Category: Words To Live By

Sometimes I exceedingly obsess over various things that really aren’t that big of a deal. Some have even occasionally said over the years that I have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Lately, my yard seems to be one of those OCD things that has had my complete and undivided attention, and it took a neighbor walking by the other day to remind me that I need to stop sweating the small stuff.

I guarantee you’d probably have a good laugh if you ever saw me working in my yard. In the spring, I seed it over and over again to fill in even the smallest of bare spots. During the summer, I often cut and edge it several times a week as well as watering it several times a day. During the fall, I have even been known to pick up the leaves as soon as they land in the yard. The fact is I’m so overly meticulous with my lawn that I have even used a shop vacuum to suck up any random debris that’s ever on it. Looking at this as I write about it, I can clearly see how OCD these behaviors are. But there’s a deeper lesson that God showed me with it and it’s one that was hard not to notice. It dealt with the local lawn care company I utilize to do the fertilization, weed, and grub control.

I contacted this company last week and let them know that I didn’t want them to come out and do any more treatments until I spoke with the guy in charge of doing my lawn care. That decision was due to the large amount of new grass still coming up. Rule number one in good lawn care is that you don’t put any chemicals down on new seedlings until they are fully-grown and have been cut a few times. The company acknowledged this and promised I’d get a call before any more treatments would take place. Little did I know though that God had another plan and it was one that would really highlight how much I still do sweat the small stuff?

It started when I came home in the middle of last week. As I pulled into my driveway, I noticed the small sign in my yard indicating that chemicals had been put down. Less than 48 hours later, a large section of my grass in the front yard was completely dead and totally brown. It was very obvious given how much of a lush green and manicured lawn I normally have. How did I react to this? I’m not proud of it, but I flipped out. First on my partner, even though none of it was his fault, then on the worker who placed those chemicals down, and finally with the owner of the company itself. What I mean by flipping out is that I became overly dramatic about this burnt grass. If you had heard me, you would have thought my world was coming to an end. When one of my neighbors walked by and saw me completely in OCD mode over it, she said rather bluntly “Don’t sweat the small stuff!” She then went on to say she learned that lesson as she watched her husband wither away and die over the course of five years due to a disease.

She was right, as my yard is truly not that big of a deal, as compared to so many other things that have a lot more depth and weight in life. Last week, three people I knew tragically died and my yard became my OCD escape from dealing with part of it on some level. While that obsession was definitely a much better escape than the many toxic addictions I once would have done over events such as this, the fact is it was still an escape and escapes aren’t healthy either. I can see now that my avoidance of fully feeling the pain of those deaths is what led me to sweating the small stuff like my burnt yard.

I know I need to continue working on this part of me, as it’s a negative behavior that’s plagued me much of my life. I’m very grateful that God spoke to me through my neighbor because her message truly helped me to see this. The fact is I know that God was trying to tell me to stop sweating the small stuff this past week. I’m just glad my eyes were open enough to acknowledge it and make a little progress in learning this invaluable lesson.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Is my birthday truly that important? This is the question I’ve been asking myself since I turned 42 a few days ago.

As a kid, I always loved my birthdays because my parents usually gave me tons of presents and lots of surprises. Each year my birthday cake was also quite unique and special too. (FYI, my favorite was definitely some type of an ice cream cake!) By the time I turned 21 my birthdays began to change. There weren’t any big parties being held for me anymore, and presents were becoming less and less, until the only thing I was getting from most people who remembered was a card.

When I reached that 30^th milestone, my partner at the time threw me a big celebration where I was the center of attention again just like I had been as a kid on each of my birthdays. For the next nine years, I did everything I could to make each of my birthdays all about me just like my 30^th had been. Unfortunately, nothing really ever came close to meeting any of those expectations. This consistently led me to feeling down on most of those birthdays.

I tried to recapture the glory of my 30^th birthday once again when I hit the next milestone, my 40^th. Instead of allowing someone else to plan that day though, I controlled much of the process and invited as many people as I knew to come to my party. When only a handful of them showed up, with most of them bringing nothing more than a hungry stomach, I became very dejected and even somewhat angry.

Zoom forward to two years later, and it’s now the morning of my 42^nd birthday. It’s then I discover my partner has completely forgotten about it, which leads me to totally unraveling at the seams. I then proceed to berate him about being self-absorbed and self-centered, but that sits so uncomfortably within me after doing so, it leads me to ask the question I began with, is my birthday truly that important?

The irony I discovered when that answer came is one that was pretty hard to swallow. I realized that I was the one who has actually been self-absorbed and self-centered for years, not only on all of my birthdays, but on most other days as well. Until just a few years ago, I was living almost my entire life in this way. But through my work in 12 Step recoveries, I started seeing the root of all my problems was this selfishness. That became the catalyst that started my shift in life to one of selflessness, but with one exception. I continued to allow myself to believe that the day of my birthday should be the one exception where I’m still allowed to be fully selfish. What I wasn’t seeing was how that belief was the exact reason why I rarely enjoyed most of my birthdays since the age of 21.

That selfishness blinded me from truly seeing the love I did receive on any of my birthdays. Instead, the only thing I generally saw was what I wasn’t receiving, and all that did was make me miserable and complain about most of them. Looking back on each of them now with this realization, I can see how there were many wonderful things I received each year. Whether it was a phone call, a warm embrace, a card, a small gift, or some other loving gesture, I always did have something positive happen every single birthday and my 42^nd was one of them. Between a dozen phone calls, several e-mails, a few text messages, some song singing voicemails, a couple of incredibly special gifts, a round of applause at a recovery meeting, many warm embraces and handshakes, and two great meals, I genuinely had a pretty awesome birthday.

So is my birthday truly that important? The more I step out of my own way and remove more selfishness out of my life, the more I see probably thinking so is being selfish itself. But the more I let go of that unwanted trait, the more I’m able to see the real truth such as this…There have always been others who felt I was important enough to them, to show me their love on each of my birthdays, including my partner who did so later that night…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I went to a recovery meeting today and watched as a woman poured out her heart about her abusive husband and how she feels completely unattractive and unloved. Listening to her words reminded me so much of how I once felt in many of my past relationships. As this woman proceeded to cry and say she didn’t know what to do anymore, my first thought was wondering why she hasn’t ended that relationship. But then I remembered how I too once remained in several toxic ones for years until I got to the source of why I was even in them in the first place.

The first relationship I ever had to anyone in my life that was quite similar to what this woman described was with my mother. Today, I unconditionally love my mother, but for the longest time I didn’t. Growing up, I never felt like I could do anything right around her. I always felt like I wasn’t good enough so I constantly strived to do better and reach perfection hoping that would make her happy. It never did.

As I proceeded into my adult years, I dated or became friends with many people who basically were just like my mother. This caused me to get into many arguments with each of those individuals, but what I never realized back then was how much that was due to the fierce anger and resentments I was holding onto inside with my mother.

So each time I would scream and yell, or cry and feel depressed over how I was being treated in any of those former relationships, it was really about my mother and never about them. When I finally began working on letting all of the sick parts of my mother go from within me, I was able to see that. But something even better started happening because of that internal work. I began to let go of all of the toxic people in my life who were only mirrors of my mother. In other words, the more I let the pain go surrounding my mother’s abuse, the stronger I got in my life. And the stronger I got in life, the more I was able to say goodbye to all those individuals who were unhealthy just like my mother.

I don’t allow any abusive people to come into my life anymore nor do I harbor anger or resentments anymore towards my mother either. I’m also able to see the spiritual sickness now that abusive people have inside them like my mother once did. This helps me to have a lot more compassion now for people like them because of it. But all of this has helped me to have compassion for something else as well.

Whenever I see someone allowing any type of abuse in their life these days, like that woman in my recovery meeting today, my heart truly feels for them. I do always wonder though who originally abused them when they were a young kid and can only hope that they too one day will find healing from it.

No one deserves to be abused in life and sadly, abuse often leads people to feel unattractive and unloved. The only way to overcome this is to get to the source of where this pattern of allowing abuse originally began. Once it’s identified, the process of healing from it can begin. Eventually, when enough love, forgiveness, and peace is able to surround that original abuse, it’s a safe bet to say that one will never allow abuse in their life again…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson