Books
In ‘False Images,’ Portland Author Leon McCoy Explores Healing
G
oing through a rough patch in
life, writer Leon McCoy was
inspired to improve his life –
and wrote a book about it. Here the
author speaks about how the book
came about and how it can help oth-
ers heal from past tragedies.
what brought you to undertake
this book?
I think it was the universe’s way of
letting me heal. Because it wasn’t
like I sat down one day and deter-
mined I was going to write a book. It
just happened. It began coming out
of me. I was moved to go to my com-
puter and I typed for days upon days.
It just came out. Just a release
what’s it about?
The book is about my process of
self discovery and of becoming
aware. It’s about how I agreed with
wrong information and tried to use
that information to gain some posi-
tive result in life – and of course it
didn’t work. I was born into a tradi-
tional religion, to traditional beliefs,
at the way things had always been,
but as a result of that I expected the
things that I was taught – in terms of
belief systems, in terms of dogma, in
terms of religions to grant me
answers to the questions of life, and it did-
n’t work. So one day I sat down and I just
asked the universe to give me truth – I need
truth – and immediately my life just turned
upside down. The bottom actually fell out of
it. Immediately that next day I lost my job,
I filed for bankruptcy, I was audited by the
IRS for three years, I was sued for child
support, I was evicted and I had my car
repossessed. All in the same week.
And I became homeless and I ended up
seeking refuge in a church here in Northeast
Portland. And all I could do was in the
morning I’d go to the altar and I just lay
there. I just cried and I asked ‘why?’
Eventually I began to come to a different
understanding, I began to see a new founda-
tion had been laid in my life, and I just con-
tinued and continued in that path and little
by little, my housing needs were provided
for, my food was provided for. I began to go
to a different place in terms of academia. I
was at PCC at that time and I took the
plunge and went to Marylhurst and I began
to work on my undergraduate studies, and
then my universe began to really open up.
With that new information it pushed my
Page 6 The Portland Skanner January 11, 2012
mind and pushed my critical thinking
skills to the point where I could ask
questions about what I believed and
why I believed it. And with that this
new foundation came to me in an
awareness that – wait a minute, this
experience of years of brokenness is
actually a tool to be passed along to
someone who may be experiencing
those kinds of experiences that I had
in my life, that brokenness, that
despair, that addiction, that loneliness.
Those people that are so completely
ensconced in false images of who they
are and that we’re just imprisoned in
our own minds by ourselves – by our
own agreement. When I came to that
realization it just was so obvious to
me that this needs to be shared. It
needs to be shared.
I had written a book five years ago,
but no matter how I tried it wouldn’t
go anywhere – it was not the right
time. I didn’t fully understand what
process I was involved in. And when
all of that solidified underneath me,
then the doors just opened – just
opened. I was doing research for a
paper in a writing class at Marylhurst,
and I went to the reference librarian
and instead of asking for information
to support my thesis, I’m asking him
for book publishers. And he printed
out an article that was about Portland State
University and this new press they had,
Odin Ink. And I called, and I was there the
next day, and immediately my book became
a reality. And the results from the book that
I’ve heard so far have been incredible.
People are saying to me, “I was able to
recall a hurt from my life and heal from it. I
was able to call my mother and mend
fences, I was able to call my father. And it
caused so much brokenness in my life
because he wasn’t there, but I was able to
reach out and I’m healed.”
For more information on “False images,”
go to www.amazon.com.