Author: Andrew Arthur Dawson

A teacher of meditation, a motivational speaker, a reader of numerology, and a writer by trade, Andrew Arthur Dawson is a spiritual man devoted to serving his Higher Power and bringing a lot more light and love into this world. This blog, www.thetwelfthstep.com is just one of those ways...

The Best Advice You Can Give Is…

I’ve come to the conclusion that too many people are often misguided when it comes to the right time for them to give advice to someone else for a problem or situation that other person is facing. What they don’t understand is that not everyone wants or needs it at the time they’re offering it. And in too many cases, the only person who ends up feeling better after it’s given, is just the person who gave the advice to start with.

A fact that many advice givers frequently overlook is that all too often they’re giving advice for situations they don’t really know much about at all. For three years now, I have endured many people who have given me their two cents on how I should be handling the pain I’m going through. Usually that occurs when I’m having a particularly difficult day with it and I’m wearing a long face because of it. In those moments, I’m generally asked by at least one person why I’m so down. After telling them, I always start to cringe when they begin to say the words such as “Have you tried…”, “Have you looked into…” or “Have you thought about…” That’s only because what follows after those words is a suggestion of something I’ve already tried. They failed to realize my full situation and the amount of paths from A to Z I’ve already attempted to find healing. So the result of their advice only ends up being more frustration for me and possibly greater feelings of hopelessness.

There’s also the other case of those advice givers who find it’s relatively easy to offer their opinions for a situation they’re not currently facing. But look what happens to them when the shoe is put on the other foot and now they’re in that same exact situation themselves? Isn’t it ironic that they have trouble at that point taking their own advice? It’s then they find out their own car they’re driving has its blind spots just like that person had who they were trying to hammer their advice into for the same problem.

In my spiritual walk, I have learned there are two principles that make for a much better way to approach those moments where advice might be given. The first is that a person gives advice only when they are asked for it. And the second is that advice is to be given only when it can be properly received. I have battled with adhering to both of these principles throughout my life and have seen the damage that my advice can cause another person when I don’t follow these guidelines. Most of the time that has happened is when I gave my advice to someone who hadn’t been asking for it or when they’re weren’t in a place to fully grasp and understand my suggestions.

This makes me think of someone I’ve tried again and again to help see how bad of a relationship they’re currently in. Often my advice giving process to them has started out because they were in despair about some aspect of their relationship. I often took that as a sign that I needed to intervene. But what I failed to see each time was that my attempts to jam my advice and opinions down their throat was no better than how their bad relationship was being to them already. While all they were wanting was someone to listen to them, they were getting instead some two bit advice that did nothing more for them except to make them angry, become silent, or respond with “I know, I know!” in frustration. I’ve come to learn that the best thing I could be doing in each of these situations is to instead be an open ear that listens to them and a shoulder to cry on. Doing either is an example of unconditional love and each are way more powerful than what any piece of advice can do for the other person. In the case of any friend who has been in a bad relationship, offering them constant love could lead to them becoming open to your advice and asking for it, or it could end up being the sole reason why they eventually leave that bad relationship.

So the next time you find yourself observing anyone else’s difficulties in life, such as a bad relationship, health issues, or anything else, before you start giving them advice, try to remember two things. One, you might not know everything about their situation and what they’ve already gone through with it. And two, you definitely aren’t living in their shoes so you can’t surely know what their blind spots are preventing them from seeing in their problem. If you should choose to proceed forward anyway by offering them your unsolicited advice, you may end up hurting them instead of helping.

Thus, the best advice you can give is initially no advice at all. Instead, take a moment, breathe, and just be there for that person by offering them your unconditional acts of love such as an ear to listen to, a shoulder to cry on, or a warm embrace. You may find in doing so that they become more open to asking for your advice, or quite possibly, it may be exactly all they ever needed to help them see a solution to their problem all on their own.

 

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Facing Temptation

I believe that one of the most difficult things to face in life is temptation. It’s something that’s around us all the time and constantly beckons us in. It often seems to come at us in the weakest of moments and usually shows up in the least suspecting of ways. And the worst part about it is how good it feels when we give into it and how bad it feels once we’re done with it.

As defined by Wikipedia, temptation is the desire to perform an action that one may enjoy immediately or in the short term but will probably regret later for various reasons such as legal, social, psychological, health-related, economic, etc. There’s temptation for those on diets when they pass by a bakery. There’s temptation for those in monogamous relationships when they see someone extremely attractive flirting with them. There’s temptation for those newly sober when they attend their best friend’s wedding and are asked to share a drink with them. There’s temptation for those that quit smoking when they’re offered a cigar by their boss. And so on and so forth. Honestly I could probably give a million examples of the many ways that temptation rears it’s ugly face and lures us in.

In my case, alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes don’t tempt me in the least bit anymore. But there is one thing that constantly does and I think that’s because of how long I allowed myself to be drawn into that temptation. And that’s with sex. The drive to have sex is something that is a part of all of us. Unfortunately, especially in the gay male community, it’s also something that usually turns into promiscuity. Whether it exists to the same extent with the majority of the heterosexual male community I don’t know. What I do know is that from the moment I came out of the closet and began to explore my sexuality, sex was constantly being thrown in my face. No matter where I went, whether it was to the gay bars, the gay bowling leagues, the gay social clubs, or some type of other venue where a large amount of gay males were attending, it was as if sex became a natural byproduct of them all. And for the longest time, I acted out on many of those urges until it eventually became an addiction for me. By the time that happened, the Internet had emerged and became an online menu of sex for me as well. At certain points, I did grow bored with the swinging bachelor lifestyle and tried to settle down into a monogamous relationship for a period of time. Although I never physically broke my monogamy in any of them, I still gave into temptation every time that I looked at porn or fantasized about other people that I found attractive. So regardless of whether I was in a relationship or not, I consistently fell into some form of sexual temptation and felt amazingly good for a brief amount of time because of it. But a day always arrived sometime later, after giving into that temptation, when I would feel completely awful inside because of it.

The best example I can provide of my battles with sexual temptation is one I’ve already written about many times before. I spent two years of my life pursuing and engaging in a sexual relationship with a married man while I remained active friends with his wife and family. Every single time I got around him I became seriously tempted, even though I knew what I wanted to do was completely unspiritual, unhealthy, and wrong on so many levels. Sadly, I gave into that temptation over and over again because I got an extreme high off of engaging in something that I knew was so wrong. Over time though, the guilt, remorse, and shame of doing that repetitive sexual behavior grew worse and worse until I became extremely sick on all levels. That’s when I started working more deeply with my Higher Power to strengthen myself enough to resist all forms of sexual temptation. It became easy for awhile to avoid any of it because I didn’t feel well at all. But now that I’m starting to feel better, the real challenge begins. I’m noticing all the mine fields of sex that seem to be suddenly reappearing in my life now that I’m finally getting to the stage where my mind and body have healed enough from all my past transgressions. Thankfully though, my relationship with my Higher Power is helping me immensely to withstand all of them.

It’s been 18 months now that I’ve stayed monogamous on every possible level with my current partner. While that sexual temptation entices me all the time when it shows up, I can still remember all the pain, guilt, and anguish I felt afterwards from constantly going down that path. That alone makes it not worth pursuing on any level. I pray that I won’t find sexual temptation to be as much of a struggle to combat down the road like it has been for me lately. But as they say in recovery, all I have is today so the first thing I do each day is to turn this over to my Higher Power. Because of that I find it’s much easier now to avoid those people and places that might directly tempt me. And for all the others I’m not able to avoid, I ask my Higher Power for the strength to never walk down that road of sexual temptation again.

The bottom line I’m trying to tell you in all of this is that regardless of whatever temptation you may face on any given day, know that acting out and giving into it will never be worth it. While you might get an initial pay-off that feels great from engaging in it for awhile, in the long run, that pay-off will become less and less until you are left with nothing but regret from having done it at all. So maybe the question you should ask yourself the next time you’re facing any form of temptation, is whether it’s really worth pursuing when it only will bring you pain and misery down the road? If it is, then you’re a lot like I once was and are just being a glutton for punishing yourself…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

A Reason, A Season, or A Lifetime?

Have you ever heard of the saying that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime? I know I have. And as much as I don’t like to admit it, I have found there to be some great truth to this cliche. Unfortunately, up until now though, it seems as if I’ve been drawing into my own life most that fall into the reason or season category, but rarely a lifetime and sometimes I have felt rather lonely because of it.

Currently, I’m 41 years old and other than my sister (who really doesn’t count because she’s my family), there is only one person in my life who could fit into the “lifetime” category. His name is Cedric and he’s stuck by my side through thick and thin as my closest friend since 1997. While our friendship has gone through its many ups and downs since then, somehow it’s sustained all of it and we’ve been able to remain the best of friends. There are times though that I have been wondering lately if those connections between two people which last for a lifetime are because of a will greater than ourselves making it so? Is it a Higher Power that somehow causes this to happen? I don’t have the answer to that, but I know that in my many attempts to carbon copy this friendship with others I’ve met, they’ve resulted in them only lasting for a reason or season and nothing more.

I’ve lost count of the number of people in my life that have come and gone who I once thought were going to be just as close to me for many years to come like Cedric has been. Over the years, there has been quite a number of people I have called a close friend, who I became inseparable with and where I thought they would last for the rest of my lifetime. Sadly, none of them have. I’ve come to accept that some were probably driven away by my own addiction prone behaviors, where others most likely left because I was often too selfish and self-centered. I also know a few most likely ended solely became they became too unhealthy for me to be around. But the hardest ones for me to accept have always been the ones that dissipate for no apparent reason and where I never get to find out why. Recently, this very thing has happened to me and it has caused me some pain that I seem to be having a hard time letting go of. This is actually my second attempt to write about this, as my first became a long and drawn out sob story that I found to be rather dramatic, so I’m providing a quick summary instead so as not to bore you.

The long and short of what happened is this. I met a friend at an AA meeting on a visit to my partner back in the spring of 2012. We connected very quickly because of the talks we had about God and he grew quite excited about developing a great friendship with me. And we did just that, by spending much time hanging out together both at meetings and with our respective partners doing things socially. Zoom forward 18 months later, and it’s been 3 months now since I have heard from him. All of my attempts to reach out and contact him have gone unanswered and the last time I saw him was back in June at a meeting that came after three consecutive days of him canceling plans he had made with me.

Because of my relationship with my Higher Power today, I always look at my side of the street to see if there is something, anything, that can lead to things like this happening to me. But in the case of this friendship, I know of nothing that I did which could have led to its demise. So the only solution I came to, in letting this pain go, was to turn it completely over to my Higher Power through prayer. So here it goes…

Dear God, I pray that you bless this friend that you know I am talking about right now. Regardless of the pain I have of losing yet another friend, I am grateful to you that he helped me to feel welcomed for a period of time in a city that I was totally new to. And I am grateful as well for all those moments he embraced me warmly and assisted in establishing my solid footing in an area that I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to do so in. I thank you for providing me a friend for that reason alone and even for the fact that it lasted for about a season. For now, I fully close the door to this connection and turn it completely over to you. Whether it should ever re-open is entirely up to you now God. Either way, I am grateful for whomever You should choose to be in my life from this point forward, regardless of whether it becomes a reason, a season, or a lifetime…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson