Yesterday I send out this announecemnt - and posted it on Facebok.
7/20/2011 - In Celebration of my 39th birthday* and the publication of my new book I am offering special prices for the new book:
Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in The Light
Book 1 Empowerment, Freedom, and Inner Peace through Inner Child Healing
(aka A Formula for Spiritual Integration and Emotional Balance)
including offering it with super low phone counseling prices & a special deal on next Intensive Training Day. (Offers are on this page: http://joy2meu.com/Robert_Birthday.html)
And I am putting out a message to the Universe - trumpeting and broadcasting** - that I am open to receiving financial gifts for my birthday. http://joy2meu.com/Third_Step.html
* My 39th birthday was actually in 1987 - and proved a turning point in my recovery.
"It wasn't until I set myself up to feel abandoned and betrayed on my birthday (one of my old regular patterns for special days) that I became willing to do the emotional healing - and started actively pursuing emotional healing.” - The Story of Joy to You & Me
That birthday not only put me in enough pain that I was willing to actively dive into the emotional healing but also brought the intervention of a Psychic messenger (part of the JoyStory) who planted the seeds of Joy to You & Me, Joy2MeU, and the image of my inner child as my wounded soul - and was the first person to tell me that I was a Spiritual Being having a Human Experience.
"The first time a messenger came to me carrying the message, the reminder, that I was a Spiritual Being having a human experience, I got really angry. My first reaction was anger. My first thought was, “That means that I've got to be out among them.”
I never wanted to be out among you-all. I always wanted to go up on a mountain and meditate my way to God. What I have learned in this healing process is that I find God through "being out among them," through my human relationships. We are here to learn to relate to each other. We are here to learn to Love ourselves and each other." - Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
So, you can see that was a pretty important birthday to me.
** As I was writing the above, "putting out a message" wasn't nearly strong enough to describe what I was feeling. The word that came to mind was bellow - which reminded me of Moose Medicine and led me to this quote from my November 2002 Update Newsletter.
"So, I once again reaffirm my commitment to being an ally with the Spirit where Love lives instead of with the disease where fear rules. I Joyously, with tears running down my cheeks and sobs of Joy bubbling up my throat, proclaim and declare to you; to the Universe; to my Higher Power; to The God-Force, Goddess Energy, Great Spirit, Holy Mother Source Energy; to all that is blessed and holy; Fuck the fear I say - full speed ahead in the direction of Love.
I trumpet and broadcast proudly out into the Universe: my commitment to my recovery journey; to my Karmic mission; to speaking my Truth; and say: "Bring it on Bubba baby!" Because it is so worth it! Every second of suffering and pain, terror and loneliness, is worth being able to access the Truth of Unconditional Love. Amen. So be it. So it is. Blessed be.
Should be interesting to see what happens now, don't you think. ;-)
PSS. This is so perfect, I just couldn't help including it. When I reread what I had just written above, and saw the word trumpet, it brought to mind the Moose totem in the Medicine Cards. I looked up from my computer at my calendar - and guess what the picture for November is: Moose. The theme of Moose medicine is self esteem - of course.
Here is a quote from the Medicine Card book about the significance of Moose:
"The bellow of the male Moose can be viewed as a positive force, since it represents his willingness to "tell the world" about his feelings.This process is soooooo awesome!!!” - Joy2MeU Update Newsletter November 2002 (Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to quote in Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls from: Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson, copyright 1988, Bear & Co. Reprinted by permission Bear & Co., P.O. Box 2860, Santa Fe, NM 87504.)
This "tell the world" trait contains a joyfulness which only comes from a sense of accomplishment. There is no greater joy than a job well done. This trait is therefore not a seeking of approval, but rather an enjoyment of sharing because of the spontaneous explosion of joy that comes from the deepest part of one's being."
I actually sent out - bellowed out - the message to the Universe "Bring it on!" - that is bring on whatever lessons I need to learn to open up to Love, 4 times in Update Newsletters between December 1998 and December 2004. I got my heart broken 3 times - and then in 2005 I found my sweetie who I have now been with 6 years and who I got married to last January. Recovery is a precious gift that I am soooooo grateful for. Being willing to take the action to face my fears and go through the black hole of my grief has brought me great rewards - and I am very proud and grateful for the accomplishments that resulted from my Spirit leading me to honor my Spiritual Path and go where I was guided.
So with a "joyfulness which only comes from a sense of accomplishment" Happy Birthday to me in a "spontaneous explosion of joy that comes from the deepest part of one's being."!!!!!!! ~ Robert 7/20/11
7/21/11
This Yahoo mailing list is the place that I most often get to write about what is happening in my life and process now - since I only have time to do Update Newsletters once or twice a year. So, I am now going to go into a lot more detail about what is going on, and what I feeling about it all.
When I was writing that yesterday - and as I am writing about it today - I feel so much Joy & gratitude for my recovery process, and for how focusing on my healing and sharing it through my writing has touched the lives of so many people. It is such a miracle.
And just that little bit of writing I did yesterday got me in touch with the feeling of how awesome the process can be for me at times. I had the thought about saying that I was celebrating my 39th birthday just because that is one people like to say they stopped at - but then I realized which birthday was my 39th and how important it was. And when I wrote the next part about saying I was open to receiving financial gifts - and was reminded of the Moose Medicine - it was a magical moment for me. The kinds of moments I used to have in my writing all the time.
I don't have time to write these days. As I explained in the Author's Foreword to my new book.
"My personal inner child healing has been so successful that I have gone from living in isolation with a relationship phobia and a terror of intimacy to celebrating the 6th anniversary (June 15th 2011) of living with someone in an intimate relationship (that became a marriage in January 2011) that has included the precious gift of being the primary caregiver in raising an amazing little boy for the past 5 plus years (my wife's grandson who is now 6 1/2.) As a result I don't have time to write much these days - and haven't for the last 4 to 5 years."So, it is really great to get a chance to write - even if it is only a little. And writing helps me to get emotionally honest with myself. Writing that yesterday really got me back in touch with the Joy and gratitude that I feel for my spiritual path - and with how far I have come and how hard it has been. And writing about this today has taken me into some grief about how hard it still is in many ways.
Part of what felt so Joyfull to me yesterday was proclaiming (bellowing and trumpting) it out to the Universe that I am open to receive because I believe I deserve to receive. It felt so much better than asking for help. But the Truth is that I desperately need help. I was trying to get this publishing process done and running into lots of challenges and stress because I was trying to do it in a hurry because I need help. I was telling myself that I could sell 100 copies of my book in the next week and make the money I need for rent and bills and to continue with my various projects - because I need at least $3000 to manifest soon.
I also felt so good because the money to order the 100 copies had already miraculously manifested. One of the first people who saw the announcement on Facebook - and who sent me an e-mail soon after seeing the first announcement - is a guy who last year finished translating the Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls into Dutch. Last year after he finished the translation - instead of trying to find a publisher for it, as the person who did the German translation did and someone who has done an Italian translation is trying to do - he decided that he wanted to purchase the Dutch rights for it and publish it himself as a free download. I e-mailed him back and asked if he was interested in the same kind of deal for this book - and if so, if he wanted to pay me up front half of what he paid before, then I would have enough money to order the 100 books. And he did, so I will use that money to order books tomorrow.
But I also need money for a car payment tomorrow, and for the utilities and rent. And for the other projects as I mentioned. Here is a run down on the projects that I have going in my attempt to generate more cash flow so I can get out of this financial hole we have been in ever since September 2008 when the economy crashed. (Something I talked about on this page Help_2010.)
I am going to use quotes from past mailings to this list as a description of the project - and then update you on where they are at.
First this new book.
"The other thing I wanted to announce is that I am in the final stages of getting ready to publish my next book through a print on demand service that Amazon.com offers. The publication of Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in The Light Book 1: Empowerment, Freedom, and Inner Peace through Inner Child Healing (aka A Formula for Spiritual Integration and Emotional Balance) in both paperback and e-book format will hopefully happen before the end of this month. This will be the first of at least 3 books that I want to publish this year if all goes as planned.
This is a project that I believe will greatly help the cash flow once it is done. I have been working on it for awhile and only have the Author's Foreword to finish writing. Then I need to convert it to pdf file and submit it for review. The problem with that is that I need to be able to edit in pdf once it is converted - to make sure the format and spacing are right and to add page numbering and such. Almost any computer can convert files to pdf - but editing in pdf involves software that costs many hundreds of dollars. I did just purchase for a reduced price a program that is supposed to let me edit in pdf - one that I will have to use Susan's laptop to use since it only works with Windows and I don't have Windows on my Mac. Hopefully it will work fine and I will be able to get this publishing project going soon." - Yahoo Mailing list: Special Announcement about Exciting Projects June 7, 2011
I obviously didn't get it done by the end of June. The program I bought would not let me edit in PDF - but I finally realized that part of what was frustrating me so much was that I was trying to format the book for 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 and the PDF kept changing it to 8 1/2 x 11 and that I could just surrender and make it 8 1/2 x 11. So that worked and they accepted it for publication - but it had no page numbers. What I ended up doing is taking the PDF to Kinkos and they were able to add the page numbering for $10. Hurray!!!
So, yesterday I got it approved and ordered another proof copy - which I will have tomorrow. Once I approve that it will go on sale through Amazon.com and I will order copies for me to sell through Joy2MeU. I was able to announce the e-books being available for sale a couple of days ago.
My new book - the follow up to Dance of the Wounded Souls - is now available in e-book form (Amazon Kindle): Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in The Light Book 1: Empowerment, Freedom, and Inner Peace through Inner Child Healing (aka A Formula for Spiritual Integration and Emotional Balance) Amazon Kindle Book also Amazon UK and Amazon Germany It will be available in hard copy within a week or two - and I will send out an announcement to everyone when it is. also now as Barnes & Noble Nook e-book.
Eventually the sale of both of my books - both in print and e-book form - will bring an increase in cash flow, hopefully within a month or two. Today, I am having a lot of fear come up about how many of them I will be able to sell now. As I say in the book - and on the page I am selling the book:
"This book is a compilation of my writings. I have built this book around a 23 articles series that I wrote for an internet directory (which I have been selling as a spiral bound booklet.) To those 23 articles (some of which I have added to or expanded upon in the new book) I have added 8 of my web articles, an excerpt from one of the online books in a subscription site, and a handout I use in my Intensive Training Workshops. The 23 articles were around 27,000 words - while the additional material added another 35,000 or so words to this book. This is not a workbook per se (although it is workbook size 8 1/2 x 11), but it does contain assignments and exercises, tools and techniques, as well as invaluable insights into the approach that I discovered and developed for inner healing that works in a powerful, effective way to change the quality of an individuals life experience for the better."
What I am thinking today is that maybe because most of what is in the book is already available on the website - not many people will buy it right now. I was really hoping that I would sell a bunch of them right away. But perhaps that is not going to be the case. As of 6 pm on Thursday, I have only sold 2 of them so far. More will be revealed.
Next the CD set.
"So, we have had the digitally remastered version of the recording for some years now - and had I had the money I could have gotten CDs professionally produced at any time. What made it possible to make them now, is a phone counseling client (who lives in Nebraska) who is a photographer and makes wedding movies and such. He offered to see what he could do with the download - and was able to produce a 4 CD set of them. I am now trading him phone counseling for the work he is doing - although his costs are going to be more than that, and I will be paying him more when it is possible. After starting this project several months ago, he got inundated with work and is now under a lot of pressure and stress in his life. So, his work on the project has been slow because of not having the time. And he will be making the master and the first 50 CD sets for me - but after that I need to find a way to get them produced out here because it doesn't make any sense for him to be burning them one at a time which greatly increases the costs per CD. Once I have the master I will be able to get a quantity of CDs reproduced at very cheap rates - if I have the money to pay up front for them (can get 1000 CDs made for $990.)
So, I am going to have some sets of the CD within a week or so. It won't really start producing much extra income however until I can start selling them through Amazon.com and my national distributor to book stores - which means I will need more than 50 copies. And the print on demand type of sites I have found only do 1 CD music videos - not 4 CD audio books. Not sure how I am going to be able to get them produced in quantity, but at least we got the first major step taken care of and will have it available. Hurrah! More Will Be Revealed about the next step." - Yahoo Mailing list: Special Announcement about Exciting Projects June 7, 2011
I placed the following announcement on the audio CD page Tuesday.
"7/19/11 I am going to suspend sales of the CD for the present time. I have enough to fill the orders that have already come in - but am not sure when I will have more in stock."
The project has really turned into a bit of a nightmare. This is what I wrote in letters I sent with some of the first CDs I mailed out.
"The person who was making them for me has been overwhelmed with work and found it difficult to get them finished. The first ones that he sent me had track marks that he had made by making different segments of the recording separate files. That caused there to be a small pause when it transitioned from one file to the next - which wasn't too big a problem except when those breaks were in the middle of a word. So, I had him redo the recording without the track marks. (My technical knowledge is extremely limited but I think it is possible that track marks are old technology. I think most CDs now days allow a person to stop a recording at a certain place and then return to that place again when they restart it - or at least I hope so.)
The new recordings without the breaks came out great - with one small exception. When I loaded them on my computer some of the CDs had titles that didn't have anything to do with the CD. The first one for instance has the title Pediatric Infections. My guy says they were brand new CDs and he has no idea where the titles came from - but we are burning a new set now. The set that I am sending you is one that has the weird titles because I didn't want to keep delaying filling your order. The good news is that most CD players don't even show the title of the CD - so this is something you might not have ever known about, but I wanted to give you a heads up just in case your CD does show the title or you load it on your computer and see the weird title. The recording is great quality - and I am sorry it has taken so long to get it to you." - Letter sent with the first CDs mailed out July 7th, 2001
I got 5 more sets of the CDs from him on Monday - and the first CD still has the title Pediatric Infections. I really have no idea what is causing this to happen. I actually don't have enough to fill all the orders - am still 2 short, and will need to get some copies made somewhere. I have realized that although the sound quality is really good, that these aren't really good enough to be selling through Amazon or my distributor. They still have announcements in them from Enrichment Unlimited - which is the company of the guy that made the downloads for me (Jeff.) And those announcement don't match the CDs. That is, the first part of the book is partially on the first CD and partially on the second. And there is no announcement at the end of the first portion to let people know that CD is finished and they should go to number two. There is an announcement in between one and two in the middle of CD 2 from the Enrichment unlimited - and like that. So, I when I have the money I will get a few made that I can sell through my site - but I have let go of thinking that I can sell them elsewhere.
We have the recording of the Intensive available - Robert Burney Raw - and it is a good quality recording. It hasn't sold a lot yet either. I think 5 so far. I had hopes that there would be a lot more of them sold by now since people all over the world were saying they wanted to buy it when available.
Then there is the reprinting of Codependence:The Dance of Wounded Souls .
"The Amazon print on demand service also offers the opportunity to reprint my book in a way that makes sense. I have enough books left for most of the rest of the year - but will need to do something soon to started getting that reprinting process happening. They offer an option to scan my book and cover that is only a couple of hundred dollars - and then of course I will have to buy the copies from them. But the cost is pretty reasonable. If I had $5,000 to print another 5000 or so books it would end up costing less than $2 per book - and with there service I can buy copies from them for around $3 a book - so that is a pretty good deal. Of course, I will have to have the money up front to buy the books - but will cross that bridge when the time comes. More Will Be Revealed as usual Things are in motion and that is what is important." - Yahoo Mailing list: Special Announcement about Exciting Projects June 7, 2011
I only need $99 for them to scan the interior of the book, and $99 for them to scan the cover. But when one needs to pay rent and utilities finding the money to do that is pretty hard.
I just had to interupt writing this because I got an e-mail that the PayPal buttons for selling my new book weren't working. The secure credit card ones are working and the PayPal buttons for the phone counseling and Intensive were fine - but the ones for selling the book weren't. So, I just fixed them. Perhaps that held down sales yesterday and today - although it seems I would have heard about it sooner.
Maybe there will be a rush of sales and gifts this weekend for my birthday. I cetainly hope so. Right now I am feeling pretty scared and overwhelmed. It hurts that it is still such a struggle financially. It hurts to have to keep asking for help. I am going to be 63 on Saturday. I sure never expected to get this old. And I just wish it wasn't so hard to pay the bills.
But these are just feelings of the moment. The aren't my total reality or my Higher Truth. Everything will work out some how, some way. It is important to own these feelings. My glass is much more full than it is empty - but it is vital not to deny or judge and shame myself for the part that is empty. Writing this has let me release some of the pain and fear. Hopefully sales and gifts will come flowing in in abundance. Maybe I will win the lottery. ;-)
I will let you all know what is happening next week. It will be exciting to get my proof copy of the book tomorrow morning. I will probably just order 20 or so books instead of the 100 - we shall see. More will be revealed.
Joy & Love & Peace & Abundance 2 You & Me,
Robert
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