It wasn't until 1998 when I returned to New York after living and traveling for a year in Australia and the South Pacific that I started to understand what all my previous years of confusion stemmed from. Inspired by my friend Marie, I took a course called the Landmark Forum which had given her a great deal of clarity. In this three and a half day course, I unraveled how identified I had become with so many past disappointments and the resignation which ensued when nothing seemed to change no matter how hard I tried. The material presented was transformative because I was open to a change. I learned how to distinguish what felt like crippling events from the past and began to understand how they shaped all future decision making and thinking. I realized that I was not the passenger of my life, but the driver. The experiences I had in those three and a half days changed the course of my life in a dramatic way. Eight years later, after witnessing the incredible changes that Marie had made once again after taking another course called the Wisdom Course, I enrolled myself. During this ten and a half month course we were given the task of creating a visual autobiography which helped us to re-explore everything we had lived through to date. Right there in the present, we were given the opportunity to choose powerfully to alter the course of our lives.

The other significant thing that happened in 2006 was that through the documentary, The Secret, I was introduced to the concept of the Laws of Attraction and the idea that people create their own realities. In essence to take full responsibility for the way my life looked, I began to see that it was created by my own design. Making this connection for myself helped me to embrace the idea that if any changes were to be made in my life to make it more enjoyable, that I was the one to do it.