Category: Healing From Chronic Pain And Illness

I had to cancel a small overnight trip the other day that was originally planned as a birthday gift for my partner. It was something I know we both were looking forward to, but unfortunately, my health hasn’t reached a level yet where I feel comfortable travelling anywhere. My partner agreed with me and so we postponed it until the fall.

When I actually made these plans a few months ago, I was beginning to see small signs of progress that led me to make an assumption I’d be in a good enough place of health when the day of the trip rolled around. Sadly, my assumption was slightly off. While I know there are plenty who would probably still go on the trip no matter how they felt, I haven’t had much success in doing that in any of the last few trips I’ve taken.

Travelling involves expelling a lot of energy and having a lot of mobility for me, especially when there’s a long plane or car ride involved. For this trip specifically, there would have been some extended car travel to get there and a good amount of walking once there as well, neither of which I’m able to fully handle yet.

To be perfectly honest, It’s truly frustrating continuing to be in this spot with my health and healing, given how long I’ve been working on improving it. But healing in the way I am is grossly different than how many people these days seem to deal with their health.

Usually the first line of treatment for most when any ache or pain or some other health issue arises is to take some over-the-counter remedy, hoping it will provide the necessary amelioration. But when it doesn’t, it’s usually off to the doctors where stronger medications are prescribed. This was my own pattern of healing for the longest long time, but I never got better doing it. I eventually realized I was only putting Band-Aids on deeper-seated issues every time I put a pill in my mouth. Even worse, I learned in doing so that my body is super-sensitive to most medications and I got more side effects then benefits.

That’s why I use the holistic approach these days and am doing what I can to trust in my own body to naturally heal itself. And of course that involves some of my own work too, primarily on the mental and emotional level. But so far this has been a slow process and one at times I have wished I could really speed up, except healing naturally often does take a lot more time than what the ego wants. This is precisely why I think over-the-counter drugs and prescribed medications are frequently the course of treatment for so many like it once was for me.

But now it’s not for me anymore. Instead, I sit through the pain and trust as best as I can that my body is self-healing itself. This means I don’t take painkillers or any medications to curb symptoms and that alone makes what I go through all the more challenging, particularly when it comes to going on a trip somewhere out of town. Thus this is why I came to acceptance that cancelling this overnight trip was for my highest good at the present time.

I am grateful for knowing and accepting my current limits in life due to my health because in the past I would have just given in to my ego and done what I could to push myself beyond them, only to suffer a lot more on my trip than if I hadn’t gone. But more importantly, I absolutely remain faithful in my Higher Power and the healing forces within me that I will eventually be travelling again like I once used to on a regular basis, once my health gets a little better. Because I know it will. It’s just going to take a little more time and a little more patience…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

In a few weeks, I’ll be 44 years old and yet I feel like I’ve lived for far longer. What I’ve endured, what I’ve seen, what I’ve done, and how I’ve lived seems to have filled the shoes of multiple lives for multiple people. Yet, somehow, it’s only been 44 years where I’ve experienced as much as I have.

So is there a reason why I’ve experienced as much as I have in such a short period of time? Has God brought me through as much as I have for some greater purpose that I just don’t know about yet? Or am I just living in some crazy illusion, waiting for something to happen that’s never going to materialize?

I know so many people believe that we just need to go out there and create our own future, that we just need to figure it all out on our own, but I’m not so sure of that. I tried that through most of my 44 years of existence and other than enjoying moments where I was living it up through plenty of self-indulgence, I came up with nothing, other than a lot of misery, dead-ends, loneliness, and many painful experiences.

What if it’s really all about teamwork with God?

What if there’s times of waiting on God and times of acting for God?

I’m going to speak specifically on those times of waiting though.

What if those times of waiting are often unheeded by us because we’re so dam impatient? Isn’t that the human condition? Things don’t come fast enough or in the way our mind’s want, so we go out there and try to make it happen in the way we think things should be. I can’t speak for anyone else on this, but I sure do know for myself that I’ve never found success following this pattern of thinking.

So I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Waiting on my health to improve. Waiting on God for the next step because I don’t see it yet. And I do believe that God will show me it when it’s time and when I’m ready for it. But in the meantime, my ego has been screaming at me, friends have been telling me I’m insane, some have even gone so far as saying that God’s probably waiting on me to take action.

The truth is…I really don’t know if I’m making the right choice to keep waiting. What I do know though is that waiting is an action, it’s just not one many people take on this planet, especially when it comes to God. Regardless, some part of me says it’s what I must keep on doing. That I must keep on doing what I’m doing to heal, to grow more spiritual, to love more unconditionally, to be like Christ, body, mind, and soul. Maybe all of what I am doing are the actions that God wants me to be doing? Maybe it’s just my ego that says there needs to be more, just because it’s not happy where my life is at in the present moment.

Nevertheless, there are many known spiritual figures throughout history who also took a similar path of waiting by just working on their spiritual health and spiritual condition and eventually found themselves on the greater path they were always meant to be on. So on some level, I’m trying to follow in their shoes.

I think that’s a good thing because I’m truly quite different today from who I once was, as the old me would have given up on waiting on God long ago. But I’m not that person anymore. I’m something different. I’m someone different. I just don’t know yet who that is and who I’m becoming, yet I believe it’s a far better person than I ever could have been by continuing to take action after action that my ego led me to take.

So as I continue to wait upon God, I wait for guidance and direction. I wait because I know what not waiting did for me. I wait because I know what going out there and doing what I think I need to do did for me. I wait because somewhere within me, deep within me, is a yearning, for something greater, something that I believe will only come through waiting, waiting on God…and sometimes I think that’s the hardest task any of us will ever face in life…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

 

For as much as I believe it’s important to be there for others on a regular basis, I think it’s just as important to make sure I take care of myself and sometimes that involves removing myself from things that aren’t feeling all that healthy for my spiritual growth. Unfortunately, I’ve often stayed with those unhealthy things for far too long, hoping they’ll get better as time goes on. But generally, what I’ve found when I’ve stuck it out is that they usually only grow worse.

In the past, this most frequently presented itself with friends and intimate relationships. Rather than listen to my inner guidance and allow those warning signs from within tell me that someone wasn’t healthy for me to be around, I’d consistently listen to my ego instead by saying things will improve over time, but most never did. And regardless of how much work I put into those connections, it was almost as if each of them had a life expectancy that I just never wanted to pay attention to. Eventually after repeatedly going through this, I became more willing to see that my spiritual health and growth was far more important than waiting around for a friendship or relationship to improve.

Nowadays, I’m facing a similar challenge in this taking care of myself department and it falls under the realm of my recovery from past addictions. There, as part of my normal life, I sponsor others, attend certain 12-Step meetings, and volunteer my time at various hospitals, institutions, detoxes, and halfway houses. While most of the time I haven’t had any real issues with each of those activities, I’ve noticed that occasionally there has been situations where I’ve felt drained by my participation with one of them. The dilemma I face with that is the fact that it’s important to get out of oneself in recovery and help another. But the realization I’ve made as of late, is that this should never come at the expense of my own recovery and serenity.

Because of this, I’ve had to at times stop sponsoring individuals, going to specific meetings, and remove myself from volunteering at places where I felt worse each time I got around them. The truth is I’m really working on listening to my inner guidance now, which honestly is pretty good at letting me know when something is or is not working for me.

Just recently in fact, I stopped helping put on a commitment at an institution because each time I left it, I was feeling more unbalanced and unsettled inside. And last fall for example, I made the decision to change home groups because the one I was attending regularly also left me feeling quite the same after each meeting there. As for sponsees, over the past two years I’ve had to drop a few of them who were either in chronic relapse mode or were verbally abusive to me.

Thankfully, I find myself growing stronger in my decision making these days because of taking care of myself like this. I don’t wish to put myself in situations anymore where I’m running on empty and my energy goes beyond a depleted state. Thus I feel it’s extremely important to continue finding that balance in life where I not only am getting out of myself and helping others, but am also never doing that at the expense of my own healthy and recovery.

The bottom line is that it’s never a good thing to be around anything that drains our life force, even if our egos try to tell ourselves it will get better over time. The reality is that our inner guidance knows when it’s time to move on, we just need to listen to it and take action before we’re going in the opposite direction of spiritual growth…

Peace, love, light, and joy

Andrew Arthur Dawson