When I look back on my past life, I can hardly believe I am now the same person. I am so happy and at peace! It was not always this way. I was blind to my good for more than thirty years.

As a little girl, I was raped hundreds of times by my father. I developed epilepsy (I think as a way to escape). I became a social outcast. My mother was in and out of mental hospitals her whole life, and my home for a while was an old station wagon we parked at the city dump. My food was supplied by the nearby KFC Dumpster. As a young adult, I quit high school and became addicted to drugs and all sorts of destructive behavior.

My life looked bleak, and I was convinced it was just my lot in life to suffer hard and play the part of damaged loser.

I managed to get a college degree but subsequently found that I could not hold a job more than three months. After being fired from my thirty-fourth (or so) job, I lost it and became more depressed than ever; I was trying so hard to better my life! I was on Prozac, Wellbutrin, and a host of other drugs the doctors thought would normalize me. Didn’t work. Every day I prayed God would let me die.

I then married a man I didn’t love because I thought I’d be homeless if I didn’t. I kicked the drug habit but spent my days sleeping and watching TV – anything to block out reality.

My transformation began with my first visit (at my older half sister’s urging) to the Church of Religious Science, whose teachings are a lot like those contained in The Secret. They told me profound things that got me thinking in the right direction, things very new to me, like “Just because you exist, you are great.”

But it wasn’t until watching The Secret that I experienced truly profound transformation. One area (of many) I had always been blocked in was making enough money to survive on my own. One night, after watching The Secret for perhaps the twenty-third time, I got up, went to my computer, and requested that the Universe guide me in finding a fun, easy, high-paying job. I typed the words forensic and videography into my search engine (because I enjoy anything related to both). What should pop up but the actual field of legal videography. I was so excited! I just knew that was the career for me without even knowing what was involved.

I took the steps required to become a certified legal videographer and started earning $75 per hour minimum (after a lifetime of earning minimum wage or less)!

I recently switched from legal videography to in-home-care providing. It turned out that in order to do some of the more in-depth legal videography, I needed a notary license, and I did not qualify to get one. So I turned to my other passion, helping elderly people live better lives, which is what I would have done in the first place had I known that people got paid, let alone paid well, for doing this sort of work.

So I have started another business, providing in-home companion and health care for seniors or anyone else who may need it: disabled, post-operative folks, etc. I love what I do – it’s amazingly rewarding! I tell everyone how lucky I feel to Love for a Living!

Other areas of my life are transformed too: I no longer take pills to get happy; I experience joy every day on my own! I quit smoking cigarettes. I work out five days a week and love it. I divorced the man whom I used to wholly depend upon. I can now say I love myself the way I am (this is huge, since when I was younger, I used to burn myself and actually punch myself with all my strength while screaming “I hate you” to the mirror because my self-loathing ran so deep).

I have a wonderful circle of positive-minded friends. I love life; I love Mondays; I have made peace with my dad. I find ecstatic joy in the simplest things; a cooling breeze on my neck can bring me to tears of happiness! It is really hard to put into words how wonderful my life is now. I feel solidly healthy, happy, prosperous, confident, energetic, accepting, trusting, and perhaps, more than anything, grateful for everything and everyone in my life! The Secret is just one more thing I am deeply grateful for. Thank you.