Daily Reflection

“The closer one comes to truth, the further one gets from mind.” (James Pierce)

When you finally stop fighting and trying to control things in life, it really does become a lot easier to see things far more clearly, like the status of my relationship with my partner Chris, something that in all honesty is presently in shambles, solely because we both got away from what truly mattered, that being connecting to each other via the heart.

When you aren’t working through the heart to connect with someone, there’s really only one other place to operate out of, and that’s the mind, which is a deadly place to remain in and have your relationship through and the very reason why Chris and I are in the state we are now.

When things began to go downhill years ago in our relationship, it was because we both started coming at each other with extremely heady thinking. We began rationalizing our way through so many differences always believing each of us were in the right. All that did was tear us further apart again and again until eventually we found ourselves sitting in total opposite corners in life. Our hearts became heavier, sometimes even with an icy coldness exterior towards the other, none of which is conducive to having a healthy relationship. This is why I am doing everything I can now to keep my heart open and find myself working diligently to detach from any tension and potential arguments. While I’ve been successful in this new endeavor, the majority of Chris’s heart remains blocked for a number of reasons, some of which I own and some of which has nothing to do with me.

Either way, as I try to navigate my way through this broken relationship with a now open, but very sorrowful heart, I see so clearly now that nothing truly good ever can come from trying to maintain a relationship through one’s best thinking, when that only ends up stifling the very thing one needs to really connect through, and that’s the heart.

God, please help me operate in every one of my relationships through my heart and not my mind, so that I may always cultivate greater love instead of greater hate.

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

Daily Reflection

“In stillness lives wisdom. In quiet you’ll find peace. In solitude you’ll remember yourself.” (Robin Sharma)

Sitting in the stillness of life is something that most human beings really struggle with. There are so many things to distract us from ourselves these days and most of it either comes by keeping our schedules so busy we never really have time to sit still or when we finally actually have a moment to sit still, we immerse ourselves into whatever our cell phones can provide for continued distraction.

Lately, I find myself taking more and more time to sit in stillness, something I drastically got away from over the past few years, mostly due to my loneliness. In loneliness, I tend to occupy myself with social media, aimless chatting on the internet that usually has no depth, scheduling every free moment with either volunteer opportunities or friend engagements, and binge watching something on streaming until I’m so tired I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.

One of the most powerful things that seems to come when I sit still with maybe only music playing in the background is what feelings I actually really have going on within me. When I’m not remaining still, I tend to go towards anger and petty arguments more than not, but in remaining still I seem to navigate beyond them, to the sadness that sits deep within me, a sadness that I don’t think will ever go away so long as I avoid that stillness.

So, I’ve consciously begun taking steps lately to remain more still and reflect within on a regular basis, as in doing so, I seem to be experiencing something more than I have in a long while, that being peace. Maybe peace can only come when we consciously take time to stop immersing ourselves in one thing to the next and instead take time to remain still and immerse ourselves in going within to learn who we really are and who we are truly meant to be…

Dear God, please help me to take time on a daily basis to remain still, so that I may fully become aware of all who I am meant to be for You.

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