Category: Words To Live By

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

There are many people in this world who believe that becoming involved in an intimate relationship will be the precise thing that will make their lives all the better. They begin to invest a good chunk of their energy looking for someone out there to complete them or spend their lives with. In doing so, they place various personal ads out there on the Internet and peruse the dating sites daily looking for and hoping to meet “the one”. They continue to maintain a belief that there are plenty of fish in the sea where one of them is going to be the prime catch for themselves. As one date after another fails, or they get stood up, or conversations started online end up going nowhere, they get frustrated. Unfortunately, what they don’t realize is that the one fish they should be seeking and the one relationship they should be working on, is with themselves.

For the longest time, while I represented one of those fish in the sea waiting to either catch another fish or be caught in someone else’s net, I didn’t realize how much I was turning into a carcass rotting from the inside out. I had failed to see how I was seriously neglecting taking care of myself and working through all of my addictions and obsessions and character defects. Although my Higher Power was trying to send me blatant messages indicating this, I ignored all of them and maintained my fervent search and desire to be in an intimate relationship with someone else. I refused to allow myself to see the common factor in all those bad dates I went on, all those boring conversations I had with others from the dating sites, and all those failed short-term relationships I landed in. That common factor was always me.

In every case, no matter who I was pursing, I always found something wrong with them. What I didn’t realize is that each of them were a mirror to all the things I felt about myself. When I met someone I thought was ugly, it’s because I believed I was ugly. When I met someone I felt was boring, it’s because I believed I was boring. And when I met someone I thought droned on and on too much about their life, it’s because I droned on an on about my life with everyone else. The hard core truth is that each thing I judged in all of those fishes of the sea I had met were really things I felt about myself. All of them were only mirrors for the things I should have been working on healing from within myself. The simple fact was that although I had found sobriety from alcohol and drugs, I was still an addiction prone person living out a life of misery, self-pity, selfishness, and self-centeredness. The bottom line was that I really didn’t love myself just as I was and because of that, I was never going to find any success with any of those fishes I met in the sea of life. By not loving myself, I was never going to be able to unconditionally love and accept anyone I met and instead I would only look at each of them with a tainted set of eyes.

This is precisely why 12 Step recovery programs recommend a person like I once was, stay out of intimate relationships (if they weren’t already in one at the time of becoming sober) for at least a year. That is only to help them develop time to work on healing and developing that better relationship with themselves. I didn’t do that so I spent many years going from person to person, having tumultuous dating experiences, and occasionally falling back into some addiction based behaviors because of it.

Just to be frank, I know not everyone is an addiction based person who needs a 12 Step recovery program. But what I’ve found is that most people, regardless of whether they are addiction based or not, go from one fish to another finding something wrong with each of them solely because they haven’t worked through enough of their own baggage in life and usually don’t love themselves. Instead, they chase one fish after another, judging each of them until they finally land in an intimate relationship with one of them whom they initially really like. The relationship starts off like a drug that makes them feel really good but as time moves forward, it no longer gives them that feel good feeling it once gave them and they begin to see all the things in the other partner that they don’t like about themselves. Or maybe they start to get afraid of all the good qualities the other person has that they don’t have. Either way, they begin sabotaging it until it ends with them being back in that pool with the plenty of other fish that exist, starting the cyclical process all over again. Until they become willing to look in the mirror, face their baggage, and begin to love themselves a lot more, they will continue to repeat this pattern of not liking something about every fish they meet. And sadly, some of those fish they meet are people they could spend the rest of their lives with, except they won’t see that because they’re blinded by their own disgust of themselves.

If you are relating to any of what I’ve been saying and have been finding no success in the dating realm, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and realize that maybe the Universe has been trying to send you a message. Are you able to go right now and look in a mirror and tell yourself that you like what your seeing? Have you worked through a lot of your own baggage and inner demons? Can you honestly say you truly love yourself unconditionally? If you answered “No” to any of these questions, there’s a good chance that while there are plenty of fish in the sea, none of them are ever going to suit your fancy because your fish of a life has been slowly turning into that carcass and rotting away for years. So maybe it’s best to take some time away from the dating realm and start working on being able to answer “Yes” to each of those questions. As maybe then, the Universe will guide you in a current straight towards another fish, who will end up being the one you mate with for the rest of your life.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I’ve often wished that God would grant me superpowers, like those in the comic books, so that I could use them to help make this world a happier, healthier place to live in. It hasn’t happened yet, at least not that I’m aware of it. But it’s got me thinking lately that maybe the reason why has something due to the message behind what Uncle Ben was saying to Peter Parker in the Spider-Man comics when he said “With great power, comes great responsibility…”

Up until not too long ago, I wasn’t very good with responsibility. People couldn’t rely upon me as I was too deeply focused on my addictions and obsessions. I also had a tremendous ego and was completely selfish and self-centered. Everything I did for anyone usually had some type of price tag attached to it. I can only imagine what I would have done in those moments if I had some type of superpower given to me.

Take X-Ray vision for example. In those totally self-absorbed days, I would have used that power to enhance my sexual addiction with every person I found attractive in this world and ignored any type of responsibility with that type of gift.

How about super strength? In those days where I didn’t care about selflessness and only looked out for the accolades from others, I most likely would have used that power for hire or sought fame from using it. I also might have used it to bully some of those who were bullying me at the time and ended up seriously hurting them in the process.

Invisibility, super speed, mind-reading, it doesn’t really matter what the power would have been, I would have taken any of them in all those egocentric moments and either enhanced my addiction prone life or sought money and notoriety from using them.

A lot has changed for me in the past few years. And while I would still love to have superpowers these days, my use of them would be a lot different now. I could see myself being a lot more like those heroes in the comic books such as when Peter Parker became Spider-Man. He had to learn the hard way what his Uncle Ben was truly saying when he abused his abilities for ego based purposes and lost his uncle tragically because of it. I’ve always admired the hero he developed into after that tragic event, as it was never based upon his ego after that.

In the television show Heroes that came out a bunch of years ago, people started evolving and developing these superhuman abilities. The show portrayed how those people went in one of several directions upon finding out they had a unique gift. Some followed in Spider-Man’s footsteps and became silent heroes who never took the glory for anything. Others thought their gift was a curse and tried to avoid using it at all or looked constantly for its cure. And then there were those who became so ego-based with what they could do with their new ability, they caused more damage and destruction to the world when using it.

Given the state of our world today with how many tragedies occur every single moment that range from a minor to a major scale, the presence of superheroes, like in the comic books, could really help to reduce them. Unfortunately though, they could also end up increasing them just as much. As for every humble hero like Spider-Man or Superman who were examples of the true do-gooders, there were also those like the Dr. Octopus and General Zod who sought control of others and put themselves on raised pedestals because of their abilities.

Maybe this is why we haven’t evolved enough yet enough in our world to develop any of these enhanced super abilities. Because if we did, we might tear ourselves apart at the seams with the amount of self-centeredness that still is present in so many of us. I’m convinced that if life does exist outside this planet, which I believe it does, that there are worlds who do have people living actively with superpowers and handling them with great responsibility and humility. But in our world, granting the wrong person with powers such as what Superman has, could lead to even greater global catastrophes than what we already are having to deal with.

Hopefully one day, this planet will evolve to a level where EVERYONE is more concerned in helping each other out much more so than boosting their own egos, controlling others, and watching out for themselves. As when a day like that comes, maybe then God will open up those doorways within us for superhero like abilities to manifest…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson