Abundant Spirituality + codependency recovery + inner child healing + Love = Joy2MeU Joy2MeU Home Page

In my last Update I mentioned that I hoped I would not be having to ask for help this year in keeping my book in print.

"Once of the complications that will need to be addressed is that the inventory of my books is rapidly decreasing - so I will need to figure out some way to do another reprint if I am going to stay in business.  Hopefully I won't have to send out the same type of appeal for Help to you all on my mailing list that I had to at the beginning of this year Help in keeping my book in print - or in 2003: Metaphysical Law: Giving and Receiving ~ Donations / Love Offerings.  But if I have to do that I will.  I do hope that it isn't necessary this time.  I have learned great and wonderful lessons in being able to ask for help and be open to receiving on my Spiritual Path - and I know that it has been very important to many people to be able to feel that they are giving something back, and contributing to spreading the message of Love that my book and work is based upon - but I would prefer to not have to ask for help that way again." - November 2006 Update

Well, guess what - I needed to surrender again.  I do need help.  Similar to last year, the printing process has been begun and I have put down a partial payment - but I need to come up with a substantial amount of money ($1700) to get the books delivered.  The good news is that paper - or something - must be cheaper this year, because I am getting 3000 books printed this year for about the same amount I got 2100 for last year.

I am down to about a case and a half of books left - of the 2100 that I picked up at the end of February last year - and just got an order from my National Distributor for a case.   So, unless I withhold that case for awhile, I probably have enough books to fill orders for about 2 weeks.  The new printing should be ready in about 10 days (as usual the Cosmic timing is perfect - though it feels to me like I only get to find out the plan at the last second.)  I actually had thought it was going to take longer and give me more time to get the money together - although that was kind of magical thinking because I didn't have any real idea where it was going to come from.;-)

In other words, I have known that I would probably need to ask for help for a couple of weeks now but have been procrastinating about doing it.  And I realized last night in looking over the following quote from my Donations page, that I was procrastinating because on some level I was feeling like a loser for asking again.  That was a major red flag - that word.  (Underlining in quote added for emphasis.)

"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.

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."  - Metaphysical Law: Giving and Receiving ~ Donations / Love Offerings

I realized that I was not taking an action to try to create more abundance energy flowing into my life because my disease was causing me to judge and shame myself for needing help again.  "Loser" is a definite critical parent voice message - definitely coming from the disease, not from any healthy part of me.  And I knew when I recognized that "loser" feeling, that judging and shaming myself for needing financial help was covering up something deeper - that it was a symptom.

As I am writing this today, I see the quote from my October 2000 Update within the quote above - and marvel once more at the perfection of how my process unfolds to allow me to uncover and discover so that I can recover.  In that Update, I talk about how my issues with money are directly related to, and driven by, my fear of intimacy issues.  In one of the first articles I had published in 1995, I wrote about how intimately my fear of intimacy issues are related to my issues with money - and how at the core of my wounding is a little boy who feels defective and unlovable. (And once again rereading this article, I get to shed some tears for that little boy that feels like a such a loser and failure.)

"I have been going through a transformation one more time in my recovery.  Each time that I need to grow some more - need to surrender some more of who I thought I was in order to become who I am - I get to peel another layer of the onion.  Each time this happens I get to reach a deeper level of honesty and see things clearer than I ever have before.  Each time, I also get to release some of the emotional energy through crying and raging.

Through clearer eyes, and with deeper emotional honesty, I get to look at all of my major issues again to heal them some more.  I used to think that I could deal with an issue and be done with it - but now I know that is not the way the healing process works.  So recently I have gotten the opportunity to revisit my issues of abandonment and betrayal, of deprivation and discounting.  My issues with my mother and father, with my gender and sexuality, with money and success.  My issues with the God I was taught about and the God-Force that I choose to believe in.  My patterns of self-abusive behavior that are driven by my emotional wounds - and the attempts that I make to forgive myself for behavior that I have been powerless over.  And they all lead me back to the core issue.  I am not worthy.  I am not good enough.  Something is wrong with me.

At the core of my relationship is the little boy who feels unworthy and unlovable.  And my relationship with myself was built on that foundation.  The original wounding caused me to adapt attitudes and behavior patterns which caused me to be further traumatized and wounded - which caused me to adapt different attitudes and behavior patterns which caused me to be further traumatized and wounded in different ways.  Layer upon layer the wounds were laid - multifaceted, incredibly complex and convoluted is the disease of Codependence.  Truly insidious, baffling and powerful.

Through revisiting the eight year old who I was I get to understand on a new level why I have always been attracted to unavailable people - because the pain of feeling abandoned and betrayed is the lesser of two evils.  The worst possible thing, to my shame-based inner children, is to have revealed how unworthy and unlovable I am - so unworthy that I abandoned and betrayed my best friend, Shorty the shorthorn calf that I loved and who seemed to love me back.  It is no wonder that at my core I am terrified of loving someone who is capable of loving me back.

By owning and honoring the feelings of the child who I was, I can do some more work on letting him know that it wasn't his fault and that he deserves forgiveness.  That he deserves to be Loved.

So today, I am grieving once more for the eight year old who was trapped, and for the man he became.  I am grieving because if I don't own that child and his feelings - then the man will never get past his terror of allowing himself to be loved.  By owning and cherishing that child, I am healing the broken heart of both the child and the man - and giving that man the opportunity to one day trust himself enough to love someone as much as he loved Shorty." - Grief, Love, & Fear of Intimacy

And that is what I am seeing right now - that my terror of intimacy has risen it's ugly head and has been doing a number on me.   I have been allowing myself to focus upon the "stress" of the financial situation as an excuse to be distracted and not present in my relationship with Susan.  And I have been using my precious step grandson / God son Darien as part of my camouflage for doing that.

And right now I am working on not beating myself up for this, because it is my codependency that has been causing this.  We are at a place in our relationship that I have never been in a romantic relationship before, and I am terrified of opening up to the next level of intimacy .  The monster terror at the core of my codependency has been having way too much control of the way I have lived my life recently - for sure since we moved, and probably it was impacting me for a while before that.

What I just saw clearly in the writing I have done this morning, is that as Susan has been courageously working her recovery program - which has helped her to become more available emotionally and more Loving to me - my deep seeded terror of Loving someone who is capable of Loving me back has caused me to become less available to her.  That is really crappy - but it is also basic codependency.  It is easy to be available and Loving to two year old Darien - it is terrifying to the deepest parts of me to be available for an intimate adult romantic relationship.  As a little boy I felt that my father raged at me because I was defective and unlovable - and I felt like a failure and loser because I was not able to protect my mother from my father.  To my ego, to open up my heart to being Loved by someone who is capable of Truly Loving me, is a set up to fail - will just reveal how shameful and unworthy I truly am.

Incredible!!!  I am writing this early on the morning of January 10th, and just uncovered the Cosmic Plot that has been guiding my path.  More has just been revealed to me about how the Universe has manipulated me to put me right where I am at in this moment.  I have just transferred most of what I have written in the last few hours to what is going to be my February Update Newsletter.  It started to get long and complicated - as it always does when I am processing in writing - and as usual, is unfolding perfectly for my recovery process.  I do Love doing this process writing - and am promising myself right now, that I will make the time to do more this coming year.

Suffice it to say, for right now, that in that February Update I will share with you how my codependency has been causing me to sabotage my relationship - and how my devious Higher Power has orchestrated it all perfectly to put me at the brink of a huge breakthrough.  It is possible right now for me to choose to take some actions that will be the next steps in opening my heart to someone who is capable of Loving me back.  This is so exciting!!!!!  Also TERRIFYING!!!!!  Another "empty handed leap into the Void" milestone surrender on my Spiritual Path.

So, I will be posting that Update in early February.  Right now I need some help financially.  I am seeing clearly how perfectly my path has been unfolding to help me to uncover another level where I have been powerless because my fear of intimacy issues - so obviously me asking for help right now must also be a perfect part of the Divine Plan.  I will repeat here what I wrote last year.

"So, I am asking.  Pleading.  Begging.  Imploring you and the Universe for help here.  If you have found the quality of your life improved by reading my book or website, by listening to my tapes or doing telephone counseling - please, please, send a little Love my way to help me keep Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls in print.  If you can give $10, $20, $50, whatever - it will be greatly appreciated. . . . .

I appeal to anyone out there whose Spirit guides them to do some Spiritual Tithing - if my book, tapes, or site has helped you in your Spiritual Awakening and recovery process, please lend a hand.  I will be very grateful to anyone who can help keep Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls in print." - Help in keeping my book in print

I am in the process of trying to find space to do my inner child healing grief groups as I talked about in my last Update - and hope to have them going in a couple of weeks.  I will be announcing future dates for my Intensive workshops here in San Diego in the next week or so.  And there are some exciting developments with a project to record some new CDs (mentioned at the end of the last Update) and a new version of the web site is under construction - both developments that hopefully will be part of supplying the abundance to make it possible to not have to ask for help next year.

But right now I do need help.  So, I am asking for your help because it is necessary action for me to take to be Loving to my self - and to affirm that I am in fact Lovable and worthy.  That I do deserve to be Loved.  I need to own that I am Lovable so I can start being more available to be Loved and Loving in my relationship.

I am Lovable and worthy - and am affirming that Truth to the Universe through this page.  I am a Magnificent Spiritual Being having a human experience.  Whether or not anyone responds to this appeal doesn't determine my worth - because my worth is inherent in my connection to the ONENESS of ALL THAT IS.  Just as you are Lovable and inherently worthy because you too are a Magnificent Spiritual Being who is an expression of, and extension of, The Divine.  That is my belief, my Truth, as I state in the beginning of my book.

"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." - Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls

Perhaps your Spirit will guide you to take an action to show your gratitude if my work has helped you become more Loving to your self - by sending some Love energy back my way and helping me keep my book in print.  I will greatly appreciate any support and validation you are guided to share with me.  Thanks.

Anyone who makes a donation of $20 or more can choose between a subscription to the Joy2MeU Journal or the Dancing in Light pay to view section of the site.

People who donates $50 or more, can choose between subscriptions to both the Journal and Dancing sections - or a spiral bound version of my inner child e-book - Inner Child Healing The Path to Empowerment, Inner Peace, and Freedom from the Past.  This is a hard copy of the 23 articles that make up that e-book - and is not something that I sell.  It is something that I have copies made to include in the handouts for my Intensive Training Day workshops.  So I will mail a copy of this publication to anyone who donates $50 or more - or to people who already have subscriptions to those two sections of my site and this year donate $25 or more.

Anyone that donates $100 or more can have access to the two subscription areas - and will be send the booklet with the inner child articles.

Anyone that donates $125 or more is invited to come as my guest to one of my Intensive Training Day seminars in San Diego.

It is also possible to use PayPal to make a donation by clicking this button:

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