in my heart and soul where I saw that all my sexual innuendos, flirting, and trash talk I’ve been doing lately to deal with my loneliness has only hurt my spiritual walk with God.

Those behaviors are referred to in SLAA as middle line ones, ones that don’t break your sobriety, but indeed are still a very slippery slope that ultimately can lead in the end to an eventual relapse. Connecting with this brother as deep as I have on the spiritual levels we’ve gone thus far have opened my eyes to see just how unhealthy I’ve been becoming in my loneliness.

Loneliness has been a frequent companion of my life for a very, very, long time and something I often have used middle line behaviors to cope with. And while they do tend to help for a time, the more I fall onto them as a crutch, the more I seem to stray from God and the spiritual path I’m meant to be on.

As I continue on this newly guided path, one that has been opening my eyes more and more every day, I find myself becoming far more aware of what I don’t want to do anymore in my life and what I do want to do, which makes me quite thankful for how a brother reaching out for help has led to a change in perspective with just about everything…

Dear God, I give thanks for those rare moments in my life where my path suddenly shifts from one to another, where things like saying yes to helping another ends up helping me realign to exactly who I’m meant to be for You.

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