Summer's End

(Post renamed due to possibly sounding too needy...)

Although it doesn’t officially end until the 20^th September in the UK, Summer has most definitely picked up its Sun-cream and picnic basket and trudged off through the clouds to begin the long walk to Australia (as you can tell, I’m not an astrophysicist), where there are crocodiles, snakes and spiders that kill you if you venture outside… or stay indoors. I imagine living there would strike the same sort of terror in a person’s heart as being a survivor in a zombie plague outbreak, having to be on your toes every second of the day, for fear that something will attack you. The beaches look nice, though… except for the murderous sharks and deadly-poisonous jellyfish, of course.

I digress…

As the seasons shift, so too come changes to my social networking environment and general Internet interaction… and I could really do with your help!

I hope you can have the patience to read through all of this blog, because it may become a bit of a ramble as I progress… but it contains a positive message… I hope.

First of all – and probably most visibly – I’m reducing the number of scheduled tweets on my Twitter feed, down to between three and five per hour. I’ll run the messages with links to my older blog posts every twenty minutes (rather than every ten minutes) and new posts will be promoted every half hour, for a day or so.

However, I’m doing this for a trial period of a month and may switch it back up in October, or even sooner if there appears a need.

I have experimented with less automation on tweets over the past few weeks and, to be honest, it was disheartening to see a drag on the momentum I’d been building up over the three months previous. Page views were down to 39,542 in August, compared to 58,455 in July, despite an increase of some 10,000 followers on Twitter.

As I’ve written before, some of the older posts are the more popular (and helpful) reads, but being that the Internet is the domain of instant gratification, people tend not to find them unless they’re given a direct link in the auto-tweets I’ve been running.

Perhaps I was disheartened, but I certainly wasn’t discouraged. Back in April, I wouldn’t have believed 39,542 page views last month was possible  – with a total, now, of over 130,000 in the past four months.

Don’t get me wrong, though… I’m not being a slave to statistic here. The reason I’m doing what I’m doing is because I’m passionate about helping people live happier lives. These numbers represent real, human beings interacting with my writing – and that’s what I’m interested in.

I want to reach out to as many people as I possibly can.

It would be a massive, massive help, and I would be eternally grateful if - when you read one of my blog posts you enjoy - you could RT it on Twitter or post it on Facebook and Google Plus. There are a selection of sharing buttons at the bottom of this page, too.

I’m hugely appreciative to people who do this already – truly, and from the heart, thank you!

What I’m trying to achieve will always and only work because of the strength of the community who appreciate the sentiments in my writing, and the more you can help in way of sharing and raising awareness, the more people can gain benefit from the teaching of present awareness – and it really is making a difference, already, but there’s scope to help so many more.

Moving on to the next change…

I’m at the point of becoming overwhelmed by the email work I’m doing, responding to people who are asking for help… and a lot are writing.

This is, quite frankly, the most humbling and satisfying aspect of what I’m doing. There have been a number of awakenings, through correspondence, that make me want to whoop and punch the air when I read that brilliance of realisation in these people’s words.

Present awareness is a very powerful tool for transforming our lives, and it is a true joy to be able to guide others to the experience I’ve been through and to see them moving towards the state of awareness I (mostly) and many others live our lives within. This is exactly the sort of thing I set out to achieve, and I’m delighted with the level of success in that respect.

The thing is, this work also takes up an awful lot of my day and my energy. It can feel like psychic wrestling at times and I have to admit it can and does sap my strength. I’ve seen myself working up to eighteen hours in a day during the past two months, on various elements of what I’m doing, but the email correspondence is the greatest demand on my time.

I managed to get a couple of days away in the mountains at the end of August, and it was the first real break I’d had since I started pushing with the blog. It was heavenly, and reminded me that I need to take care of myself. I can’t help anyone if I burn out, so I need to reduce my workload, but also utilise the technology I have available to be more effective and efficient.

This may spike a feeling of cynicism in a few people, but I’m going to start charging for emails before the month is out – though also introduce live web chats on Skype and telephone contact for those who prefer more direct methods of discussing their issues.

However… before you write me hate mail…

After communicating with a several hundred people (some very briefly, in one email, and others much more extensively), there are certain patterns emerging, particularly regarding relationships – be they personal/intimate, family, friendships or working varieties. So, I’m going to work on a digest of this information and publish it (obviously, without divulging any personal information or even familiar scenarious… it will be entirely generic) – in both article format and also using audio/visual media - on my forthcoming website, which I intend to have up and running by the end of the month, too. That way, there’s a free-access knowledge-base that would cover a good portion of the queries I receive, and that will free up so much time… while at the same time, answering people’s questions as effectively as if we’d gone through the email process.

As for the charges for email/Skype/phone communication, I’m minded to make it less of a clear-cut rate and just ask people to send an anonymous PayPal donation of what they can afford.

I know that two years ago, when I was going through some pretty rough times in the run up to my awakening, I couldn’t have afforded a few hundred pounds to speak to a ‘spiritual guru’ or awareness counsellor, so I don’t want people to feel that they can’t contact me if they really do need close assistance.

This is a promise: if a person is in desperate need of help and I can help, I will help.

So, say I work for ten hours with someone who’s on minimum wage, with a ton of bills to pay and they’re just about keeping their head above water, and they send me £20 because that’s all they can afford, that’s fine with me.

If I spend a similar amount of time helping someone who’s absolutely loaded and they send me that same figure, then head down to the wine bar and blow a few hundred pounds on champagne, that’s fine with me, too.

It will be down to the individual and their conscience, and, of course, Father Christmas will find out if they’ve been mean and leave them Yuletide Karma Coal instead of something shiny.

I hope this sounds a fair compromise.

I have to take into consideration that I need an income. Even if I took a part-time job to support this work I’m doing, to enable it to continue to be free, it would cut away the time I need to do what I’m doing, plus I’d only be treading water in my own life situation.

I’m also currently living at my elderly mother’s house. She’s 72 and not in the greatest of health. She’s had surgery on her aorta in recent years and was in hospital for a different operation just last week. Although I don’t indulge in dark imaginings, I have to be mindful that she’s not going to be around forever. Whereas, in the past, in the depths of depression, I’ve been able to run back home and hide, I can’t do that anymore. If… when she dies… if I’m still in the exact same situation I’m in right now, present awareness savvy or not, it would be a devastating time and I don’t think I’d be capable of making any sort of positive progress for a while. I’d most likely be homeless before I knew what hit me, and they don’t have power or Internet sockets under bridges.

I might get run over by a truck tomorrow and you’ll all laugh at me for thinking my Mum was going to pop off first! The rest of my family may be chuckling through their hands as I’m lowered into the ground, whispering: “Did you see what he wrote on the Interland?”

Anyway, while firmly embedded in the moment, I have to plan ahead, and those plans involves getting out of here, getting my own place, building up a business, supporting a decent lifestyle and buying a bespoke Darth Vader outfit – and all of that costs money.

The business I’m building is going to be a Non-Profit Organisation and I’ve no doubt that in say, ten years time, people will look back and see that I’ve built something considered impossible right now, but it’s not going to be my possession and it won’t be funding an extravagant lifestyle. That’s not what I want from my life. I want to help people, and the profits from this business will be turned into projects that do just that.

I’m sure I’ll make money for myself through my other writing abilities, such as with fiction and copywriting for trade, but I’ll even put that towards this bigger plan, initially.

Teaching and seeing the proliferation of the understanding of present awareness, watching as it sweeps across this world like rays of Sunlight on a lazy dawn, is my passion. It’s the heart of me. I know it works, because I’m living it. I know it helps others, because I’m seeing it. The more people on this planet who discover this within them, the better and stronger our global society becomes.

You may say I’m a dreamer… but I’m not the only one… ;-)

Millions of people across this planet have already woken up, and countless millions more are awakening. It can be billions.

Watch this vid, if you have a few minutes. Did you know actor/comedian Jim Carey is another awakener?

This is real.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” - Gandhi

“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, there’d be peace.” – John Lennon

“It's never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Elliot

“Ooh baby, do you know what that’s worth? Ooh, heaven is a place on Earth.” – Belinda Carlisle

“I want to ride you like a cowgirl, Les Floyd!” – Keira Knightley

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