Dear Rhonda,

Your books have transformed my life. There is magic in these books. Your books have seen me through some of the toughest times in my life and has gotten me where I am today. They have a way of finding me just in time.

Today, I’m 19. I’m an Indian woman, I have my own apartment and I make more than most budding entrepreneurs in Bangalore City.

I’ve come a long way from the drunken, depressed, hateful person I used to be. I was angry and depressed. We had just moved out of my grandparents house and my parents kept fighting, and when they fought, I found myself bang in the middle of it.

I moved into a friend’s house. I just wanted to get out. I decided to study design and got a scholarship from a University in Singapore.

Everybody else who had applied had already finished college and I was still in 8th grade. My parents refused to send me before I finished school, so I skipped doing my 9th and it took me another year to finish my 10th boards. However, to avail the scholarship, I would have to wait another year till I could ask them to review it. In the mean time, I moved back home and joined another college in the city.

That is when my world came crashing down. I moved back home and found that nothing had changed. My parents still fought every day, and took they it out on me. Some days I went to college with a black eye and a split lip.

I lost my best friends in car crash that year, I also lost a pet. I stopped eating. I lost interest in studying and I began to close up. Instead of going to college I used to drink everyday. I didn’t care about anything anymore.

I didn’t want to live, until I almost died.

I walked into a bar alone one day (WHAT was I thinking!?) and drank until I passed out. And, I got molested by 8 men.

I walked home that night, exhausted, barely breathing, barefoot, missing some jewelry and covered in bruises.

My mother opened the door and she didn’t even notice!

I basically spent the next 3 months in bed. Every time I looked in the mirror I would burst into tears, those ugly bruises took a while to fade. And it was my fault.

What have I become? I asked myself when I looked in the mirror. Just an ugly skeleton of the happy child I used to be.

Things were fine as long as we lived with my grandparents. My grandfather traveled all around the world, I had the best of toys and dresses and servants. My childhood was filled with memories of chasing butterflies around in my garden, swimming, painting and reading. I used to swim Nationals for India in the under 14 category, I won every art competition I ever participated in. I used to be creative, determined and focused.

How had I become so miserly? I was not used to losing.

And that is when I found your first book The Secret, and just in time.

I decided to change and it transformed my life. I started working, I bought my own food and clothes and supplies so I didn’t have to depend on my parents for anything.

When my dad hit me, I fought back, and eventually it stopped. It wasn’t easy, I was so used to having things done for me and now, I was working to buy toothpaste.

These books have seen me through nightmare’s and utmost terror and misery.

Over the next couple of years, I set myself some goals and achieved them. It would not be an easy journey, but it was one I had to make. I believed in myself.

I went on to complete my Post Graduation in Cosmetology and worked as a consultant for an International Cosmetic giant. I even sorted things out with my parents!

Nothing stands in the way of my dreams. I am not afraid of anything and somehow things magically work out for me.

Today, I have healed. I don’t just “exist”, I am alive. I am strong.

I am in charge of MY life and Rhonda, YOU showed me how, just in time.