This morning’s email brought yet another offer from Joe Vitale. Because I enjoyed his books on Ho’oponopono, I decided to check it out. It was for a new recording, “The Result”. The lengthy ad we’ve come to expect for online marketing since the early 90s included the statement “Get what you want in 10 minutes!”
Despite being trained how to write such ads, they felt sleazy to me. I am a person of high integrity, a straight-shooter, someone who detests “games”. On the last day of that writing course in 2006, I knew I could never do that for a living; at least I hoped I could never sink that low. But there were still so many opportunities! So many online businesses seeking freelance copywriters. And many writers I knew were doing it. But I kept telling myself, “I’d rather be poor.”
Because the ubiquitous lengthy, repetitive sales letter continues to be the state of the art for online businesses, I’ve learned to quickly scroll through for “the bottom line”. Most of the time, after reading the small print “After the 12-day trial period your card will be charged $197 every 30 days…” I simply dismissed them.
As a writer, I routinely dismissed any technique that smacked of that shit. And the subconscious thought, like the slam uttered under one’s breath was, “I’d rather be poor.”
However, this morning, when I scrolled through the sales letter from Joe Vitale, it wasn’t just the words about the product – “combination of Ho’oponopono and law of attraction”– that I was hearing as I read. It was also the voice of Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD, aka Dr. Hew Len, the psychologist who cured criminals by doing the Ho’oponopono “cleaning” by himself – not for those criminals, but for himself. His job had brought them into his world. Because he accepts responsibility for everything in his world, it was his responsibility to do the cleaning. So he sat in his office, looked at those criminals’ files, and he repeated to the Divine:
- “I’m sorry.”
- “Please forgive me.”
- “Thank you.”
- I love you.
As I scrolled through Joe’s the multi-page ad punctuated with “Click here” and “Buy now”, noticing how tight my tummy muscles were becoming, my subconscious also played back some of Hew Len’s praise for Joe Vitale – he actually called Vitale an ANGEL for joining his efforts to spread the word of Ho’oponopono cleaning.
Even so, as I continued scrolling down the ad, a particular offering felt like a punch in my solar plexus. The description claimed you could get enlightened; realize the ALL ONE connection — just by listening!
“How dare him!” screamed my conscious mind. I had spent years coming to that state through daily meditations – the silent kind of Raja yoga, not the so-called “meditations” with music and someone talking. Grrr!
And then I remembered that the proof of ONENESS was given to me when I ate peyote on a camping trip with Indian shamans in the desert (Please see chapters 9-12 in BURNOUT – How a Desert Lizard Restored My Faith). LOL!
But the mind chatter continued until finally, kneaded by that cacophony of counter voices, my conscious mind (or was it my guys?) spoke.
“You love guitar music. Some of your best times were playing one. You wanted to buy some new music. Remember glancing at the music shop on your walk the other day? You’re not being fleeced by an ad. You’re choosing to get what you want: more music. And you’ll enjoy these while writing or just being…”
So I bought two CDs: HIGHER OCTAVES and THE RESULT.
And when I left the computer to get more coffee, I recalled the daily email quote from Abraham (Esther Hicks). It was another warning to “keep your attention on what you want and let others do the same” – a topic I had written at least twenty blog posts about:
Don’t worry about this world; it is not broken. And don’t worry about others. You worry more about them than they do. There are people waging war; there are people on the battlefield who are more alive than they’ve ever been before. Don’t try to protect people from life; just let them have their experience while you focus upon your own experience. –Abraham, Excerpted: Tarrytown, NY on May 08, 2004
At once I realized what I’d been doing: judging! I had a huge judgement about sleazy ads that make people wealthy. And sleazy marketing tactics that increase standing for self-published books. Since the arrival of Internet (circa 1991, after my major Awakening experience) this kind of marketing had prevailed (and still does).
Going online had become such an uncomfortable experience because of those ads. I felt like everywhere I went I was assaulted by “do this, buy this” with all the false or at least exaggerated claims that went with those ads. And each time I read one, I wanted to puke, because I knew what they were doing and hated being manipulated!
Or worse, when I happened onto a site from a search for something specific, I was assaulted by a loud, gung-ho voice on a video that was set to autoplay if someone dropped in. UGH!
Thoughts, feelings, beliefs…
Not only that, but I had an attitude about wealthy people, how they made their money and what they did with it! They were the scum of the earth to me – despite having married two of them. Or maybe those experiences added to my negative opinion about “people of wealth” – like the ex-husband who couldn’t let me keep the recipe for that Chicago-style chili I’d made so many times – because his father considered it “property” and wanted it back. UGH!
Memories, thoughts, feelings, beliefs…
No matter how much therapy I’d done to discover the “counter intention”, the “sabotaging thought pattern”, the mystery block between me and what I wanted – a place large enough to hold both my books and my music (guitar and piano) – I was still poor. Truth: I’ve been destitute all my life and I’m damn tired of it! No matter what I’d done to change that, I seemed destined to be poor.
Then the boiling water whistled so I could make another cup of my silky, low-acid, cold brew coffee. As I poured the water into the concentrated coffee, I heard my own words came back to haunt me: “God speaks to us however we can hear” (BURNOUT – How a Desert Lizard Restored My Faith).
I couldn’t stop laughing!
And a new voice said, “Truth is, Internet culture is accustomed to a style of marketing. Marketers have experienced enormous success with certain tactics. They write books about, teach workshops about it, and charge thousands to millions of dollars to do it for you.”
I knew that was true from experience.
But one such marketer, husband of a gal working in the copy shop, told me he could make my book go viral for a mere $10,000. This happened in the tiny room next to my kitchen. It was the only place my kitchen table would fit in my attic apartment. Seriously? Only $10,000? So I asked him, “Why would you imagine that I have $10,000? That there was even the remotest chance I could raise that?” Scumbag!
Memories, feelings, beliefs…
But the new voice in my head pointed out that “Businesses are now selling their products all over the world to people who want them using those tactics.” I knew that was true because I learned how to do it in 2010 in a local class in Continuing Education. It was taught by a guy who developed several online businesses when his wife died –so he could be a stay-at-home dad and provide family for his two sons.
Memories, feelings…
SILENCE. The internal fight just stopped.
BOOM! It hit me! My mystery block to success was all the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and memories that constantly replayed in my subconscious — unnoticed by me! Like a machine! It was all the muck I had nurtured over the years about money, who has it, how they get it, and what they do with it every time I allowed my mind to think that way. And those thoughts kept presenting me with more opportunities to have the same experiences so I could generate more thoughts. YIKES!
The new voice asked me, “Now that you get it, is that what you want?” Hell no!
I CAN release that. I CAN acknowledge that everyone has the right to pursue whatever goal they choose to. It doesn’t have anything at all to do with me. Only my attention to it draws it to me and makes it breed like mice under fallen leaves. I CAN just focus on my own business, my own life and let them do theirs. I CAN even utilize some of their marketing tactics if I choose to do so.
As Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD wrote in Zero Limits, “The Conscious Mind can initiate the Ho’oponopono process to release memories or it can engage them with blame and thinking” (p.215).
KAZOOM! I now understand – in a way I never had before – how I have limited myself! I CAN do this!
The most important choice we have is whether or not to “clean”.
And I’ve been doing it subconsciously while I’ve written this article – with my new music, HIGHER OCTAVES that I bought just before I started writing!
From this one experience – writing about the angst of wanting the new guitar music, the mind-messing that happened while I considered it, and the final Kazoom! – I can report having more energy, feeling more optimistic, and feeling so happy to share the news of HIGHER OCTAVES with you.
I even got a whiff of confidence about my new series, Burnout to Bliss – that I should definitely keep going with my Weird Indy Publishing Project – that it really is more than just a woman on “the down side of the mountain” writing for her nieces.
Bless you Joe Vitale! For helping me see my block to success.
Bless you, Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD, aka Dr. Hew Len, for having the courage to partner with a marketing dude to spread the word of your cause! Thank you! I love you!
Bless you, Joe Vitale! For using your marketing genius to spread the word about the Law of Attraction and Ho’oponopono. Like Dr. Hew Len, I now also see you as an Angel who is using the language of our times (internet marketing) to help everyone live the best life possible. And of course you’re doing a bang-up job, because you’re an expert in marketing! Good for you! Good for us! I now see your work as a major contribution to world peace!
And Bless you, Guitar Monk Matthew Dixon, for creating the exact music I was seeking! You made my day!
_____
Get your copies of The Result and Higher Octaves HERE or here: http://guitarmonks.com/theresult/
No, I am not an affiliate. Seriously? What makes you think I know how to do that?
Till next time, please be kind to everyone you meet, for we all have our hidden sorrows. ~Tzaddi
MY WEIRD INDY PUBLISHING PROJECT UPDATE:
As of Friday night, January 27, I completed a ROUGH draft of Book 2. It’s 54,218 words, 176 typed pages. Drafted in two weeks! By comparison, Book 1, BURNOUT — How a Desert Lizard Restored My Faith, took almost 6 weeks.
Why the difference? Partly because rehashing that ugly period of my life (BURNOUT) wasn’t fun. But jumping off a cliff to “surrender” — giving up control of my life, allowing Divinity, Source, The Force, God, the Universe (pick a lane) to be in charge actually was.
You already know I’ve added Ho’oponopono to this weird process. And I’m dumping the promo strategy I used on Book 1, BURNOUT in favor of Reader Magnets, extolled by my heroes, the Sterling Brothers who took that even one more step with their sci-fi series, INVASION.
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