Sydän saaliina. Romanssihuijarit verkossa. My new book will be published in Finland early in 2018

  Here it is folks! Tässä se on!
The cover for my new book, an extened and in my mind much improved Finnish translation of my first book LOVE ON THE LINE. How to Recover from Romance Scams Gracefully and without Victimisation,

  SYDÄN SAALIINA. Romanssihuijarit verkossa. (Heart as Pray. Romance Scammers Online). I certainly like the title. We pondered about it for a while. Everyone in my family got involved and voted, like they all voted for the best cover. Docendo then decided what was the best one from the marketing point of view. Sydän saaliina has been translated in the wonderful cooperation with my ex-husband Arto. It was a great experience working through Skype and the whole thing worked quite well. What was really, really exchausting was the rereading and correcting my spelling mistakes.

 Working on different systems can be a hardship since the Word works in different ways depending on the environment. Learning to do tracking changes and colour words. It certainly thought me a lot.

  In Sydän saaliina my audience in Finland can learn about my story. How I became a victim of a Romance Scammer and how I recovered by writing and changing the storyline to my own love story, complete with a happy ending..

 It is recommended that people who have gone through a traumatic experience write their story anew. I learned it a long time ago through the Internsive Journaling practice. During the writing of my book I heared it from the 2015 Sydney Peace Prize winner George Gittoes. And just this week I heard it from Dr Sharad P. Paul, when he was discussing his book The Genetics of Health with Matt Wells on his Slacking Ambition radio program. He also said that writing your own story will give you a larger view and context to your own life situation. This will help you to understand your traumatic situation better and help you to look for recovery methods. Seeing the bigger picture shifts your perspective and enables action.

  It worked for me and to help others in the same situation or those who want to educate themselves about fraud, I wrote my book. In fact my second book is almost there. I am very exited about writing my next HEARTS BETRAYED book. It is getting along as planned and expected to come out in 2018 as well .

  Watch this space for more information or go to my website.

Learning about Fraud Recovery through Translating My Love on the Line Book to Finnish

Docendo, my Finnish publisher asked if I would be willing to translate my own book to Finnish.

‘It would be published early next year (2018)’, they said. 

I was really hesitant to do it.

‘You could work on it and improve on it’, the editor suggested. ‘Some chapters could be extended and so on. It would be a new extended edition, just for Finland’.

So, I got excited about this possibility, but was still very uncertain to begin on my own. 

‘I need a good editor’, I counted. 
‘Well, you have one, right here’, the editor said.

What a relief! Finally, I could rely on someone to brush up my spelling and grammar. If you have been corrected all your life, it truly leaves you with low self-confidence. But I am determined to help others recover from the trauma of fraud, especially romance scams, so I had to overcome my fear.

Despite that, my mind was somehow permeated with dread. How could I cope? Would it take ages and ages to fit my two language boxed side by side, in my head? I saw my dyslexia as a barrier, once again, in accomplishing the task. It seemed like an endless highway of doubts and anxieties. I was depressed – again. A low moment. Luckily, my ex-husband came to my rescue.

‘I will help you’, he said through Skype from other side of the world.

I knew his language skills were perfect. I am so grateful. And so we have been working on it for about two months now and getting better at it.

Skype is such a great working tool, I have learned. It enables you to really be in the same room with your team despite the distance of half the world. And translating something I had worked really hard on my second language to my mother’s tongue has given me a whole new perspective to my own writing. I am even getting to appreciate my own thinking patterns. Sometimes I go like WoW! Did I really write that? And there are new words I have learned, as well.

Language is such a wonderful thing. There are words that are trendy, and translations that seem to get lost between languages. Sometimes there are excitement with finding new words that have been created and learning about them give you some delighted moments in time. You can really appreciate the meaning behind the words. And your understanding had expanded a bit, once again. Besides, you can learn a lot about yourself and about the subject matter at hand. Mine is fraud, by the way.

The book I am translating is called Love on the Line. How to Recover from Romance Scams Gracefully and without Victimisation, if you haven’t read my blogs before. I have gotten a new kind of depth to my writing and I am understanding myself better now. My ex, there on the other side of the world is really supportive and without his skills and language competency I would be in trouble in remembering every expression, after living in Australia for the last twenty odd years. How great is it to remember! And how great is it to finally get an equivalent meaning to a word like empowerment. (It is voimaantuminen, by the way). I had never even really realised that before a couple of years ago, there was not a word for this expression. Now, it is used very often in many situations. Some have even commented that they are sick of it. It is such a positive word and used too often, they complain. Does it go with the more downtrodden Finnish mind set? I feel it does, and I am delighted to finally be able to freely use it.  

Other things I have learned is that now, after two years from writing my first book, I am still feeling the same. But I have evolved. My recovery has truly moved to another level. I am eagerly writing my second book Love on the Line 2. How to Empower Yourself after Recovery from Trauma. And it is coming along very well. I am so very excited about it as well. And extending some chapters for my Finnish readers feels like this book is evolving with me. Now I know much more. Now I have contacts and a whole community that is working for the same cause. I am a member of trauma and fraud prevention support groups and know other people who are there and that helps, not only me but others as well. Great development!

I am trying to keep my Website up to date with information. Sometimes it is lacking behinds some, due to my enthusiasm to get these books on the go by the deadlines I have. So, thanks for being patient with me and supportive and everything. Especially I am thanking my ex for he is a great fellow and we are having such fun doing the translation.

What I am saying is: Watch this space! More will be coming, soon.

Welcomome to LOVE ON THE LINE TV CONVERSATIONS: Episode 1. Behind the Book

Finally, I get to welcome you to my new venture: LOVE ON THE LINE TV CONVERSATIONS on YouTube. I have been planning to start a YouTube project for quite some time.

This has been one of those things that has been nagging at me but due to some unidentified fear factor has only manifested itself after some help from good friends and friendly professionals.

The final impulse to getting my new channel out was a 7 day video Facebook challenge I took part in just a few of weeks ago with Rachel Dunn and Michael Hole and their Girl Director Company. It is just  little things that make all the difference. My friend Janet Blake has been a marvel in supporting and helping me to get over the live. She has promised to make conversation videos with me on regular basis which means that there is much to look forward to. There are also lots of other wonderful people who have said yes to conversing with me about many issues concerning us today in relation to LOVE ON THE LINE.

There are many topics that come under this flag, so to say. There are also other subjects in the planning. One of them being my SAGA HEALING JOURNALING AND RECREATING YOUR STORY FOR RECOVERY eCourses that are in development. My head is just spinning with all the new things I need to learn.

It is all for the good cause, I say. The goal is to highlight HOPE, RECOVERY and HAPPY ENDINGS possibilities for trauma recovery. Of course, all this stems from me becoming a target of a romance scam and writing a book about it. It has developed into a lot more that I thought possible.

So, now it is over to you. Please enjoy Episode 1 of the LOVE ON THE LINE TV CONVERSATIONS with Janet Blake and I. It is the so called behind the scenes approach. I have included the full script here so that you may also read the conversation if you so prefer.

Thank you for reading, listening and watching.

FULL SCRIPT OF THE CONVERSATION Episode 1 LOVE ON THE LINE TV CONVERSATIONS: Behind the Book.

This be our trial one, taking about where we are at and talking about book launches and LOVE ON THE LINE, even if it is in the tree.

Welcome to the LOVE ON THE LINE TV Conversations with Janet Blake and Elina Juusola

Janet: And Elina is the author, in case you haven’t heard about it somewhere along the line. In the, shall we say, momentum, leading up to this, of Love on the Line
Elina: Here’s the book
J: Her first book.  Before we just have a bit of a chat. You have just written a book
E; I have, and it’s actually been published
J: And you know what, from listening to you. Congratulations on that. This book, you are welcome, has been what twenty something, maybe longer in the making or incubating?
J: And this whole process has been nurtured by a number of people?
E: Yes

J: Including, perhaps, finally, coming to terms with yourself and honouring and respecting that deep inner sacredness of what was deep inside of you, what would come out.

E: Yes, it was. It was like.

Well, this book, particularly, LOVE ON THE LINE is about Internet Romance Scams and because I was a victim of one, although I don’t call myself a victim. I call myself a survivor, or I was involved in one of these scams as a target. So, that woke me up to that I needed to do what I needed to do
And so, I mean, the shock of being a victim, or a target of this kind of scam when I was not even able to believe that it would be happening to me, because I am pretty knowledgeable about things. Or, I mean, as I said before, I’ve researched pornography, prostitution, violence against women for over 35 years. You would think that, you know how these things go, but they don’t, you don’t.
J: Listening to you and you know, the time we share before, life perhaps has positioned you as an expert in this field and with the hindsight. Do, you think that that has actually created a huge blind spot
E: Yes. I think because, as a person I am still, even though that I have been doing a lot of research for a number of years, I still look at the world with a very, very blue eyes, maybe. And I still think the best of all the people. So, I am not suspicious, so I am probably exately one of these people who would fall into a scam. Because, I would read an email and say, OK this is a nice person. I wouldn’t go on expecting this person to be a scammer. There are a lot of people who do, but I don’t. So, I mean. It can take you unaware.
J: Remember, I think, it was Albert Einstein who said that one of the fundamental questions we have to come to terms with, and this isn’t the exact quote whether the Universe is a friendly place or not.
E: Right, and in my mind Universe is a friendly place and in my mind, humanity is better that what we think.
I look at it as a lesson and I look at it as if this is probably why I was able to feel that now I have to look into this scamming, I have to research and see the bigger picture and see what was my relationship to the scam and how it came about and that’s why, for example, I started journaling and I started writing down my experience in the way. And then, like you know, the book became a narrative healing experience and from there on it has developed even more, because I am now writing the sequel.
J: So, when you dream, do you dream in different languages
E: Yes. People speak the language I know them from.
J: So, when you write your narratives. What language you write them in?
E: English
J: Because?
E: Because, that’s the language they will be published in.
J: Haa
E: And then I need to have somebody who is a skilled person, who understands me. Like I had Chris Henderson, from Women Howling at the Moon
J: And she is fantastic
E: Yes, and she took me in, and she has interpreted and she changed the structure because I might be writing in English, but it still might have a Finnish syntax. And not only her, but before the book was published, I still had the context editing.
First I write. Sometimes, I plan in Finnish, whatever happens. And then I plan and I write and it comes, quite a lot from my, automatically, what I write and I write very much as I speak. And then I have a person who looks at my language and changes it and maybe come out with some words which I think I knew but I didn’t remember
And then the second tie, is the context editing and then there is the product. Perfect product.
J: Which just happen like that! J
E: Exactly! It did take nearly one and half years.
J: Yes, and all that time leading up to it, incubating.
The word scamming is used a lot. So, here is a question for you. And maybe it’s in another language, I am not sure. What would be another word or a string of words that you would use to describe the picture of scamming?
E: I would say, when you are thinking in the bigger picture. And that we live in… First of all we live in a society where we don’t always know what’s happening where the thought forms and the thought patterns of this society, they have been ingrained in our brain, so that that we, actually, automatically, behave in a certain way.
J: Like Pavlovian dog
E: Yeah, we are very, very predictable as people
So, we have our culture, we got our language. We have our environment, where we are.
And some people can also use these kind of thought patterns and though forms against us. And so the scammers do that. People who are trying to, trying to get something from us for their own behalf.
J: Do you think there is also an aspect or, in terms of scammers and us, that they see the wound that is crying out to be healed?
E: Yes, the scamming is all about emotions and it is about catching that weak, vulnerable moment of the target.
J: Aha
E: So, let’s say that in my case, I was really ill, already, because my mom had died,
E: and I had developed fibromyalgia, so I was so ill that I even thought that my life is going to end at 60 instead of 110 which I had already predicted that I would be.
J: uhyy J
E: Thank you, that’s my plan
J: Part of your ongoing bigger narrative
E: Yes, exactly. So, I was caught in that very, very vulnerable moment and what happens in your brain is that you then go from this rational thinking into your emotions and I was having, just marvellous time. I tell you.
It’s incredible to have this kind of emotional high. And I had not, honestly, felt like that in a long time. And what I realised with this scamming experience is that I could change myself. I could live in my emotions. Deeply. I could go, without any drugs, like enhancing it. That I could do it myself. I could make myself happy and the oxytocin and the, what else, the hormones just start flowing your brain. And I realised that this is the kind of thing what happens with scammers. They want you to be in that moment so that you automatically work in that way. And then they ask for money and when they ask for money, at least the first couple of times, it comes unaware and you automatically help because it’s in your nature. But what happened with me was that the moment I pushed the button, when I sent my first money, I knew that there was something fishy about it.
J: Ah, did you, but you still did it.
E: Well, after I sent it, I went like, ah this is something I’ve done. What did I do! J And then I went and I sent an email to my son and he found that it was a Ghana scam and then he said to me. Well this is what he said: well here are all the links but do not click on these links because you don’t need to read all that crap that there has been about this person. Just keep the good memories and particularly the romantic memories. And this is how writing this book came about
J: Yes. So, for me, just watching the process unfold, in terms of launching your book and what you have been talking about the editing and pulling together. And the story actually has evolved even during that process and it has evolved even earlier as were talking earlier over tea and coffee
E: Yeah
J: One of the keys or, if you like, the highlight of the book was when your son told you, just to hang on to, hold on to. It was a bit more than just a good bits, but the bits where he made you feel alive, awake, and fantastic and it was even a bit more than that, because it was enhanced awareness and those things. So hold on to that state and you didn’t say it in so many worlds but remember that the messenger is not the message.
E: What happened there was that J we actually started making, having ideas of what kind of documentary we would do. Like you know a documentary about the scammers who are working in Ghana, in their call centers pretending to be the military in Afghanistan as a militant. And then you have this person, this this person, who is actually the target, the romantic person that is there and we had so much fun. Not only with my elder son but also with my younger son. You know. So, it became like a sort of an inspiration and a muse.
J: M-U-S-E so the essence of that whole, what shall we say, event.
E: Exactly!
E: Exactly, and from there we can go into storytelling and If you would be looking at your life from the deep dept. You could be tracing your emotions from one place to the other. You could be journaling. How could I say it? At this stage, we have this new kind of consciousness coming in, where. we are now being able to create our own world.
J: AHA
E: like the quantum theory says.  And the quantum thought patterns, they now are telling us that we are not stuck in our own ways, we are not stuck into these thought models. We can actually create our own life. So, this is like my storytelling that we could create a happy ending
J: Yes.
E: to our story.
J: And we could create lots of endings
E: Exactly. That it’s not the same. The happy ending is as likely as a bad ending. So, like you now, we can be part of the creation of our own story.
J: cool
E: And in that way we can break this generational victim idea.
J: And we can rewrite our scrips in terms of our life story, can’t we? (The book falls)
And that might be the end of it because the book fell off our wonderful bookshelf.
E: Yes, and thank you very much for listening to us. This was the episode one of our conversations with Janet and Elina and we aim to do more. So, just keep up, subscribe
J: Once a week. The subscribe button might be down there.
E: Yeah, do it. Once a week, we will have a new conversation about
J: Life, the Universe and everything
E: Yes, and about Love on the Line. And it is called LOVE ON THE LINE TV CONVERSATIONS
J: OK, so magic week for all of you in your life and explorations of
E: LOVE ON THE LINE
J & E Goodbye

Embarrassing or Empowering: Choice is Yours to Speak Out and Recover

Lately, I have been talking to a lot to people about my book Love on the Line, How to Recover from Romance Scams Gracefully and without Victimisation, It has been a huge learning curve for me about how to best advocate to my audience the importance of recovery as a surviving method from romance scams. My method has been writing through healing narrative. I have been surprised to find how hard the recovery really is because so many people feel embarrassed by their own experience. 

There are many reasons for embarrassment from loosing money to not really believing that such a thing could happen to me. Sometimes it is hard to face yourself and admit to the vulnerability that is within everyone of us. Sometimes it is hard to be confident to know that it was never your fault, even though the victims are often blamed for the crime, What is certain is that anyone can become a target of a scammer. Dr Cassandra Cross from the Queensland University of Technology, while talking at my book launch in January 2016, put it as it is:

   "The reality is that anyone could become a victim of scammers. We all have vulnerability. We have to respect that the offenders know exactly how to find that vulnerability and weakness. That is their profession."

She also said that people like me who come forward and speak out are rare. I was not really aware how rare, before I started to really engage with my readers and interested audience. I also found that many websites or groups that take on the issue of scamming have to work in secrecy or very privately to keep their members protected from treats. It was a schock to understand how many people are affected by scamming.

Wouldn't it be the ideal that our world would support the victims of scams. Instead, many feel isolated and afraid. Many feel devastated and disillusioned with the world. Luckily, there is hope, healing and recovery to consider. There are those who have spoken out about it, like Sharron Armstrong with her #standup2scams community. There are people like John with his Website and Facebook group who want to help. There are bloggers like Jas who write about inequality and how to engage yourself in making the world a better place, Last, but not least, there e people like Chris and Glenda who have made it their primary purpose to help others, in business and in person to get over it and act on it. I feel it my duty to spread the word of hope and positivity through writing.

So, join me in empowering yourself by using hashtags like #stanup2scams and my new one #speakoutandheal in your social media postings. Also tags like #empowerment #endviolence #positiveaction and #recoveryispossible would be good. And you can make up your own as you go. Blogging is also an effective and easy way to get your meaning accross to a wider audience. Sometimes, there might not be a huge readership, at first but we are working towards a long time result so every little action is a welcome addition to the movement. And if you have some good ones, please feel free to comment and and suggest down below, 

I am currently developing writing workshops and also a newsletter. My new Website for Love on the Line Book is alive and there is a blog that is all about those important question that has come fort during my book signing and event tours. Feel free to get involved. My main Website should get you everywhere. The book can be bought through Xlibris or any other main distributor like Amazon. Ah, and do like my Facebook Author page, too.

I wish you all a great Holiday Break from Australia.

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