How to Stretch Your Limits and Write Your Dream Book

There is a promise of very exciting times ahead in the year of 2016. Namely, I finally finished my book LOVE ON THE LINE. How to Recover from Romance Scams with Dignity and without Victimisation. It is the first book in the series of critically analyzing scamming in the modern world with its roots firmly in the world of pornography and romance book industry that I have planned on writing after becoming a victim of an online scam. The book is my ode to the new quantum paradigm and the possibility of happy endings through social change.  I have great ambitions to helping people to overcome their limits by understanding the bigger picture.

How was I able to achieve my goal, you might ask. On hind site there were a few things that contributed to the successfull execution of the plan. Namely, I was inspired into stretching my limits, overcoming a seeming language skills barrier with the help of a wonderful women's community connection, personal editor and some determination from my part. Finally, and I write it with gratitude, I was able to get my act together and finalise a long term dream of writing a book in the English language.

What I am saying here is that people should dream, set goals, make plans and work on achieving their desired happiness. They should seek to stretching their capabilities and overcoming their limits. It is worth all the angst and trouble. I should know. I was shocked enough to start writing. 

After having researched pornography, prostitution and violence against women for decades, I suddenly found myself in the clutches of an online scammer. It was a huge wake up call for me. How could I have fallen into a scam like that? Certainly, I am a savvy and intelligent woman. I would think so, at least. But the new digital world can fool anybody. It was a really low point in my life.  I felt devastated and disillusioned with the whole world. How could I have fallen so low? Luckily, I had my son to lean on to.

He inspired me, with his words of encouragement. He advised me not to dwell on the negative but keep in mind the positive memories of the romancing. So, I took his advise to heart and used it as a muse to write my best happy ending to the story in ordear to help others to avoid similar situations. My book is about to come out any day now. The launch date is already locked in. I am very excited. It is a new high for me. I am inviting everybody to participate. 

It is a new year for me, literally and symbolically. Having had huge anxiety attacks about how on earth could I write in a fluent English, I finally have had professional help to make me get my message through in a language I love but sometimes cannot express myself in. I thank my lucky stars and the community of wonderful Unstoppable Women who have encouraged me to stretch my limits and believe in myself. As a non-English speaking person, I often get corrected in my use of the English language. Sometimes, I feel like an idiot for not being able to express my thoughts in a way that deliveries the message the way I want it to be. It is frustrating!  Luckily, there are those friends that understand my blight and encourage me to expand on it and further explain my thoughts. I am blessed with good friends. I am grateful for that as well. A personal editor will make all the difference to a budding author's confidence. 

I really hope you will enjoy the results of my year of labour. I am inviting you all to the launch at the Avid Reader Bookstore in Bribane on Friday the 22nd of January at 6pm. You can register already on the website at 

http://avidreader.com.au/events/elina-juusola-love-on-the-line

My book will be online next week at

http://bookstore.xlibris.com

More information on my website at

www.elinajuusola.com

How to Take Advantage of Experiencing Failure and Become Unstoppable

What do you do if you want to be unstoppable?

You look at the things you have failed before. Preferably you make a list of your most phenomenal failures and contemplate over why, where, when and what to do about them. Because, what you now might think as your most profound failure in life could become your best ever success, yet. That is, if you set goals, make a plan and execute it with some courageous effort. 

At Brisbane, October, 'Howling at the Moon', Unstoppable Women's evening, we had a theme that looked into these failures. We shared stories about how to turn phenomenal failure into success. As I was filling in the discussion questionnaire, I commented to my friend, sitting next to me that lately, I felt like I was on top of my failures. And then it hit me! 

My phenomenal failure, in the past had been three things 

First, due to dyslexia, I always would feel like a failure in expressing myself in writing and by words as well. Sometimes, I would be overwhelmed by the English language which I just felt I could not master. I felt that I never could be perfect. So a phenomenal failure in Finnish, Swedish and English. What a bomber! 

Secondly, I had always wanted to write a book but had not done so because I sabotaged myself by believing that the deed was too hard to accomplish. Particularly in the English language. It followed that  I never completed a book about my 15 years of research into violence against women even though I mentored others to write theirs. That was my first "failure."

Another failure was never to have finished my PhD in the History of Ideas, despite completing the  fieldwork for it and interviewing 99 Scandinavian born Finnish women in Australia: a second phenomenal failure. But how to turn it around? Would there be a way to correct this mistake? 

And talking about mistake, oh yes. My third failure has been my ever yoyoing weight management skills. Up and down, high and low depending on my emotional state at any particular time. 

Thinking about these failures, I realised that yes, the Universe had intervened from all fronts. The impulse to share my experience on how to recover from romance scams overshadowed everything. The drive was there, and when there is the will, the opportunity opens up through planned action. I was inspired to start with the end in mind and that created a pathway to the resulting product, my book: 'Love on the Line. How to Recover from Romance Scams with Dignity and without Victimisation'. I even visualised the pink cover for it. I was determined not to be a victim and not to look like one either. That is how the third failure was taken care of. 

By the time the circumstances were created for my pathway, I had already learned from all kind of intelligent thinking persons. Napoleon Hill had inspired me to recite daily his suggested Self-Confidence Formula. And my networking had taught me about the definite purpose statement as a means to creating pathways to the vision about my future. It always included writing a book and becoming a healthy person. Admittedly, I had know all of that before, but I was never inspired enough to really set my goals and my efforts to serve the same end: becoming unstoppable in being a success story. I learned that people are drawn to human lives. My story will be worth reading about. And why? 

Because it contains everything I have learned about the subjects: personal experience about online romance scams, personal approach based on my now over 25 years of observing of how to understand WHY in our society there is such vulnerability that requires half the humanity to be available to the other half to exploit. Most of all it has a creative solution for how to heal yourself through the energies created by the community of my family, friends, acquintances and circumstances. It is a journey that is gaining momentum. It will be self-published, but it is set as a project with a reliable publishing company, Xlibris. And not only that - there will be a sequel, to go deeper into it - to answer the question of how to meet real people in the real world. Because love is at stake. Right now! 

So, let's turn our profound failures into our best ever success stories. Let's plan with the happy end in mind, filled with compassion. According to the science of Quantum paradigm and Epigenetics a happy ending is as likely as a miserable one. So let's choose our own happy ending and put all our effortless effort in to make it a reality.

In the Novevember 'Howling at the Moon' the theme is 'Being Unstoppable'. I urge you to come and share your story with other unstoppable women. 

Love on the Line, my story, can be followed on my Facebook page @ Author Elina Juusola or Twitter @ejuusola and very soon on my new website @ www.elinajuusola.com

The book will soon be available through all possible channels, especially through Xlibris

Has Fraud Touched Your Life: Sharon Armstrong in Conversation at the QLD Fraud Support & Recovery Group

It is an alarmingly ever rising number of people that are touched by fraud in its different forms. Many have a personal experience with scammers, and others know someone from their family, friends and acquaintances who have been victims of fraud. It is a devastating experience and many do not recover or it takes years of great effort and strength to move on in life.

Meet Sharon Armstrong, a very courageous woman, who was scammed into unknowingly carrying drugs for her scammer. She was arrested and spent two and half years in an Argentinian prison for a crime she was scammed to commit. Should she have known better?

After all she is an intelligent woman. She had previously held a high position in the New Zealand Public Service and had not for twenty years had time to think about dating with her busy life. This had been her own choice. Somehow, though, she suddenly fell for a charming man at the other end of the line and was convinced that it was her destiny to marry and spend the rest of her life together with this same man. For the sake of their future, she was ready to help him with money and later by picking up some papers and carrying them to London, where she would meet him. But this did not happen. Instead she was stopped by the customs in Argentina. She was told that she was carrying cocaine and that she would be arrested. Later she was sentenced and in the end spent two and half years of her life in the prison surrounded by other 'drug mules'. What was it that made her so vulnerable to scammers?

I am really interested in her story. It is yet another version of the Ghana scam, like mine was as well. It adds another more frightening, if not deadly dimension into the life of a victim of a scam. She talks about vulnerability but adds that maybe even saying that makes the person more vulnerable. And vulnerable people get caught in scams again and again. She prefers the term survivor just as I do. She is not sure that she has recovered, though. What is it that keeps the victims attached, I would ask.

An other woman who is listening to Sharon thinks that she would be too sceptical and this kind of romance scam just wouldn't happen to her. I doubt her statement. Media, who was very hash in the case of Sharon declared that of course it could happen to her; what else could she expect, because 'she is fat and plain'. I strongly disagree. And she is not that. Clearly she is attractive, intelligent and strong, otherwise she would not be putting herself forwards again and sharing her experience in order to educate and raise awareness for fraud and especially for the different forms of romance scams.

My research, packed by others shows that no, she could not have known better. There is no clear profile of a person who would fall for a romance scam. Everyone is a potential prospect. It is all in the scammers ability to catch the target at the right time and persuade her/his brain to act with the emotional 'lizard brain' instead of the rational frontal cortex. The experience of the continuous flooding of oxytocin to the brain keeps us attached and falling yet again and again. Sharon confirms this when asked about how she did go from loss to recovery. Her answer is that it was easier for her because she was 'locked up'. Otherwise, she says, 'it would have been hard for her to keep away from this man'. But what is it that contributed to her personal recovery when so many affected people cannot make the transition from a victim mode to the survivor strength?

Sharon Armstrong sits up and looks at the audience with confidence and lists her reasons:
- always having a positive outlook
- thinking and seeing that others had it tougher than her
- learning to appreciate little things
- learning to forgive
- her family's continuous and unwavering support

Her wisdom is profound. She states that forgiveness is not about others. It is about you. And learning to be grateful is a way to recovery. It is important to share your experience in order to fight the scams, to raise awareness. 'We must stop the shame', she says. I fully agree. It is crucial that there are people, just like Sharon who are willing to personally step into limelight to make the fight visible.

Sharon has started a campaign. It is called Standup2scams. It is everywhere on the social media but mostly on the Facebook and the Twitter. You can easily find it there. She has also recently been part of a two part documentary. It can be found through her pages as well. I am looking forwards to her new projects.

There is a book on the line in near future and also a possible documentary project. So there is much to come from her experience that will change your knowledgebase about romance scams and fraud.

Otherwise if you need help right now, please be aware that there is a QLD Police Fraud Support & Recovery group meeting every month. And similar groups are being planned and founded elsewhere as well. Here is a flyer for that:

Why It Is Important to Highlight the Issue of Romance Scams

Just last week I was talking to a few people about my coming book LOVE ON THE LINE. I was enthusiastically explaining my theories and approaches only to be suddenly stopped by the realisation that the person I was talking with had been a victim of scam herself and when I asked if she had lost money, she said: 'Yeah, yeah!'

So, here it is again. More people in my list who are wondering just what happened or how come it happened and confirming that they lost money they can ill afford. Knowing that they never get their money back again. And even though I have now written a whole book explaining my views on how this can happen, I am still at awe of how it is that every time this issue of Romance Scams is raised in any conversation I am involved in, there always is someone who has been a victim.

Every conversation I have had with anyone about it has also revealed more people who know people who have been victims of romance scams. We should talk about it more. Maybe then those who have been affected could get some closure and not just keep it in their own private minds. Airing the issue makes more people feel less embarrassed about speaking out about their own experience. This is important as then those affected feel less isolated with their thoughts and experiences. 

In the Fraud Siupport Group I attend to, I hear people tell their story again and again. It is like they want to reassure themselves that it is a right thing to do. That the shock never truly lessen because, every time you think about it, you are confronted with the fact that it happened and it happened to me. Many victims keep asking themselves: 'How on earth was I so vulnerable?' And it never seems to go away, however much you think about it. It is like an ever rewinding record player. So, what can we do to move on and stop the self-blame? 

What I did was write a book. I looked at the research on how people who are affected by trauma cope with it. I investigated how directing the emotions an experience with romance scam to writing effect the  survival from the scam and how one might overcome in time. I tried to find a solution on how one might be able to move on with dignity intact and without victimasation. How successful I was, will be judged by the reader reaction and their feedback, once the book is published before the end of the year. But for me it was a freeing experience. 

I find that now, it is easier, and easier to raise the issue with anyone I encounter without feeling shame over the fact that it happened to me. I know that I am not alone with this experience. I know that there are more and more support structures being created. I know that there are more and more professional and government procedures being tightened so that people with experience about romance scams are able to find help and relief from their worry and wonder. 

You can start by Googling scamwatch.com.au or finding support pages from Facebook. Just write Romance Scam in the search. It does not matter where you are, in what continent or whichever country. Laws are being looked at and tightened. The issue of scams is being high lightened more and more and more. This is a good thing! It makes me happy to have written a book to further the recovery from romance scams in a small way. My book is about my own solution. But everything counts towards the more equal future against crime, violence and inequality in this world. 

Stay tuned. There is more on the way.

How to Become an Author for an English-Speaking Audience from a Non-English Speaking Background

I have always wanted to write. It is in my blood just like teaching.

When I was born, everyone we knew said that I was born to teach, just like everybody else in my family. I came to resist the idea with all my sinew and soul. I thought that teaching would be boring or restricting. To me who lived where my parents worked, it was one, two, three, one, two, three and then you are sixty and retire. It did not help because basically teaching is in my blood and whatever I do becomes an advisory position.

Though, now, I am almost sixty and still I have not really written that book I always wanted to write in English. Yes, I am published in several languages, Finnish, Swedish and English. At least one of my early articles published in 1984 on the Women's Movement in Finland has been translated to many more languages, but a non-fiction book from start to finish has been just too much. Until now!

As a non-English speaking background person, even with well over forty years of language skills, university studies and work experience writing a book that would be read by everyone in the world (those who speak English) is a daunting task. The big question is how to sound like a native speaker to the wide audience? The other question is how to overcome my uncertainty with my own language skills?

I have a lingering dyslexia that very much shows in my written language, even in Finnish, which is a phonetically laid out, strait forward language. Then there is the fact that I speak three languages and depending on what language I wake up each morning determines my English comprehension or grammar for that particular day. It is hard to change but with the brain plasticity now a norm belief system, it can be done, right.

Also, often when I think about an expression or a particular word I need, I come up with the right one either in Finnish or Swedish but translating that directly to English will become difficult, sometimes even impossible as the meaning of it will not come right to my mind.

Then I suddenly have a gap in my words, even simple ones while writing or speaking and then I have to come up with a roundabout way of expressing myself. The difficulties never cease. I am also used to people correcting my English language.

I am that Finnish person who puts the prepositions wrong every time, who cannot distinguish between S:s and C:s or K:s and G:s, who everyone asks to repeat their sentences or words to determine what they really are. I am the person who uses Latin words to compensate the English and who pronounces the historical places with their original names thus confusing the native English speakers. There is so much to compensate that one simply cannot express that in words. How would I be able to write a book in English?

I wrote an article about Helena Blavatsy to the Theosophist a few years back. It was published in 2008. It took two years to write. Of course it was an academic article where all the facts have to match with their sources and all the arguments have to be logical providing a conscientious and well thought argumentation. I painstakingly researched, wrote and re-wrote. It was a challenge that Joy Mills, one of the theosophical thought leaders in the world urged me to accomplish. It was her support and belief in that I could do it that got me through it. A good friend who then took it upon herself to edit my language helped me to finish it. And I was able to take the article to India, Chennai and Adyar and deliver it to the editor myself. It took a few years before it was published but finally the journal arrived by post and there it was. What an accomplishment I thought, then. Seeing that article in print was such a joy to me. But writing a whole book from start to finish, all those doubting chapters, how could I accomplish that? It did start with a plan after the idea struck me.

I had great need to get my message across to an audience that can be helped with my book. I set on researching what to do. I found a good article about writing a book proposition in a week and again, painstakingly followed it through, with setting my own plan. Then I attended some webinars, seminars and a day conference on how to become a 'person of influence'. There it struck me that I had come to a decision to commit to writing my book.

Weaving out useful advice from the information overflow of everything connected to writing is a huge task, but in the end I decided to boost my confidence by signing a self publishing contract with Xlibris, an international leader of indie writing. Doing that has paid off due to the support I have gotten from the repeated calls from the publishing consultant and other people involved. A membership in Authors Learning Centre has helped. My curiosity has been constantly fed with new ideas. But it would not have been possible without other support. It seems that there has to be a 'muse' to really inspire me to keep going. My 'muse' has been the 'Howling at the Moon' women's community for Unstoppable women run by a great friend and a success catalyst herself.

It is important to a person who is writing in a second language to have a strong support group to encourage daily action. Otherwise, whatever money is paid as incentive goes to waste as the spark dies with all the struggle with words and expressions that just do not come out right. It is not that I did not know what I wanted to say. It is about how to make it flow and how to get the right message out in flowing English. It is not that I would not have attempted it before, even trying my hand in fiction. The task has proved futile before. So what is it that made it work this time? I find two reasons for it.

Firstly, I feel that I am out of time as an emerging writer. If you are going to write a book, the time is now! This is a great decision to make. All become quite easy after one commits. There is not better time than now. All the daunting tasks can be tackled one at the time with a good plan and daily action.

Equally, in the second place is the real practical support with help with the language expression. A good personal editor who can interpret you and your meaning into a flow, so that the result will sound to you as it was meant to be, with all those right articles, prepositions and leading words that were lost in translation in the depths of your own brain. So, what are my lessons from getting my manuscript out there to the publisher in timely manner?

Number one is to have an exceptional support group and number two is to only have a selective hearing about who and what to listen to from all the negatively discouraging 'cacomania' out there. Only let the positive waves affect you and your actions. Some risk taking also needs to come to play.

Choose an encouraging publishing stream and drive to make your own experience as enjoyable as possible with positive thinking and taking action towards your goal. Intervals are a good thing. Let the manuscript mature.

And most of all, enjoy the journey into a published author in the English speaking world where everyone is able to pick your book either in hard cover, soft cover or download it as an eBook.

My recommendations:
- a good book proposition
- a great women's support group
- a personal coach to help with the plan
- a personal interpreting editor
- lots of positive thinking
- genuine action to the plan

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad