Category: Words To Live By

So much of my life has been spent fighting change. I’ve found myself countless numbers of times over the years boxing myself in and throwing up walls trying to maintain a sense of safety. Many would say I was living in my own perfect world. Time and time again when someone or something came across my own utopia, I would work diligently to either incorporate it within my safe realm or I would quickly find ways to avoid dealing with it. That was until I started sitting with myself meditating and learning to live in the moment.

Life in itself is about change. From the moment of my birth to the last breath I take on this planet, my body has and will continue to undergo change. Even externally to me, such as in nature, change is prevalent. Fall, winter, spring, and summer, each of these seasons brings changes in weather, animals, plants, and trees. So why is it then I continue to fight change tooth and nail time and time again? Simply put, it often seems easier to know what is going to happen, to have all the details planned, and to know all the possible scenarios. But, in living my life that way, I reduce myself to a state of boredom and numbness. If at any point I am ever forced to change, I always seem to end up in state of frustration and anger. I know now that this stemmed from how I was raised as a child. Change was never welcomed in the home I was brought up in. Everything was always planned so far ahead right on down to the smallest details. The best example revolved around our annual two week vacation. Months before the first day of it ever arrived, a day by day itinerary was already developed of how far we were going to drive, where we were going to stop, what activities we were going to partake in once there, and what restaurants we were going to dine at each night. Things done on the spur of the moment were a rare thing indeed in my family. We stuck to a formula and our lives became a paradox to life itself as I don’t believe there is a formula to life. I’m learning now that change has always brought me, and will continue to bring me joy, but only if I allow those changes to happen. The joy may not be immediate, but it always does come when it’s meant to.

I once came across a story of only five pages with just a few sentences on each of the pages. These few sentences helped to provide me the foundation to accept change. They went a little something like this.

Page 1: “A person walks down the street and sees a hole and falls in it.”

Page 2: “A person walks down the same street and pretends not to see the hole and falls in it anyway.”

Page 3: “A person walks down the same street with the same hole and tells themselves they won’t fall in it this time but they do so anyway.”

Page 4: “A person walks down the same street with the same hole and walks around it.”

Page 5: “A person walks down a completely different street with no holes.”

I have walked down the same streets falling into the same holes so many times in my life avoiding even the slightest changes which might have led me to walk around those holes or even down different streets that were hole-less. But, in losing both my parents to untimely deaths, and living my life in so many addictions that never provided me any long lasting peace, happiness, joy, or love, I began to look at life differently. Not wanting to follow in either of my parents paths nor desiring to live in any more addictions, I am trying today to head down a completely new street, one where change is welcomed in all parts of my life as God sees fit.

So how does one walk down these new streets and experience those changes that lead to a better life? Essentially in my case, it meant walking through fear and going down those paths I resisted most. Have you ever tried to not get the last word in during a heated discussion? Have you ever tried to not offer your opinion on a subject you know a lot about? Have you ever tried to not seek reassurance from others for a crisis you are in? Have you ever tried to not prove you are right even when you know someone is wrong? Have you ever tried to look at the positive in everything even when things seem glaringly negative? These are only just a few of many ways one can take the road less traveled to experience one of those new streets.  Change doesn’t have to start with the big fears either. Try this one for simplicity. The next time you walk into your favorite restaurant, order something new, something you’ve never tried before, not there, not anywhere, just something that you have never tasted yet in your life.  Your risk? You either have a great meal and a new favorite to choose from or you spent a few dollars to learn you will never order that again. Either way you now have greater wisdom, and joy can be felt in that alone.

I’ve spent much of my life resisting change and missing out on greater wisdom and joy because of having one foot trapped in the door to the past with life seeming so much better and one foot trapped in another door to the future where I was afraid of how things were going to become.  Ultimately, because of this, I failed to see each day, in each and every moment, the beauty that change could bring me with each breath I took. By opening myself to even the smallest of changes as I have in the past year, I now find me heading down these new streets more than not, seeing things I never saw, smiling more, and finding my happiness and my relationship with God growing within me exponentially.

I encourage everyone today to take a moment to pause, breathe, and spend time with yourself doing something completely different from the patterns, routines, and boxes you may have gotten yourselves into. I think you might be pleasantly surprised to how much the simplest change will bring you inspiration, and in time, happiness and joy. So far, it has for me, and it can for you as well.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

New relationships can be quite troubling especially when one or both of the people in it keep comparing each other to past flames. Recently I had to have a discussion with my partner about this very issue as he was doing just that by comparing me to a person he had dated just before meeting me.

I’ve had three long term relationships in my life that have lasted at least two years or more and quite a few others of shorter durations. Each of them had their positive qualities throughout but all of them also had many negative ones as well. Unfortunately, until I figured out that I was carrying the downside of those relationships into the ones that were following it, they all continued to crumble around me, one after another.

It’s really not fair for either person in a couple to bring past relationship baggage onto their current one. It undermines any growth that can happen as they try to become closer to each other. It creates anger and resentments between them. And it fuels arguments that destroy the foundation their relationship was built upon in the first place.

I’m guilty of this and have been doing a massive amount of work in my current relationship to prevent this from happening again. I’ve had a lot of tumultuous relationships in my past. I’ve dated active alcoholics and drug addicts, mentally and emotionally abusive people, and many who had serious issues with spending money wastefully. What I never realized were how much of each of those people were only mirrors for myself to the negative behaviors I still held within. Instead of working on my own issues, I cited them out in the people I dated manifesting arguments in the process and comparing them to the past people I dated who had the same traits. Eventually because of this, my own behaviors sabotaged yet another relationship leaving me single all over again.

Now when I see a behavior that really bothers me in my partner, I look at myself and into my past and see if there is something I am hiding from, holding onto, or not wiling or wanting to let go of. In every case, there always is.

Just because a past partner had no money management abilities doesn’t mean that if my current partner overdrafts his bank account once or twice that it’s going to be that same type of relationship. Just because a past partner was angry all the time and abusive doesn’t mean that if my current partner comes home from work one day and lashes out that it’s going to be just like before. And so on and so forth. In any of these cases when trouble arises now, I look at myself and ask where my part was in all of it. I ask questions such as whether I pushed my partner to spend money they didn’t have or whether I did any behaviors that were selfish and self-centered that provoked the anger? What I learned in doing this was gaining the knowledge that the demise of all of my former relationships were as much my own fault as it was with the people I had dated. I had contributed to the negativity in every case with my own behaviors. The biggest realization though that has come to me in the past year of my life on why I had been in so many previous relationships is that God had been left out of them.

I do not believe any relationship can survive without having God at the center of it. After the initial happy romance phase is over and the real work begins to keep it going, trying to hold it together with control and self-will always failed for me. Personalities took over. The inevitable would then happen with me comparing each of them to someone in the past I dated that I felt they were now becoming. What was really happening was the real me was emerging in the relationship. The one that was broken before I got into the relationship that had never healed. The one that still had past demons within me being carried forward over and over and over again. The one that jumped from person to person experiencing only the short periods of time where the oogly-googly occurred and then leaving when that period was over.

The moral of all of this is that my success in any new relationship needed me to face myself and cut all the cords of attachment I still held onto from my negative past. My success with a partner was also dependent on me remembering the positive things I gained and learned in all of those past relationships. I had to forgive each of them and myself for all of the negative things that had happened throughout it. And most importantly, my success with any partner needed me to ask God each and every day to remain at the center of it, guiding it away from control and self-will, and into only where God sees it heading.

I now have over a year with my current partner. So far it’s the best one I’ve ever had. I thank God for that and I’m glad to realize now how much I can’t hold onto or compare any of my past relationships to my current one if I want it to last. I also realize now that anytime I find myself getting angry over anything with him and find myself comparing him in my head to someone from my past, that its probably an area of my life that still needs healing and I go to God in prayer to resolve it. It always comes back to something within me that was still broken and thankfully, through my prayer, God always leads me to healing it.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

In 12 Step Recovery the words “spiritual experience” come up often. Over time since the origins of any of the recovery programs, it was found that to be removed from the throngs of any addiction that one would have to have a transformative spiritual experience to relieve a person of their obsession.

It sounds quite lofty doesn’t it?

It’s really not.

Spiritual experiences are quite simple actually. For some reason though, most people assume when they hear those words that an example of them is something of biblical proportions. Having a spiritual experience doesn’t necessarily mean the seas are going to part or the angels are going to sing for an individual. In my case, the first spiritual experience I can remember in my life was on June 10th, 1995 when I had finally grown tired of running from my own sexuality identity and immersing myself in alcohol and drugs. On that day, I cried out in a very simple prayer in my bathroom no less, and said, “God, Please help me”. And God did. In those moments after that prayer, the desire to drink, drug, and even smoke cigarettes left me for good. The only feelings I can remember all these years later from that moment were ones of being calm and peaceful after I had said the prayer. It’s been almost 18 years since that day and with all that time passing, my perception of what a spiritual experience is, has changed dramatically.

Do I have some great definition now for what one is? Not really. But I hopefully can tell in a better way through many examples of ones I’ve had so far in this life since that first one. Here are just some of them in no particular order of importance.

1. Seeing a double rainbow as a storm passes and the sun re-emerges.

2. Watching the sun rise or set over the ocean.

3. Having someone tell me that the words I spoke changed their life for the better forever.

4. Holding someone’s hand or placing an arm around them in support as they cry tears of sorrow.

5. Seeing a newborn baby’s first smile.

6. Hearing someone say they love me.

7. Getting a strong hug from someone I really care about.

8. Having my hand shaken at a recovery meeting and told warmly that they’re glad I’m there.

9. Making an honest and humble amends to someone and being fully forgiven by them.

10. Holding hands with my partner during an intimate moment.

11. Seeing any baby animal being nuzzled by its’ mother.

12. Swimming in the Caribbean and being surrounded by a coral reef and brightly colored tropical fish.

13. Crying during my prayers to God.

14. Being alone on top of a mountain peak with miles and miles of visibility.

15. Warming my hands over a crackling fire under the stars.

16. Receiving a card from anyone that writes a personal message of warmth and kindness.

17. Seeing flowers and trees beginning to bloom after a long, harsh, winter.

18. Having a total random stranger do something nice for me and vice versa.

19. Drinking an ice cold glass of water on a sizzling hot day.

20. Taking a hot bubble bath on a frigid cold day.

21. Going to the drive-in on a warm summer night and watching a movie on a big screen outside with my partner.

22. Hearing a song on the radio that moves me to tears.

23. Seeing any movie that opens me up to cry.

24. Being with my sister and her kids after long periods of absence.

25. Asking God to guide me completely for the day no matter where it may take me.

Spiritual experiences are happening all the time. They are happening right now as you are reading this. They are happening with each breath you’re taking. They are happening in every given moment, of every single day for all of us.

For me, the simplest way I can put it is that when my heart moves with any feeling of love and warmth, I know now I’m having a spiritual experience. Along the way, God has helped me to see something really important about all of this too.

When enough of these spiritual experiences have happened in my life, I have received a spiritual awakening. And when enough of these spiritual awakenings have happened in my life, I have become more aware that every moment can be a spiritual experience and every day can be a spiritual awakening.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson