Category: Words To Live By

Sometimes I beat myself up way too much. Sadly, quite often I don’t even realizing when I’m doing it either. And it always seems to stem out of an action that I’ve deemed I could have done better in.

I at least know where this pattern began. It started in my childhood with my many attempts at over pleasing my parents, especially my mother. Due to their alcoholism and mental imbalances, rarely were my sister and I given any unconditional praise for something we did. Instead “B’s” in school could have been “A’s”, silver medals from swim competitions could have been gold, chores done inside or outside our house could have been done better, etc. This constant striving to improve eventually became a pattern of constant efforts to reach perfection and each time I didn’t reach that, I’d beat myself up with an imaginary bat. Unfortunately, there are times I’m still doing this today, most of which seem to be occurring in my recovery from my sex and love addiction.

A good example is one that came a few weeks ago when I was on the computer with a friend of mine. We were having a friendly chat online when they suddenly sent a flirtatious sexual comment my way. And although that comment was harmless in itself, it immediately triggered me into old wants and desires to act out in my sex and love addiction. Ultimately, I then found myself throughout our remaining dialogue walking on the fringe of old behaviors that if kept up would have definitely landed me in a total relapse. Thankfully that didn’t happen, mostly because I shifted the topic of conversation to a much healthier level by the time it ended. But when my dreams that night became filled with sexual thoughts of this person, I woke up feeling guilty and immediately picked up that imaginary bat. I spent the majority of the morning that day beating myself up until my sponsor from that program of recovery gave me a gentle reminder that I needed to put the bat down and be more gentle with myself.

For someone that’s lived the bulk of their life constantly carrying their trusted bat, that’s been a very hard thing to do. In some cases, it’s almost become second nature for me to beat myself up when I haven’t navigated through a situation with the perfection my mind thinks should have been present. It appears that my brain still hasn’t come to acceptance that the perfection it’s constantly trying to obtain is actually totally unobtainable and always will be. That’s probably why it’s so hard for me to put the bat down once I’ve picked it up and started the pummeling of myself.

In reference to my online conversation with that friend, it took me having to shift my thoughts to ones that were more positive about what I did do versus what I didn’t to put the bat down. I had to remind myself I didn’t go even remotely close to engaging in my old cyber sex chatting I once did with voracious regularity. I had to remind myself that my dreams were just that, my dreams, and out of my control. And lastly, I had to remind myself that I’m human and have been trying my damnedest to stay healthy in recovery.

I understand that it’s going to take some more time to fully remove this pattern of picking up that imaginary bat and beating myself with it. I think the key is in reminding myself how far I’ve already come when I used to self-flagellate myself throughout much of every single day. I’m a lot healthier now than I ever used to be and I truly am doing my best to remain that way. So hopefully the next time when something like this happens, I can remind myself to put the bat down as soon as I pick it up. Because nothing good has ever or will ever come out of beating myself up…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever had someone cancel plans on you at the last minute because a better option arose for them? I have, more times than I can count. But sadly, I’ve also been the one who’s done the cancelling as well, except I never knew how that felt until it kept happening to me.

Sometimes I think that’s the way the Universe operates. We do a particular thing that in our minds is quite harmless, but yet we fail to realize on some level the harm that was actually done through our action. And the only way we ever get to see that is by having it done to us.

For years, I cancelled plans at the last minute on someone for any number of reasons that included things such as getting invited to a party, spending time with someone I had the hot’s for, or receiving tickets to some special event. In my mind, I always justified that action thinking the other person would understand and I could just reschedule. Unfortunately, most of them did reschedule and rarely did any tell me how it felt inside each time I did it to them. Because of that, I never learned the lesson.

Except the tide eventually turned on me for a good number of years when I started having this same behavior happen to me. When various individuals in my life whom I really wanted to spend time with began cancelling plans at the last minute on me, especially during weekends, leaving me with nothing to do but watch television and be alone, it’s when I truly began to understand the harm I had caused others who I had done the same thing to.

My ego was always the sole reason why I justified that action of cancelling on another at the last minute. And with it in charge, I never once thought about how those people I had plans with might not have had anyone else to spend time with. I never thought about the lonely evenings they could have endured because of it. I never thought about how much they probably were looking forward to it in week’s prior. The fact is, I never thought about them at all, I only thought about myself, and my own needs, wants, and desires.

A friend posed a question on Facebook recently that asked what everyone’s definition of love is. I said that I believe love is when someone else’s needs, wants, and desires become far more important than my own. Applying this definition to the case of cancelling plans on another at the last minute, it’s my belief that I’m as far from demonstrating that as I could be by doing this.

So I’m really trying to live today with that age-old adage that says to do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. Because ultimately it never felt good on any level when someone cancelled plans on me at the last minute, thus why should I ever do it to anyone else? I’m just glad I totally see this now…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever met someone who always trying to be the center of attention, regardless of whether it’s negative or positive? I’ve met a few of them over time myself where each would consistently get under my skin quite often. That was until I took a good, hard look in the mirror at myself and realized each of them were really only a reflection of me. And I have to say it was the most recent occurrence of this that finally led me to fully see that.

This latest occurrence I’m speaking of is actually someone I know from the recovery rooms who frequently seems to do things during meetings that have gained them a lot of attention, usually negative. I’ve watched this individual regularly change the meeting room thermostats to suit their need, douse lit candles with water when it got too hot, interrupt others speaking with random verbal outbursts, play on their cell phone for entire meetings, turn off light switches while meetings were in progress, choose to eat certain foods during meetings that were excessively noisy when chewed, and various other behaviors that one might see as child-like. And indeed, that’s exactly how I saw each of them, which eventually provoked me enough to approach this person and ask them why they kept doing it. The answer I got frankly surprised me because they told the truth and it was one I know all to well. What I was told by them was that no one ever seems to pay them any attention, but they found if they did annoying things, it at least got them some attention, even if it was negative. Over time I got to know this person much better and learned they never got much favorable attention at all by their parents when growing up.

Sadly, this is the same type of thing that happened to me when I was a kid. My parents were usually caught up in their own lives, their addictions, and a number of other things that often left me vying for their attention more than not. It was then I began resorting to attention-seeking behaviors, which at first were positive and far from annoying, but those generally went unnoticed. Ultimately I resorted to negative ones that always got me in trouble, but at least when I did, I got their attention. This pattern continued into my adulthood, where I did whatever I could at times to become the center of attention. Sometimes my positive actions would pay off and get me just that. But more often they didn’t, which frequently only led me to do behaviors that were no better than this recent recovery person who kept getting under my skin.

Connecting these dots has allowed me to look back in time and understand a long list of people who constantly seemed to bother me when they were doing things to become the center of attention. It’s allowed me to understand all those who’ve picked on someone in front of a group of people. It’s allowed me to understand all those who have held meetings hostage with long discourses. It’s allowed me to understand all those who constantly have had to tell jokes when speaking. It’s even allowed me to understand one former friend of mine who used to put various food items on the tip of his noise and pretend he didn’t know it was there just to make people laugh.

The fact is the only reason why any of these people, including myself, have ever done these attention-seeking behaviors, whether positive or negative, is due to the underlying insecurities that were established very early on in life. Thankfully, I clearly see my reflection in their mirrors now, which has helped me immensely in my quest to not be the center of attention anymore. It’s also helped me to feel more at peace when someone is doing any of these types of behaviors around me nowadays.

I’m far from perfect at this, as there still are times when I find myself resorting to a few of my old attention-seeking behaviors. So I guess I’m a work in progress then! But I am truly glad I understand now why any of those who’ve shouted “Pay Attention to Me!!!” in their own unique ways have had the tendency to get under my skin so much. It’s pretty clear that each have always been just a reflection of my own unresolved insecurities that began long ago…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson