Category: Words To Live By

Intuition is defined as an ability to understand something immediately without any conscious reasoning. Some may say it’s better defined as simply a “gut feeling”. Lately, the Shaman I have been working with has been attempting to help me develop and trust in my own a lot better than I ever have. It’s proving to be a very difficult venture given that I haven’t allowed myself to trust in me for most of my life.

Growing up, I didn’t have much of a say in anything. It really was my parent’s way or the highway so to speak, which ultimately meant being grounded if I didn’t do what they wanted me to do. Often, there were times I had hunches about things, but generally I had to ignore them and take part in something even with already “knowing” that the outcome wouldn’t be good. When I ventured out on my own, this pattern repeated in all of the close friendships and relationships I got myself into. There were many times I would get those “gut feelings” about something but I wouldn’t listen to them and allowed someone else to think for me instead. The sad truth of the matter is that most decisions and actions in my life have always been guided by someone else other than myself. One of the biggest ones dealt with a bed and breakfast I once owned.

Many years ago, I had been approached by a person I had been dating for awhile. He had become unemployed and was desiring to take up a new venture in life by becoming an innkeeper. After reading several books on the subject, he got in contact with a real estate agent that specialized in selling bed and and breakfasts. We began touring ones that were for sale and an inner voice seemed to be telling me each time I looked at one, that this wasn’t my path. After a few months passed by with me saying “no” to each of the ones we looked at, he finally stood in front of me and said he was going to run a bed and breakfast with or without me. My fear got the best of me and I ended up ignoring that small voice that had continued to tell me not to go down this path. I settled on buying the next one we looked at, and over the next seven years my health suffered immensely, my relationship to that partner ended, and the bed and breakfast was sold as a short-sale with me losing every penny I had ever put into it.

I shared this story for only one reason. Of all the times I failed to listen to any intuition or “gut-feeling”, it had the strongest consequences for me. There are plenty of other ones I could share as well when I didn’t listen to those hunches and had to deal with other dire results. Some of those included doctors I went to who only brought about more confusion and sickness within me, people I hung around with that only increased my toxicity, social engagements I attended where I left feeling more miserable, and products I would try which caused me ill side effects. I realized today that so much of my pain in life probably could have been avoided, if I had been listening to my own inner guidance system more.

A year ago, I decided I had enough of this pain in my life, much of which had come from ignoring those “gut-feelings”. After doing a thorough purge throughout my life where I removed everything toxic, I began to move forward in my healing and asked God to be at the center of it. Because of that, I found myself listening to my inner voice a lot more. Like a plant that needs love and attention to grow and blossom, I started to pay a lot more of it to those “feelings” I would get about things I was trying to make decisions over. Much of this work has been with my health and healing where I’ve been trying to trust and rely more on my body’s own ability to fix itself. Prior to this, I ignored most any feeling I had inside which told me to allow my body to heal symptoms it was facing. Instead, I’d go to doctors for those symptoms where I got many false diagnosis’s and terrible medications, none of which ever did anything but cause more pain and sickness and further complications in my life. Because of this, I am doing my best to practice listening to those hunches, “gut-feelings”, and intuitions in every area of my life a lot more today.

I still make mistakes at times and fail to heed any inner guidance I may be getting because my brain sometimes over thinks things. Trying to differentiate between that inner voice and my brain’s often misguided instructions can be a battle in itself. But the more I get closer to God and live healthier, the better it seems to be getting to know the difference. Something must be working though because my life is filled with a lot less crazy ups and downs and a lot more of peace. Is it because I’ve been listening to those hunches a lot more? I think I’m having one of them right now and it’s telling me the answer is “Yes!”.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Recently, I was asked to get in contact with a person I had dated a number of years ago. A friend in AA was making amends with me and wanted to reach out and make them as well to this former ex of mine whom he had also hurt. Given that I’m in a monogamous relationship now with someone, I’ve been less inclined to maintain contact with anybody I’ve previously dated. With most of them having been unhealthy for me when I was with them, I feel today it would be detrimental to my healing path to remain in contact. It’s not that any of them were inherently bad; it’s just that there were levels of unhealthiness for my own spirit with each of them. In the case of this person, he was someone I had met while traveling abroad who was already in a relationship with another man but “had an agreement” that he and his other half were able to have a lover outside their relationship. At the time, I didn’t want to be alone, and settled for less than what I deserved by dating him for over a year of my life. So with slight apprehension, and strictly as a favor to this friend in AA who was trying to do his step work, I sent an e-mail to this ex. What I received in return, is one of the main reasons why I don’t desire to talk to any person I previously dated anymore.

In this e-mail, I reached out by saying hello and updated this person on a few tidbits of my life, which included slight details of my current partner, my involvement in recovery, where I was living now, and my newfound love for writing daily. I included links to my website and my blog and ended with my friend’s request to make a formal apology for any damage that may have affected this ex during the time we had dated. Not more than an hour later, I received his very angry and judgmental based response about how he felt I was living my life and that it appeared now to him that I was addicted to God. He went on to do what he did quite a bit when we had dated, which was to tear me apart on some level with any life decisions I was making. He ended his response by saying my AA friend can screw off and live with his actions.

Thankfully today, I don’t have to own other people’s negativity, problems, or projections. For the longest time I did, such as when I had dated this person. Since then, I’ve gotten much stronger on all levels, especially spiritually, and if there is one thing I am very happy to say about my own life, it’s that if I am addicted to God, I’m ok with that.

I’ve been addicted to just about everything in my life including alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, caffeine, gambling, sex/love, shopping, traveling, and food. Each of them, I pursed with relentlessness to where nothing else mattered but me obtaining more of each of them. Friends, relationships, life’s duties, social obligations, and family were all disregarded when I indulged in any one of those addictions.

In the past year, I have worked diligently to turn my entire will over to the care of God. What initially began as 3rd Step work in my AA recovery has become more of a way of life now. Since doing this, my life has gotten so much better. I care about those friends and relationships a lot more now. I never avoid life’s normal duties or social commitments anymore. And my relationship with my sister and her kids has become much stronger as well. Even better is my outlook on life. Whereas I once was completely negative with just about everything, I find it’s the reverse now with me trying to see the good everywhere.

Is all of these positive changes due to me choosing God first and foremost in my life? I believe so. That is why I write about God on some level in every one of my blog postings. That is why I speak about God when I am at any AA meeting or speaking engagement. And that is why you will hear me talk about God on some level in any conversation I hold with anyone. God has changed my life for the better and I never, ever, want to go back to the way I once was such as when I dated a person like this ex. Back then I was godless, disoriented in life, directionless, completely ego-based, and consumed with unhealthiness in almost every facet of my life.

There aren’t enough words of gratitude that I can offer God for helping me to be released from those dark prisons I lived in for so many years. I may still have a small ways to go before I’m completely out of some of them, but I can truly say that turning my entire will over to the care of God was the best darn decision I’ve ever made in this lifetime. If I had to say I was addicted to anything anymore, it would most definitely, without a doubt, and positively be God and I have no regrets about that. Without God, my life was in the toilet being flushed away. With God, my life seems to be coming brighter and brighter each and every day. So if I had to choose any addiction to chase after for the rest of my life, you can bet your ass it will be trying to get closer God.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Life can be filled with many ups and downs. It can also be filled with an abundance of trials and tribulations. And while it can encompass a lot of good days, there are also the not so good ones too. In all of this, people will often look for an escape from experiencing those times when life seems a little under the rainbow. I should know, I’ve sought out many of them.

I don’t believe that finding an escape from reality for a short period of time is necessarily a bad thing if it’s a healthy one. Unfortunately for most of my life I engaged in too many of the ones that would be deemed unhealthy and I rarely would emerge out of them. I escaped from the craziness in my alcoholic family by living in a total fantasy world. I escaped next into an alcohol and drug addicted world when I couldn’t face my sexuality issues. After I came out of the closet, I chose to escape again into a sex and love addicted world because of many of my glaring insecurities. And over those years, I even sought other unhealthy escapes from the ones I was already living in. It’s kind of crazy when I think about it now on how I was trying to escape from one of the other unhealthy escapes I was already doing with something else just as unhealthy. Eventually I began to see that my life had just became a series of escaping life itself.

While life does need at times it’s moments to retreat, recuperate, and pamper oneself, it’s just as important to experience reality too. The truth in my life is that I never did want to experience what was going on in and around me. I didn’t want to face the fact I had very sick parents growing up. I didn’t want to face the fact I was molested at a young age by a peer outside my family. I didn’t want to face the fact I was gay. I didn’t want to face the fact I didn’t like the career paths I chose. I didn’t want to face the fact I didn’t like many of the people I dated and ended up in relationships with. And ultimately, I really just didn’t want to face the fact I didn’t like me! So I found escapes that kept me from walking through any of my insecurities and only ended up creating more of them as the years went on. Getting drunk, high, over smoking, chronic gambling, intensive shopping, over traveling, and overeating, were just some of the many ways I tried to unhealthily escape living life. In each of those, the escape worked for a period of time and the demons remained suppressed, but eventually, they always came back and reared their ugly heads. The point is they were never meant to be suppressed. They were not meant to be run from. And they weren’t meant to be hidden from either. What was always meant for me to do, was to face them head-on. To do that for anyone is hard work, but worth it because once one does face a fear and overcomes it, there is no need to try to find an escape from it anymore.

Over the past year in my life with God helping me now, I have done my best to face many deep-seated fears that have plagued most of my life. The more that I have continued to face them, the healthier I have become and the less I have felt the urge to go back into any of those former unhealthy escapes. Instead, I have been finding that while my mind and body may still desire outlets to tune out for a few hours from all the hard work I’m doing to spiritually grow, that I am much more able now to choose healthier ones. I have found things such as taking a hot bubble filled bath, going to a movie on my own, working on a puzzle, reading a good book, taking a walk on the beach, or going for a drive with no specific destination, can each provide me with the necessary few hours of much needed comfort. The best thing about it is that when I’m done with any of them, I find I am ready to tackle even more of those fears and worries.

The bottom line is that I don’t believe I was ever meant to fully escape from all those things that have scared me throughout most of my life. Instead, I’ve learned that I was always meant to grow by facing them directly. I know now that as I do face them and continue to grow along spiritual lines, that it’s still important for me to find those temporary escapes. The key today is to find ones that are healthy and support my path in healing. And as I partake in any of them, I always remind myself that life is worth being fully lived and any healthy escape is solely for the purpose of giving myself that much needed break for all the hard work I continue to do to grow closer to God.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson