Well I have to begin by saying I never expected to have anything to do with scammers, let alone learn anything from them – but life is full of interesting turns and deadends and this last 6 months have proved to be enlightening.

Now I am not sure if I am a prime target because I run this blog or that I (like millions of other men and women) have been exploring the internet dating scene – and maybe it is a combination of both. The internet has changed how we relate to others.

Many of the natural barriers we would experience with each other are removed and when you make allowances for differences in cultural upbringing it is a ripe place for lies, subterfuge and manipulation.

In this blog I am being totally honest.

My reason to do this is I can speak from first hand experience of being ’scammed by a sweetheart’ – the official title for relationship scams. The $$$ amount is unimportant here although it was a substantial amount for someone who did not have much financially to begin with!

The number of men and women who are being hustled over the internet is increasing exponentially as people deal with the fallout of the global economic meltdown. There were always traditional hotspots for scams – Africa, Russia and parts of Asia but today you can expect a scam from any part of the world.

 Do not assume because you are talking to a nice, educated doctor in the UK, that that is really who he is. Scam artists are getting cleverer. They read the lastest books on dating advice and the psychology of relationships and they use this information to perfect their scams. The good ones are much subtler than the obvious ‘I need money and I am in a difficult situation’ and because they are – they are more success.

Another thing you need to be aware of is that they have infinite patience to lure their ’sting’ – that’s you , by the way, the unsuspecting chump who is going to be done!

Now I can hear from here your thoughts as you read my words and say ‘Oh! But that would never happen to me!’ and all I can say was that 6 months ago I was you!

So what have the scammer taught me?

 1) It’s no good crying over spilled milk.

If you have been done – accept it and find the positives in the situation. The worst thing you can do is let the situation keep you as a victim. You will get done again!

2) You found out who they were BEFORE you had them in your life.

Yes- it may not seem a positive, but it surely is – ask those men and women who have had pathological partners in their lives and the ruination they have caused! If you’ve been scammed over the internet and you have give your money to the scammers technically you have not been robbed (even though you will feel like it!). But when you catch on and refuse to give them more they usually leave you alone.

3) Find comfort in the fact you know the truth.

Yes, you have been fed a pack of lies and been manipulated, your bank balance is lower and your heart hurts BUT you are still alive and you will get over this.

4) Celebrate your heart has grown.

It must have mustn’t it because you are feeling pain, hurt, disillusion and disappointment? These are all signs the heart has expanded and is now shrinking back on itself. Don’t give the scammer the satisfaction of winning in this as well. Keep your heart open inspite of this set back.

 5) Celebrate your learning.

If you’ve never met a scammer before – how will you know how to deal with one? This is new information, new learning. You are not as innocent as before and the learning will help you protect yourself better in the future as a result.

6) Be willing to deal with the underlying issue.

You have had a wake up call. Most of us allow ourselves to go through being scammed because of loneliness. Accept this is what the problem is and get some help to overcome it. If you face the issues that make you vulnerable and find ways of coping with them you will not be in a position to be manipulated by your feelings again. This is empowerment and probably the most important lesson of the whole situation.

7) Be grateful.

Be willing to make a list of all the things in your life you can be grateful for. It helps put the whole sorry mess into perspective and allow you to move forward. It allows you to see this as just an experience, not something that has ruined your life.

Be willing to love you more than another.

Yes – it has to be said – some of us love others better than we love ourselves. Use this event to empower your self love and you will be able to see the whole situation as a blessing – where does that put the scammer then – as the insect s/he is!

9) Be willing to grow your resilience and inner strength. You can let this situation keep you locked into victim-hood or you can use it to become a better and stronger you.

Many years ago I was faced with a life or death situation that enabled me to make a choice to live. I have not forgotten that lesson. Living means we roll with the highs and lows. If you have not watched martial arts or boxing – do so. You will see that rather than stand firm when the blow comes, the receiver moves back with the impact and so lessens its strength. Living life in the same way means we are strong in the forward movement and graceful in the side steps. We dance the moving carpet that is life.

10) For the future – Plan to give your hard earned money to a charity.

