Category: Words To Live By

I often play a mental game with others by asking “Knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time and keep your memories of how your life has been, would you change anything?” The answers I get are always fascinating.

Up until recently, I used to wish I had made better decisions throughout my life and often dreamt of going back in time and starting my life over at a certain point. What’s funny is that I don’t think that way anymore because I am liking who I’m becoming now. Living with the drama I usually put myself in before that, I didn’t really like myself or my life. In turn, this led me to living in a fantasy land about things such as time travel where I would think about how my life could be if I had done this thing or that thing differently.

As I began healing from all the past things that happened to myself, I pondered some deep questions about time travel which made it seem not so alluring. What if everything that happened in my life, was meant to happen as it did? What if I was able to go back in time and changed one thing that I thought would make my life better, and instead, it made things even worse or more complicated? What if the dysfunctional family that I had was the one that was best suited for me to become the spiritual person I am becoming today? What if the relationships that I got in that were toxic were all meant for me to be in so I could eventually be in a healthy one and one that is closer to God? What if all those jobs I had and subsequently quit or the business I owned and tragically lost, all were learning lessons to gain a greater spiritual awareness for the work I was always meant to do?

There’s a great movie I once saw surrounding this very subject. It was entitled “The Butterfly Effect” and starred a very young actor named Ashton Kutcher. In it, he continued to try to change things and make them the way his mind thought they should have been and proceeded to get worse and worse results. Each adjustment he did created a ripple throughout his life that changed everything, even to some of the good things that had happened which he didn’t want to have altered. By the end of the movie, he finally came to acceptance with things, even with the tragic things that had happened throughout it, including the ones he kept trying to manipulate. When he did that, he was able to move on and found new happiness and love.

Ironically, this is exactly what is happening in my life today. Once I began accepting that things happened as they should, I started wishing less and less that I could go back in time to change anything. The reality for me is that I don’t wish to change a single thing in my previous life anymore, even if the ability to time travel actually did exist. I like who I’m becoming now even though there still are many days I’m suffering in physical pain and question God. I can only imagine how much better my life will become by continuing on a path of acceptance and love for everyone and everything.

So if I could go back in time to any part of my life to change it…I wouldn’t. But if could take that time machine and repurpose it, I would go back invisibly and observe many of the great spiritual teachers that God brought to this earth who have since passed. But that’s really just a good subject for a whole other blog entry now isn’t it?

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

It’s hard watching my landlord/roommate implode. Sometimes I feel it’s as if I’m watching myself during all those years where I was so misguided that I tried to find happiness in all the wrong places.

Somehow I already felt the other day that something was off with my roommate when I looked down at my phone and saw he was calling. I was on my long drive back from my partner’s home to my own place of residence in the Boston area when his call came in. While I wasn’t able to answer it seeing that I was already on the phone with someone else, my intuition was confirmed when I listened to the message he left me. In it, he indicated that his cleaning up process was still underway and not to be overwhelmed when I got home. I knew upon hearing this, that it wasn’t a good sign. I decided to meet with my sponsee after that long drive back instead of going home first for several reasons, one of which was based upon my roommate and his message. The main one though was that after several weeks of being away, I didn’t want to put the step work off anymore for someone who desperately needed it. But I have to admit that I also hoped it would give my roommate some more time to finish whatever cleaning up process he was attempting to do.

A few hours later when I finally pulled into the driveway, my intuition and some of my fears were confirmed. One look said it all. The grass was close to two feet high. The garden he had spoke of creating was still in the exact same state as it was when I left. There was a large wheelbarrow directly in the center of where I normally parked that was filled with dirt, weeds, and rainwater and appeared to have been there for quite some time. And unplanted flowers lay on the driveway dying.

As I walked into my residence, I half expected there to be dishes piled up everywhere and the place looking disheveled. Thankfully that extra time I had given my roommate seemed to have mostly done the trick as it appeared he had just finished getting things back in order. I did end up having to dispose of a plant that had died from not being watered and tossing some items in the fridge that were way beyond their expiration date. And other than needing to empty the recyclables bin which was overflowing, I was grateful to see things were mostly in order, at least in the common areas that is. I couldn’t say the same for his room though as I passed by it and noticed it was once again ransacked. Piles of clothes were everywhere. Bags of things were spread out. And the blinds were pulled down and completely shut making his room feel very dark and uninviting. Upon discussion with him later, he indicated his depression and anxiety had been much higher while I was away and that things had fallen to the wayside as a result. Sadly, this has been true with just about every time I have returned home.

I always say that how one lives is usually a good representation of how things might be within oneself. If things are cluttered and messy on the outside for someone, then there’s a good chance that the same is true on their inside. In the illustration with my roommate, this has often been the case. While I’m not currently a therapist nor do I have any aspiring desire to be one, I have lived with him for awhile now to understand that many, if not most of the causes of his clutter, inside and out, as well as his anxiety and depression, can be traced back to the way he’s living his life. With his avoidance of working through and releasing some of his inner demons that I’ve been able to see, and with him not believing that any Power greater than himself has ever existed, he does his best day to day to function by living with two main drives in life; make more money, and have good sex with a bunch of people until the perfect partner comes along. What’s sad is that this is a spitting image of how I once lived my life for close to two decades and why my life was usually a mess filled with misery and suffering.

The sad reality is that much of the suffering any of us experience in life can often be traced back to our own actions. In my case, on all those past days when my life got cluttered and I found myself complaining about my depression or anxiety, it was because I was trying to figure out life completely on my own. During those years God held little to no place within it or me. Because of that, I brought toxic people in my life and did toxic behaviors daily that did nothing but make me more toxic and miserable.

This isn’t so true for me anymore as the only sadness that remains within me today is directly based upon the physical pains in my body which come from how I once was living my life. In time, with God at my helm now, I know that they too will even dissipate. Knowing all this though doesn’t make it any easier to watch someone else like my roommate, make the same mistakes that I did. It’s unfortunate, but at the present time, he’s unable to grasp and apply any of what happened to me to his own life and instead tells me to leave the counseling to his therapist. I have to respect his wishes and do what I can now for him through prayer.

I hope one day soon he will wake up and see that most of the cause of his own misery and suffering is not based upon a chemical imbalance in his body and it’s not something a medication will ever permanently fix. It’s not something more money will make go away and it’s not anything a partner or sex can make feel better forever. For me it took hard work, spending time alone, getting to love myself much better, and a good leader who I found in God. I hope he finds that to be true for him as well someday too. I really do. Until then, I will continue to pray.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I’m trying not to harbor any resentments with my sister’s husband. Seriously, I’m really trying. But, it’s been tough not to do so after staying with them in their new home these past few days. As the saying goes, one could have cut the tension in the air there with a knife during much of my visit. I’m writing this entry on Father’s Day as today has proven to be quite a thorn in my side. It’s much of the reason for any feeling of resentment that I’m now having and trying to let go of. It’s my hope that in writing this, I’ll find the healing I’m seeking within as that seems to work for me lately.

For what little time I have been given to see my family since they moved from Massachusetts to Tennessee, being invited on this trip was truly a blessing. While I had some fear surrounding this trip because of that tension between my brother-in-law and me, I did my best to remain positive.  Unfortunately, when I made a request to borrow my sister’s car to go to a local new age store to get a crystal that my spiritual teacher had suggested might help me, it struck a raw nerve in my sister’s husband. This all began a few weeks earlier when the two of us had a run-in after it had been discovered that Father’s Day was on the weekend my partner and I were visiting. Upon finding this out, he requested to have a good chunk of Father’s Day spent alone with his family without my partner and I, even though we were guests in his home and were only there to be with them. I had inquired on why we couldn’t all be together for the day and the only answer I got was that it wasn’t what he wanted. My ego had gotten the best of me in those moments and I had indicated I wasn’t ok with that request. So at the time of me requesting to go borrow my sister’s car and head to a store for a short bit of time to get something that may help my health and healing, he made a comparison to the time alone that he had been asking for. Ironically, I wasn’t asking for this short trip to be time alone but I also wasn’t allowed to take my nephews with me either. He has continuously stated he doesn’t feel safe with me driving his kids anywhere because of one minor fender-bender I had once in my life just over a year ago. I tried to explain how my request was extremely different because of this, but he couldn’t see it from any perspective other his own. When I finally pulled him aside and tried to talk to him one-on-one, it didn’t go over so well and instead he stated he felt I was selfish and self-centered, that I didn’t have a good recovery program, that he didn’t really like me and that the main reason why he wanted Father’s Day alone was for that reason. Sadly, with my sister’s fear and co-dependency issues, she refused to choose a side and instead tried to come up with a compromises that might please both people which ended up placing her in the middle and bringing her misery because of it.

Like the entry I posted a few days ago, I understand that my brother-in-law is harboring his own anger and resentments towards me from many of my own past behaviors and he hasn’t been able to get over them. Sometimes I think it’s coming from a lot more than just some of those addiction behaviors I affected him with, but regardless, it has tainted the possibility of having a close relationship with my sister or my nephews. So as I sit here and have a large portion of the day without all of my family, I reflect on how this day began with one of my nephews approaching me and asking innocently how long it would be before I was ready to go to breakfast with them. I could see he didn’t understand when I told him that his own family was going out without me today. Sometimes I wish everyone could see just how much my sister’s husband’s resentments towards me are hurting everyone in his family and not just me. As he left with his children after breakfast to take them somewhere else, I knew deep down that if he asked his kids to be honest, that they would have either wanted me to come along with them or they would have wanted to remain back at home to hang out with me. I wonder sometimes if they are as afraid to truly speak from their heart to their father as I know I was with my mother for most of my life.

Thankfully, I have a very wise and blessed spiritual teacher in my life that has been helping me to let go of my control that my ego has tried to place in my life such as with this whole Father’s Day issue. After that good discussion with that teacher, I had decided it was best to let go of what my ego felt it needed and let them do what they wanted today.

While I know I wouldn’t his behaviors to anyone today, the sad thing is that I did do them previously in my life when I was active in my addictions. My sister was actually one of those I did them to when many years ago I left her sitting in my apartment to watch television as I left for a “date” with someone that I just couldn’t get myself to postpone until after she was gone. Maybe it’s a good thing that all of this happened today as I know how it feels now because of this and it hurts. It was a selfish thing to do then, and it really is selfish now for what he’s doing, but nonetheless, I really can’t judge him because I’m guilty of the behavior myself. I just pray to God I never do these behaviors again because it does nothing more than bring about anger and resentments in others, and a lot more darkness within my own soul.

I sincerely doubt my sister’s husband will ever be able to clearly see just how much light I am trying to let into my life today and how selfless I’m really am becoming, until he fully chooses to follow in a similar path where he might find total forgiveness for my past. Until that day arrives, the best I’ll be able to ever do is pray for him with love, forgiveness, and peace. And I’m going to continue to “kill ’em with kindness” by doing my best in letting go of all my ego’s attempts to control him.

I’m grateful for the insight that came in all of this writing, because on some level, a healing must have happened since I don’t feel angry or resentful towards my brother-in-law as I finish this entry. So thank you God for this gift of healing that came through my writing…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson