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...

Putting People On Pedestals…

Being a jovial person who talks with great conviction can seem pretty convincing to bystanders that they have it all together and that their life is pretty good. It can often lead those bystanders to even want what those people have. Unfortunately, all of that can also be an illusion and that was a hard lesson I had to learn when I began to follow those types of people in my life and place them up on pedestals.

Placing a person up on a pedestal essentially means that one is going to be looking at a person at a loftier level then themselves. That’s a dangerous place to be especially when those people don’t have it all together even though they may be leading everyone to believe they do. In the AA world, I’ve done this a few times when I saw people who spoke with fire and were able to move a whole room of listeners. When I followed some of those people more closely, thinking I wanted what those people had, the illusion that they had it so great in life, often unravelled the closer I got to them. Some were adulterers while others had road rage and major anger issues. There were those who gossiped, judged, and backstabbed at the drop of a dime. Quite a few spent their evenings looking at porn. A large number had massive financial debt issues. And many had just substituted their alcohol and drug addictions with other ones such as caffeine, cigarettes, gambling, or sex. Yet all of them always appeared as happy go lucky people at the meetings and were able to speak with such moving testimony. And this would result in many deluded listeners asking for those people’s phone numbers. The sad part about this is that I was once guilty of this.

God gave me in this lifetime a pretty good ability to speak and write eloquently. Smiling and making other people laugh with my own antics are also two assets I was given. And for years I was able to convince many that my life was the one they should want and all too often I was placed up on a pedestal where the legs should have been kicked out from under me. While I may have appeared like my life was grand, what most never saw was the massive addiction based life I was still living. People were oblivious to the fact that I was sleeping around with newcomers and those still addicted to alcohol or drugs. They didn’t know that I spent hours on the Internet living out my sex and love addiction. They didn’t see how I was often rude and mean to those who were trying to love and care about me. Essentially I created an illusion that people saw what I wanted them to see. Living this way and having people place me up on pedestals only led me down darker paths in life. And for those who I was placing on pedestals, many have since relapsed. Thankfully my pain got great enough before I did too. It was my pain that led me to the decision to turn my entire will over to God to remove all the toxic elements out of my life. This has led me to being a much healthier person inside and out. While in the past, my ego liked people putting me on pedestal, I don’t want that anymore because it just separates me more from God. And while I may still be a good writer and speaker, my thanks for those gifts only goes to God now for the words that come out of me. I’m not a toxic person anymore nor am I telling the world that my life is one that everyone should want. I’ve found over the years that most people who do that are usually pretty messed up like I was.

I still hear great speakers all the time both in meetings and in life in general but I’m not following them anymore or saying I want what they have. I’m not placing them up on pedestals or trying to be like them. The only thing I really am trying to follow now is God and the more I live on that path, the more I’m finding that everything is coming together all on its own.

While some people have begun to approach me lately and indicate they want what it is they feel I have, I am only redirecting them to what I really believe they are seeking, which is a deeper relationship with God. I truly believe that for anyone we see on any given day who is smiling, happy, loving, caring, and kind, that the only reason we may want to be like them is because those are the traits within God. So it really is not any of those people that we should be wanting to be like, following, or placing up on some pedestal now is it?

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Is A Heart Connection Lacking In Those Box Office Bombs?

I’ve been a big movie goer for most of my life. But something has changed a lot since I was a kid. As the technology has continued to evolve, it seems as if all movies are shifting their attention away from good acting and more onto how many amazing special effects can be pumped into a film. The result of this is that I’ve been enjoying my movie going experiences less and less.

This year has already dealt with many big budget films bombing at the box office. Some of those have included Jack the Giant Slayer, A Good Day To Die Hard, After Earth, The Lone Ranger, and White House Down, all of which I got to see at the theater. In each of those films, the emphasis seemed to be more on how much the director was able to give the audience a “wow” factor using special effects and less on the quality of the script and acting. This is contrary to the main reason why I have always loved attending movies.

I have always felt the best movies are when I can put myself in the actor’s or actress’s shoes and feel as if I’m living the movie as them. Lately, that hasn’t been the case in many movies where all of that green screen technology and computer animation is being used. While I may be having those jaw dropping moments with how realistic the special effects are becoming, the fact remains that I’m not connecting anymore to the characters. In other words, my heart isn’t being moved much anymore.

Movies like The Notebook, Ghost, and The Shawshank Redemption are a few of the ones that come to mind that have inspired me over time and had greatly moved my heart. While each of those may have had some special effects, the emphasis was less upon that as it was with their heart warming plots and incredible acting. Sadly, the film industry has been moving away from making movies like this and instead are pumping more and more money into making these huge blockbusters that are often bombing lately when they don’t make their budgets back.

Could it be possible that these movies like this summer’s The Lone Ranger are performing poorly because the emphasis was placed less upon giving heart to the movie and more upon its special effects? My most recent experience of a movie like this was when I saw Pacific Rim the other day in 3D. Easily it had the greatest special effects of all the movies I’ve seen so far this year but I just couldn’t connect to any of the actors or actresses in the movie and felt my heart stayed detached throughout the entire film.

Here’s a little secret about me. What I love best about a film is when I can leave the theater, get in my car, break down in tears, and end up praying to God about something in my life. This happened when I saw “42” this year, which was the Jackie Robinson story.  I was so extremely moved by what he went through in his fight against racism that when I got in my car, I cried and asked God to help me to continue to have the strength to keep going in my quest to heal.

I guess what I’m trying to say in all of this is that I simply just want my heart to be moved when I see a movie. But with the focus becoming more and more on the special effects in films these days, that seems to be happening less and less. For a guy like me who is spending a lot of time lately connecting to God, seeing two hour long films that are lacking in warm feelings are leading me to spending less of my money on films with no heart. Who knows, maybe if the film industry could go back to making more films that are intended to move the audience’s heart and not their brains, they might start making back their budgets and then some…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

The Chameleon Effect

Since I was a kid, I never really quite fit in. Back then I wanted to be cool but just didn’t fit the bill of what others labeled as that. For years I sat alone in crowded cafeterias getting picked on. That was until I became a chameleon.

Chameleons are a type of lizard that can change their colors to blend in with their habit around them. It’s usually done as a way of protecting themselves from predators. I have often identified with this type of creature because of how I learned to change my own colors to hide from the predators I’ve endured throughout my life. In my grammar school years, those predators were the bullies that picked on me day in and day out. In college, they were some of my fraternity brothers who liked to make jokes on my behalf. And as an adult, it was most of the people I got into relationships with. In all of those periods of my life, I found ways to adapt who I was, what I believed in, what I looked like, how I talked, and more, just to fit in so I wouldn’t be preyed upon by any of those predators. But all for what price? I lost sight of myself and who I really was inside.

Changing my colors to avoid all those predators throughout my life included doing many things that I look back on today with shock that I even allowed myself to go there. While it started simply with me changing my clothing styles and hairdo back in my teenage years, it progressed to heavily drinking and sampling various illegal drugs, and then later it involved giving myself away sexually to people I really didn’t want to be with. I even went so far as to deny God was ever going to help me heal at one point in the chameleon phases of my life.

Being this chameleon may have helped me to avoid many confrontations from those predators in life but it also led me to not liking myself very much. With God’s help today, I am trying to not change my colors anymore to fit in with those around me. Unfortunately, that’s led me right back to how it was when I was that young kid sitting alone in that cafeteria getting picked on.

I don’t know why I’ve always been such an easy target for other’s people jokes but the one thing I can say is that at least I’m not being a chameleon anymore to avoid them. It has allowed me to truly learn to like myself a lot more. Even better, the few friends in my life today embrace me for me and appreciate my individuality without having to pick on me. I think that’s a whole lot better than having crowds of people around me who like me because I’m fitting what their image of cool is.

I encourage everyone to stay away from living in The Chameleon Effect. It will only lead you away from being the special and unique person that God brought you here to be. In the long run, while you may not have as many friends, you will definitely like yourself a whole lot more and so will the few people that remain by your side.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson