Possessing Me: a memoir of healing

[SFJane]

Good morning Tao Bums!

 

I am pleased to announce the official release and publication of my book, Possessing Me: a memoir of healing. The book is the story of my life—from age six, to age twenty six. It chronicles my struggle and seventeen year battle with mental illness and my eventual spiritual healing.

 

Fair warning, it's not easy or light reading. Mental illness caused me a lot of problems as a young adult, including homelessness and joblessness and drug dependency. The issues I discuss range from repeated trauma and abuse at home, to being violated and dehumanized when I tried to get help and treatment for my problems, as well as suicide attempts and a near-death experience I had during my last OD back in '95.

 

How I recovered from all that confusion and suffering might be of interest to some of you. Namely, that in '96 I started studying chi/nei gung, nei jia and Water Method meditation from lineage holder and Taoist master Bruce Frantzis. In my early twenties I diligently practiced the material he teaches, in solitude mostly.

 

During that time, I resolved pretty much everything that was bothering me at a physical, mental, emotional and energetic level. Five years later, I had a wonderful meditation experience which opened my heart and infused me with something I had been missing all my life: self-love, and I have been free of sadness and spiritual pain ever since.

 

This is my story of how I cured myself of suicidal depression, the mania of bipolar disorder, the voices and delusions of schizophrenia, and the flashbacks, triggers and nightmares of post traumatic stress disorder.

 

In all seriousness and humility, some of the readers of the earliest incarnation of my manuscript and those familiar with the details of my journey of healing, have, at times, compared my work to Byron Katie, Cheri Huber and Eckhart Tolle, (none of whom I had ever heard of before I wrote my book). As to whether or not I actually deserve or warrant that comparison, I leave to my readers judgment.

 

As an aside, if you are in the Bay Area I will happily sign a copy of your book. I don't know if there is going to be a book tour. I did not get a juicy book advance from Big Publishing in order to promote my book. I created my own publishing company: Wise Boar Media, to distribute this and future works, so all my promotional efforts are being done on something of a budget.

 

Thanks to certain of you Nameless Bums who offered to read and review my ms in its earlier incarnation—and gave me useful feedback about it as it was developing. Thanks also to all you here who encouraged me to write my recovery story. And an extra-special thank you to Sean, the owner of TTB, for his gracious permission to post an announcement of my book's release on the forums.

 

Possessing Me: A Memoir of Healing

by Jane Alexander

369 pages

Wise Boar Media

ISBN13: 978-0983070900

Edited December 9, 2010 by SFJane

[Brian]

Congratulations, Jane!!! I'll have to buy a copy!

[surfingbudda]

Congrats Jane!!! So happy to hear you finally found yourself . I am actually going to San Francisco this weekend with my family and will be there for three nights, are you selling and signing books somewhere?

[Vajrahridaya]

Jane! I want to buy one!!

 

I have a similar history! I'm also from San Francisco! I used to skateboard at the Embarcadero and sell Marijuana on Haight St. in the 90's.

 

I'm very interested in reading your book!! I want to write one myself actually... teh he.

 

 

I'm so happy for you!!

[manitou]

Very best wishes to you, Jane - congratulations on finishing your book. I've written a couple and I know what it takes to sit down and actually do it. (Unfortunately, mine were extremely graphic police novels that had to get out of my system, LOL....they were never published, nor did they deserve to be.) But just having the tenacity to do that day by day is quite a feat. Hope you sell lots....

[Mal]

Congradulations Jane, nice looking site too www.possessingme.com

 

I tend to get my books through http://www.bookdepository.co.uk (free postage and different regulations in the UK makes books a fair bit cheaper for me than Amazon) So I've asked customer service if they are able to get your book.

[sifusufi]

Congrats Jane! Your hard work continues to be an inspiration.

 

 

Brilliant!

Write it!

If I was a publisher....

[NeiChuan]

Awesome Jane.

 

Congratz, and good luck

[Birch]

Congratulations Jane

[island]

That's some achievement! both the recovery and the book. Good for you! Love Island

[hagar]

I'm impressed

Congratulations. And good luck with the promo!

 

h

[Mandrake]

This is such good news! You are such a remarkable human!

Next stop book shop!

 

Mandrake

[joeblast]

Inspiring!

[SFJane]

I am actually going to San Francisco this weekend with my family and will be there for three nights, are you selling and signing books somewhere?

 

It's possible. I could try to set up something locally on the fly. The only issue is notice. These things usually get set up in advance with a store manager. In this case, I am sure I could discreetly meet you somewhere and do an impromptu signing.

 

You are lucky you are coming now. I didn't have any signings or events planned this week or the next. The projected date for receiving some stock was December 14. It just so happens that we got them on Tuesday. I have these enormous boxes in the living room with the first fifty books and I have yet to find the perfect place to put them all, lol. But yeah, let me see what can be done and I can send you a PM or post here.

 

To everyone else, I wanted to give you my heartfelt thanks and gratitude for your interest and your supportive comments. I hope you enjoy the book.

Edited December 9, 2010 by SFJane

[Mal]

Not available from bookdepository I only buy from Amazon once a year and this year was -

9 nights with a Taoist Master

2012 the Awakening (apparently Im mentioned in the list of Tai Chi schools)

and

Possessing Me: a memoir of healing

 

I REALLY liked your book Jane. I went and had a read of the (enormous) preview to see what the writing style was like. Its very engaging, a bit like your posts, you have a great storytelling style that I enjoy reading.

 

I feel this book has the potential to give hope to people in very desperate situations.

Thank you for surviving, and for telling how you made it through.

_/\_

 

(I look forward to reading all of Possessing Me sometime before 22 Jan I had to chose the cheapest shipping option)

[SFJane]

Not available from bookdepository I only buy from Amazon once a year and this year was -

9 nights with a Taoist Master

2012 the Awakening (apparently I’m mentioned in the list of Tai Chi schools)

and

Possessing Me: a memoir of healing (I look forward to reading all of Possessing Me sometime before 22 Jan

 

I am sorry about bookdepository. The book just got up on Amazon and it does take some time for the title to propagate to different sellers and the like. I will at some point look into that site and see if something can be done.

 

I did see a Mal listed thanks to the LookInside of 2012: TA, neat!

 

Speaking of the LookInside, I am glad you like the bonus preview! There wasn't actually supposed to be so much of it showing. They didn't check with me first when they started populating the LookInside feature and they put up way, way too much, including at the time certain spoilers. Woops. They tell me that the LI feature will fluctuate for weeks in terms of how much is showing.

 

At any rate, I hope you enjoy the book when you receive it, and that it does end up helping people. That would be a nice reward for the time and effort invested I hope also that you will feel free to post here or email me your thoughts about it when you've had some time to mull it over. I will check back on this thread from time to time to answer questions or reply to comments about it. Take care for now!

[RiverSnake]

I look forward to getting my hands on a copy.

[Mal]

My copy arrived today

[Prince...]

I just placed an order on your book, Jane. I've followed your posts here and on EmptyFlower ever since you made the youtube video about IMAs back in '08. Looking forward to reading it, and I am going to recommend it to all of the MFT (Marriage & Family Therapy) students back at the Seminary I was attending.

[Otis]

[Otis]

[SFJane]

Mal-- I am glad you received your copy and I hope you enjoy it. It's a nice testament to POD publishing that you were able to order that from Amazon, who then sent a print order to a press who then uploaded the data of my book and printed it (probably the same day the received the order). Then it was mailed and came over on a plane to Australia within just a couple weeks. Pretty neat.

Prince-- Thank you very much for both for your interest and your recommendation. I hope you like the book. Once I am back in shape I will make a way better IMA video than the one from 08. That one was just too clumsy. I couldn't stand to look at it after awhile.

 

Otis-- Thank you kindly for your thoughts. Re: Clumsiness and freeing up stuff.

There are easier and less painful ways to spend your time then trying to heal your spiritual injuries and imbalances—for sure.

 

I am and will continue to be very grateful to you all for your interest and support. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about it.

Edited December 26, 2010 by SFJane

[Otis]

[Mal]

BTT one of my friends daughters has been struggling with depression for some time.She is getting help, but (from experiencce) it's hard receive "help" when you are in that sort of place. So I've passed Jane's book on to her.

(I just asked her dad to make sure she doesn't stop in the middles )

 

Thanks for writing this Jane.

 

http://www.ruokday.com.au/content/home.aspx

[Meow]

Very impressive. Both the description and your blog I found online.