4:19 am Wednesday November 12, 2008:  I am having some difficulty getting traction in writing this Newsletter.  There are several reasons for that I believe.  One is that there are some issues I need to process about that I really would rather avoid (and it is possible I will be making some revelations and declarations that scare the crap out of me.)  A second is that I am going to be writing about 3 different - but intimately interrelated - themes:  My personal life and relationships;  the Landmark Forum;  and the personal issues that I am faced with at this point in my recovery adventure.  I am trying to get some clarity in how to structure this so that it will be most beneficial for those of you who are taking the time to read this - and at the same time I am realizing that this Newsletter may in a way mark the end of an era.

I have been processing online now for a decade.  Sharing my experience, strength, and hope - my recovery process with anyone who has access to the internet.  I guess in some ways I was blogging before there were such things as blogs.

"I guess it is pretty weird to be processing here on my computer and then sending it out for the world to read - but that is what I do.  The Truth is so powerful and wonderful and by doing the process work we get to start being allies with the Spirit where Love lives instead of with the disease where fear rules." - Joy to You & Me Update/Newsletter 11-22-98

In that November 1998 Newsletter I said a bit about the style of writing that I was developing for the internet - basically that of an indulgent writer with out an editor.  It was at that time that I also kind of came out of hiding - disengaged my cloaking devices as it were - in terms of limiting access to some of my more controversial writing.  (That was also the Newsletter that started me plunging into dealing with my fear of intimacy issues - something I am sure we will get to later.)  (The Question and Answer pages that I refer to in this quote were the idea I had that later provided an example of how to set internal boundaries in the article Setting Boundaries with inner children.)

"The next major change is that I have put a link to my question and answer pages on my Home Page for the first time.  When I first started doing the question and answer pages a few months ago I only gave the address out to you all on my mailing list.  I was a little leery about making them available to the general public for several reasons:

1.  I talk about some pretty controversial stuff from a perspective that can be upsetting to some people.  I was working on the page about Jesus and Mary Magdalene at that time and was not sure I wanted to put it out there for everyone to see.  As it turns out I am very proud of that page - I personally think it is quite Masterful - and I feel sorry for anyone who reads it with such a closed mind or rigid belief system that they would feel the need to react negatively.  (By the way, I never got a reply from the person who asked the question - but when I sent out the next update the one to that person got returned as barred from that address - sad.)  Also, though in the past I have found myself showing great resistance to being out there in front as a target - I have now come to a level of acceptance such that it would even be ok if they burned me at the stake again - I want all of the Karma settled, whatever that takes.

2.  I have been scared to death that my book editor Heidi who lives in Taos New Mexico would discover them and what she would do would probably be worse than burning at the stake.   In explanation of what I am talking about - here is the disclaimer that I just placed at the top of my indexQA page:

(For any of you that have not read my update/newsletters, the one for 8-23-98 explains that I am enjoying the freedom of approaching these Q & A pages and updates in a very casual fashion when it comes to grammar and punctuation - including allowing myself to end sentences with prepositions - so if it bothers you, it can be a wonderful opportunity to practice letting go and not throwing the baby out with the bath water. :-) )

So now I have so much courage and faith that I am not only willing to face the mob again - but also to face Heidi if I have to.  (One of those prepositions-oh well.) The index page for the question and answer pages is now out there for the world to see - so More Will Be Revealed." - Joy to You & Me Update/Newsletter 11-22-98

I have had a few people over the years who were editors or proofreaders or grammar teacher express some horror at my style - or more subtly offer to edit for me.  The thing that really marks my style as it evolved however, was created by the unique experience that is the internet - and that is my ability to include quotes and links within the articles.  Thus I ended up writing very long articles that included internal quotes and links.  Something I described in one Newsletter as Dancing in the Labyrinth.

"As I said in the Update part of this Newsletter, my process, and especially my writing, can be like finding my way through a labyrinth.  (And it just occurred to me, may be what some people's experience of my web site is like.;-)

Writing about this level of recovery for me is like exploring some kind of labyrinth at times - each twist and turn I follow leads to a new perspective, to a different facet - and just when I think I am finished, I turn a corner and am headed back into the maze. - Joy2MeU Update 5-23-01

I have periods where I can't write at all - and then when I need to write, I have great resistance to getting started.  (As I have talked about in past Update Newsletters.)   Then I have periods that are a kind of creative frenzy, where it feels as if I can't write fast enough to get all that is pouring out onto paper (Computer screen.)

I have been in one of those creative frenzies for some weeks now.  This most recent journey into the writing labyrinth has really gotten out of hand.  Out of my control that is (as if I am ever in control of the process) - and that is why this Newsletter that I promised before the end of May is only ready now.

Once the floodgates open, what I try to do, is direct the flow of my writing towards the goal I have in mind.  An article focused on a specific area, or my Update Newsletter or whatever.  I have some points I want to make, and I choose a starting point and then leap into the labyrinth.

However:

because of the multiple levels involved in the subject areas I write about; 
because a topic can be viewed in very different ways from different perspectives; 
because writing about a topic can be very different than writing about the process of recovery in relationship to that topic;
because writing about any topic from one perspective leads me into new perspectives, new levels of understanding, and related topics;
because I am processing about my own personal recovery process while writing;

the flow of the writing often jumps out of my intended channel into a completely different, but intimately related channel.  Same tree, different branch." - May 2001 Update Newsletter

These long articles - which as I was afraid, this one is becoming - were not only long for the reasons listed but also because - as I said in my Metaphysics of Emotions article: "Another reason my articles get so long is because I want to qualify statements so that they don't come across as if I were saying what is right and what is wrong."  I had mentioned earlier in that article that:  "One of the reasons that many of my articles get very long (as this one obviously is;-), is because there are so many levels involved in this experience of being human - and I catch myself wanting to explain those levels and how they relate to each other.  I try to communicate about multiple perspectives from the metaphysical and Cosmic down to and including how the process looks and feels on a personal level.  It can get pretty complicated."

It is a style that some people love and others can't stand.  (My partner Susan is one of the people who can't stand it.;-)  It was a style that worked very well for me.  

"In the evolution of my writing for the internet (which I will touch on in the additional page I will be adding) I ended up finding it invaluable to my recovery, and very valuable to many people reading my site, to process in writing.  The way things evolved, I ended up demonstrating processing - and role modeling that it is okay to be human - by writing on an intimate level about my recovery process.  There have always been many people who found it valuable, but also some who found it irritating.  There was one person who referred to it as babble.

"The processing I did last June (in my Update Newsletters) and July (here in this journal) got me in touch with one way I was setting myself up to be unavailable for romantic relationship.  I realized in writing this, that I hadn't ever really summed those realizations up very well.  I tend to get off into explanations of the process - which is helpful to readers I hope - and kind of lose track of the issues I am processing about for a while anyway, though I usually end up back at them.  Sorry, about that.  One of my phone counseling clients the other day - a person who has found a wealth of help in reading my pages and has described the phone counseling experience as making the words from my book and site kind of leap off the page and come alive for him - mentioned that there was one of my pages where I just kind of seemed to be babbling.  I am pretty sure he was talking about one of the Newsletter pages where I was processing - since he doesn't subscribe to this Journal.  Perhaps that is what my processing pages - in this journal, and in certain Update Newsletters - comes across as.   Hopefully, you all do find this babble useful. ;-)" -   - Joy2MeU Journal:  The Path of one Recovering Codependent ~ the dance of one wounded soul My Unfolding Dance 13 July 2, 2002

As I said above, if you don't like my indulgent style of processing - if you have ADD or something - then go in peace and blessed be.  I am going to keep doing what works for me - and hopefully being able to communicate to the people that do get my writing, that codependency recovery is a holistic, multi-faceted experience.  Recovery is an ongoing dance of uncovering and discovering - and ongoing dance of working to try to stay in balance enough to find some enjoyment in this life journey.  We need to keep paying attention and trying to stay conscious of the things we have some control over - at the same time we are learning to relax, let go of the things we can't control, and trust the Spirit to guide us where we need to go." - Joy2MeU March 2007 Update

And I think in terms of the web articles (as I came to call them, as opposed to articles with no links in them) - they have been very helpful to many people.  Those are the articles in which I am trying to communicate information, as opposed to the personal journal articles in my Joy2MeU Journal and some of the Newsletters where I am focused more on my personal process.

Not that I am not trying to communicate information in those processing pieces, but they are more personally focused and less focused on the topic / subject / theme of the informational articles.  I include sharing about my personal recovery in my informational articles also - but not the kind of personal processing that I do in my journal or Newsletters.  Actually, as I think about it, the Attack on America book turned into a very personal work that included a good bit of personal processing also.

In any case, I think the two articles that I just posted about the Law of Attraction and the Metaphysics of Emotions will probably be the last two of those kind of informational articles - and this Newsletter may be the last of that type of personal process sharing pieces.

There are several reasons for that - the primary one being that I don't have the time and energy to focus on writing these days.

"In order to write I need to get into a focused space during a time which I won't get interrupted for a period of hours.  In the years when I wrote so much of the material that is on my site - the years that I was living alone in relative isolation - I would get up at 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning to write until 10 or 11.  Now that I have a family - and a 2 year old to take care of - the early morning hours are the only time I have to really write.  But I only have uninterrupted time until about 6:30 or 7 when the baby wakes up, and then I need to start getting Darien ready to go to the Montessori school he has been attending.  I didn't get any writing done yesterday morning because the little man has a tooth coming in and had a very rough night of it - which meant less sleep for Susan and I, and no writing time." - Joy2MeU March 2007 Update

As much as I love this process of writing while I am in it - and as valuable as it has been to me - I just don't have the time and energy for it any more.  The reality is I can do whatever writing I need to do to process through issues on my own - and it would be pretty short and to the point because I wouldn't have to be worried about trying to communicate about - to paraphrase an AA phrase - where I was, what happened, and where I am now.  That is a lot of what the quotes and links that I add are about - providing context for you the reader, while also reviewing where I have been for me (which was very valuable to me.)

As has been the case for me with so many of the tools that have aided my recovery, they work for awhile and are invaluable in that period - but eventually that period is past and those particular tools aren't as valuable and useful to me as they once were.  Things keep changing in recovery - getting different.  The process dynamics stay the same, but the tools and techniques can change and evolve.

The other reasons is one that I referred to above: "It is probably also my last Update Newsletter in this format."  I started posting these Updates online and sending out a short e-mail announcement because they got so large.  They got too large to be sending out as an e-mail.

Now that we are getting the new sites going, I expect that I will be using the template available to send out the Update Newsletter - and it will be fairly short because no one likes to get huge e-mail Newsletters.  I will also be focus on writing shorter articles for the new web sites in all likelihood.  Many of the articles on my site are shorter.  Those are the ones that I originally wrote for one of several recovery newspaper and later for the Suite101 Directory.  Those articles were supposed to be limited to about 1000 words - although I often went over that limit.

As I said in one of the first articles I wrote for one of the recovery newspapers I wrote for years ago:

"Codependence and recovery are both multi-leveled, multi-dimensional phenomena. It is very easy for me to write hundreds of pages about any single aspect of codependence and recovery what is very difficult and painful is to write a short column. No facet of this topic is linear and one-dimensional, so there is no simple answer to any one question - rather there are a multitude of answers to the same question, all of which are True on some level." - Empowerment and Victimization - the power of choice

My web articles have served me well in writing about the multi-leveled phenomena of codependency and recovery. But I think I will be focusing in the future on shorter articles that are focused on trying to communicate to people how to set the internal boundaries that I share about in my inner child healing pages and teach people in my telephone counseling and Intensive workshops.

The Intensive workshops have proven to be such a good venue for teaching that internal boundary formula that I have evolved ways of explaining them that use language and examples and such that I haven't ever used in writing.  So, I think that is where my writing is going to go in the future.  

I don't know how many hours of sleep deprivation it is going to take to finish this Newsletter, but since it is probably the last one, I am going to indulge myself and follow it where it takes me.  It is possible that I will be posting this before it is finished - that is, with just this part and the part about the Landmark Forum included this week, since I promised it in the two new articles on the 14th - and already added links to it on those pages and the site index page.  That will give me time to do the personal processing part - which definitely won't be finished by Friday - and add that later.

Here are some excerpts from some of the messages I have posted to my e-mailing list on Yahoo.  To sign up go to Joy_2_Me_U on Yahoo. Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:57 am  "Birthdays - bah humbug" "There was also some amusement about how much my life has changed, and how it would not have been possible for me a couple of years ago to have imagined the changes to come. I certainly could not in my wildest dreams have imagined the blessed gift of getting to raise a little boy. Darien is closer to 4 now than 3 - and continues to evolve as the amazing being that he is. I couldn't have imagined living in a city again, or being in the relationship that I have with Susan. It is all quite remarkable how the script has unfolded. I remember thinking as I was walking on the ranch back in April about something I have been pointing out to people since the Secret came out - that is, that the Law of Karma trumps the Law of Attraction, and we cannot create "anything" we want in life. Which is actually quite a gift, because so often what we think we want is so much less than we could ever have come up with it on our own." "Oh yea, about my birthday. I am not looking forward to it, and not happy about it. Next Wednesday July 23rd, I turn 60. I feel like crying when I write that. I can't be 60!!!!!!!! That is unthinkable!!! How did that happen???!!!!"  Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:12 am  "I am so blessed" "Well the good news is that I got the new computer my sister sent me (an iMac with a large screen  - it is amazing how they can fit the computer workings into such a small space these days;-) - and it is great. The bad news is that transferring my data from my old computer I screwed up and froze the old computer.  I was eventually able to get someone to take out the hard drive and transfer the data - but I did lose all my e-mail files and addresses and bookmarks.  It is weird not having the e-mail files that I could always look back on to see when someone first contacted me, or what they had communicated to me previously - even to know if a person had contacted me before at all.  Luckily - in one of those perfect Cosmic Coincidences of timing - I had transferred almost all of my e-mail list to Jeff (the guy who made the CDs and is designing the new web sites.)  He has a new e-mailing program set up for Joy2MeU that will be sending out a new look Newsletter sometime soon - announcing the new stuff that will be available.   I may have lost a handful of e-mail addresses, but that is all - so that is good. . . . . . . . . Well, what I did in the meantime was to have ( as I say on Metaphysical Law: Giving and Receiving http://Joy2MeU.com/Spiritual_Tithes.htm ) ". . . an awesome, terribly solitary, gloriously amazing adventure for me.  An incredibly painful, transcendently Joyous, intermittently terrifying, unbelievably fulfilling journey."  And during that journey I wrote and published an incredible book along with several million words in articles for my website. This was not a plan I made or could even have imagined.  That I would now, just after my 60th birthday, be in a relationship and raising an amazing little being named Darien - and still being given the opportunity to practice the humility to ask for help - was not part of any picture I had of the future.  I am so grateful for Susan and the opportunity to be involved in the incredibly Joyous experience of raising this incredible little boy with her.  I am not so grateful that I am still in a position of having to ask for help.  But the gifts I have received over the years from being willing to follow where I am led and let go of the outcome help me to accept what is, be grateful for all that I have and have been given, and just keep following where I am led.  I am leading a very Blessed life." Tue Sep 9, 2008 9:19 am "Interesting weekend" "I had an interesting weekend - 3 day one actually.  From 9 am to 10 pm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I was in the Landmark Forum Education Seminar.  They have a method and formula for dealing with the childhood wounding and programming that is quite interesting and effective in breaking through the denial of people who wouldn't even consider going to therapy or  looking at life from a Spiritual Perspective.  It is a paradigm that contains a lot of Truth and Power, although it isn't quite a large enough paradigm for me personally.  There was a lot of good information, as well as useful tools and perspectives presented however.  I will be processing the experience and seeing what impact it has on my personal process and in my work in the coming days - and will be writing about it.  I hope to have a new Update Newsletter out this month that I will share that processing in - as well as news about the new sites and e-book and all." Sat Nov 8, 2008 6:10 pm "Two new articles posted" "PS I have about 10 phone clients who have had to stop their work for now because of the economic crisis.  Things are pretty desperate at the moment.  If anyone out there has the resources, I could sure use a loan of a couple thousand dollars."

Joy, Love, and Abundance to You & Me,
Robert - 11/14/08

I never did get a Newsletter written to go with this Update (one of these days maybe) - so next Update is April 2009 Update Newsletter

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The Law of Attraction - Misunderstood & Misinterpreted and The Metaphysics of Emotions - emotional energy is real