Category: Healing From Chronic Pain And Illness

Growing up in my house, any serious complaints that I ever vocalized were usually met with a a reminder that there’s always someone worse off than me. So if I complained about the food I had to eat, I was told there were starving people in China. If I had issues with any of the clothes I had to wear, I got pointed out the homeless people on the streets who were missing shoes or shirts or jackets. During the times I got really sick and felt like it was the end of the world, I was reminded of those who were permanently disabled in wheelchairs or were dying in the hospitals with real diseases like cancer. Lately, when my physical pains lead me to higher levels of negativity, it seems that God has been giving me gentle nudges of this very same lesson that my parents tried to teach me.

At the gym the other day, when I was struggling to find the motivation to do any exercise, I saw a man in a wheelchair trying to do an arm only workout. There, I also saw another man having to be helped in and out of the pool with a crane who was unable to walk anymore on his own. And in another part of the gym, I saw a person that was close to 400 pounds trying to shed some of his weight in a small workout.

Last week I went downtown to Boston to watch the fireworks and while I was there, I got caught up for a moment in my head due to my bodily pain. But when I turned around, I noticed there was a quadriplegic person in a wheelchair using a blowing tube and an assistant just to watch the 4th of July display in the sky.

At the movies lately when I have been struggling to just sit there in my own pain, I have watched prior to the previews, a commercial air about very young children who have been battling cancer and are looking for support through the Jimmy Fund.

And in my recovery circles as of late, where I often am going to speaking engagements at places where people are trying to detox from their alcohol or drug addictions, I have been hearing stories from the people there about them being homeless, destitute, HIV+, Hepatitis C positive, or worse.

While my parents might have used a lot that cliche of someone always being worse off than me when I was complaining as a kid, there actually was a lot of truth to what they were saying. I may be hurting very physically right now in my life on most days, but I still do have a home to live in, food to consume daily, clothing to keep me warm, running water to bathe in and drink regularly, a car to get me to wherever I need to go, four limbs that still work enough to get me around on my own, and eyesight and hearing that are functioning to help me still see and hear things around me. Sadly, there are millions of people in this world who can’t say the same and I must continue to remember this, even in my worst moments when I just want to give up from all the pain I feel.

It may have been a saying that made me roll my eyes as a kid every time my parents reminded of those that didn’t have it as well off as me, but it’s truth has persevered throughout my life. God has continued to provide me with plenty, even in all my suffering, and I need to continue to remind myself of that, especially when I get caught up in my thinking about the woes in my life. In those moments, it is then that I need to remember that there really is always someone out there worse off than me.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Throughout any given week, I’ll occasionally receive spiritual or inspirational e-mails from other sources that have helped me on my healing path. On days when my physical pain that I’ve been enduring for awhile now is extremely high, I often struggle with maintaining hope and faith that I’ll get to the other side of this. Just the other day, I received a very moving article from a spiritual writer by the name of Yehuda Berg. It was titled “Keep Going” and I have cut and pasted it into here as it touched my life and I’m sure it can touch others as well. Enjoy…

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One of the most important keys to manifesting our goals and making our dreams come true is perseverance.

I have a friend who is a famous actor, but he wasn’t always. When he began his career, things were difficult; he would sleep on people’s couches, and sometimes he could barely afford meals. He told me some of the best advice he received during that time was from his acting coach who said, “Perseverance will win out over talent any day. The reason you see the same couple of dozen actors in every film and TV show is because a lot of the other really talented people got tired of trying, packed up their bags, and went home.” 

This was an important lesson, not just for his career, but for his life. 

The people you see living out their dreams are the ones who never gave up, even when the going got rough. 

It’s hard to keep getting up after every time we fall or experience rejection, especially when it seems like we are going nowhere. But the truth is, these hurdles are what require us to raise the bar on our belief in ourselves, our trust in the universe, and the amount of hard work we’re willing to put in to make our dreams a reality. 



Obstacles will make the reward that much sweeter. The more challenges we overcome, the more fulfilled we can experience in the end. 



And remember, it’s always darkest just before the dawn. 



When we feel like giving up is usually when we’re almost there. Keep going!

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Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

If there’s one thing that I have learned to do quite well lately, it’s to look for gratitude as much as I can. Enduring high levels of physical pain can often sap a person’s will to keep moving forward, both literally and figuratively, and it also can blur one’s ability to have any gratitude for life itself. This year, I mustered up enough strength to join several friends in a venture down to the city of Boston with the sole purpose of watching the festivities in the sky on the 4th of July. It was there where I would find a wealth of gratitude develop within me.

It has been a very long time since I had tried to do something like that given the physical limitations that have plagued me in recent years. The last time came many years ago in a life that was once lived in the Washington D.C. area, where I would frequent the fireworks celebration on the 4th of July every single summer for almost ten years. In most of those times, where the heat index ran over 100 degrees, you would find me early in the morning setting up “camp” near the base of the Lincoln Memorial steps perched high atop one of the pillars that people were allowed to sit on. There I had a clear view looking straight across the Reflecting Pool upon the Washington Monument throughout the day. At night, as the sun set and the stars emerged, the fireworks would eventually light up the sky in front of that monument and over that reflecting pool dazzling me with their many colors and loud detonations. Even after sweating bullets for over 10 hours on most of those days, that fireworks display had to be the best show I would experience throughout the whole year for those 20 to 30 minutes it lasted. Many of my closest friends and loved ones, including my father and mother were all part of that experience with me at one time or another. Upon leaving the Washington, D.C. area in 2003, I ended that tradition.

I could cite many reasons why it took me another decade to head back into a major city to watch their 4th of July celebration. During the first few years I bypassed this kind of experience, I might say that it was due to the fact that I didn’t want to relieve the memories of those who had gone with me and were no longer a part of my life either because they have passed on or moved on. As more years drifted by and I became single, I would probably say my addiction based life got the best of me and robbed me of any desire to go enjoy that type of experience. But in the most recent years, the truest answer I can give as to why I continued to avoid a major city’s firework’s celebration on the 4th was that I just didn’t have enough strength on a mental, emotional, and most definitely physical level.

Thankfully, this year, 2013, I prayed to God by asking for the strength and then headed into Boston on the 4th of July with two close friends, after that decade long strike. On a day that was reminiscent of many of those heat stroke filled days I once endured in D.C., I set up “camp” alongside the river in Cambridge directly across from where the barges held the fireworks to be set off. Throughout the day I played board games with my friends, took many pictures, ate good food, had wonderful conversations, and laughed uncontrollably more times than not. When 9:30pm came, the main event would finally begin. The music blared forth and loud booms rocked the sky as many colors would once again dazzle me like so many long years ago. But the best moment I had came a short bit later as I heard KD Lang’s rendition of Hallelujah play just as the sky lit up with a huge technicolor display along with those pounding ka-booms. With tears in my eyes and goose pimples everywhere, I thanked God that I still had two eyes and two ears that worked as well as they did to enjoy something so amazingly beautiful that I had abandoned so long ago.

Through prayer and facing my fears over the current state of my mind and body, I found gratitude for that entire 25 minute show. I became grateful as well for braving all those crowds and all those times I had to be on my feet for what my eyes got to see and my ears got to hear. And I’m most definitely found gratitude for all the new memories I now have with two of my dearest friends. While the 2013 Fourth of July Fireworks celebration in Boston has now passed, I know I will always remember it with a huge explosion of gratitude.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson