Category: Words To Live By

Sometimes I think the person that’s been the hardest upon myself is really me. Throughout my life, I have had the tendency to beat myself up about various things I’ve done that I’m not very proud of. In recent years though, I’ve come to see how this type of self-abuse does nothing good for me whatsoever. Because of this, I’ve started practicing forgiving myself on a regular basis and am finding much better results.

Up until just a few years ago, I did a lot of things in my life that one would probably give a label of “pretty bad” towards. You might say that many of those things I did were filled with a tremendous amount of darkness and brought a lot of pain to other people’s lives, because the reality was they did. And for years, I punished myself over them by launching many waves of verbal assaults straight at my heart or falling deep into spirals of anxiety, depression and despair. In fact, it became common for others to see me living in self-pity on most days. The idea of forgiving myself for all those things I did which hurt others seemed too difficult to do, so I fell into a guilt and shame based life. By doing that, I ended up constantly repeating the same behaviors over and over again, which only led to me hurting even more people, including myself.

So what was the value of living with this guilt and shame from those terrible things I’ve done? And what good did it really do to punish myself time and time again over them? Was was it so hard for me to fully forgive myself for any of those terrible things I did?

I think the answer to all three questions was always the same. It’s my belief that my ego often convinced me that if I lived with guilt and shame and if I kept on punishing myself instead of practicing forgiveness, that I would never do any of those terrible things again. But it didn’t work. It just led me into doing other dark things and living in even more darkness, which in turn led me back into more guilt and shame, and more self-punishment. It was a vicious cycle that never ended.

The only way I ever found to end this vicious cycle once and for all was to seek God’s help. Left to my own vices, I was never able to find forgiveness for myself for any of the terrible things I did in life that brought great pain to others. But through God, I discovered the one thing lacking in my life was a deep love for myself.

You see, the more I did those terrible things, the more I didn’t love myself. And the more I didn’t love myself, the more I did even more of those terrible things. But when I started seeking God so much more in life, I started loving myself a lot more. And the more I began loving myself a lot more, the more I stopped wanting to do those terrible things. That’s only because that new and improved self-love helped me to see just how sick I became when I punished myself and lived in all that guilt, shame, despair, anxiety, and depression.

I’m totally convinced that forgiveness for any terrible thing we’ve done begins with asking God for help. I’m also convinced that God forgives us instantly and it’s only our egos that believe God doesn’t forgive us. The help I received from God after asking for it was to love myself so much more than I ever did previously in my life. In all those years when I didn’t have much love for myself, I really chose to live in a lot of dark behavior that ended up hurting so many of God’s children. But through God’s help, I turned all of this around and learned how to love myself so much more. Over time, that self-love showed me how to forgive myself for all those past terrible things I’ve done, but even more importantly, it prevented me from wanting to do any of those terrible things ever again.

So are you someone like I once was, who is living with a lot of guilt and shame, anxiety and depression, or despair and self-pity because of terrible things you’ve done in the past? If you are, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and know the only thing standing in your way of healing from them, is yourself. Ask God to start helping you love yourself a lot more and I can promise you that in time, you will. And when you do, I know you will begin to see that punishing yourself is not a very self-loving action. Instead, you will find that forgiving yourself is and that’s when you’ll experience true-freedom from all of your past transgressions.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I truly believe it’s important to love everyone equally, including those we may not even like. Unfortunately, the ego often doesn’t let this happen as it has the tendency to convince us with any number of reasons why we should withhold it. Sadly I experienced this first hand a few nights ago when I was on the receiving end of it from one of the members of my partner’s brother’s family.

My partner has a rather large extended family that includes several aunts and uncles, a brother, a sister and a bunch of nieces and nephews. This is quite the contrast to my remaining family that consists of only my sister, her husband, and her children. For two years now, I have done my best to try to expand my family beyond blood relations to that of my partner’s extended family who live in his surrounding area. While I have been treating all of them with as much love and light I can muster, I haven’t been feeling the same in return from any of them. This became very apparent at his brother’s house the other night during a game night that had been organized. At one point, his brother’s wife commented on how nice the ring was that I was wearing and wondered where I got it. When I responded it was from my partner and that it had been his father’s ring, I was shocked at her response. She was rather upset that I was given this gift and said that a piece of jewelry like that should be sacred and reserved for their family. When I responded that I thought I was actually part of their family because of my relationship with my partner, I was very quickly told how I wasn’t. And for the next hour, I was judged by them on various aspects of who I was, how I was living, how weak my relationship appeared to them, how becoming a member of their family takes a long time and how I still wouldn’t be considered family even if my partner and I were married any time soon.

All of this saddened me greatly when I left their home at the end of that evening because it made me realize just how much the presence of love and light had been lacking. What frustrated me the most though was knowing that they are all very devout church going Christians trying to follow in Christ’s footsteps. And one of the greatest things I know that’s true about Christ is that He loved and treated everyone equally and like family. When I had asked them about this principle, I received their response that none of us can ever be like Christ and offer that much love. What they don’t understand though is that we all can be just as loving and embracing as Christ was. It’s only our our egos that tell us we can’t through any number of internal fears or resentments.

While I know I can’t make anyone like or love me, nor can I make any of my partner’s family treat me as part of their own, I can still do my part to live like Christ once did here on Earth. What that means for me is that I will continue to love all of Chris’s extended family members even knowing how they feel about me. While I don’t claim myself to be a Christian because I try to be all-encompassing of every walk of faith, I do cherish the principles that Christ taught and try my best to follow in His footsteps. Christ truly loved everyone, including those that hated him and he worked hard to move beyond his human ego to achieve that. I’m sure that He struggled at times internally with the people that didn’t like him, but his connection to God helped him to overcome that. Christ isn’t the only one that has been able to do this as there are many examples of people in this world who have walked a similar path. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Theresa are just some of the names that come to mind when I think of what Christ’s love once looked like.

The point I’m trying to make in all of this is that every person in this world has the same capacity to love and treat each and every person equally, no matter what, just like Christ once did. My partner’s brother’s family and all his other extended family members as well have that same potential. The only thing blocking them from achieving that is their ego which holds them in places of judging others and loving only certain people considered to be a part of their family. For Christ, and the many others who have lived their lives embracing as much love and light as they could offer, everyone was considered a part of their family worthy and deserving of their love. Hopefully one day, all of my partner’s extended family members will realize this, but until them, I will do as Christ once did, and love them with all my heart, mind, and soul.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

When life feels most out of control as based upon the events unfolding around us, doesn’t it seem to be in our human nature to want to grasp some type of control any where we can find it? The problem in doing this though, is that it can create a chain reaction of others wanting to do the very same thing and I was able to see this very clearly the other night from my own actions.

This all began a few nights ago when I attended a men’s group for a self-empowerment type of organization I’ve been a part of since 1999. While I’m obviously not new to this organization, I am a new member to this group as I only started attending it two months earlier. When I arrived the other night, there were several men congregating in the kitchen of the church we meet at bi-weekly. Walking past them, I said hello and went into the room where the actual meeting takes place. As I sat in my seat and waited for the meeting to begin, the clock ticked past the meeting’s 7pm start time. I began to feel myself growing more and more irritated as each minute passed by that it wasn’t getting underway. Fifteen minutes later, the people from the kitchen strolled in and the meeting was able to begin. I could feel the anger seething within me because of it and what happened next was that domino effect of how my attempts at control caused others to want their own control.

For at least the first thirty minutes of that meeting, I held it hostage as I expressed my total dissatisfaction of how some men were waiting for the meeting to begin while the others were socializing in the kitchen. I spent a tremendous amount of energy attempting to discipline the group and create a platform for ensuring it starts the next time promptly at 7pm. What I didn’t realize was how much it was angering all those who had been a part of that group for years and that this was how they have always operated. But even more importantly, what I was completely oblivious to was the fact that I was attempting to exert control on this group for only one reason. That reason was directly related to the fact that I have felt very out of control in my life since my partner’s infidelity was brought to the surface just over a week ago.

So as I sat there and tried to change the meeting to fit my wants and needs, other men began to speak up out of irritation and anger because of it. One man even went so far as to say that he would leave the group if it was going to become as rigid as I was trying to make it. I can honestly say now that I don’t blame that man for feeling the way he did as he expressed his anger. Having been a member of that group for a very long time, he showed me in his own way how my attempts at control were not really about the group, they were more about what I was trying to avoid inside. You see, the whole time I held that group hostage and attempted to change and control it, I wasn’t focusing on the fact that my life has felt so very out of control since I discovered my partner’s indiscretion. Essentially, my efforts to control that group were merely my ego’s attempts to distract me from the pain I felt inside from his cheating on me. I basically took my lack of control in one situation and tried to replace it with control somewhere else. In the process of doing so, I took control away from others thus giving them a charge. This in turn motivated them to do exactly what I was doing, which was to take back control of their lives in some way.

This is why controlling anything doesn’t work. Doing so does nothing more than driving one person after another to seek control down the line somewhere else in their lives. And the end result for everyone involved is a world filled with a lot more anger and irritation and a lot less love and light.

I learned a very valuable lesson with all of this the other night and I’m grateful to God because of it. I know my ego right now feels like things are totally out of control because of not only my partner’s infidelity, but also because of my chronic physical pain. But I also know now in trying to grab control somewhere else in my life, that it will only end up causing someone else to have that same exact desire. Ending this domino effect begins with this awareness. The real work though is to make sure the next time the ego feels out of control that the only action taken is practicing acceptance…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson