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...

Fighting Myself

It was very cold today. Extremely cold. With a wind chill near -7 and another 4 to 8 inches of snow dropping on top of the few feet still on the ground, it made a good case to not leave the house at all. The cold weather is extremely difficult for me. As most people probably know, cold contracts and heat expands. That holds true with muscles as well. And for someone like me who deals with muscle and nerve pain quite a bit, cold weather is unbearable. Tonight, the group I call “home” for the center of my recovery here in Massachusetts had an engagement that I was tied to and would in turn have to leave my house for a few hours in the frigidity.

In the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous in Massachusetts, one of the things I find most fascinating is what this engagement was about. It was a commitment. In this state, most groups have a calendar that is maintained by a “bookie” who organizes dates where the members of their group will go to different places to speak about their experience, strength, and hope. It could be other meetings, hospitals, detox centers, halfway houses, or prisons. It’s considered part of a person’s 12th step work where they go out and give back. And each of those engagements on the calendar are called a “commitment”. Tonight, my home group had one out on a place nicknamed “Long Island”. Originally, over a century ago, the island was home to the outcasts of society such as lepers and mental patients. Today it is a center of alcohol and drug addiction recovery with various programs to help people that are dealing with getting clean and sober. The program I was to go to tonight to speak with my group was named Transitions.

About two hours before it was time to be at the building on Long Island for the commitment, I received a phone call from one of my group members who was the only other person able to attend tonight in this crazy weather. He informed me that he would not be able to go and apologized profusely. The circumstances were based around a friend of his that had overdosed and needed help and I completely understood. But it left me with a predicament. Each of these commitments are usually an hour long where the group members trade off speaking for a few minutes at a time. At a worse case scenario with two people, I would speak for 25 to 30 minutes and the other would be the same. With the cancellation, it left me to be the only speaker in front of about 35 to 40 people. I don’t have any problems speaking in front of people today but add in the below freezing temperatures, the snow that had come in earlier, wind gusts still up to 40mph, serious pains in my left leg, and feeling down in the doldrums, my brain was telling me to just stay home.

I’ve learned there are two me’s presently in my life. There is the “brain” me. And there is the “soul” me. My “brain” me is what wants quick fixes. It’s what wants at times to go back out there and live in addictions. It’s what tells me that drugs will make my pain go away. It’s what tells me that I’m never going to get better. And it’s what told me to stay home tonight. The “soul” me, well, that one tells me to keep going. It tells me that I’m going to heal and soon. It tells me that all of this pain is temporary. And it told me to go tonight and be the only speaker as that is what God would want of me. Remember those old cartoons where the angel “poofed” in on one shoulder and the devil “poofed” in on the other and both tried to make the person of whose shoulders they were on do something. That’s a lot like what went on tonight with me. After having no success getting any other group members to join me, the decision rested upon whether I was going to make the track out there alone or not in the freezing cold.

I’m happy to say that I made the decision to go. It’s a testament to where God is at in my life now. A year ago, I  probably would not have gone. I would have used any number of excuses. On my way to the meeting, I prayed to God to give me strength to deal with my pain and to speak from my heart with love and light and that I may be a vessel to inspire those there trying to get help from their addictions. I spoke for about 45 minutes with my story of recovery from the beginning to the end. At the end of the commitment, several came up to me and shook my hand and said it was very inspirational. In the past, I’d soak up all the glory into my ego. Today, I give it all to God. After all, I believe it’s God who motivated me to get in my car and go in these subzero temperatures. I believe it’s God who gave me the strength to speak with passion and love. And I believe it’s God who wanted me there in the first place alone so that I would be able to speak my whole story. It’s my hope that at least one person at Transitions tonight connected to my story enough to find a greater purpose in seeking a path to recovery and God.

I am not all seeing and all knowing, and I don’t really know how my presence tonight at this program out on Long Island made a difference. But what I do know is that my brain fights against my soul way too often. I’m grateful that I went with my soul’s choice as I believe I did God’s will in taking that path. I look forward to the day where my brain and my soul call a truce and work together to bring greater love to God and this planet and peace within me.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Not So Beautiful Creatures

Normally I wouldn’t make a blog entry this late into the evening as it’s currently 1:00am here on the east coast, except I just came from a movie that I was extremely excited about seeing and instead left very disappointed. The movie I went and saw was Beautiful Creatures which is based on the book series by authors Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia.

A few months ago I saw a preview and read that this movie was similar to the whole Twilight series but instead of vampires and humans as the focus, it was witches and mortals. I thoroughly enjoyed the Twilight series on screen and while I didn’t read the books, I decided to do that with Beautiful Creatures. And I loved it immedately. While the books do draw some similarities to the way the Twilight series was set up with good versus evil concepts, they really are two completely different works of fiction. Within a matter of a few weeks I had already gone through the first book and the second book. By the time the movie arrived in the theaters a few days ago, I was buried deep into the middle of the third book with high hopes for the first movie to be as engrossing as the book series had been.

As the lights dimmed in the theater and the previews rolled out, I anxiously awaited the opening scene for the movie and then it finally arrived…in a different version, quite different from how the first book began. I shrugged it off and said oh well to myself and continued to watch with anticipation for many of the sequences that I was looking forward to seeing how they would translate onto the screen. Most of them never came. Scene after scene, storyline after storyline, change after change, the movie seemed like a completely different piece of work. While the foundation of the story was kept intact about a witch, referred as a Castor, and a mortal, with no special abilities, meeting and falling in love and finding their love to be taboo because of a curse, the things that made the book unique were missing. As I watched the credits start to roll after the last scene to this Romeo and Juliet tale, I noticed that there had been very few people there watching it. Was that because of all these changes that were made? I don’t know. What I do know is that on opening weekend of a Twilight movie or a Harry Potter movie, a person would be hard pressed to find an open seat.

All of this got me to thinking about my own life. When I was a young boy, I was quite original and unique in my own way. Sadly, when I got into high school, I began to change those parts of me, altering myself to ways I thought people would like better. By the time I left high school and college behind, most traces of that boy inside that was unique and different were gone. From the outside image of me, to the talents that I pursued, what the world saw in me now was a mere fragment of what I had originally been scripted as.

Luckily, I’ve woken up to the chameleon effect that I created and about a year ago, I began to strip away all the layers that were pasted on top of the original me. Ironically, now at the age of 40, I’m back to doing most, if not all, of those same things I did as a kid. The difference today is that I don’t want to change them, alter them, cover them up, or make them any different. I want to be me. And I believe that the new/old me that is emerging will be liked by many more people as compared to the life I had lived up until last year that was filled with sadness and loneliness.

Like Beautiful Creatures, I lived my life from high school to last year continuously adapting to meet what I thought others might like. And consistently, I lost the interest of those I met most likely because I wasn’t original and unique anymore. I had made myself a carbon copy of what I thought people might like. Except I’m not the way anymore and I’m thankful for that. My license plate is now “BURSLF” which means “BE YOURSELF”. And today I am. I’m back to being that boy again, living his life as original as I can be, beating to my own drum and I believe that people are going to love this original recipe much better as time goes forward.

I wish Beautiful Creatures had done the same and stuck to what was in print. I’m convinced that this was the reason why the theater had only a handful of people in it on opening weekend and why the box office numbers were showing it in a dismal sixth place in earnings. At least I can go back to the original me but this movie is already produced and forever on a reel in this version. But who knows, it’s Hollywood and remakes happen all the time. Beautiful Creatures, just be yourself, it’s the best way to be.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I Am Me Wherever I Go…

I face a difficult challenge today. I’m going to be seeing my sister for the final time today until I’m not sure when, as she is moving to the Nashville, TN area in the next few days. Moving is not something unfamiliar to her. Since 2000 when she married her current husband, I have seen them move 6 times. Each was in a different town or different area or even a different state. And with each move, came a renewed emotion and comment from her family that the new home was exactly where they are meant to be and that they aren’t going to move again.

The last big move came when my sister left for Virginia and was convinced her new life was going to be spent there. Like the move to the Nashville vicinity, the reason was a job promotion for her husband. I was devastated as where they were moving to was the area that I had moved from to be closer to them in Massachusetts. After just under a year, they were back in Massachusetts in new jobs and saying to family and friends that they were here to stay for good.

And I believed it too. I’m sure all those that they told did as well. And then the bombshell dropped a few months ago, just around the holidays, I was told her husband got an amazing job near Nashville and they would be moving away in mid-February. Sadly, much arguing ensued after, mainly with me steaming at the ears. It took some time for me to calm down and process through it. My Shaman informed me that it probably is in my greatest highest good and that I should be still with it and reflect on the good that may come out of it. For weeks, I did, I meditated and I prayed for God’s will to be done and for me to not be angry and resentful about the move. I prayed too for my sister and her family’s happiness. Somewhere along the lines, I began to shift my perspective…onto me…and how I’ve done the same thing as she is about to do yet again. Through much of my writing in these blog entries, I’m beginning to realize that every time I get angry and resentful, it’s generally because I’m seeing a mirror for myself on something I’ve done in my life. And with this move from place to place, well, yes, I’ve done that too. Many times.

When I graduated from college in Rochester, NY, I had job opportunities to stay in that vicinity. I also had friends there too. And I had people around me there as well that I didn’t particularly like. I also was tired of the North and of being in a college town and made comments about how there was nothing to do in the area. So I took a job as far away as I could get, which came in Northern Virginia. Just under two years living there, I had changed from that job to another, and was in a relationship that was falling apart. I was lusting after people around me that I called friends and finding fault with my boss and my fellow employees, as well as my duties at my place of employment. So I sought refuge in yet another move and I went up north to Massachusetts within an hour of where my sister was living at the time. That lasted 8 months. In those 8 months, I worked two jobs, ended that 2 year relationship, bought two cars, made and ended several new friendships, broke some hearts, and purposely tried to break up a relationship of another couple. Then I left blaming all those things that were going wrong and stated I couldn’t stand Massachusetts to everyone I knew living there, and I moved back to Northern Virginia. I told myself that I never should have left in the first place and that this time would be better and different. I bought a house, settled down, but kept changing jobs and finding dissatisfaction in my life in just about every area. I went through several short term relationships and then met a person who became my partner and after a few years in that relationship, I convinced myself that my misery was once again Northern Virginia and the corporate world I was living in. So I sold everything and moved out to a small island near the ocean that was named Chincoteague. In the middle of nowhere, I tried unsuccessfully to live out my partner’s dream of owning and running a bed and breakfast. For me it lasted four years. During those four years, I ended the relationship once, travelled around the United States several times, and went on silent retreats trying to find myself. By May of 2007 I decided that the cozy island with it’s tranquility and solitude was the problem. I decided that the seven year relationship was the problem. I decided that the bed and breakfast was the problem. And I moved…AGAIN. And guess where I moved to. Massachusetts. And since September of 2007, that is where I’ve been. And in just a short period of time, about a few months, I was unsatisfied once again in my life. I could only think about how the world was wronging me in every situation I found anger or irritation in. I never realized the problems were not any of those things that I was finding fault in. It was never the areas, the houses, the jobs, the friends, the relationships, the weather, or anything else in the cities or towns I called my home. It was always the man in the mirror. It was always me.

Though much therapy, writing, healing, meditation, prayer and more, I have gone within myself to figure out that there was a lot of muck that had built up inside. The process of removal has been challenging but rewarding at times. The rewards have been “a-ha’s” that have shown the lightbulb above me turn on at times. Things that I never understood why they ticked me off in the past from ex partners to ex jobs to ex bosses to anything ex. Each of the resentments I had towards any of it, were just areas of my life that I wasn’t wanting to face and work through.

And now I’m watching my sister do the same thing that I’ve done so many times before. And I’m powerless to do anything about it other than pray. When I have gotten into one of my geographical cure phases, there is nothing anyone can tell me and nothing that can change my mind. I did exactly what it was my brain told me was going to make my life better. With each new move came new friends, a new life, a new start, a breath of fresh air, a new career, a new church, new restaurants and new malls and new places to explore. But it also brought me one thing that wasn’t changing…me. I brought the same attitude. I brought the same dissatisfaction in life. I brought all of that muck. It may have been a few weeks, a few months, or maybe even a few years that it resurfaced. But it always did. And I finally lassoed myself down to stay here and face those parts of me.

My sister and her family haven’t figured that out yet. I’m sure they will eventually find these same answers. That the grass may be greener when they arrive. But at some point, no matter how many chemicals they place on it, no matter how much they water it, unless they fertilize the soil with richness, it’s eventually going to die there too. Mine did. In each and every place I brought myself.

While my life has never felt that it was meant to be in Massachusetts long-term, and while my partner doesn’t live here, I’m staying put for now. I believe that there are some places within me to still work through. When it’s time to move, it will come naturally, and not out of an act of believing life will be better somewhere else. Life can be better right here, right now, wherever I am. I just have to do the work and clean out the cobwebs in my attic that keep me living in that fog and illusion and tell me a move will make things better. My sister will learn this lesson one day. But it has to come in her time, as God sees fit, and not in my time. But I’m grateful she has taught me a valuable lesson about myself just by doing what she’s doing.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson