Category: Words To Live By

For the longest time I can honestly say my priorities were all screwed up as I was only primarily concerned about my own needs, wants, and desires. Everything and everyone else always came second, third, fourth, and so on. I truly thought this was the way it was supposed to be until I started to figure out how selfish and self-centered that was. Today, my priorities have totally changed, but that’s only because I’m now trying to establish a life where I’m living spiritually.

In the recovery rooms from addictions, I learned the only way to leave behind my life of selfishness and self-centeredness was to seek a connection to a Higher Power. Through a lot of pain and growth, I was able to find my Higher Power, whom I refer to as God most often these days. Serving God has become the number one priority in my life now because of a sole reason. All those years where I served myself and my own needs consistently led me to only one thing, being miserable. During those miserable years, God was always on the back burner and I only went to God for essentially 911 calls. I rarely gave thanks for anything, and took everybody and everything for granted. In doing so, I lived with many active addictions just to have temporary happiness, which kept me in a state of being extremely unspiritual. I have found that my life has become a whole lot better with placing God first on my priority list.

This begins with me awaking in the morning each day, getting on my knees and welcoming God into all of my life. Through prayer, I ask God to guide all my thoughts, words, and actions for that day. I then ask God to remain at the center of my relationships, especially with my partner. I also make sure I let God know I’d like to be of service to God in any way I can during that day. And I always end by praying for love and light in this world, especially for all those people and areas where there still is great darkness. Placing God first doesn’t end there though, as I learned how easy it can be to take my will back and put God onto that back burner again. So throughout the day, I always make sure to pray, even in the oddest of places, if I should feel like I’m drifting from my path of living spiritually. I generally know when this happens because I find anger and frustration arising during those times.

When each day comes to an end, I continue to place God as the number one priority in my life by writing in my gratitude journal. There, I give thanks to God for at least nine things each day that I am grateful for. When that is done, I end my day as it started by praying to God on my knees where I give thanks for staying free from all addictions and for making it through another day of my life. I also ask for forgiveness for where I may have drifted off my path of spiritual living. And as I end my prayers, I once again send light and love out to all those people and areas of this world that are still living in darkness.

This may seem like a lot of work to some. To others, it may seem too religious. But to me, it just comes natural now because I’ve been doing this for so long and have seen a lot of spiritual growth within me because of it. It has also allowed me to see what should be the second most important priority in my life is and that’s taking care of my health and healing. You see if I’m not healthy and well, I’ll never be able to truly be there for anyone else. When I lived for a long time being toxic and addiction prone, every time I tried to be there for someone else, I just spread some of my toxicity to them in some way. By placing God first though, I started seeing those areas of my health and healing I needed to take care of before I did anything else. Through 12 Step work, recovery meetings, therapy, doctors, holistic practitioners, meditation, and mantras, I’ve worked diligently every single day to help heal a body, mind, and soul that I neglected for most of this life. There have been periods where I’ve definitely tried to place these things further down my priority list of living spiritually but the results of that have never been good. I found that skipping things such as meetings or meditations, or avoiding that step work have always led me back to my addictions and being toxic. I finally realized through trial and error that all the things I do for my health and healing had to take a higher priority than me being there for anyone else. The simple truth here is that a person can’t be there for anyone else unless they are healthy enough within themselves. This is the precise reason why all my former intimate relationships, friendships, and connections to family members always broke apart time and time again.To put in bluntly, I wasn’t able to care about any of them in the way they deserved because I wasn’t healthy and well enough inside. By placing God first and my health and healing second though, it has given me enough capacity to balance all the rest of my priorities appropriately these days.

Today, I can place my partner’s needs ahead of my own selfish interests more than not. I can work with a sponsee and truly listen to them instead of being focused on all the drama that once existed in my life. I can be in a recovery meeting and share about my experience, strength, and hope, and not the misery I once constantly went through. And I can be there for a friend when they really need me.

I am grateful to understand a little better these days about the priorities that need to be in place to have a life of living spiritually. If this is what you want as well, but your life currently is filled with a lot of drama and misery, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and look at what the priorities are in your life. By placing God first and your health and healing second, I can assure you that your life will get a lot better. Know in doing so that you’ll see how this will move you away from a life of selfishness and self-centeredness, to a life filled with a lot more love and light for everyone else.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

There is a lot of love and hate being thrown around out there in this world for a man that most everyone seems to know of these days at least by name. His name is Tim Tebow and I happen to be one of those who admires the path he is on and the drive that he has.

I didn’t know much about Tim Tebow during all the years he played successfully for the University of Florida. I wasn’t even aware that he won the Heisman Trophy in 2007 and held many records in college football until just a few years ago. Honestly, I’ve never been much of a college football fan, thus that’s the reason why I never knew of Tim Tebow until he became starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos in the 2011-12 season. It was then that I watched him take that team into the playoffs using his style of playing that so many have put down.

I have lost count of the amount of critics out there that are avid NFL followers who keep stating that Tebow is garbage. They maintain that he can’t play pro football because of his throwing style and for various other reasons. Many in his home state profusely disagree and have tried to make the push to get him signed as quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars, who currently have only won a handful of games this very season. But at the present time, the Jaguars have not shown any interest in pursuing that push by Tebow fans.

What I admire most about Tebow in all of this is his faith in God and how he presents himself through all of the media and attention he receives, even when it’s putting him down consistently. When Tebow was traded from Denver to the Jets, he spent almost the entire next season with their team being benched as a 3rd string quarterback. The few times he did play, he didn’t have much success and everyone was quick to jump on the bandwagon about how he’s so terrible and not right for the NFL. But during that entire season he was on the Jets roster, Tebow never once criticized his team nor their coaching decisions. And even when the media would be in his face lambasting him, he remained humble and did something that few ever do who have that type of “star” power in this world. He kept his faith and eyes on God and didn’t react.

When the Jets released him at the end of their 2013 season, Tebow was considered by so many to have his days numbered in pro football. Most of his critics have continued to say since then that his game isn’t right for the NFL. Initially, the New England Patriots gave him a try though and placed him on their roster during the 2013 off season. Sadly, they ended up releasing him before their first season game. Others have also tried to court Tebow into playing for them including the LA Kiss of the Arena Football League and the Milano Seaman of the Italian Federation For American Football. But Tebow hasn’t shown interest yet into pursuing any of these other options that have been presented to him. Now there’s been talk of Tebow being a sports newscaster. At first that talk was on the NFL level and now it’s at the college level with it possibly being in his home state of Florida. Truthfully, I believe all of these things are just rumors and if I was to make a guess, I believe Tim Tebow is waiting on God for direction in his career.

Tim Tebow has never been shy about his faith in God. From kneeling on the field and praying, to wearing biblical slogans on his eye paint, Tebow has always shown who guides him. I truly admire that drive of his because I find that most stars who do have some type of faith are afraid to show it. When is the last time you’ve seen an actor or actress accept an Oscar or a Golden Globe and kneel on the stage and thank God for guiding them there? I honestly don’t know if it’s ever happened? Walking with God by faith is a personal relationship and I can see how Tebow has that with God. Each of us have our own relationship and communication with God and I truly don’t know what God is saying to Tebow. But I do believe that God has a plan for him that is going to affect many in this world for the better. Heck, it’s already affecting me on a positive level with the admiration I have for his faith.

It is my goal to one day be known more than I am and to give God all the thanks and credit for getting me there just like Tim Tebow has in his own life. I’m sure many have rolled their eyes to Tebow’s pro-Christian ways, but it’s the fact that he maintains his faith and does not react to his constant criticism that shows how much God is in control of his life and not his ego. That is an incredible spiritual quality to have and one I am working on within myself every single day. I’m glad that Tebow carries himself the way he does, especially in that you don’t ever see him putting anyone down, including his own career or his critics. His drive is to serve God and wait patiently for God’s direction as I know I have been doing lately myself.

Maybe Tebow isn’t meant to play in the NFL again, and maybe he is. Maybe God’s purpose now is to guide him to influence people just like me. And maybe it’s something altogether different. While I am not all-seeing or all-knowing, I do believe Tim Tebow’s drive to serve God is something that all of us in this world should follow. What he has done in his career is maintain his faith in something he believes in regardless of his many critics. In doing so, I can see how it continues to spread a lot more love and light on this planet, especially when so many are doing just the opposite these days. So if you should ever be reading this Tim, I just want to end this posting by saying thank you for keeping your faith, and for being an inspiration in my life…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I believe everyone deep down in this world wants to feel desired by another in their lifetime. Ultimately, I have always thought that this is the main driving force why two people start dating and eventually become an item. Sadly though, what happens all too often with those couples is that their desire starts to wane for each other somewhere down the road. And the sole reason why this ever happens is that one or both of them begins making less of an effort to show their desire for the other as they once did.

When two people meet and begin dating, there’s an electricity that starts surging through that new connection when the two find out they like each other. That electricity feels quite a bit like having an over abundance of energy and it often drives each person in that new connection to make a tremendous effort to show their desire for one another. Some call this the romance phase, others may call it a courting phase, but it’s during this time that their desire for each other is shown quite regularly. I want to be sure I say this right off the bat that the desire I’m referring to at this time is not necessarily about sex either. What I’m really talking about are those surprise gifts that are often exchanged, the long phone calls that are often had, the constant attention and affection that is often given, and the winks, the holding of hands and the sense of touch that is often shared. All of these things are at a very high level during the first phase of most new relationships. Unfortunately though, these things have the tendency to not last long for many couples. That’s because their behaviors often change, and not for the better either, once that electricity starts to wear off and the over abundance of energy begins to level out.

So when that initial romance and courting phase of a relationship is over, it’s then that many will become settled in their relationship and stop placing consistent effort to show how much they still desire their partner. That leads to those surprise gifts for each other happening less and less, those long phone calls with each other becoming shorter and shorter, that attention and affection being shown to each other in tinier and tinier amounts, and those winks, the holding of hands, and that sense of touch occurring more and more infrequently.

Inevitably, all of this leads the person feeling less desired to question their other half on why they aren’t receiving the attention they once used to get from them. There is a downside of that action though in that it usually is met with a self defense reaction from their partner. What I mean by that is the other partner often defends themselves by saying nothing’s changed and they still feel the same about them. They’ll further state that they still love them, and that it should be enough if they are in the same house together, or on the same couch near each other, or sleeping in the same bed next to each other. If this questioning happens repeatedly, the one partner who’s being questioned will begin to feel like they can’t do anything right and that’s when anger can become a common emotion within them. If they stay angry, instead of looking at how they can bring back some of the desire they once showed the other person, it will only lead them to pull even further back from showing it.

The other partner on the other hand, the one who is feeling less and less desired, is going to grow tired of trying to ask for it. If they choose to stay in that relationship, even when the other partner seems to be making no changes for the better, they will frequently search for something else to fill that void. The sad thing is that this is when those people can become seriously addicted to various things such as alcohol, drugs, porn, overeating, over-shopping, and smoking. Eventually though, one of two things will ultimately happen to every one of the relationships that get to this stage.

The first and more likely to happen is total infidelity. The partner who wants to feel desired again often cheats on the other just to feel desired again. The other partner who is constantly being accused of not showing it enough often cheats as a way of getting back at their partner for constantly nagging them about what they’re not doing right. But what they are really both doing in this action is self-sabotaging it because they aren’t willing to work together to bring the desire back. And it’s that action that will lead to the second thing, the complete demise of their relationship, where one or both believe it’s better to be single and start over. The sad thing is that this pattern usually just repeats itself again in future relationships.

I have a lot of experience with this topic as I’ve been on both the receiving end of partners showing me less and less desire, and on the giving end of me offering less and less of it as well. To put it bluntly, it sucks being on the receiving end of it, especially when I’ve still tried to demonstrate the same level of desire for a partner since the beginning. Being in that position always made me feel like I was being used and taken advantage of. And for all the other times where I was on the side of the coin, it was usually because I took my partner for granted and placed my desire into things I thought was more deserving of it. All in all though, I really was just being selfish and self-centered when I did that.

Today, I believe the only solution to preventing this downward spiral of desire is to put my partner’s needs ahead of my own. In doing so, that’s when it becomes natural for me to want to show my desire for my partner through all those special and unique ways without being asked. Granted, I’ve learned it takes more work in a relationship to show this when that initial electricity and overabundance of energy calms down. But, since my goal is to have a lifelong monogamous relationship with my partner, it’s clear how important it is to keep this up long after that romance and courting phase ends and really indefinitely.

So the next time you find yourself in a relationship being asked by your partner to show them more desire, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and try to remember those things you once did during that romance and courting phase of your relationship. If you’re not regularly doing those things anymore and want to see this relationship last, you might want to put more effort back into doing them again before you find yourself single and alone. But if you happen to be the one who is not feeling desired anymore by your partner and you’ve already exhausted many efforts to try to rekindle it, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and realize it may be time to move on to someone else who can show you the desire that God knows you deserve…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson