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Metaphysical Law: Giving and Receiving
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.
Quotes from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
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:
"Guide me, Lead me and Show me The Way, Help me to Know, Love, Serve.
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
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. "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.
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.
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.
Quotes from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
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.
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"
Giving and receiving ~ Soulfish
Giving and receiving are inseparable parts of one dynamic energy exchange / flow. I mention often that everything is both good news and bad news because there are different levels to this life experience (what a caterpillar calls the end of the world, God calls a butterfly) - so also, giving and receiving are two different levels / facets of the same dynamic. When one is giving freely from the heart (not the codependent types of giving we learned in childhood, i.e.: giving to try to prove our worth / taking ego strength from giving to someone we feel superior to / giving as a way of manipulating to get what we want), one is giving to Self and Honoring the Spiritual Truth that we are all connected. It is what I call both selfish and Selfish (one of my phone clients who didn't like the word suggested that Soulfish would sound better.)
It is Soulfish because I Know that giving is an act of Love, is Honoring my True Self. Opening to receive is also an Act of Love. Asking for help and allowing someone else to give to me, is giving them the gift of allowing them to Honor and demonstrate Love for their True Self - and for the Truth that we are all ONE.
It is out of Soulfish purpose that I freely share so much information on my web site. In freely giving Love I not only open to Love flowing into my life, but I am also manifesting Love into the Collective Consciousness and reminding you of the Truth of who you really are. The more of you that remember who you Truly are and open up to Love flowing into your life, the closer we get to the Hundredth Monkey Effect that will bring about critical mass in the energy field of Collective Human Intellectual Consciousness and allow us to escape from the polarized thinking that has kept human beings warring on each other for thousands of years. (The New Age - An Age of Healing & Joy)
It is selfish because I know that aligning with Spiritual Truth and Metaphysical Law is what is going to make my life experience less painful and more Joyous in the long run. It is also selfish because writing for this web site has served my recovery - and helped me to bring in enough money through selling my books (and in the last 3 + years, doing phone counseling) to continue to have the freedom to focus on my mission, to devote my time and energy to following my path.
The reality that the book did not become a best seller was a Divine gift. I was forced to keep scrambling for survival - and that forced me to keep working on opening up to receive.
"I got clear on my mission, and dedicated myself to my path after direct encounter I had with some past life Karma, and the revelations that resulted, in August of 1988. Since then I have been committed passionately to learning about Truth, Love, and Joy - and serving as a channel to remind others of the abundance of Love and Joy that is available to us all.
I have learned a great deal about opening to receive through the years. I would never have gotten my book published without the great progress I have made in this area. I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the miracles of manifestation that have flowed into my path. The financial abundance that was needed came from a variety of sources. The major ones have been in the form of people who invested in my book and work, and people who have gifted me with money over the years as a way of thanking me for the impact my work has had on their lives." Joy to You & Me and Joy2MeU Update10-20-2000 Part 2 My situation financially forced me to keep asking for help, to keep working my program, to keep writing for this web site. My book is not a best seller yet because it was not part of the Divine Plan. It was a gift to me to be forced to keep writing for this web site. A Divine gift to my self/Self because of the enormous growth it has sparked in my personal recovery process, and a gift to the thousands - probably tens of thousands - of people around the world whose lives have been changed by reading my book or my words on the internet.
I am very blessed and enormously grateful for my recovery - and for the internet. This website has been an incredible tool and catalyst for my recovery and Spiritual growth. I really don't want to let go of this web site, of being able to have the information out there for anyone who can benefit from it. But I have learned in my recovery that I need to be willing to let go of anything and everything.
I have experienced incredible miracles in my recovery and recently added two pages to my Joy2MeU Journal discussing some of those miracles - and in particular the ones that allowed me to publish Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls.
"A number of people who believed in my book and message invested in the book. Back then in the beginning, and over the years. . . . . . In recent years, angels in human form - who have found my book and message valuable and transformational in their lives - have made donations to the cause / Love offerings / what some called spiritual tithing." - Joy2MeU Journal: The Path of one Recovering Codependent - Leap of Faith ~ Publishing The Dance part 2 It was angels in human form - and other miracles - that have kept this site going and growing over the years. If I am not able to keep the book in print, I will most likely have to let go of this web site eventually. That would make me very sad. I discussed the current situation in the Journal article I published last month (July 2003.)
"I am once again at a place where I do not know if I am going to be able to keep the book in print. I have about 300 copies left of the second printing I did last summer. Those will probably last through September. My financial condition is tenuous because of what it has cost to spend time with my son this summer and the newer car I bought. I have no idea what the future holds. I believe that the money will manifest to keep the book in print, but I am willing to accept whatever the future brings.
"As I talk about on my investment opportunity page, which I quote in the final chapter of my book (referring to online book about terrorist attack), I have learned to let go of thinking I know where my path is heading. I do not put energy any more into thinking that Oprah is going to call, or wondering when I am going to be able to pay off my debts, or get a car that allows me to make a trip out of town without being scared it will break down. I have learned some great and mighty lessons - about living in faith on a moment to moment basis - by driving cars that offered the potential of immanent break down.
My healing path has taught me to keep letting go of the future and just do the next thing in front of me one day at a time. I am very grateful at the end of every month that enough money has manifested to pay the rent. And I am willing to accept being homeless again if that is the path my Higher Power lays in front of me.
I spent 6 months in 1999 being homeless. Not on the street homeless - I had an office for my computer - but crashing on someone's couch kind of homeless. The lessons in acceptance and patience and letting go that I learned during that time were sacred gifts. The level of faith that it forced me to access and practice, the depth to which I was forced to integrate my Spiritual belief system into my relationship with life, was a manifestation of Love from my Higher Power that I am now - and have been - reaping great benefits from.
Don't get me wrong, I do not want to be homeless again - or keep driving a car on it's last legs. But I am willing to accept the reality of my path as it is presented to me and make the best of it. There is a level of my being that is human, that is self-centered and selfish and hates to be inconvenienced by disruption of my plans for me - that feels like it is grossly unfair that: I haven't been richly rewarded materially on this physical plane; that I don't have an intimate relationship to support and nurture me; that I don't have a reliable car; etc. But that human part of me is not the level of my being that is defining my life for me today, that is dictating my perspectives and expectations of life. My relationship with life today, the music I am dancing to, is aligned much more with Spiritual Self - because that is what I have found works best, because it allows me to relax and enjoy life most of the time." - Joy2MeU Update January 2002 Newsletter 1 As usual More Will Be Revealed.
I have gradually let go of expecting - or even wanting really - the book to become a best seller. . . . . . .
. . . . . As I share on my Future Publications page, I believe that I have already been very successful in my mission - that perhaps I am even close to the end of this lifetime. . . . .
"Rather my book is ever a best seller or not, rather it ever even goes into a second printing, does not matter. If I never have more money than just what I need to pay the rent and keep on living one day at a time, is not important. I have already been wildly successful in my mission. My work and my book have been instrumental in creating a new level of understanding in the Collective Human Consciousness. I have contributed to a paradigm shift that helps others to see Truth with more clarity. I have accomplished my mission of reminding others that they can remember the Truth of Love just as I have been led to do - even if I die tomorrow." - Future Publications page It seems to me now, that my book and work will perhaps not start to be widely recognized until after I am gone - perhaps many years after. That does not really bother me. I can accept that. Even when I was thinking it would be a best seller, it was not as a goal but as a means to an end - that end being to spread the message. I have just been following where my path has led me - not trying to get some place. And I was doing it for me, for my healing - because it is what felt necessary for my recovery.
I would really like to be able to keep the book in print, and to bring out more books, but that will happen if it is meant to be. As I said above, I can not really offer an investment opportunity in the book any longer, because I have strong doubts about rather the book will ever be widely popular in my lifetime. . . . . . . So once again I get to work the third step and have put up the page asking for Help. Whether or not anyone is moved to make a Love offering in the form of financial energy does not really matter. I make my Love offering to the world in the form of my web site. It is working, it is accomplishing my mission.
I am crying as I write this today, because of the perfection of my process, of this writing for me. Yesterday in a CoDA meeting I shared about something that happened in the early days of my conscious codependency recovery. There is someplace in my writing that I probably share about this already - though I am not sure. I am sure that someplace I share about how sometimes when I was writing my hand wrote what I needed to see rather than what I thought I was going to write. The instance I am pretty sure I share someplace had to do with writing a letter to my father. I thought the sentence I was writing was going to say:
Why was nothing I ever did good enough for you? What I saw on the page was:
Why was nothing I ever did good enough for me? A breakthrough insight for me. I know that writing that sentence took place in early July 1986. This second significant time this happened - the one I shared about in the CoDA meeting yesterday - was a few weeks after the first, so was probably almost exactly 17 years ago as I write this on July 18, 2003. In that case, I thought the sentence I was writing was going to say:
I feel jealous when I see all the affection other people are getting. What the sentence actually said was:
I feel jealous when I see all the affection other people are giving. Which of course fits perfectly with the line from the song The Rose - whose significance in my recovery I share different places here in the Journal and on Joy2MeU, most recently my June 2003 Update.
It is the one who won't be taken that never learns to give. I have learned to give - and to let go of the outcome. I am awed and humbled and eternally grateful for the gift of my recovery - for the huge rewards I have reaped for following my path. The reason for doing this work is not to get the outcome I desire. The reward is in the quality of my life on a day to day basis - in the ability to have peace within, to access Joy and Love in my day to day life - not in any material or financial or physical reward." - Joy2MeU Journal: The Path of one Recovering Codependent - Leap of Faith ~ Publishing The Dance part 2 (In August of 2008, I added an article excerpted from this story to my site.)
As I stated in the January 2002 Update, I can accept being homeless again if that is my path. I can accept the book going out of print and the web site disappearing from the internet if that is how the Divine Plan unfolds. I obviously have a lot of Karma to settle from past lives, so I don't have to buy into the illusion that all the Love I am putting out to the Universe is not being returned just because more money is not flowing into my life. I Know that I am Unconditionally Loved and I always have been - always will be. I AM a Magnificent Spiritual Being having a Joyous and Abundant Human Adventure. I AM Radiantly Beautiful, Vibrantly Healthy, Joyously Alive and Abundantly Prosperous on all levels. I do not need you to make a donation for my sake - though I would, of course, be very grateful for your help in allowing me to continue doing something I Love to do. Perhaps however, if you resonate with my work, you would find it beneficial to make a donation for your sake - to demonstrate and affirm your alignment with the message of Joy and Love in my work. If you have been able to access some more Love for yourself through reading my words, perhaps sending a little Love my way in the form of money energy will help keep the Love energy flowing into your life.
"Made a decision to ask . . . . The third step is about asking for help - about reaching out. What I know now is that the Universe responds when we reach out. What was so hard for me was learning to ask for help from people who might reject me. What I know now is that it doesn't matter if the person who I ask can help me or not - what matters is that I reach out. When I take a risk, make myself vulnerable by admitting that I can't do it alone - I am aligning with the Universal Laws of Cause and Effect - inhale and exhale." Joy to You & Me Newsletter IV - November-22-98 Asking for help puts energy in motion, and eventually the Universe responds by giving me what I need. Not necessarily, or even often, what I want - what I need. The Universe always meets my needs - even when it doesn't feel like it. What I want is to keep my book in print and to keep this web site active and available. More will be revealed about what the Universal Plan dictates I need on my personal path - "Thy will not my will be done." - Robert August 7, 2003
"If you resonate with my message, and the Universe has provided you with the abundance to make an investment of money energy, that would be great. If the Spirit moves you to align with, and energetically connect yourself to, the Karmic Settlement and Positive energy associated with being a channel for Truth and Love to manifest in the world, then this is an opportunity." Future Publications
I was able to keep my book in print in 2003 and in the years since then through miracles and donations to Joy2MeU. Love offerings and Spiritual tithes are always welcome and very much appreciated. I appreciate that you have even read this page - and if your Spirit moves you to send some money energy this way, I will be very grateful. ~ Robert October 2008
My way in the past of keeping the energy flowing - by sending some Love energy and healing information back your way - has been to gift subscriptions to Dancing in the Light and to the Joy2MeU Journal for donations of a certain amount. I want the energy to flow both ways this year also - so will make the following donations to your cause in return for your donation to the Joy2MeU cause.
Click here to go to Donations.
