Category: Words To Live By

Have you ever heard a person suddenly unleash a verbal bomb towards someone or something else that includes a combination of swear words, anger, and negativity? If you have, then you’ve witnessed someone having “diarrhea of the mouth”.

Recently, I was visiting someone for a quick visit and had to endure one of these experiences. It began with a healthy and welcoming conversation that was taking place in this friend’s living room. I was feeling totally relaxed and enjoying my visit when all of a sudden that friend went to turn on a light switch to no avail. She abruptly then began screaming and cussing at her housemates as to why the light wasn’t working and carried this on for a few minutes. When her outburst was over, the energy in the room had totally shifted to one that felt completely uncomfortable to be in. Within a few minutes, I made a decision to leave, given how awkward it was now feeling in that room. What this friend didn’t realize was how her “diarrhea of the mouth” did nothing more than snuff out the love and light in that room and create darkness.

Too many people believe it’s healthy to spew out anger and cuss words from their mouth when something isn’t meeting their ego’s expectations. Trust me, I’ve been there and used to do it quite often. But each time I did, I always noticed I felt more unsettled inside afterwards and maybe even a little dirtier. While a shower was never able to cleanse me of that feeling, expressing a heartfelt apology or praying did. I finally figured out recently why that was. What “diarrhea of the mouth” creates is darkness in the areas around me and within me. But connecting with my heart and apologizing or saying a prayer of forgiveness creates something much better. It creates love and light.

The simple truth is that I’ve never found anything good to come from “diarrhea of the mouth” no matter how much something wasn’t meeting my expectations. Instead, I’ve seen how it always has led me away from feeling spiritually close to my Higher Power. I’ve watched how it makes people not want to be around me. And I’ve observed how it even makes people want to join in and create more of it. None of these outcomes are good, as each of them blocks out the light that each of us can create here on Earth.

Today, I do my best to hold my tongue, pray, and find another way to release any anger when I feel it coming up from within. I know that directing it along with some swears, hate, or any other form of negativity towards someone or something else will only derail me from the spiritual path I’m on. There are much healthier ways to release these inner frustrations, but directing it outwardly with “diarrhea of the mouth” isn’t one of them. Now I try to find a private space such as my car where I’ll close the windows and scream at the top of my lungs to release that energy in a safe way. I’ll then pray to my Higher Power to cleanse all that negative energy and ask for guidance through the situation. Thankfully, that continues to work for me and I don’t find myself having that type of a mouth anymore.

So the next time you find yourself suddenly getting angry with someone or something else, I encourage you to take a moment and breathe, before you release any “diarrhea of the mouth”. Please try to find a healthier way to rid yourself of that negative energy and I promise you that not only will you feel so much better in doing so, but the rest of the world will too…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I have struggled throughout my entire adult life with control issues, but I continue to do my best in letting them go by drawing closer to my Higher Power. I’ve gotten much better with it in most areas of my life these days, yet there’s still one that challenges me the greatest and that’s when I have to face someone else’s control issues.

Quite often, when anyone is in that type of situation where someone else is being controlling, it can frequently drive him or her to try taking some of that control back. For a person like me who has battled control issues within for a very long time, this definitely becomes the case when a situation like this happens. I’ve realized though there is a way to overcome this. Unfortunately, it has been rather difficult to implement because it involves me allowing other people to keep their control and to not battle them for it. The reality is that’s what generally happens when two controlling people get in the same room, they go to battle over control of something and rarely do either ever back down. I’ve been trying a new path lately though and it’s one that doesn’t involve me going to that battle anymore. Instead, I’ve been forcing myself to sit in those uncomfortable feelings when someone else around me is controlling how everything has to be.

I had some good success with this on my recent trip to see my sister’s family. Normally, my visits to them never go that well because I regularly go to battle for control with her husband over way too many things. The two of us are truly mirrors for each other, except I’m not sure if he has been able to fully recognize that yet. Thankfully I have so I decided to see what it would be like on this visit by allowing him to maintain control for the entire time I was there. The biggest test I faced with it cane after I had purchased a birthday gift for one of my nephews.

The gift was a beginner’s metal detector that worked just like the ones a person might see being used on a beach. As my nephew spent the early evening going around his backyard looking for buried treasure with it, I silently watched as my sister’s husband made one rule after another with it until he had no place left to use the gift at all. Seeing the look of dismay and sadness on my nephews face was incredibly hard to deal with and I greatly wanted to take over control because of it. I didn’t though and that allowed me to see something I know I wasn’t able to see not too long ago. I saw quite clearly a situation that my own control has probably created time and time again throughout my life. And seeing it made me want to let go of control all the more throughout my life.

I’m grateful to my Higher Power for helping me try something new this past weekend when visiting my sister’s family. Facing someone else’s control issues like my sister’s husband’s was extremely challenging. I realize now there is only one way to work through this when it happens next in my life. It will mean going against my ego’s desire to battle for control and to just sit back and be a silent observer instead. It may not be easy, but in doing so; I know I’ll continue to see many more examples of what my control issues probably did to others over the years. At least then, each of them will be a great motivator to continue my quest to turn over control in every area of my life to my Higher Power.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“What inspires you?”

That’s a question and a homework assignment I received recently from my spiritual teacher. What’s ironic with this question is how different my answers are to it today, as compared to what they were in all the previous years of my life.

As a young kid, the things that inspired me the most were reading, hiking, and probably math. Sadly, on some level, I guess you could say I was also inspired at that time to constantly please my dysfunctional family. By the time I left home and went off to college, the main things that inspired me for the next five years were alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. When I finally came clean and found sobriety, I found other addiction-based inspirations to occupy my life for at least fifteen more years. Gambling, shopping, sex, and various other things were just some of them. Occasionally, I went through spiritual experiences though during some of those years where I was inspired to be less self-centered and more loving in life. During those brief moments, I discovered that meditation, numerology, seeking God on a much deeper level, and trying to help others were more of my inspiration than seeking any of those addictions. Unfortunately, none of them ever lasted because I always allowed my addictions to draw me back in.

For the last bunch of years though, all that has changed, and now I find myself navigating through uncharted territory and visiting places within me that I never knew existed. It’s led me to be inspired by many things that are vastly different than anything I could have ever imagined earlier in life. The following list shows all the ones I could think of when I sat down and pondered that initial question of what inspires me…

• Seeking God
• Learning from my spiritual teacher
• Writing daily about all of my life experiences in an uplifting way
• Motivationally speaking about all of my life experiences in an uplifting way
• Leading people to find their own connection to a Higher Power
• Doing my 12th Step work with those still suffering from addictions
• Being a spiritual teacher by example
• Guiding people through meditation
• Healing naturally
• Empowering others to believe in themselves
• Lifting people up when they are down
• Completing complex puzzles
• Anything that deals with superheroes who use their powers to help people every day
• Beautifying an outdoor garden
• Studying something new such as what I’m doing currently with Tarot reading
• Being out in some part of nature
• Showing compassion and understanding to everyone
• Watching movies and television shows where good triumphs over evil
• New Age and Ambient House music
• Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Ellen DeGeneres, and any other famous figure who has ever taken a stand for creating more equality, peace, love, and light on this plane

As I sit here and reflect on upon each of the things I’ve listed here, I realize that all of them are really just about creating more love both within and around me. It’s my hope that each of you has your own list though of things you find inspiring in life. If you don’t, then I encourage taking a moment, breathing, and spending some time to go inside to discover what they are. Hopefully you will find that your inspirations don’t revolve around any addictions or unhealthy behaviors and instead are just the many unique ways you bring your own love and light onto this planet.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson