top of page

To the Magnificent Spiritual Beings on my email list,
At the end of August my Facebook was hacked (supposedly by someone in Nigeria) and they locked me out of my Facebook page.  I am still trying to get my old one back, but have started a new one:  https://www.facebook.com/Joy2MeU/

Since that Facebook page with about 4,000 friends was the primary place that I marketed my Zoom Workshop, I had not scheduled one since - until now.  I have scheduled it for October 27th and November 3rd. https://www.facebook.com/events/845528837754165/ (This link will take you to the new Facebook page.)

In the middle of the night last night, I got to going over the part of my workshop where I tell about my dance of recovery / my Spiritual Path and some of the incredible miracles I experienced along the way.  It is always very emotional telling that story, because it has been an amazing and awesome journey.

And I am using the occasion to whip out a quick Update Newsletter to send to my email list.  Ever since I started having a problem in about April of 2023 with what turned out to be arthritis (https://www.joy2meu2.com/third-step-help ) my life and Spiritual Path has been quite a bit different than it had been for years.

As it is often in the mysterious ways in which my Higher Power works, things tend to go in circles (actually upward spirals. https://joy2meu.com/Codependent_thinking.html#Growth__Recovery_Process )

I was looking at the process for me recently and realized that I had spiraled to a new level and focus -  and that my recovery was serving me in a different but still very useful way.  It led me too looking for some quotes from the past about how I was experiencing my life and recovery at those times.

​

“In my recovery, I have gradually over the years been able to turn down the voices coming from the ego/from the wounded inner child places/from the disease - and turn up the volume of the small quiet voice of the Spirit.  I have learned how to realign myself with the Spirit instead of giving so much power to the disease - the old wounds and old tapes, the damaged ego.  But if I were to maintain to myself or to you that I never have those reaction, that would be denial.  (That was part of the reason why I did a little ranting in the news addendum to the last Update *https://joy2meu.com/news.htm ) about a quote from Marianne Williamson that I believe conveyed the message that being a human in process is somehow shameful.)

This is a relative process.  Progress not perfection.  We can gradually increase the percentage of the time our conscious awareness, our attitudes and mental focus, are aligned with recovery instead of with the disease.  We do not get to wipe out the old ways of thinking and emotional reactions completely - what we do is gradually disempower them.

I can remember a time in the spring of 1989 when I raged at God about how sick I was of the recovery process.  I said something to the effect that I was sick of only being relatively happy - the great tool in recovery where we stop and force ourselves to focus on the part of the glass that is full and be grateful, instead of giving power to the disease's focus on the part that is empty and feeling like a victim - and that I wanted to be happy without having to compare where I am now to how bad it used to be.

It was about a year later, that one day I realized that I had crossed a line someplace along my path.  That I had shifted my relationship with life enough that my life was now more aligned with Recovery than with the disease, that my life was more defined by Joy, Love, and peace than by anger, pain, and fear.  That I was having moments where I was just happy to be alive period - without having to force myself to look at the relative improvement.

Forcing ourselves to own the power to change our attitudes from negative to positive, working at learning to align with Love instead of fear, are important parts of the process.  The dysfunctional programming is deeply embedded in our relationship with life.  It can be changed gradually.  It will never be changed completely.  Our wounds never go away - they gradually have less power to dictate how we live today.

We are works in progress - in process.   We are evolving back to an awareness of who we really are.  But there are levels and layers of gunk to be removed.” - Joy to You & Me and Joy2MeU Update October 2000  https://joy2meu.com/Update10-20-00.htm

 

Relatively happy.


So, between sometime in 1990 and probably about covid time, I had a lot of living happy, Joyous, and Free - as we say in the program. During the time in San Diego, I found a lot of Joy in my relationship with Darien.  A summary of that relationship is in my June 2018 Update: https://www.joy2meu2.com/update-june-2018. And once I moved back to Cambria in 2017 I felt a lot of Joy living there and taking my walks on the Ranch. My article about moving out of Cambria tells a lot about that Joy. Into The Forest - and out of Cambria https://www.joy2meu2.com/the-forest

This is all real ironic, as much of my Path is, because at the time I found out that a major part of my mission in this lifetime had to do with feeling Joy - I had very seldom experienced it in my life.

​

“A boy who believed he was a frog that needed a princess was who I was.  And I had never listened to much of what my inner child said to me - had pummeled that part of me into submission and at the same time I let that child's wounds run my life.  I was never much for wine but I drank whatever was available.
So, it was a perfect song for me.  And the chorus is:

Joy to the world.  All the boys and girls. 
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea 
and Joy to you and me.
 

Out of the intervention of this psychic angel named Marianne a new level of consciousness was opened, and a new direction to steer was revealed.  At a time when I had never experienced what I know now is True Joy in my life - I was given the message that my path was about Joy and carrying a message of Joy to you and me.  The name of my company was born that day - even though I had no idea there would ever be a company.” - The Story of "Joy to You & Me”. https://joy2meu.com/Journal_1/JoyStory.htm

 

Joy is something we feel in the moment - and joy on the horizontal plane is a lot different from Joy on the vertical plane.

​

"I capitalize words such as Truth, Joy, and Love in my writing because that capitalization indicates that I am referring to the Transcendent vibrational energy that flows through the Illusion on the vertical plane.  When I do not capitalize joy and love, I am referring to emotions of the horizontal plane. . .  . .

. . . . . Happiness is a term I use in relationship to external circumstances.  It (happiness) comes from doing, experiencing, interacting, etc.  Joy - with the capital J - is about being, not doing.  This has to do with the different dimensions - horizontal and vertical - of this human experience that I talk about in the Trilogy, and mention in various articles including the online book I am now writing”  - Balance on the horizontal, Integration of the vertical https://joy2meu.com/horizontal_vertical.htm

 

Joy is something that we can feel in the moment - and in what I call “flying times” many many moments in a day.

​

“Back in February and early March, I heard myself saying to people who asked how I was doing, "I'm grinding.  You know how it is, sometimes you're flying and sometimes you're grinding."  I said that even though the people I was saying it to probably didn't have a clue what I was talking about - since they had probably never been flying.  What I meant by that was something similar to a phrase from AA about "trudging the road to happy destiny."  I always disliked the way that sounded - sounds like sludge.  When I looked it up in the dictionary however, it meant striding purposefully.  My grinding is not really striding purposefully, but it is about moving forward - moving through the day doing the next thing in front of me.  I take it as it comes (working those first 3 steps) and enjoy as many of the moments of the day as possible, maybe taking a short flight here and there - but it is not a Flying Time.

I have learned in the course of my recovery, that there are slow times and there are speeded up periods.  It was real important for me to learn not to take this rhythm of life personally.  My codependency wanted me to take it personally as if I had done something wrong - and beat myself up for it while trying to figure it out how to change it.  It is so important to accept wherever we are and make the best of it, to not judge self and at the same time choose to take positive actions to make the best of today - knowing the plan is unfolding perfectly.

During those grinding times, I have moments of every day when I am able to tune into Joy and Love and Light - some days quite a few moments.  But it is not the same as the times when the magic is coming fast and furious - when I often feel like I am soaring on the wings of that Joy and Love.  When my Higher Power is the wind beneath my wings in a powerful and magical way.  I have begun a Flying Time now - I do Love it.  (We addicts like intensity you know. ;-)  Until my next Update, remember to be kind to your self.” - Joy to You & Me Update April 2002 https://www.joy2meu.com/Update4-02.htm

 

So, I have spiraled around to a place where I am focusing on relative happiness again.  Except it doesn’t have much to do with happy, Joyous, and Free.  It has more to do with patience, tolerance, and acceptance.  My recovery is really working good in my life now.  It is helping me to stay focused on today, and what is in front of me to do in my life today. The infussion medication from the rheumatologist is working pretty good. My feet and legs are still messed up - but relatively much better that it was,  (See how that works.)  I am hobbling, taking a foot or two strides - but I am still very unstable on my feet. I fee like I am going to fall regularly. Especially when I first stand up. Which is often because of the enlarged prostate that first attacked me in September 2020. 

For a few years now, I have to get up about every hour to pee.  I took to using my walker to get around at night, because I am afraid of falling. Taking a shower is a scary experience.  And then last December I had a biopsy and found out I have prostate cancer. It is the slowest growing cancer and I have been putting off getting surgery because the urologist told me I would have to have a catheter in for 2 to 3 weeks, When I first had the attack in Sept. of 2020, I had one in for a week - and I hated it and was determined to avoid it again if possible. 

Recently I saw a new urologist that I was referred to to get the surgery done.  He put me on a new medication that only took a week to shut me down.  On Sunday 13th the periods between having to pee were getting shorter - and then around 6, shut down. The pain of a blocked bladder is intense and I knew that I would have to go to the ER and get a catheter put in.

So Darien took me to the hospital and they put in a catheter - and drained a liter and 3/10ths of urine. I still hate it.  It is now the 18th and I have had one in for almost 2 weeks.  Hopefully I will get its out next Wednesday.

My recovery is helping me to keep living one day at a time.  In my disease I lived in the past and the future - never in today.  My recovery has taught me to live one day at a time.  And as some of us were talking after a CoDA meeting the other day, as we get older there is no guarantee that it will ever get back to how it was. I have eliminated most of the stress in my life by not spending time worrying about things I can’t control. "I don’t have to know that today.  I don’t have to decide that today.  I can let that go for today." - http://tinyurl.com/jx9fumo

 
"I am not writing the script, am not in control of this human experience, so I need to do what I am led to do when I am led to do it – with faith that a Loving plan is unfolding. Worry is negative fantasy. Fear of the future does not serve me on my path today – takes away my ability to be here now. The fear will come up certainly – just as it did when I wrote the paragraph above – but that is normal and human. I can use my recovery tools to let go of that fear of the unknown – and have boundaries with the critical parent voice in my head which wants me to project a fantasy of impending doom, a horror movie in my mind, that will cause me to create artificial fear in my life today. As I talked about in my article on Acceptance (Serenity – Accepting the things we cannot change Serenity - Accepting the things we cannot change. http://www.joy2meu.com/Acceptance.html ), I learned that 90% of the stress in my life before codependency recovery was my responsibility, something I had some control over – and I do not have to create that kind of stress in my life any more, thanks to recovery and my faith in the Great Spirit.” – Joy2MeU Update Newsletter November 2002
​

So, relatively things are much better than they were a short while ago - and I am very grateful.  Acceptance is a vital tool in empowerment.  It is the answer, as Dr. Paul says in the Big Book.

​

“The saying that I got from Dr. Paul's chapter in the Big Book - "I don't have any problems, I have opportunities for growth" - was a key in helping me own that I had the power of choice, the power to choose where to focus my mind.  I had always reacted to life events - car breakdown, relationship breakup, losing a job, whatever - as personal punishment aimed at me personally because I was defective and unlovable, a sinful, shameful loser.  That saying helped me to start changing my relationship with life - to start looking for the silver lining instead of letting the dark cloud define me.  The first time I really saw how much I had changed my relationship with life, was a time when my car did break down - and my first response was to be grateful it broke down in town instead of on the hilly road in the fog that I had been on earlier that day.  The reality is that wherever one's car breaks down, it could have broken down at a worse place and worse time.” - Acceptance is the Answer. https://www.joy2meu2.com/acceptance

 

Finances are still a the most stressful area in my life. I go into every day praying and hoping for at least $2000 to help me catch up - maybe today will be the day.  https://www.joy2meu2.com/donations  - Cashapp  https://cash.app/$Joy2meu - Venmo  https://account.venmo.com/u/Robert-Burney-10 - PayPal Joy2Robert@yahoo.com

Codependency recovery is the greatest gift that I have ever been given. I am very blessed.  My workshop is potentially Life Changing https://www.joy2meu2.com/workshop-zoom  I hope I am able to share it with people for many more years - but right now October 27th is the only time I know I will be offering it.  I am going to Cambria for a CoDA meeting today.

With Joy & Love to Me and You,
Robert Burney
Robert Burney 
October 19th 2024

A couple of vital PSs in my opinion:

PS1:  Repeat after me if you choose: I am a Magnificent and Powerful Spiritual Being full of Light and Love! I am Unconditionally Loved right in this very moment, I always have been, I always will be!  I am perfectly where I am supposed to be on my Spiritual Path, and I am being guided Home!  I am Radiantly Beautiful, Vibrationally Healthy, Joyously Alive, and Abundantly Prosperous.

PS2:  Reposting an article from 2020.  A Vote for Donald Trump is an act of treason!!!!
“And if you call your self a Christian, wake up and recognize the Donald Trump is the personification of the antichrist. He represents the opposite - 180 degrees the opposite - of the message of Love that Jesus carried. If you vote for Donald Trump you will be spitting in the face of the teachings of Jesus. You are committing blasphemy by supporting this personification of evil.

Donald Trump is a racist - and is using racism to divide and polarize the people of this country. If you support Trump, you are a racist. You are saying that racism is acceptable - which makes you just as racist as if you were wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe.” - : Standing up to evil - and Accepting the Divine Plan.- Standing up to evil - and Accepting the Divine Plan
bottom of page