A charity will use your money appropriately and make you feel good about yourself rather than giving it to a scammer who robs you of satisfaction and happiness.

And a bonus tip!

11) Get even.

You may need to follow through on this in a legal way. There are companies that will investigate the legitimacy of your scammer and give you a detailed report.

For myself I have spent enough on the scammer I do not need to spend more to know they are a scammer. It is more important to me to get myself back.

A healthy vibrant woman who is willing to love and learn is a much better success story than having confirmed what you already know – your sweetheart is a scammer – don’ t you think?

Wishing you a successful internet experience and much love and happiness as a result….

Till next time,

Melody

I was recently surfing blogs and came across an entry bemoaning the loss of Love Letters. Not the fast and instanteous emails or the truncated texts or even the witty tweets ( I have been disciplining myself to write poetry in 140 characters – it is such a good discipline for writers!)

BUT real on paper, written with the pen in your hand and sent via snail mail, Love Letters.

Having lived in an age when Love Letters were only sent via snail mail I have to say I am rather partial to the Love Letter myself.

So why is that?

1) It’s the amount of effort is shows. He cares enough to write me a letter – this is really something especially if your lover is far away and very busy with their own life.

2) It is the  unexpectedness of it’s arrival – so different from your bills and circulars or the scrawly spidery hand of your great aunt telling you all about people you don’t know from her past and complaining about the cost of coffee.

3) It is the aroma -yes a love letter has a special aroma, a vibration that communicates from the way he boldly writes your name and address to the size and colour of the envelope he uses.

4) It is the emotions it arouses in you. You open it, heart a-flutter, eagerly wanting to read it’s contents yet unwilling to spoil the envelope.

I have to say here that all love letters I have opened with a letter opener, neatly so as not to tear them, but from a family member or bill- I merely flip the envelope open with my thumb – tearing the envelope in my haste and disregard.

5) The way your eyes devour the words, as though you have been starved in some prison somewhere and every word is your nourishment. The first time you read it so quickly you have barely time to digest it and it requires 2 -3 readings before you can say you understand what has been written.

6) Having been nourished and starvation abated it is now time to savour – this is when you read it again, you notice the penmenship, the date, how the words fit on the page, and think about what he might have been thinking when he wrote it to you, was he in a hurry or did he take his time finding exactly the right words to say to you? Was he poetic? Sensual? Sexually explicit? Was he romantic? This is the time when you blush and grin in delight , hugging the letter to you.

7) Now it is time for you to reply. This could be the same day or many days later, depending on how long it has taken you to get to this step and how in love with your lover you are. This is when you re-read the letter and answer in reply to his questions or innuendos, his passion and his caring. If you feel you are in the flow the letter gets written in your best handwriting and with a quick re-read is ready to be sealed with a kiss and sent to the post box.

If it is more difficult or you have troubles clearly expressing yourself it may take longer – and you could find so many scribbled out bits and add -ins that you decide to re-write it so that he will be able to read it when it arrives.

You stop and imagine him reading your letter, a smile playing his lips as he  registers what you are saying and wish he were here that you could speak with him directly.

And now you wait for his next new Love Letter and in this time you re-read his last one until you know it by heart. Until you can hear him speaking the lines he has written. Until the creases of the letter are fragile with the folding over and over and the words have begun to fade with the reading as though you are reading the ink off the page and that at some time (sooner than you would like) the letter will have disintegrated and blown away with the dust. So you read it again, more avariciously in the hope the words will become etched in your heart.

9) And you wait and still no letter. You wonder if you have offended by what you have written? Has he cooled in his passion for you? Is it already over before it has really begun? Doubt settles like a misty grey overcoat and now you look at the box of letters and watch warily, willing yourself to have more will power to resist torturing yourself with them if they may not be true.

10) And today glorious day – his letter has arrived and you are all smiles, over the moon with happiness and delight. You love is well, he is well and you are happy at last.

So why do we do all of that to ourselves you may ask?

Because the drama and experience of living  and loving so close to the edge with our emotions is what receiving Love Letters is all about!

For some this rollercoaster of emotions is too much to bear in which case I would suggest  – leave it alone –  BUT  if there is any small part of you that feels the need for a love that is lived on the edge, that is developed over time and that gives you a chance to express things you would not say face to face, then I would say

Go for it!

It’s the kind of experience of love that you will never forget.

One you can carry with you into your old age to reminisce over when you are as old as your great aunt!

Why if you are really sentimental, you will have kept all those letters still and be ready to read them again and smile and remember as though it were only yesterday when the Love Letter arrived.

Until next time

May you receive and write many love letters…

Melody

I was taking a spin on a friend’s blog and felt compelled to share my thoughts on SOULMATES.

Here is my take on this thorny subject!

I am about to put the cat amongst the pigeons with no arsenal!

We have misunderstood the truth of a soul mate.

1) They can be any form of relationship, not just romantic.

 2) The role of a soulmate is to be a catalyst for your growth – that means they can sometimes be wonderfully uncomfortable relationships to be in. Wonderful when you’re in tune and harmony, diabolical when you are not!

3) We are all fragmented aspects of the ONE – (you may put your own religious spin on this as to whether you think this should be God, the Universal consciousness or some other form of heirachy)

As fragmented aspects of the one, we are always about learning to LOVE,

to recognise we are LOVE and that others in the world are also LOVE.

4) If we come from this persepective it is clear that we could have any number of real, deep relationships with people we think might be the ONE – our soul mate.

5) Since where is it written that we are only allowed one real love and all loves thereafter are less than?

If we have learned from love we are growing in our capacity to love and this growth brings deeper, more profound opportunities to love with an open and true heart.

On a personal note I would like to think that I have loved every man I have loved over my lifetime with the ultimate honesty, respect, caring and love that I was capable of understanding at the time. This is the best I had to offer at the time.

Certainly what I offer now is better than what I offered in my teens, but then that is what I hope maturity is about – that we learn, grow and develop a stronger urgency to love in openness and vulnerability.

Which brings me back to loving a soul mate – an opportunity to love more deeply, with more openenss and vulnerability – a love not for the weak at heart but those with sincere and deep courage.

Wishing you all the willingness to love just like this

Sweet hearts to you all

 Melody

P.S. – If you are interested in Tony’s blog check out – www.lovethorns.com

Have you noticed how heavy, slow and stuck the world has become over the last 3-6 months?

Do you feel like you are holding the world of doom, gloomy and worry on your shoulders?

It seems that no matter where we look there is bad news – be it of the economy, loss of jobs, companies and people going in liquidation and the global situation be it economic or environmental.

I can see people around me feeling like they are swimming in a pool of murky treacle and the fear that they will never get out!

So maybe the answer is not to worry, not to let the news make you dreary with its negativity and cut us off from being  about who we really are which is LOVE.

Atlas who held the world upon his shoulders, soon got bent for his trouble. I wonder -

Did he love what he was doing? Did he love holding the world up on his shoulders?

If the task was filled with love and made him feel great then maybe we are wrong to be sorry for him?

We know enough about emotions to know that good ones create more good ones and bad ones create even worse.

For most of us we cannot change the current situation, we can only weather it, come through it and look after our families, friends and communities – and if we do this the nations will look after themselves and the world will be a better place.

I can’t help thinking that not matter how grim things are we can laugh.

That when things are tough the entertainment industry does a very healthy business in film, live shows and concerts.

That when we are feeling down, we yearn for things that will relieve the constant drugery of it all.

Maybe, this sense of coming to a stop financially  is about having the time to see what is really important to us?

Maybe who we really are, how we really relate and what really makes our heart sing is not success, but love.

And if that’s the case then many of us are already blessed.

And for those of us who are not?

Time to dust off our heart muscle, open our eyes and

get our blood singing to the tune of love.

Now that sounds like a great task to be putting energy into don’t you think??

Till next time, may you find love Sweet Beings,

Melody

I realised the other day I was being played for a fool.

Albeit a bit early for April Fool’s Day. I was being played through my emotions by a master trickster in half truths, omissions and possible lies.

Once I had got over the shock of being treated like this when I so clearly was being honest, open and loving I started thinking about why this had happened to me.

Where was my vulnerability and was closing down being ‘me’ the only way to protect myself?

All human beings are vulnerable at some point of their emotional psyche.

Maybe we need to be admired, or loved. Maybe we need comfort, caring and recognition. Maybe we need food, shelter and medical attention.

In our complex and busy world to need something is to be considered susceptible to weakness and should therefore be avoided at all costs.

But what if our neediness points to a place of growth and power – surely then we could be richer by far than we appear? Are we really being taken for a fool? And if so -

What do you do to move forward after you have experienced being ‘taken for a fool’?

Of course the first stage and state is shock.

Shock that is has happened, shock that you have misunderstood the motives and actions of others, shock that this is happening to you when you have done nothing to deserve this in your life! 

What to do at stage 1?

If possible start a course of Bach Rescue Remedy or an Emergency Essence – this will help you get all of yourself – emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually together. If you can do this as quickly as possible afte the shock, your recovery time will be much less.

The second stage is denial and doubt. ‘ No it could not be true, there must be some mistake, the person could not have treated me like this. And then the questioning, if they did, have they been doing this all along.’ This is when the body starts to feel like a great stone has been placed in the pit of your stomach and you can’t move. You mind is racing to cope with the situation and the body is just locked in place.

What to do at Stage 2?

Be still. Ask you mind to stop the questioning for a moment. If you can stop this part of  stage 2 you will also stop Stage 3 from starting which can be so destructive to moving forward.

Stage 3 is the most self destructive part of the process – this is where the self hate tapes start – the recriminations, the inner critic tapes, the unwillingness to see the issue as being anything other than your fault. Stage 3 stops all movement forward and all learning possible and keeps you in the loop of victimhood, resentment and bitterness.

How to deal with stage 3?

Accept your part in the situation without qualification or justification. Simply say: I accept I played a role in this. I accept all my feelings  and emotions, I deny nothing.’ This is the step that allows action to be taken that will move you forward, not keep you in the ‘old game’

The mind is a wonderfully complex pattern maker, that loves to dissect and reconnect things from every conceivable angle – so you may need to do Stage 1-3 many times over until you feel quiet enough to set out on stage 4.

What to do at Stage 4?

You are ready for stage 4 when you feel like you have a breathing space. The initial shock, denial, doubt and recriminations are over and at some part of you there is a need to act. So what kind of action do we need to take?

Well firstly it must be to deal with whatever is in front of us in the moment. This might be to go to work, look after a child, go to a class. Whatever it is  – do it. Continue to keep yourself going in positive and supportive ways.

If the person who has disappointed you is not there to confront or get further feedback from, it is not worth spending any more of your precious time thinking about them or what they are feeling or doing.

Caring for yourself takes #1 priority.

And caring for yourself means getting the things that are important in your life working again as quickly as possible.

A few days of this behaviour and you will be ready to deal with your disappointment in a constructive manner that will enable you to move forward without looking back.

Some time later you will hit Stage 5.

This is where you will be grateful for the learning and see how important it was for you to have had the experience.

In this space you are in your power, you are strong  and have true  courage  – a heart that has been tempered by experience and can still remain open to what life has to offer.

You are no longer the fool, but the wise woman or man on the journey of your life and it is those that played you as the fool who are the real fools.

Life is like that – it is not as it appears.

The trick is to know we are being played by the trickster to learn something really important and that the sooner we do the less of those terrible disapppointments fill our lives.

Till next time

Bless-sings

Melody

Personal His-stories and Her-stories

When we were a baby we cried often.

Most parents think there is a reason for this, that we need to be fed, changed, comforted or loved.

And all of these maybe true.

But more importantly, you as a soul have arrived in a big place with lots of emptiness and unknown -ness that is often filled with energies of those you love, but also those you don’t know, don’t like the look of or feel unconnected or threatened by. This experience called living seems overwhelming and scary.

So how do you cope?

You cry. You cry your sound out into the world so that you know that in the mad world of other people’s energies you exist. For if you didn’t hear your own sound, could not vibrate with it, you would feel lost and may give up being here altogether.

This is the first step of creating our personal his-story or her-story. Where we have been becomes the familiar that we visit in order to feel comfortable about ourselves.

In time when our stories start to fill with sorrow and disappointment we rewrite our stories subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) changing details so that the reality of what happened can match the dream that we had intended for ourselves.

The problem with doing this though is there is so little space for new dreams to come into being because the patterns of the past mean that we create more of what we would like to change about our lives (i.e. we create the same problems) when what we really want to create is what we want – which is a change of view.

Personal his-stories and her-stories and our attachment to them become a noose around our neck that burdens us with limitations in the present.

We need to be free to experience life in each moment, creating it as we go and following the flow of love. To do this with ease and grace means to let go of our attachment to the past.

Being able to look at photos and mementos of your life and not recognise them as you now but from another time, almost as though they were a completely different being is a sign that you have accepted the truth of time.

For in this moment you are a completely different being from the ‘you’ of yesterday or year.

Become selective in what you tell people about who you are.

When you meet someone new decide on a personal his-story day – a time to tell your tales about you. Answer any questions that are brought forward from the telling with the wisdom of hindsight – and then never mention them again.

They have no true bearing on your present and even less on your future unless you wish to repeat your patterns all over again.

Journal your story up to the end of last year and then at the end off each year that passes add an entry- creating a snapshot of that year and then let it go.

It is more important that you recognise yourself as love than you recognise your personality or identity.

An adult does not need to hear herself in the world to know she exists, for as an adult she knows she is the ‘I AM’ present – nothing else of her-story is relevant unless the I Am energy of love embraces it.

Trust in love and BE.

Nothing more is asked of you.

This is an excerpt from 

 ’Soul Talk – How to share your wisdom with those you love.’

By Melody R. Green.

You will find it at www.amazon.com

Female

Congratulations! You have chosen to be a woman.

You are the energy of yin, receptive, intuitive, emotionally perceptive and expressive.

In your life time you may choose to experience the roles of daughter, sister, aunt, mother, lover, friend, confidante, companion, carer, high priestess, comforter, holder of your tribe’s history, widow, spinster or crone. Career woman, superwoman, goddess, siren or whore.

All roles are open to you and you may take on more than one and multiple roles at once, as is your choice.

Enjoy your femininity.

Embrace all of your being.

Revel in being a woman.

For this was your choosing.

This excerpt is from

“Soul Talk – How to share your wisdom with those you love”

By Melody R. Green.

It is available from www.amazon.com

Male

Congratulations! You have chosen to be a man.

You are the energy of Yang, active, logical, outwardly motivated and expressive.

In your lifetime you may choose to experience the roles of son, boy, brother, uncle, father, lover, friend, mate, companion, provider, high priest, carer, creator of your tribes history, creator of the ‘rules’ by which your tribe lives, widower, bachelor, hermit, wise man, career man, superman, God, Adonis, pimp or whore.

Enjoy your masculinity.

Embrace all of your being.

Revel in being a man.

For this was of your choosing.

This excerpt was from

” Soul Talk – How to share your wisdom with those you love”.

By Melody R. Green

You will find it at : www.amazon.com

We made the first choice in this world of duality when we chose to be a man or a woman and have a life experience.

But the first step to understanding that you are one, you are whole is to realise that you exist because your shadow side does as well. It is not in opposition to you but acts as a foil for the light of you to shine.

Let me explain. If you have incarnated as a male – your shadow side is your inner female and vice versa.

This shadow side is where you filter your unconscious thoughts, beliefs and then respond to them with your emotions and actions.

Often the shadow will hold your heritage – the patterning you have agreed to be this lifetime – your non-physical DNA if you like. The impact of this DNA is profound. It acts as a magnet to attract experiences to you so that you can find out or become conscious of your thoughts and feelings.

It is only when you begin the journey to consciousness that you will understand the concept of choice and co-creation of your personal version of the universe.

Most people choose to learn this through pain and suffering, but it could so easily be learned through joy and delight. Those who have been avatars or guiding lights through humanity’s history have tried to instill in their followers this understanding.

Even in this there is choice. The choice does not always lie with the event that happens to us (although through past actions we can influence these events.)

Where real choice lies, where our point of absolute power sits,

is in our choice of how we react to the event.

Hence we may have two people who have had their belongings stolen. Person A may react in fear and victim-hood demanding retribution whereas Person B may philosophically shrug their shoulders and say that they were glad to be of service to the thief. For the thief obviously had more need of their goods than they did.

These are of course extreme responses and the reality is often more complex than has been illustrated here, but the essence of the example remains.

We are always at a point of choice.

OR

You may approach it all with light-heartedness.

This too is your choice!

All is valid.

A heart that is filled with light knows love and

a mind that is serious and contemplative accesses wisdom.

What glorious gifts!

Who could want more?

For this is truth – that all routes of your individual journey bring you to who you already are – Love and wisdom.

There is nothing else.

Until next time

Bless-sings

Melody

PS If you enjoyed this and other blogs you will find them in my latest book –

Soul Talk -How to share your wisdom with those you love  – available from www.amazon.com

We are love. This is the reality. The truth of all we experience, of all we are in the world.

It is extraordinary and magnificent how complicated we create our understanding of this simple truth.

All the permutations of life whether they be individual, familial, societal or humanitarian – all interactive with each other and all weaving a vast web of love – across the planet and beyond to the universe.

It rather takes your breath away, doesn’t it?

And you are part of this.

Regardless of whether you are a light bright and joyful or a shadow deep filled with pain, whatever choice you are making right now to express yourself, you are love having a conscious experience of yourself.

For me, I was always curious about how humans ticked. What made them who they were?  Why did they respond so?

It would be fabulous to think that we arrived on the planet with our wisdom to recognise that we are love fully fledged with an adult understanding, but we need life to be lived through us before we can embrace the truth of who we are.

My journey has been unique and yet not so different to others. I have dealt with the pain of physical and emotional abuse, lack of self worth and confidence, depression and despair at the death of family, friends and dreams and yet through it all I have searched for a way to be authentic, true to myself and been willing to risk much for the sense of love, of me, that I felt needed to be expressed.

It took me a while to realise that

• by looking out at others I could understand the ‘me’ within
• each and everyone I saw in the world was a reflection of me
• my worldly creation is an expression of myself learning about myself

Once these ideas took hold, change was inevitable. For I looked at my life and realised I wanted to explore and react to life differently than I had done up until that point.

This took me on a journey – a journey to realise myself and to be all that I can be in each moment.

I am still on this journey today.

In the beginning when all is new and discovery a joy the road to self realisation seems paved with gems and gold.

You begin by thinking that at some time in the future you will have reached your destination and you can celebrate your self realisation in what remains of your life!

After years on the road, we begin to tire of always being conscious.

We recognise that we have had many ‘ah-ha’ moments of enlightenment but although satisfying at the time and useful to us in the future are just as quickly swallowed back into the muddy world of living.

And so it is necessary to find a joy and happiness in living right now in the mud so to speak, being a ‘hue’-man being!

No wonder the Buddhists revere the lotus, for its roots are in mud and its flower is to the sun. This is a perfect analogy of our journey here in conscious living.

Getting to this point of acceptance is strewn with our judgements, fears and illusions and in this space we practice ‘self-terrorism.’

It is interesting to see how we are so consumed with our outward signs of terrorism when we carry so much of it within ourselves.

It is my hope that the terrorists on the outside will cease to exist when we have let go of the need to terrorise ourselves.

And so over the next few weeks I will be offering you snippets from my book

Soul Talk – How to share your wisdom with those you love. 

If it offers you a helping hand, a point of support or opposition to your journey to self, it will have served its purpose.

It comes to you with love, without judgement for who you may be and with complete acceptance of the glorious being you have blessed me with knowing.

For without you, I would have no inkling of the magnificence of the I AM.

Most deeply I thank you,

Melody

P.S. If you are impatient to get reading my book you can purchase it directly from Amazon.com at the following link:

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Talk-Middle_english-Melody-Green/dp/1921240075/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235543160&sr=1-3