Mantra For The Day – For Building Faith And Trust In Yourself

Building faith and trust in a Higher Power is an important thing to do, especially for someone like me who is in recovery from various addictions. But I’ve learned it’s also just as important to build faith and trust in myself given all the years of neglect and self-abuse I put myself through. It was a common thing for me to put myself down and doubt any of the decisions I made in life and even my own body’s natural ability to heal. Because of this I would go to friends, doctors, ministers, and many others and place my faith and trust into them, and often they would let me down. I never realized how much this was completely hindering my own spiritual growth. Today, I am using a daily mantra to correct this and it’s helping me to have a lot more faith and trust in myself and in the life I’m living with my Higher Power. If you are someone who struggles with having faith and trust in yourself, then I encourage you to utilize this mantra for a while as I know it will help to change that.

“I walk forward in faith and trust, and have acceptance that all that’s happening to me is in my greatest highest good.”

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Finding Closure

The American justice system is all based around a person being innocent until proven guilty. Sadly, that’s not always the case though in many real life situations that occur outside of a courtroom. Recently I experienced this very thing with a men’s group when it’s members chose to suddenly remove me from it with no “trial”, explanation, or discussion. Unfortunately, their action left me struggling to find closure and fully let the situation go.

It’s probably best I initially give a short history on my involvement with this group. It began back in the fall of 2013, when I attended it one night while on travel to see my partner. My move to his home was still several months away, but I was attempting to establish a network of friends, groups, and things to be a part of before that day came. This men’s support group was one of those things I was trying to connect with and it was a part of an organization, the Mankind Project (MKP), that I’ve been a part of since 1999. I joined MKP all those years ago for one reason, to grow up and become a man who doesn’t hide in the darkness of his shadows. Over the years since then, I was part of several different MKP groups, all of which helped to shape me into someone that lives in honesty and integrity throughout my entire life. When I joined this group though, I had a few actions over the course of several meetings that led several of its members to feel unsafe with me. Even though I owned them and made my amends to the group, a decision was made without my input to remove me from its membership.

The night I was informed of their decision came on an evening that group was supposed to be taking place. As I was sitting there waiting for it to begin, one of the other members spoke up and indicated a new group was being created that wouldn’t be including me. When I tried to talk about this action, my request was denied and I was told it wasn’t up for discussion. Essentially my voice was silenced and I felt like I was given a guilty verdict without ever even having a chance to prove my innocence. When I left shortly thereafter, I began harboring a lot of anger and resentment towards the group and its members because of this and for the fact that MKP wasn’t built around this type of behavior. Since then I have been struggling to let the situation go because of my lack of closure with the group and its members. What I had really wanted was to state my case with them, except I never got the chance.

Trying to find closure with something when total control is taken away is an extremely difficult thing to overcome. While I’ve continued to send love, forgiveness, and peace to this group and all its members, I still find myself feeling a little unsettled with the whole matter. I decided I needed to write about this experience to help with that. While life initially may not seem to be fair when things like this happen, I’ve come to understand that it ends up always being for the better in the long run. Although I would have been willing to work through the ongoing difficulties I had with this group, I see now that if I had remained there, it might have worked against my spiritual growth with my Higher Power. That alone has helped me to come to acceptance and begin the process of finding closure.

Thankfully I’m also in the process now of building a new MKP group with several other men and so this action seems to be another one of those blessings in disguise. Nonetheless, anytime a person is given a guilty verdict without ever being able to prove their innocence, finding closure with it all can be an extremely difficult thing to do. But through acceptance and the sending of love, forgiveness, and peace, I know it can be done. It just takes time.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Faith In A Greater Calling

It’s been over four years now since I began working on healing myself holistically. I can’t say it’s been an easy ride as there have been plenty of days like today when I question whether I’ve made any progress at all. But there’s one thing I feel that’s kept me going through all of them, and that’s my belief that I have a greater calling for this life.

As a kid, I used to wish my greater calling would be that I could heal other people from their physical handicaps. Back then when I saw anyone who was missing a limb, paralyzed, or dealing with some other type of disability, I always imagined how wonderful it would be to heal him or her with simply a touch. Part of that desire probably stemmed from the many faith-based healing services I used to attend with my father.

But sadly as I grew older, I got sidetracked into a vast array of addictions from alcohol and drugs, to sex, and to just about everything else. During those addiction-fueled years, I stopped thinking about what my greater calling was and instead focused on my selfish desires to use some type of physical thing in this world for comfort. I watched as my compassion disappeared for those who were suffering in this world and I saw how I didn’t care anymore about looking for my calling at all. But, that all began to change for me though just over four years ago now.

You see it was in 2010 that I started realizing I had spent the majority of this life getting caught up in the dead-end paths that my addictions led me into. I also had discovered that no matter how much stuff I had in life that it never was going to bring me the long-lasting happiness, peace, and love I really desired. All of it reduced me one day into a torrent of tears where I got on my knees and begged Whomever was out there to guide me out of the mess I had placed myself in for years. I blindly asked the Universe to help me get back on the path that would lead me to whatever my greater calling was supposed to be for this lifetime. Soon after that prayer, I developed a lot of physical, mental, and emotional health issues that science and medicine provided me no answers or relief for.

Since then, I have become able to think so much more clearly and my emotions are a lot more stable then they ever used to be. What hasn’t changed YET is my physical health as I still am having extremely difficult days with it, such as today. But what keeps me going and what I still believe inside is that my Higher Guidance has a plan that’s so much bigger than what my brain could ever have imagined for me. I only pray and hope that every part of my essence and being will continue receiving the strength and guidance needed to get me there. While I don’t know whether my greater calling will eventually be what I always imagined as a kid or not, I do know that I’m doing my best today to just trust that my Higher Guidance will lead me to whatever it is.

I truly believe all of us have a greater calling in this world, but unfortunately, so many of us get lost along the way from pursuing it. We end up allowing things such as addictions, money, and power to derail us from the pursuit of it. Thankfully that’s not the case for me anymore. The only thing I’m pursuing these days is my greater calling. And I know what is sustaining me on days like today when my physical pain is so great is my faith that I actually have a greater calling at all. Please God continue to guide me in that direction and thank You for when the day arrives when I am free of all this pain…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson