Category: Words To Live By

In life, it’s inevitable that at some point most people will experience a break-up or the parting of an intimate friendship with someone they, at one time, loved dearly. In each case, there usually is a grieving process that can include any of the following: tears, anger, isolation, denial, confusion, bargaining, depression, and eventually (and hopefully) acceptance. I put the word “hopefully” in parentheses because often people don’t make it to this stage because of one difficult task that is necessary to get there. One of the most critical stages of coming to COMPLETE acceptance for a break-up or the loss of an intimate friendship is to remove all the “things” that could possibly be holding on to that person’s energy.

One of the biggest reasons why people don’t remove these “things” out of their lives from those moments with past loved ones, is solely for the fact that each can evoke an emotional response that is often favorable and can feel like the same love that was once shared between them. But what many people don’t realize is that it also prevents them from moving on in life because essentially what they are doing is holding on to that person by holding on to those “things”.

“Things” contain energy. Everything contains energy in this world. Some energy is dense and some is light. But everything can be broken down into energy. Just because you might not understand this principle so easily and not see it so well, holding onto something so simple as a ticket stub from a game that you attended with a former loved one years ago, can still hold onto their energy and keep you from moving forward in your journey in life.

I’ve gone through several long term relationships in my own life as of so far. At a certain stage in each of those relationships, I felt tremendous love for those partners. And during those times, I collected a vast amount of my own “things” that contained the loving energy from the moments that were so precious between the two of us. “Things” such as jewelry I was given from them, ticket stubs from events we attended together, special greeting cards written by them from various occasions, tons of pictures from the times we spent together, cute stuffed animals they would give me as gifts, and trinkets we would pick out together on trips, were just a few of what was collected and treasured by me. The same held true of me storing away those “things” for many close friendships I’ve had throughout my entire life that for whatever reasons have since ended. Piles and piles of these “things” did nothing more for me than collect dust and hold onto a small amount of energy tying me to those people even though they hadn’t been part of my life for a long time and probably never would be again.

I have been doing everything in my life lately to move forward spiritually. To move forward spiritually means to let go of the past. It means to let go of those “things” that didn’t work out so well. It means to part ways with those people that I once loved on every level. It means letting go of them once and for all by getting rid of all those “things”. And I have been doing just that.

Just the other day, I happened to look in a drawer and found an old jewelry box that I hadn’t looked through in awhile. I found four old tarnished silver rings, three of which were from my seven year relationship with my last partner that ended terribly. The other had a loving inscription from a person who once loved me very deeply. I also found in there a silver necklace given to me from a friend I spent several years obsessing over. Each of them triggered emotions and thoughts that on some level still connected me to them. With the amount of work I’ve done today on myself to removing the energy of my unwanted past, I immediately took those “things” and threw them away in a garbage can in a plaza nearby my house.

In that same jewelry box, I did find one “thing” that took a lot more of my deliberation to part ways with it. What I found was a set of dog tags from the man who I had been sexually intimate with and toxically close to for almost two years because he was also a married man to another woman. At the height of that toxic relationship, he had given his war time dog tags away, one to me, and one to his son. They were something I wore all the time and kept them constantly close to myself. The amount of emotions that came up in even holding them in my hands was immense when I found them the other day in that jewelry box, even though it had been many years since I had been connected to that man. But because of how precious something like that was, I actually took and put them in an envelope, said a prayer of release, and went that night to his job where I gave the envelope to a person in the parking lot who knew him and was able to put it in my former friend’s work folder. And when I walked away, I felt so greatly relieved.

Over the course of the past year, I have done many actions like this to removing all of those “things” that still held people’s energy I no longer wanted to be connected to. It’s working as I am feeling lighter and lighter every time I do it. I’ve removed many old pictures both digital and in print, hats and other various clothing, many trinkets, and even an old couch in my storage unit I was holding onto for someone that I was also toxically close to but had parted way with over a year and a half ago.

The bottom line here is this. If you are still holding onto various “things” in your life that can bring back any emotion of someone you’ve parted ways with, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and ask God to help you to remove those “things” out of your life as soon as possible. Each of those “things” contain energy that still ties you to those people and can keep you stuck by holding onto them. If you truly want to move forward in your life and reach that COMPLETE acceptance stage that let’s those people fully go, then this is a necessary step and one you will feel much lighter in life after doing so.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

There was a time my sister Laura and I fought like cats and dogs. I guess we both might say that I was the dog who barked at her all the time, and she was the cat who scratched and hissed back at me. This fighting started between us way back in our childhood and even continued into much of our adulthood, but along the line, all that began to change. Today, I regard my sister totally different but that wasn’t the case from as far back as I can remember.

When I was a young kid, I can remember so many times that I did nothing more than torment her daily. I believe it really was due to the fact that she was so popular while most considered me a dork or a nerd and I became jealous of that. So I did whatever I could to take away the glory I thought she had in life by teasing and ridiculing her constantly. I can’t remember much of the things I said to her back then but I do know they weren’t nice as they often were met with doors slammed in my face or on my hands. One time she even put a pencil through the palm of my left hand. And another time she slammed my head into a garbage can cutting it open. Looking back, I don’t blame her for these reactions. We both endured immense difficulties in our household with codependent, alcoholic, and mentally imbalanced parents. And I was just icing on the cake for her stress. I was definitely that kid who always told on his sister all the time. This always shifted my parents negative focus and yelling away from me and onto her. And it’s a shame because she didn’t just suffer from my parents imbalances, she did from my own as well.

When she left for college, I’m sure she was greatly relieved to get away from our family. We didn’t speak much, other than at holidays, and within a few years, I turned into my parents by quickly becoming an alcoholic and addict. This complicated my relationship with my sister even more because as most alcoholics and addicts like to do, they find ways to blame and manipulate others quite easily. Unfortunately, this is what I did to her for years. I learned how to make her feel guilty to get what I wanted from her and I was never there for her when she really needed a friend.

The first positive change that came to our relationship was when she called me in tears in October, 1996 and told me that our father had committed suicide. I think somehow the shock of losing him so suddenly at his relatively young age really made me begin to look at how I had been treating her and so distant as well. For about nine years after that, our relationship went from avoidance to reconciliation on some level although much of my controlling and manipulating behaviors still remained active at times. In February of 2005, she called me again in tears and told me that our mother had died tragically from a fall down the stairs while she was drunk. For a healthy brother, this would have been the time to reach out and truly support the only remaining family member I had, which was her. But I wasn’t healthy, not in the least bit. I had remained active in other addictions since getting clean and sober years earlier, which only kept my disease alive and me in unhealthy behaviors. For years, my sister made many attempts to reach out and call me. When we spoke, it was always about my drama, my messes, my fears, my worries, and well, me. And suddenly, her calls started subsiding and the distance began to grow great again between us.

It wasn’t until I became so broken in my own life to realize just how much I had lost. And that was when I landed in a mental hospital where my sister came to see me during visitor hours on one of those days. You see, that’s my sister. No matter how much of an ass I ever was to her for all those years that began back in our childhood, she always stood by my side faithfully. It’s unfortunate, but true, that when the brain is foggy and the heart is clouded over with blackness, and when a person does nothing more than think of their own self by living in addictions and darkness, it’s impossible to see the beauty in life that is right around them all the time. And that’s how it was with me and how I failed to see just how amazing my sister always was.

Slowly but surely after that five day stint in that locked ward, I began letting go of all the things that essentially had continued to keep me this way for most of my life. Thankfully this allowed me to clearly see how amazing my sister really is and always has been.  And the following is just a handful of the reasons why I know my sister is amazing…

My sister is amazing because…

…she made me so many home cooked meals of things she knew I loved even when I never cooked anything for her and rarely took her out for a meal.

…she made my favorite desserts at the holidays even when they weren’t anyone else’s favorites.

…she created many unique gifts for me that included necklaces, bracelets, and pressed glass even when I gave her many thoughtless gifts or no gifts at all.

…she invited me into her own home to live for a time when I had no where else to go.

…she listened to every single problem I ever had and had compassion for me, even when I had often had none for her.

…she always believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.

…she was there for me when I didn’t know how to be there for myself.

…no matter how mean I was to her, no matter how bad I yelled at her, no matter how guilty I made her feel, and no matter how terrible I acted towards her, she continued to love me even when I didn’t know how to love myself or anyone else.

This entry is my dedication to my sister Laura and all those other sisters out there who have loved their brothers as unconditionally as my own sister did with me. My sister is awesome and I love her dearly. She really an amazing woman, is one of my best friends, and definitely a blessing from God.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I decided to take on a slightly different spin with today’s entry solely because of the latest craze, which seems to be taking the world quite literally by storm. So what is this craze? Two words. One Direction.

The first time I ever heard of the name One Direction and found out what it was all about was during last season’s X Factor show. It’s one of the two reality based shows I allow myself to watch and that’s only because I respect Simon Cowell’s musical opinions as he seems to have a knack for finding real singing talent. And during last season, he spoke often of this boy band group he discovered. After doing some research on the Internet, I learned that the five boys who made up this group had appeared as solo artists on the 2010-11 season from the UK Version of X Factor. Each had failed to make it on their own to a round that would have brought them to the judges home. But based upon a suggestion from one of the other X Factor judges, they were brought back to compete as a group and ended up making it to the finals where they placed third overall by the end of that seventh season. Shortly thereafter, Niall Horan, Zyn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson signed their band One Direction with Simon Cowell’s Syco Records.

Since January 2011, their fame has risen rapidly. First a book licensed by them entitled One Direction: Forever Young (Our Official X Factor Story) was published and topped a best seller list. Next, their debut single “What Makes You Beautiful”, reached number one on the UK Singles Chart and then became the most pre-ordered Sony Music Entertainment single in history. The band subsequently signed a record deal with Columbia Records in North America and their debut single here hit number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 and later sold over 4 millions copies. Their first studio album Up All Night was released in early 2012 and became the UK’s fastest-selling debut album and toped the charts in sixteen countries. The same album bowed atop the US Billboard 200 chart, making them the first British group in US chart history to enter at number one with their debut album. As a result, they were inducted into the Guinness World Records. The album also became the first by a boy band to sell 500,000 digital copies in the US and by August of 2012, had sold over 3 million copies worldwide. Their second album, Take Me Home, was released in November of 2012 and it’s first single “Live While We’re Young”, reached the top ten in almost ever country it charted in. The album itself sold 540,000 copies in its first week in the US, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and topped charts in more than thirty-four other countries. And both albums were the number three and four best-selling albums of 2012 globally, selling 4.5 million and 4.4 million units, respectively. The most startling thing I learned though about this pop group is that they already are a $50 million dollar making business. And lately, on almost every channel during each commercial break of any show I’m watching, I’m being inundated with previews of their upcoming documentary movie entitled One Direction: This is Us. What’s ironic though is that up until a few nights ago, I had never heard them perform as I’m not typically a boy band fan nor do I rarely listen to pop music. But I decided to listen to a song they performed live on the only other reality show I watch, America’s Got Talent, which had them as a guest for week 1 of the semi-finals results show.

What stood out more to me than anything as I watched them perform, was actually not their background music, their voices, or even them, all of which seemed pretty good. Instead, it was all the screaming girls in the audience that the cameras panned in on who were crying, shaking, and holding their arms out as if Jesus was on stage. And all of this reminded me most of the footage I watched long ago of The Beatles in a movie named A Hard Day’s Night, which chronicled a couple of days in the lives of that group. After doing some comparable research, it appears that One Direction really could be the 2013 version of The Beatles. In their heyday, The Beatles were a hip young boy band pop group that garnered millions of fans across the world, especially female, much of whom also reacted in the same way I saw on live TV with One Direction. The Beatles went on in their musical career to become the best selling band in the United States, as well as holding the most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with 20. They received 7 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, and it has also been estimated that they have had lifetime sales of their music of over one billion units. Rolling Stone even ranked them back in 2004 as the best artist of all-time.

While I really can’t say I understand why there was such a craze back then with The Beatles nor why there seems to be one now with One Direction, I can say that both have demonstrated great musical talent. While neither of their music styles are my cup of tea as I’m really more into ambient, trance, deep house, and electronica types of music these days, I do give them both credit for having pretty amazing voices, great stage presences, and knowing how to work the crowds of fans.

In regards to One Direction, they seem to be really down to earth and act just like any average goofy young boys might act with each other, especially when girls are around. And from what I read on the web, it appears most of those girls are finding all of them quite attractive like teenage girls and young women did all those years ago with The Beatles. So I’m guessing that these are just some of the main reasons for their rising notoriety. Whether they can continue to follow in The Beatle’s footsteps over time remains to be seen. For now, there are definitely striking resemblances to both group’s progression of popularity. While The Beatles went on to produce solo careers for John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, making them even more of a success, I’ll be looking forward to see if the same happens to One Direction down the road. Either way, I give the group credit for their quick success story and musical talent. I just hope they remain humble, as they appear to be doing so now, and refrain from following in some of the other footsteps of famed artists who went more in the direction of producing massive egos and even worse, getting into drugs.

Regardless, I wish you well One Direction. May God bless you in all your future musical endeavors. Just don’t let success go to your heads ok?

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson