Category: Words To Live By

When I lead any student in guided meditation, one of the first things I have them do is go back in time to their childhood to locate a happy memory. Many of those I’ve guided though have often reported that this was one of the hardest things to visualize during it. The common culprit amongst all of them has always been that they each grew up in a dysfunctional home. I can totally identify, but I realized over the years how important it was to find at least one happy memory and then focus on it instead of all the painful ones.

In a dysfunctional home where some type of addiction, mental illness, or abuse is regularly present, there is often a lot of tragic drama present. For a kid growing up in that type of environment, any happiness they ever have is often snuffed out and quickly overshadowed by that tragic drama. As those children grow up having gone through that process again and again of watching their happiness flicker away, the only memories retained are usually negative ones. I can safely say this because I spent years in therapy trying desperately to remember the positive things that happened during my younger years. There was one though that I consistently remembered and it became the anchor I needed to locate the rest of them. It was my family’s annual two-week summer vacation.

From my elementary school years till the beginning of my high school ones, my family always travelled on the first Saturday after the school year ended to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The two weeks that would follow still hold many of my happiest moments from childhood, even to this day.

Our vacation always began in our driveway at 4 Frederick Drive, Poughkeepsie, NY where the car was fully loaded up from top to bottom, several hours prior to dawn. Over the course of the next two days, I entertained myself in the car with some “Yes & Know” games, “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, and various other things that kept my short attention span occupied for the 14 hours I’d be in the car. During the drive, I also treasured those morning donuts, the afternoon lunches of cheese and crackers, Slim Jims, and vegetables and dip we’d have at the rest areas, and the evening swim at the motel we’d stay at the halfway point. When we finally arrived in Myrtle Beach, the next two weeks were always filled with building sandcastles, body surfing in the ocean, digging for treasure, collecting shells, playing miniature golf, riding amusement park rides, making huge gooey ice cream sundaes, and stuffing my face with hush puppies at every single restaurant I went to.

For whatever the reason, the drama in my dysfunctional family completely disappeared on most of those annual summer vacations. I’m not actually sure why that was, but I’m grateful for it because the happy memories of those trips truly helped me to get through the many years I held onto all that anger and resentment from my childhood. Once I did the work in Alcoholics Anonymous utilizing the 12 Steps, I became free of all of that. That’s when many other happy memories began to surface such as taking hikes and eating homemade Italian Ice with my father, and playing cards and cooking Chicken Marsala with my mother. The key to remembering each of these new memories though started with me focusing on just one happy one. That was my annual vacation to Myrtle Beach and today it’s still the first one I think when it comes to my childhood.

Now I choose to focus on all of the positive memories I have from my childhood rather than any of the negative ones I used to dwell upon regularly. I’ve definitely become a much happier person because of it. The fact is it’s not healthy to focus on anything negative, especially painful childhood memories. Doing so day after day will only turn someone into a very miserable person like it did to me. When I ultimately chose to begin healing from those dysfunctional years, I shifted my focus to the only positive memory I could think of, which was my Myrtle Beach annual summer vacation. Eventually that helped me to find many others and be thankful for so much more of my childhood.

So if you are someone who grew up in dysfunctional family and can only seem to remember painful memories from your childhood, try to meditate a few minutes each day solely to locate at least one happy memory from back then. As soon as you find one, start focusing on it every time you think of your younger years and I can promise you that it will eventually help you heal your past and even better, find all the others that may have been buried long ago…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

How much time do you try to set aside each day for God or for whomever your Higher Power is? Better yet, as you head to bed to end yet another day, how much time have you actually spent trying to connect with either?

These are questions I often ponder when people tell me their life sucks. They’re also questions I think about just as often when I see people spending most of their days being negative, judgmental, gossiping, backstabbing, cursing, lustful, greedy, or vindictive. Why do I ask myself these questions when I see those conditions? Simple. I used to be one who thought my life sucked completely where I spent most days acting out in each those unspiritual character defects. While my life is far from being a walk in the park at the present time, that’s not how I live the majority of my days anymore. I believe there is one and only one reason for that. The main difference between my life then and my life now is the amount of time I actually spend each day trying to connect with my Higher Power, whom I choose to call God.

There are 24 hours in a day and each of us occupies them in different ways. For a person recovering from an addiction-prone life like myself, connecting to a Higher Power in some part of those 24 hours is essential. Ironically though, I am seeing now that to live a fully spiritually life, I must maintain that connection throughout my ENTIRE day. So what does that look like? In my case, it currently involves waking up each morning asking God to guide all my thoughts, words, and actions for the day. It also involves praying for strength to stay away from all addictions and self-centered behaviors and several forms of meditation and mantras as well. And that’s only what I do in the morning to start my day with God. Throughout the rest of the day, I write spiritually motivated articles in this blog, go to AA meetings, talk to newcomers, and help my sponsees out by sharing my experience, strength, and hope in recovery with them, all to help me connect greater with God. Beyond that, I also try to look at everyone in the world as having a piece of God within them and do my best to treat each of them with the same love and light I would of myself. When I finally end each of my days, I write in my gratitude journal, I spend time in prayer, and I ask for continued direction to even come during the hours I’m asleep. And when I awake the next day, I do it all over again.

I know all of this may seem like a lot to do for some of you reading this. For me it’s not only because it’s become a way to help me get through all those days where life isn’t a big bouquet of fresh roses or bright blue skies. I still have many frustrating days because of the spiritual healing I’m going through from the toxic life I once lived. But I’m not feeling like life sucks on a daily basis anymore nor am I acting out in any of those unspiritual traits with any type of regularity either. I know that’s only due to my spiritual routines I do daily to connect with the God of my understanding.

Every time someone approaches me now and is overly complaining about some facet of their life, the first thing I usually ask them is who their Higher Power is, and the second is how much time are they spending each day trying to connect with them? Their answers always do seem to be the same. They either don’t have a Higher Power or if they do, they aren’t spending much time regularly trying to make that connection.

So if you happen to be someone who is feeling like your life sucks or is living with any of those unspiritual traits, I encourage you to take a moment, breath, and ask yourself how much time have you spent lately with God or whomever your Higher Power is. I’m convinced your answer will be all you need to know and hopefully that will lead you more to a life where you are connecting to a Higher Power throughout your ENTIRE day…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Lately, it seems as if the topic of monogamy has been coming up in the conversations I’ve been having with others. I’m also noticing that when it has, the definition of monogamy seems to differ for each and every individual. In my case, I’ve come to believe the definition of one’s monogamy is directly related to their spirituality.

According to the dictionary, the definition of monogamy is “The practice or condition of having a single sexual partner during a period of time.” While that may seem like a pretty cut and dry definition, I allowed my ego to tell me over the course of three monogamous relationships that it was open for much greater interpretation. As my spirituality has evolved though, so has my understanding of what monogamy really means.

The first time I was in a monogamous relationship was from the winter of 1995 to the winter of 1997. During that time my Higher Power was far from in charge of guiding my life. In fact, my addictions were. When the newness of that relationship wore off, in other words “the romance phase”, I began looking for a “fix” elsewhere. I made fast friendships with those I was attracted to and poured my heart out to many of them when things weren’t going well in my relationship. I flirted with them as well, and even went so far as sexually hitting on them without crossing the physical barrier. In my mind, this was completely harmless given that I hadn’t done any physical contact with any of them. Eventually, that relationship crumbled when I broke up for one of those friends I had been lusting over.

The second time I was in a monogamous relationship was from the summer of 1998 to the spring of 2000. During that time, my Higher Power had a slightly larger percentage of guiding my life. I had found a place of worship and regularly attended it at the time. I also joined a spiritual men’s organization to help me grow. But like before, when the newness wore off of that relationship, I started watching porn on the Internet, I went out to bars and flirted with others, and I started bringing back into my life various people I lusted over. Once again, I thought it was completely harmless given there was no physical contact with anyone. And just like my first relationship, this one eventually crumbled too with me breaking up to go be with another friend I was lusting over.

The third time I landed in a monogamous relationship was one I thought would never end. It began late in the summer of 2000 right around the same time I discovered the power of prayer and meditation. Also at that time, I stepped up my activity in that spiritual men’s group, with my therapy visits, as well as going to a new place of worship that I became a Deacon at. When that initial gushy-gushy phase ended, I made a choice to stick with the spiritual things that were working for me and I found my love growing even deeper for that partner. Several years went by where I fully believed I’d spend my life with that partner. But everything changed when we bought a business together in a remote area that took me away from almost all of the spiritual work I was doing on a daily basis. Within a short period of time, I started relying less on my Higher Power to guide my life, and more on myself. Sadly, that’s when I started going back to my old behaviors of having flirtatious friendships with others I was attracted to, of staring at porn for hours on end, and gratifying myself with many fantasies of other people who weren’t my partner. In the spring of 2007, I left that partner for the same reason why I left the previous two, to sleep with one of the friends I had lusted over.

I’d go on and date several others over the course of the next 5 years. With each of them though, I drifted completely away from even the cut and dry definition the dictionary gives of monogamy. The only reason why is that I allowed my addiction filled life to take complete control and with it came a very strong ego that did what it wanted and had justifications for everything. One of those told me that because the person lived long distance I could occupy my time in between seeing them with whatever sexual things I wanted to do.

In the spring of 2012, this warped personal definition of monogamy would completely change. At that time, I gave my entire will and life over to my Higher Power and since then, I truly have. I spend several hours each day now doing my own tailored spiritual routine, and I also ask my Higher Power every morning to guide ALL of my thoughts words, and actions.

I have a new monogamous relationship again and my spirit has been very clear on what the definition of monogamy needs to be. It doesn’t fall under “when the partner’s away, I can play.” Neither does it fall under “what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Being monogamous means being with my partner mind, body, and soul. In other words, no porn, no friendships I’m lusting over or flirting with, no sexual fantasizing of others, no online or on the phone sex chats, and no going to bars alone either.

While everyone probably has his or her own definition of what monogamy is, my Higher Power has clearly shown me in my spirit over the years what it wasn’t. I know as long as I keep placing my Higher Power first in my life, I’ll be able to stay away from those things my ego once said were ok. In doing so, I’m positive I’ll remain monogamous, as I allow my spirit to continuing defining it for me from now on…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson