And so...a sad story, with a happy continuing (definitely no endings, here!) :) To all that is: Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. With all my heart and soul - thank you for my life.

In 2001 I was engaged, working at a law office as a proof reader, and had just graduated from college (degree in family and child sciences with a minor in child development and psychology). I wasn't very happy, but I was content enough not to grumble too loudly, if you know what I mean. Status Quo had been met, and I believed that I was supposed to be happy with that. I mean, I had graduated, I had a job and food on the table and was engaged to be married! But instead, I was growing more and more depressed and dissatisfied with my life.

At the end of 2001, after a great deal of pain and struggle, the relationship I was in came to an end. Spring 2002 I lost my job due to the fact that 'helping the world' and 'humanitarian service' didn't fit my job description - they felt I would have better luck elsewhere. I just had no idea where or doing what . Summer of 2002 my father died suddenly at 57. I proceeded to fall apart big time. I began exhibiting a wide variety of auto-immune symptoms - extreme joint pain and swelling, anemia, full body aches, depression and anxiety, etc.

I started to feel better around Fall of 2002 - enough so that I was able to get a job at a suicide hotline in the clerical department. I continued to improve...but I still didn't really feel like I was Making a Difference. I comforted myself with the idea that even suicide hotlines needed clerical work done...

And then my mom died suddenly at age 63 in Spring, 2003 and I totally lost it. Pain of all varieties basically took over my life... I wasn't able to work, and everything Dr.'s did just made it all worse. They couldn't figure out what was going on with me. What it came down to was that I was exhibiting signs of many different kinds of auto-immune diseases, all at once.

I believe now, from an expanded future perspective, that what I was doing was using the power of my belief and energy to implode. At that time I was of the resonance that I had no support system, no family, no life... I had never heard of the authors I now hold so dear - authors such as Louise Hay and Abraham-Hicks. I knew nothing of the power of the mind and spirit, of my own power, or of what could be... That was, however, about to abruptly change.

I remember it very clearly...I was sitting in the kitchen around July or so of that year... I was looking around, and fantasizing with great pleasure about how easy it was to damage the human body. There were at least 15 ways to hurt yourself in the kitchen alone! Knives...glass... It would be so very easy to just end it all...and why not? I couldn't really see any reason to go on... Life had become a prison of pain - and I couldn't see a way out.

And suddenly I heard a voice in my head. (As an aside, I had, up to that point, considered people who said they heard voices in their head to be crazy.) The voice said, "You are she who stands and looks both ways," and came with a flood of images of times in my life where I was at a crossroads. It came with a knowing that I was right then, at age 27, at one of the biggest crossroads I had ever encountered.

All at once I understood many things...I had a flood of simple knowing and understanding that there was more to life. That there was a way for me to be the real me... I wasn't familiar with it right then, but it was out there, and I would find it if I had the courage to look. I understood that I had been going through an awakening, a life deconstruction to make way for the new... I suddenly knew that I was not alone, though I could live that reality if I wanted to, and for as long as I may want.

I decided that if this was crazy, it wasn't so bad - at least it was diferent! :) My somewhat closed minded skeptic's hat slid off with this experience just enough for my mom to make her way through and pay me a visit a few days later. That really got the ball rolling. She and synchronicity led me to Steve Rother and the Beacon's of Light, which then led me to work with the Inner Child Cards by Isha Lerner, (here is the card I drew that started it all) and to the Online Spiritual Community (OSC has been closed in the time since I was there). A door opened...and there was light and passion and dreams I hadn't dared to imagine just on the other side! It was all there, waiting for me, if I only could bring myself to take that first, blind step. To make a leap of faith.

I suddenly realized - if I was in so much pain that I had been willing to kill myself to escape, why not take that step, and see what happens? Why not do those things I had always been terrified to do? And so...I did. :)

Within days I had contacted an old friend in Virginia who had previously offered a place to stay any time I needed one. I quit the job at the suicide hotline, got out of the lease for my apartment, got rid of just about everything I owned and headed up north with $300 in my pocket and a long list of physical ailments.

And there I began to explore my new world...and to heal. This would be in September of '03. I took care of myself, taking the time to focus only on me and my well being. I followed synchronicity, and began to get to know myself, my Real self, for the first time. I started 'small' with questions such as, "Why am I here?" and, "Is there more to life than just eking out an existence?" I had always been so unsatisfied - I did not seem to care much for the things everyone else was so hyped about. I mean, sure, a nice car and house and a great relationship would be wonderful and all - but as the driving goal of my life? No...

I decided there had to be more than what I had experienced so far - and I was going to find it. I got a library card and began voraciously reading anything I felt at all led to read - Jesus and Buddha, The Evolution of God, Celestine Prophecy, Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, Anatomy of the Spirit, You Can Heal Your Life, Creative Visualization, etc. etc. :) I allowed synchronicity to take the lead in my own healing journey.

I began to remember how to hope and dream. I remembered what it was like to experience the song of my own soul... I got in touch with my mother and father again as well, early on - they have both become spirit guides for me. :) I also dreamt of someone to share my life with...and met Keith not long after. We are engaged to be married in October, '05. :)

I am now living a life I wouldn't have even dared to imagine, ever - let alone that day in the kitchen when I fantasized about how easy it would be to end it all. At that time, all I could think of was escaping a world I could only perceive as painful and lonely and scary... And it was all there, just beyond the first terrifying yet liberating step into the unknown. Passion, and a life of service that I love and thrills me endlessly! Plus the house, car and amazing relationship! :)

This is the life I was meant to lead! :) To help others discover their own potential, just as I had learned to discover my own.

I have my angels to thank (human-angels included!)...my higher self, my guides... My support when I was about to fall - the only support that could hold me, at that dark time in my life. Their wings of light and hope - I most certainly did lean heavily into them, and they never for a moment faltered. :)