Avoiding The News To Maintain My Peace And Serenity

Being that I was fresh out of ideas for a topic to write about in today’s entry, I opted to break the news-free streak I’ve had ever since the Presidential election by taking a quick look at USA Today’s home page. Prior to the election, much of the latest news headlines from places such as this site, were often starting points for many of the articles I’d write for my blog. But that always came at a price, which was a loss of peace and serenity usually due to some tragedy I read about. And unfortunately, I can see that reality continues to hold true for me in just the few minutes I allowed myself to check out today’s most pressing news.

Another terrorist act killed a bunch of people, more murder sprees, tragic accidents, business fraud, political unsettledness, entertainment gossip, negative sports drama, and well you get the gist, as that pretty much sums up the news I read about in under five minutes. None of which made me feel good on any level. That being said, I began to wonder, why do any of us even watch the news if it makes us feel emotions we don’t really like to feel. And why would any of us want to keep tuning into something that frequently only leads into a negative state of thinking?

I know that in my case, I already fend much of that off on a daily basis with the difficult things going on in my own life, so I truly don’t want to add any more of that to the pile. That’s why I feel that maintaining peace and serenity is far more important than knowing what’s going on in the world. Because the fact is, knowing about any of those disturbing headlines has never done anything to increase my peace and serenity nor has it ever improved the quality of my life either. Rather, it’s often worked the exact opposite by adding to my level of frustrations in life.

This is why I long for a world where unconditional love surpasses the selfishness and self-centeredness that still pervades much of it, because when that day comes, I envision newspapers putting headlines out there on hopeful things, uplifting things, and things that help our spirits grow brighter, instead of the dark and depressing things we generally see now.

Can you imagine picking up a newspaper or reading one on the Internet, where every single story is about something wonderful happening somewhere on our planet? I know many would say that’s a pipe dream, one that is just too impossible to achieve. But I remain hopeful, and believe that anything is possible, especially when it comes to channeling the Universal energy of unconditional love.

Nevertheless, before I digress any further from the original context of today’s entry, the bottom line is that it’s just not healthy for me to keep abreast of the latest news. It tends to always work against the grain of what I’m trying to grow in life, that being my level of peace and serenity. And the more I’ve lost my peace and serenity, the harder it’s been for me to feel unconditional love. And the harder it’s been for me to feel unconditional love, the more I’ve ended up contributing to the selfishness and self-centeredness in this world that has made the news precisely what it’s become these days.

So, in light of that, I’m going to look for blog topics in other ways than what the news outlets currently report on, because the last thing I need in life right now is to expose myself to any more negativity than I truly need to. Hopefully in doing so, I’ll be able to maintain a much greater level of peace and serenity…

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

Have You Ever Been Told That You’re Overly Needy?

Have you ever been told that you’re overly needy? I ask this question because one of my friends has been going through this very thing recently with their partner who never seems to be content with what love my friend offers them.

Unfortunately, I have to admit I relate more to my friend’s significant other, given how many times I’ve been told in past relationships how needy I can be. And for the longest time, I blamed each of those who told me this and always thought I was just picking the wrong people to grow close to. But the reality I eventually learned was one that was quite difficult to face.

I was needy because I never received much unconditional love growing up, especially from my mother. The fact is, I tried so hard as a kid to receive her love and never really felt like I got it. So, I constantly searched for that in subsequent relationships with every person I tried to grow close to, hoping to somehow fix the problem that originated in my relationship with her. But in all reality, the only thing that ever happened was me super-imposing the energy of my mother on each of them. And sadly, none of them were ever able to satisfy that void she left behind within me.

I drove a lot of people away from my life because of this behavior, but thankfully, after hearing enough of them tell me how needy I was, I found the desire to work on healing this part of me. To do so, I had to come to a place where I learned to love spending more time with myself, where it was ok to be alone. And that’s a hard thing to do when one spends most of their life pining for someone else’s love all in the hopes that it will fix the love they never received as a kid.

While I’m still working on this in my current relationship, I’ve definitely gotten much better. I do enjoy spending a lot more time alone nowadays, often in the solace of writing in my blog, doing puzzles, reading books, going to the movies, or simply just sitting in nature. In each of those situations, I’ve learned to love and nurture the parts of me that my mother never could.

Because the bottom line is that no person, place, or thing in this world will ever be able to give me enough love to replace that which was mostly absent from my past. It is only through learning to love myself and filing my emptiness with God have I ever felt that void disappear.

So, if by some chance, you are someone like me who been told more than once over the years that you’re needy, try working on figuring out who it was that was first in your life to never give you the unconditional love you truly deserved. Next, work on forgiving them once you’ve figure that out and finally, and most importantly, start spending more time alone. As in doing so, you’ll realize that loveless void can and will be filled by you and your Higher Power like no one else ever could.

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

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