Category: Daily Reflection

“The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you.” (John 14:26)

When a dear friend of mine recently chose to step out of my life, I initially wrote a scathing article that was meant to post today, one that upon its completion a week ago, my ego had felt completely satisfied. Yet, something else from deep within me didn’t.

For a week, as that article sat in its “scheduled” status on my blog, a small voice within ultimately led me to pray during which I asked God to provide me some guidance and direction surrounding this friend and that article. I told God that if this friend contacted me in any fashion prior to when the article was to post, that I would take it as a sign it wasn’t meant to be published. When I abruptly one afternoon received a text message from this friend offering me compassion and condolences to the recent loss of my cat, I knew I had my answer and subsequently kept my promise by removing the original article. While I know it was the Spirit that was convicting me before I even prayed for the guidance that led me to doing this, I’m just thankful to have received an answer to my prayer to show me the Great Helper was right all along.

What I pray for now is for God to mend any disconnect and hurt between this friend and I as I do love them dearly and care deeply for them. In the meantime, I’m choosing to be still and trust my Spirit that these words are far better and far more loving than my original article, something I believe Christ would be proud of me for, having listened to my Inner Guidance, and not my ego.

Dear God, I thank you for having the Holy Spirit within me. I know there have been plenty of times I haven’t listened to it and seen the negative consequences that came as a result. Help me to always go to that Inner Guidance and trust the direction I get from It is going to be far better than anything my ego ever tends to provide me.

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

“You have to think there’s a reason for everything. When a door closes another door opens.” (Chris Daughtry)

I was pumped. The weekend retreat my sponsee Michael was about to go on was finally upon him. This being the very same retreat I went on 20 years ago for a spiritual organization that has completely changed my life, enough so that my passion for it has convinced many over the years to go on it as well, including Michael. On the night before his was to begin, we spoke on the phone where I wished him well and told him I’d speak to him on the other side. I could hear the excitement in his voice. The next afternoon, just about the time he was supposed to be arriving at his retreat, my phone rang, it was him. Wondering if he had a last-minute question to ask me, I picked up, only to find out his girlfriend had just gotten into a pretty serious accident. Sadly, he had to abruptly cancel his participation on the retreat because of it and said he hoped to go on one in the very near future.

While I supported his decision because it was the right thing to do, to be there for his girlfriend who got pretty banged up, I instantly became mad at God. Mad that He had let this accident happen when He knew how much Michael wanted to go on this retreat. And mad because I know He knew Michael has been looking for some much-needed guidance and direction in life, especially as of late.

I’m quite sure everyone has experienced this at some point or another in life, where they suddenly saw their spiritual path diverted due to some type of emergency that arose in their life.

As I sat there and pondered why God allowed this, it hit me. Maybe the retreat Michael was meant to be on with the specific guidance and direction he needs wasn’t going to happen during this one? Maybe the piece of spiritual work he was going to do on the retreat wouldn’t have gotten achieved for his highest potential there? Knowing each of this organization’s retreats gets different leaders and different staff, I started to see that maybe God saw a better path for Michael beyond my limited ego’s perception of the matter.

The truth is, maybe everything really does happen for a reason, that this door needed to be closed for another one to open, the best one for Michael, one that only God could see. After I came to acceptance of that, I must say I felt a whole lot better…

Dear God, I know it’s quite easy to get upset at You when life doesn’t go our way, when something we’re looking forward to in our life or in another’s ends up having to change because something else suddenly alters the course of things. Help us to accept that everything happens for a reason and that when one door closes, another one opens, and when it does, it’s typically one that will bring us close to our Highest Potential that only You can see…

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

“The fact that someone else loves you doesn’t rescue you from the project of loving yourself.” (Sahaj Kohli)

I really continue to struggle defining my self-worth, even with many great insights made in my therapy sessions in recent years and even with all the other personal work I’ve done on myself. For too long, I’ve thought my self-worth needed to be defined by how much money I made or by the type of job I held or by how many close friends I had or even by the number of likes I got on the postings I made on Facebook or Twitter. Thankfully, I clearly see now though that it’s not healthy one bit to base it upon any of that, as looking outside of myself for self-worth has constantly led me to feelings of inadequacy because there’s always been someone else who’s had more money, a better job, greater friends, all while getting tons of more likes on social media. Regrettably, I’ve lived this way for years and it’s often led to me becoming overly depressed.

That’s why I started asking myself as of late, how do I REALLY define my self-worth with still not having a paying job, with the amount of health issues I continue to have, with so very few readers of my blog after years of writing, and with a very limited number of true friends that have stuck by my side through it all. As you can see I’ve truly struggled with a pretty negative image of myself and a low sense of self-worth.

A brother of mine in my men’s spiritual group recently told me that if I want to have any lasting self-worth, I really need to define it from within, not without, so I began trying that, which has proven to be quite difficult. Yet,  each day I am consciously looking now for things to define my self-worth that don’t come from outside of myself, that aren’t based upon some other person, place, or thing in life.

Things like the meticulous work I’ve done on my yard and gardens. Things like the unconditional love I’ve shown myself, my cat, and those few friends I’ve drawn close to me. Things like all the 12 Step recovery work I’ve done to help others with their addictions. And things like the social get-togethers I’ve coordinated between people who normally wouldn’t spend time together. Honestly, I never thought about any of those being things that could define my self-worth because for the most part, I’ve always defined it by how people see me, not by how I see myself.

Another big realization I made only recently when it comes to defining self-worth is that every act of self-care I do for myself, especially when I’m hurting physically, also helps to cultivate more of it, because so often in life I neglected self-care and instead allowed myself to go beyond my limits, hurting myself a lot more in the process. So caring for myself as I continue to heal on many levels actually improves my self-worth. Go figure.

Thus, I see now I have a long road ahead of me to totally reshape my self-worth from what it has been, that being consistently looking outside of myself for it, to what it needs to be, that being to look within for it. So, as I make a daily concerted effort now to see it in my own reflection, I’m hoping to start feeling a whole lot better about myself and my life in general…

Dear God, I truly do struggle defining my self-worth. I’ve looked quite a bit for others to define it for me for a long time now and feel pretty low more than not because of it. Help me God to cultivate my self-worth from within, and not from without, because I know in doing so, my outlook upon myself and my life will be a whole lot brighter.

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