Category: Words To Live By

I believe there are things we all do that draw us closer to our spiritual selves, just as much as I believe there are things we all do that draw us away from that as well. Recently, I asked someone I’ve been helping in recovery from addiction to do an exercise that wrote down both, knowing it would aid his spiritual journey. I liked the exercise so much I decided to do it myself for today’s entry. So here goes…

The Things I Do That Draw Me Closer To My Spiritual Self:

1. Praying each morning upon waking and each night before going to bed.
2. Meditating for 40 minutes in silence on my meditation bench.
3. Listening to 20-minute 11-11-K audio attunement from my spiritual teacher.
4. Verbalizing each of my 25 affirmations/mantras three times.
5. Writing an entry for my www.thetwelfthstep.com blog.
6. Grounding myself to Mother Earth each morning barefoot in the yard.
7. Talking with each of my sponsees in recovery.
8. Attending a recovery meeting for AA.
9. Attending my hospital commitment.
10. Attending a recovery meeting for SAA/SLAA.
11. Watching uplifting shows on television.
12. Telling someone randomly something loving.
13. Eating healthy.
14. Attending my MKP I-Group.
15. Spending time with my cat petting her and listening to her purr.
16. Working outside around the house.
17. Sitting on the edge of Lake Erie in silence and staring out into its expanse.
18. Surprising my partner with unconditional acts of love.
19. Talking to my sponsors in recovery and my spiritual teacher.
20. Giving hugs to people.

The Things I Do That Draw Me Away From My Spiritual Self:

1. Overeating anything, especially dark chocolate.
2. Gossiping.
3. Judging others.
4. Making sexual innuendos and/or flirting with anyone other than my partner.
5. Being resentful towards another.
6. Worrying what others think of me.
7. Controlling others.
8. Doubting God or myself.
9. Beating myself up when I make a mistake.
10. Giving a guilt trip to someone.

After finishing these two lists, I’m quite thankful to say that I see a major difference between them. With the first, I’m doing these things on a regular basis, most being every single day. With the second, I’m rarely doing any of them on a regular basis, most being only once in a while. Even so, I know there’s still plenty of work for me to do in life so that I don’t do any of those things on the 2^nd list at all. Regardless, I’m glad I did this exercise, as it proved to be a simple one for increasing my spiritual awareness.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“…is none of your business.”

This was one of the earliest things I was told by my first sponsor in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). It stemmed from me having become overly concerned with what former sponsees, friends, and various other people were saying about me when I wasn’t around. I was reminded of this invaluable lesson once again by several individuals due to insecurities that had arisen within me recently.

I know I still have a few of them to work through and most often they’ve arisen when I’ve placed my heart and soul into a connection that ended up dissipating. Over the past few months, I’ve gone through this very thing with a long-standing friend, as well as with a handful of sponsees I had helped for a good number of months in AA. In each case, I allowed my insecurities to get the best of me, which in turn led me at random times to ask others if those people had been saying anything about me. In some cases, they hadn’t, but in others they had, and it wasn’t necessarily the greatest of things being said either. In all honesty, the only good thing that came out of me doing this behavior was in guiding me right back to that lesson of “what another thinks about you is none of your business.”

The fact is everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion of another. I know there are plenty of people out there who probably wouldn’t have the nicest of things to say about me. But I also know there are plenty out there who probably would. Except me trying to find out what someone is saying about me when I’m not around only ever leads me to being more insecure and less peaceful and serene in life. That’s a pretty lousy tradeoff just to find out what someone thinks about me now isn’t it?

So as I sit here and reflect on those words my original sponsor once told me, I believe the core issue is really in my need to simply reaffirm my belief that I’m doing the best I can in all of my connections with others. In the case of this former long-standing friend, I did everything I could to be the best of one to him and then some. And in regards to each of those former sponsees, I went above and beyond, time and time again, to help them in the 12 Steps and strengthen their recovery.

The reality is that maybe it was just time for each of those connections to end as they did and when they did. I mustn’t beat myself up over these losses because I know I truly did do the best I could with each of them. And whether they have negative things to say about me or not shouldn’t really matter, because what matters is that I am a good person with a good heart who’s doing my best in everything I put myself in nowadays. If they can’t see that, that’s on them and so is their opinions of me, which I really don’t want or need to know…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever blamed someone close to you for misplacing or losing something of yours, only to find out sometime later that it was of your own doing? I call this The Blame Game and it’s definitely something I’ve been guilty of a number of times in life. Unfortunately, it’s also something that can become quite common between spouses and partners, like it apparently was for me this morning, and a few weeks ago as well.

In regards to this morning, it had to do with misplacing my keys. When I noticed they weren’t on the rack as I headed out the door to my recovery meeting, I began searching around the entire house growing more frustrated and frantic in the process. After I thought I had covered every single inch of space in my home with no success, I began questioning my partner by asking if he had seen them. Over the course of ten minutes of time, I went from innocently questioning him to totally blaming him because my last memory of where they were was on the kitchen counter the prior evening. I had convinced myself that he had cleaned the counter up and either forgotten where he placed them or had accidentally thrown them away in the process. But ironically it was me who had forgotten. I eventually discovered this when my partner found my keys sitting on the toilet in our bathroom, which is precisely when I vaguely remembered setting them there when I came home last night. It’s pretty obvious to state how much I felt like a jerk knowing it was my fault after playing The Blame Game with my partner for those ten to fifteen minutes. And sadly, it hadn’t been that long since I had last played it with him either.

The last occurrence of it was just a few weeks ago when we returned home from our weekend Christmas trip to Chicago. As I was unpacking, I discovered I had left my prized teddy bear that has been with me for almost two decades now. To prevent myself from going into any great detail about why this bear is so important to me, the following is the link to my entry that talks about him:

https://thetwelfthstep.com/2014/10/21/my-prayer-bear/

Anyways, my immediate thought when I noticed my bear was missing was of being rushed out of the hotel room that morning by my partner. This time there was no questioning him at all, as I instantaneously went into playing The Blame Game by telling my partner it was totally his fault. I adamantly declared I wouldn’t have forgotten him if he hadn’t rushed me to check out of the hotel. Thankfully though the staff of the hotel ended up being able to locate my bear behind the bed when I called them and they promptly sent him home the very next day. But the damage had already been done to my partner in playing The Blame Game, as it truly was my responsibility to have taken the time to look for my priceless possession, not him.

In each case of where I played this game, neither were my partner’s fault they were mine. Playing The Blame Game is dangerous because it usually only causes anger and resentment to come between two people who love each other. In most cases in my life whenever I’ve played this game, I’ve always lost because each seemed to always come back to my own negligence or absent-mindedness.

So I think the lesson here for me is to pause the next time this happens, pray, and keep the fingers pointing back at me. After all, there truly are no winners in the long run whenever anyone plays The Blame Game…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson