Category: Words To Live By

I had to cut ties with someone the other day because the majority of my efforts in the past few months to rekindle a friendship between him and I have gone ignored. In doing so, I was reminded of a pattern I allowed myself to live in for years and it’s one that dealt with me once believing that a person will give me the love and respect I truly deserve if I just wait a little while longer for them to change.

Here’s a simple fact of life that took me several decades to figure out. Waiting around for someone else to change does nothing more than make a person extremely resentful because those changes often never come. The real truth is that the only person I can ever change in life is myself. Unfortunately, that never stopped me from trying again and again and again until I finally figured this lesson out. Why it took me so long stems all the way back to my childhood where I desperately wanted my dysfunctional mother and father to be more loving parents. I generally thought back then that if I tried a little harder to please them that I would achieve that, but I never did.

When I became an adult, I went on to form one connection after another with individuals who were no different from my parents. Consistently I received much less love and respect from each of them than what I truly deserved in life. But I always stayed in those connections way beyond what their shelf life was probably meant to be always trying harder and harder to make them work. I frequently pointed out all the areas they needed to work on, yet I wasn’t changing in the process either. The only thing this led to was making me become a very resentful person in life. Until I released all the anger I harbored inside over my parents and forgave them, I remained this way, living out my life in various relationships with others who I desperately tried to get to treat me better than they did.

With some, I even waited years for them to change, doing everything I could to be what I thought they wanted and I grew more and more miserable in the process. None of them ever really changed though and sadly, neither did I, other than becoming more and more codependent. Thankfully, I eventually did find the healing for the pain I had held onto for so long with my parents. And once I did, that’s when I began to change. It’s then that I began to find the energy within to cut ties with everyone in my life who was just as unhealthy as my parents once were. The more I did this, the healthier I became. And the healthier I became, the more clearly I saw that the only reason why I ever allowed myself to get into these toxic connections was to remind me of the work I needed to do within to heal. Today, I don’t need or want anyone in my life that I have to chase after or try harder with like this person whom I attempted to rekindle a friendship with recently. And truthfully, the way things used to be years ago between him and I was no different than how things once were between my parents and I. So I guess I needed to have a gentle reminder of this invaluable lesson and thankfully the pain it caused me was quite minimal.

The bottom line is that I deserve love and respect today in all my connections and so do all of us for that matter. None of us need to wait around for that to happen because it often never comes. But if we work on healing and changing ourselves, we will soon find we don’t draw those types of relationships into our lives anymore and instead, will find ourselves becoming surrounded with people who can offer us the unconditional love we truly deserve in life.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

What would you do differently if you became famous? This is a question I have often asked myself and it’s one that I fully believe will always be dependent on the state of my spiritual condition.

My spiritual condition has definitely changed greatly over the past few years. But it wasn’t that long ago when I was spending the majority of my nights and days becoming consumed in one addiction after another. If somehow I had become famous during any of those years, the likelihood of me either overdosing on something, entering a rehab of some sort, or being splashed all over every single tabloid for some drama of the week would probably be pretty strong. While there were moments here and there during those years of genuine acts of selflessness and unconditional love, I was usually more interested in self-glorification and gratification then anything else. So being put in the spotlight for the rest of the world to see back then would have only enhanced my acts of selfishness and self-centeredness.

Prior to when those years of being consumed with self began, I was an innocent kid who had good ideals and a wide-open heart. Unfortunately, I was also deeply insecure and very lonely at the time due to the dysfunctionality I was growing up with around me. Being thrust in the spotlight and becoming famous at that point in my life might have initially felt great and started with me trying to spread those good ideals. But the probability is that it wouldn’t have lasted because I was too dependent upon others and constantly worried about what everyone else thought of me. The end result would have been no different than what actually happened in my real life, as I would have found one addiction after another to numb that insecurity and loneliness.

Thankfully, things are quite different now in my life. My spiritual condition is far healthier than it’s ever been in this lifetime and addictions no longer control my life. I am spending my nights and days currently trying to be selfless in every way I can. And while there are small moments of when I may still revert to my old self-centered behaviors, I can honestly say that I think about other people’s needs and wants more so than my own nowadays.

So what would I do today if I became famous given my current spiritual condition? I would keep right on doing what I’m currently doing and that’s to continue spreading the peace, love, light, and joy that I’m already doing, as this world desperately needs a lot more of that going around…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“Are we supposed to love everyone?” I often hear this question coming from others, and it’s actually one I wrestled within myself for years. To me, that answer is very simple now, and it’s a resounding “Yes!” But how I arrived there took me going down a long, circuitous route that all boiled down to the fact that I never loved myself enough to truly love another.

The Bible, and many of the other world religions have one thing in common, and that’s the saying of “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. Because I didn’t love myself that much for a good chunk of my life, I always struggled to love any of my “neighbors”. To put this in a different way, I hated myself for years, I used to despise what I saw in the mirror, and it was once next to impossible to say I truly loved myself. All that resulted in was looking at the rest of the world through a tainted set of eyes. With them, the only things I frequently saw in others were their imperfections and character defects, because that’s all I saw in myself. In other words, what I consistently saw in others was what I didn’t like in myself.

When I began to draw closer to God though, I started working through all those things I didn’t like in myself. I took a hard look at all of my own imperfections and character defects. In all honestly, it was a difficult job to do, but certainly worth it because the more I worked on accepting my imperfections and removing my character defects, the more I began to like myself. And the more I began to like myself, the more I began to see everyone else through a healthier set of eyes and in a much better light. By continuing this work on myself, I also eventually became able to look in the mirror and say, “I truly love myself unconditionally” and mean it. But even better, all this world helped me to start noticing the good in everyone, even the ones who used to irritate me.

Nowadays, I’m find it’s much easier to embrace the positive qualities of everyone rather than focus on any of their negative ones. I also don’t find myself getting caught up in tearing someone’s character apart anymore like I once used to and I think that’s solely because I really do love who I am today. The love I have for myself now allows me to see everyone else with love and I’m quite grateful for that. That’s a far cry from where I used to be when I despised my life so much that I could only notice the things I despised in everyone else as well.

So is it possible for all of us here on Earth to truly love one other? Absolutely! But I believe the only way to ever get there is to fully accept our imperfections and remove all of our character defects that are selfish in nature. Following this path will definitely help each of us love ourselves so much so that once we do, loving any of our “neighbors” will just become second nature.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson