For All My Relations
I share my Truth and myself, as a Joyous expression of my Spiritual Being, because it is what I need to do for me. Giving and receiving is what keeps the healing energy flowing for me. I have learned that through giving of what I have received I am healing me.
This is my way of standing up for my Truth, and of honoring "All My Relations," which is a Native American term that refers to the Great Spirit whose essence is present in everyone and everything. We are all related to everyone and everything.
I do this in honor and service to my belief that the ultimate, eternal, blessed Truth is that we are all ONE. That we are all perfect parts of the ONENESS of ALL THAT IS - which is the Universal Creative God-Force.
I share as an expression of Love, as an act of Karmic settlement, and with hope that sharing the Joy that I have found in my Truth will remind you of the Truth which exists within you. Of the Truth of who you Truly are, and why you are here.
Fifteen years ago this month - in August 1988 - some incredible, unbelievable, indescribable events occurred in my life that I believe revealed to me my Karmic mission and purpose in this lifetime. Since that time I have devoted my life to carrying out that mission because it is what I needed to do for me and my Spiritual Path / Recovery. In the first issue of my Joy2MeU Journal which I published in April of 1999, I shared my daily prayers and affirmations on one of the pages. Those prayers and affirmations were a symbol of my commitment to, and a tool in helping me align with, what I believe is my mission - to share my Truth. They included the following:
Thank you of letting me be: a Channel of thy Truth, an Instrument of thy Peace, a Tool of thy Will."
My Daily Prayers and Affirmations Joy2MeU Journal Premier Issue
The last 15 years have been an awesome, terribly solitary, gloriously amazing adventure for me. An incredibly painful, transcendently Joyous, intermittently terrifying, unbelievably fulfilling journey. The message that I got in August of 88, the karmic settlement that I committed my life to, involved taking responsibility. It specifically involved being willing to stand up in public and state my Truth even if everyone in the world said I was crazy. That commitment led me to give a talk in June of 1991 that evolved into my book Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls.
Through some incredible miracles and the appearance of some angels in human form, I was able to self publish Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls in late 1995 (actually getting the books delivered from the printer on November 30th 95, though the official publication date is January 1996.) I believed the book contained Truth that so many spiritual seekers were desperate for - and because of that, it would quickly become a best seller. That didn't happen. I didn't have the money to promote the book in a major way, the chain stores never picked up the book, and sales fell off drastically after the first full year it was available because I had no way to reach the audience that could appreciate it. Sales went from over 800 copies in the first year to a little over 300 in 1998 - the year I started my first crude web site on silcom.com. I launched Joy2MeU.com a year later in February of 1999 - but had only a slight rise in book sales (to about 450) for that calendar year. The following year, thanks to my increasing presence on the internet, sales rose to almost 1300 books. 2001 was over 1400 and 2002 over 1500.
Last summer I ran out of the first printing of my books and thanks again to a couple of angels in human form, was able to do a second printing of 1500 books. I am probably going to run out of this printing of books in late September. That is why I am posting this page - as a way of sending a request out into the Universe for the financial resources to keep my book in print. This page is an action that I am taking to work the third step of my twelve step spiritual program.
" Ask and ye shall receive.
Seek and ye shall find.
Knock and the door shall be opened.
ASK. By asking - either God or another person - I am setting energy in motion in the Universe. Once the energy is in motion it comes back to me at some time from some place. I have to put it out before it will come back. What I sow I reap. The Universes works on the principle of cause and effect. It is very important for me to get proactive in my own life by taking the risk of asking for help - and it is much easier when I can let go of my picture of how, and when, that help is going to manifest." - The Miracle of The Twelve Step Recovery Process: 1, 2, 3, and a 1, 2, 3 - The first three steps
Learning to have the humility and courage to ask for help was a vital component for me in learning to live life sober. I understand now that asking for help is an act of Love for my self, is part of taking responsibility for myself because I cannot do it alone - I was never meant to do it alone.
In my codependency, I was terrified of asking for help because I was terrified of rejection - and also, because I thought it made me a loser. I though I was supposed to have it all together and that it was shameful to appear needy - that it was "weak" to ask for help. The toxic shame at the core of my relationship with my self - the feeling that I was inherently unlovable and unworthy - caused me to have great difficulty in asking for, or accepting, help from others. I did not even know how to accept a simple compliment - let alone any substantial demonstration that another person believed that I did indeed have worth.
"My resistance to opening up to receive Love would cause me to minimize positive feedback by telling myself that the other person wanted something from me, or was just being kind, or whatever. I spent several years in recovery practicing saying just plain "Thank You." Instead of minimizing (oh it was nothing), joking it away, turning it back on them (oh you are really the one who ___), or dismissing it because I suspected the other persons motives or mental health. The feeling deep within was that if someone was loving and positive towards me, it was either a sinister plot or there must be something wrong with them." - Joy to You & Me and Joy2MeU Update10-20-2000
One of the biggest issues for all recovering codependents is learning how to open up to receive, to start owning on a gut / emotional level that we deserve to receive. Human beings are not damned with an n. We are emotionally dammed. Dammed up, blocked up - which is what causes us to feel damned with an n.
In twelve step recovery I learned that being willing to ask for help was necessary for me to learn and grow. And that by asking for help, I was giving another person an opportunity to be of service - so that by being open to receive help, I was actually giving them the opportunity to give to me.
In recovery I learned that in giving - sharing my experience, strength, and hope - I received the gift of being able to stay sober one day at a time. It was working a twelve step program that taught me that by giving I was receiving - that giving worked to make my life better.
I did not realize then that I was aligning with Metaphysical Law, I just discovered that being of service and asking for help were part of a formula that allowed me to escape from the hell my life had been before I got into recovery. Twelve step recovery is such a wonderful gift because it can help people to align with Metaphysical Law - help people to start living life from a spiritual perspective instead of the dysfunctional perspectives of life that we learned in childhood.
The Metaphysical Law of Karma - of cause and effect / giving and receiving / what you sow you reap - is what governs this life experience we are having. Giving and receiving are two parts of one dynamic - like breathing. As a friend of mine who is a New Thought minister says, "to say giving is more Blessed than receiving is like saying exhaling is more Blessed than inhaling." Just as breath needs to flow in and out, so too does energy need to flow - on all levels, including emotional energy. Blocking the flow of any energy, whether it is money energy or emotional energy, is dysfunctional.
And all energy is ultimately, on the highest level LOVE energy. Stopping the flow of energy, blocks the flow of Love.
Once I started accepting that I was powerless to control life out of ego self, I started to access the power to be a positive co-creator in my life through my Spiritual Self. My Spiritual Self is the part of me that Knows intuitively that we are all connected - that we are all ONE In LOVE. My Spiritual Self Knows that in giving to others, I am acknowledging our Divine Connection and honoring my Self. The more I was able to stop my ego defenses from blocking energy flow, the more I opened up to the flow of Love from my Spirit. The more I honor my Self, the more I receive the Love that I have been starved for my whole life.
"I realized that this is what I had done for much of my life - tried to take self worth from being a 'nice guy' or from a princess or from becoming a 'success.' As I started awakening to what Love is not, I could then start exploring to discover the True Nature of Love. I started consciously realizing that this is what I had always been seeking - that my Great Quest in life is to return home to LOVE.
LOVE is the answer. Love is the key. The Great Quest in life is for the Holy Grail that is the True nature of Love." The True Nature of Love - part 1, what Love is not"