Career Transition Blog

How do you evaluate your present situation?
Run a Baseline to See Where You Stand...

If you don't know exactly where you stand financially right now,
you can't make a plan to get where you want to go in the future.
Before you can decide if you have enough money to go back to college,
take a vacation to ease the stress you feel at work, quit your job
without having another, or start up a business of your own, you
need to know what you have to work with. You need to know how much
money you are taking in and how much is going back out every month.
You also need to know what your assets and liabilities are.

It's really just a matter of pulling together all your basic information.

Financial Baseline sample and blank templates are provided in the
Resources section of the Career Transitition Community (Click Here)
and will help you record the amount of money you earn, as well as
the amount of money you spend and what you are spending it on.

When you subtract your Expenses from your Revenue, hopefully you will
find that you have some money left. If you don't, you are spending
more than you are making and you might need some professional help to
develop a debt reduction plan.

If you have some money left but not as much as you would like or if
you want to put more money into a certain category, looking over your
areas of spending can help you find places where you might cut back.
Perhaps you can cut back on the amount you spend on books or movies.
Or you might decide to carpool to work to save on expenses. Or instead
of working out with a personal trainer, you might decide to take classes
at the local Y.

The companion piece to the Financial Baseline is your Net Worth. The samples
and blank templates provided in the Resources section of the Career Transition
Community (Click Here), will help you determine whether or not you are in debt and,
if so, how much you owe. It will also show you how much money you have set
aside in savings, if any.

You can determine your Net Worth by first listing each one of your Assets
(such as your house, jewelry, IRA, car), the amount of interest you earn
on each (if applicable), and the current value of each. Then list each of
your Liabilities (making sure to list every credit card individually), the
rate of interest you pay, and the amount of money that you currently owe.
Finally, subtract the total of your liabilities from the total of your assets
to determine your Net Worth.

If you are so stressed out at work that you are ready to walk out the door
without having another job, check your finances first! It's especially
important in this economy to make sure you have enough money set aside as
a back up before you quit the job you have. And if you are thinking of starting
your own business, make sure that you have a savings or investment plan in place.

I'm Cynthia Krejcsi, and as a career transition specialist, I'm here to give you
simple steps that will show you how to prepare, present, and profit without
getting overwhelmed!

I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

How to Discover Your Passion or Find It Again If You’ve Misplaced It Somewhere Along the Way!

You can't zero in on the job you love if you don't know what your
passion is. Some people know their passion from childhood while
others are still searching for it well into mid-life. Here are some
tools to help you identify your passion.

Brainstorming about the things you really love can help you identify
your passion. Ask yourself questions like these:

* When I was a child, what were my favorite hobbies?
(Did you love swimming; building a robot; playing soccer; sketching
fashions; using your microscope kit; acting; writing; singing; reading;
completing craft projects; learning about dinosaurs or ancient Egyptians;
cooking or baking; doing science experiments; helping others; visiting
museums, the planetarium, or the aquarium; sight-seeing; taking photographs;
collecting things; or decorating your room?)

* What clubs or extracurricular activities did I join in high school
or college?
(Maybe you were a member of the thespians, on the yearbook staff, a reporter
for the school newspaper, a cheerleader, a tutor, coached younger kids in a
sport, took horseback riding lessons, played in the band, won a blue ribbon
in the science fair, produced shows on the school's TV channel, or joined
the choir.)

* What are my interests and hobbies now? Are they the same as or similar to
my interests when I was growing up? If not, how did I become curious about them?
(What do you spend hours reading or learning about? Look around your house and
on your bookshelf to get more hints about your interests.)

Another tool to discover your passion is to list your skills.

Are you good with animals, children, the ill, the elderly? Can you pull colors
and fabrics together in a room or an outfit? Do you paint-rooms in a house or
works of art? Are you a whiz at creating databases and PowerPoint presentations?
Do you actually enjoy preparing your own taxes? Are you able to motivate others?
Do you make videos or conduct interviews? Are you a researcher, a good listener,
or a great organizer? Do you have a green thumb?

Now ask yourself this question:
* What is something that I had to overcome in my life?
(Maybe you had to live with diabetes; recover from a debilitating accident; heal
after an abusive relationship; learn how to handle your finances after being in
major credit card debt or losing everything after a bitter divorce; find ways to
help a relative rehabilitate after a serious stroke; lose 75 pounds; train for a
marathon; help your autistic child learn to interact with others.)

Finally, ask other people. Ask friends and relatives what they think your talents
are or the types of hobbies or activities you mention often. And ask other people
what their passions are, how they discovered them, and whether they have found
a way to utilize their passions in their work.

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time for you to
dive into your true essence and discover your passion! Brainstorm your interests,
list your skills, and talk to other people. Discovering your passion is a major step
in preparing for your successful career transition or for making your existing
career transition more successful.

I'm Cynthia Krejcsi, and as a career transition specialist, I'm here to give you
simple steps that will show you how to prepare, present, and profit without
getting overwhelmed!

I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

There are a variety of reasons why you might be entering the workforce.

Perhaps you are a recent grad and have never had more than a summer job
mowing lawns. Maybe your youngest child has just started kindergarten
and you finally have time to focus on some of your own career goals.
You might be searching the want ads for a job to supplement the family
income due to your spouse's recent layoff. Or your last child may have
just gone off to college and now you find yourself an empty nester who
hasn't worked outside the home for 20 years.

Whether you are entering the workforce for the first time, re-entering
after raising your family, or applying for a full-time job after years
of working part-time, chances are you are probably feeling pretty nervous
about conducting a job search and going out on interviews.

If you're a young graduate just starting out in a career, you wonder how
to present yourself when you have no relevant job experience. If you've
been going to night school for the past five years while raising your
family and have just received your degree, you probably feel nervous about
competing with the younger graduates as well as people your own age who h
ave more relevant and more recent work experience than you do.

How can you present yourself as the best candidate to a potential employer
when your only job experience has been part-time or summer jobs, volunteer
work, or a three-month internship? What if you graduated three years ago
but had to take a job outside your field because you couldn't find work
utilizing your major? How can you work your way back into your chosen career?
What if you had to leave college before completing your degree?

How can you present yourself as an innovative problem solver who thinks
outside the box when your skills are rusty and you feel out of touch with
recent business practices and management trends? What if you don't know how
to use the technology applications that are considered basic by most
employers today?

Maybe you were laid off a year or more ago and haven't been able to find work
since. How can you convince a potential new employer that the gap in your
work history is no reflection on the quality of your work or on your work
ethic? What should you do if you're currently working at a job that is at a
much lower level than the job you held before you were laid off and you're
embarrassed to list it on your resume yet you don't want to show a gap in
your work history?

How can you make your job search more effective and present yourself in the
best possible light?

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time for
you to either consider a career transition or to make your existing career
transition more successful.

I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

You enjoy being a homemaker and love being there to participate in
every step of your children's growth. You'd planned to be a
stay-at-home mom until your youngest child started kindergarten.
But then the economy crashed.

At first you hoped that things would pick up within a few months,
but as one month led to another and another you realized that the
national and global financial problems would take years to be resolved.

Companies merging-- Merchants going out of business-- Corporate
institutions and banks failing-- Homes being foreclosed-- Friends and
family members losing their jobs-- Stocks bouncing up and down--
Real estate prices dropping-- All of these things have suddenly become
commonplace rather than rare or scattered occurrences.

For several months you didn't want to open the 401K statements when they
arrived in the mail. First your partner's company stopped matching your
contributions. Then they stopped giving bonuses. Next they put a freeze on
hiring and on raises. Now layoffs have begun. Perhaps there has been more
than one round.

Maybe your partner still has a job, but you don't know if that will be true
next week or next month. Maybe your family has already experienced a layoff
and is in an emotional as well as a financial tailspin.

You've cut back in every way that you can think of. You have one family car.
You clip coupons before going to the grocery store. You no longer eat out at
your favorite restaurant once a week. You stopped buying coffee for $4.00 a cup.
You discontinued your daughter's piano lessons. You stay in town rather than fly
somewhere for your vacation. You've rediscovered simple and economical
recreational activities, like attending the free concerts in the park, going
to the museum, hiking or riding your bikes at the local forest preserves,
or having a family game night at home.

In order to help with the family finances, you have decided it's time to go back
to work. But this decision makes you feel very nervous. You've been out of the
workforce for a few years and you feel that your skills are rusty. How are you
going to compete with everyone else out there who has more experience and no
employment gap? Who will hire you? You might try going back to your previous
employer, but you've heard that there have been recent layoffs there.

What if you find a really great job but it involves a lot of travel? You used to
travel regularly for your work, but that was before you had children. What if you
have to work late hours?

It's difficult enough to go back to work outside the home when you feel ready to
do so, but when you're in a financial bind and have to contribute to the family
finances in order to survive, it can become overwhelming.

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time for you
to either consider a career transition or to make your existing career transition
more successful.

I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

Your Own Goals Have Been Put on the Back Burner

Maybe you've just had your first child and although you'd planned to
go back to work as soon as your maternity leave was up, you just
couldn't stand the thought of dropping off your six-week-old infant
with a care giver every day. You worried that someone else would hear
your baby's first word or see those precious first steps.

Perhaps you have just had your third child and the cost of daycare
for all of your children is so cost prohibitive that you and your
partner have decided it isn't worth it for you to continue working
outside the home.

Being a stay-at-home mom is very rewarding for you. You know the
importance of the formative years and have chosen to be there for
your children as they explore and learn about their world. You want
to be the one who teaches them to count and helps them learn their
ABCs. You love to be there when your school-aged kids come home from
school so that you can hear about their day and make sure they get
a healthy snack. You like to volunteer at their school and attend
their dance recitals and after-school games.

Yet there is something missing from your life. Something is starting
to nudge at you from deep inside. You're starting to feel stagnant.
You feel like you're losing yourself because your whole life revolves
around caring for everyone else. You miss the interaction with
professional people and the mental challenges that your job offered
you. Maybe you miss the satisfaction you felt when you had completed
a difficult assignment or the compliments you received from your client
and your boss when you made a spectacular presentation.

Maybe you're starting to worry that you're getting left behind in your
career. What about your own goals? Your partner doesn't seem to have
given up any career goals, and yet you seem to have put yours on the
back burner. Maybe you made a conscious decision to do that and you were
good with that decision at the time. But now you can't help but wonder--
What will happen one day when you're ready to go back to work and someone
asks you about the gap in your employment?

Certainly everyone understands the importance of raising children. But
it's also true that one cannot move ahead in a career without working
in one's field. You're starting to think about all the opportunities
you're missing because you're not available to travel or can't work the
late hours it seems to take in order to get promotions.

How many promotions will you have missed out on by the time you're ready
to go back into the office? How can you keep current in your field when you
can't attend conferences or participate in company discussions of the
latest trends? You are starting to feel torn between the needs of your
family and your own personal need to grow, to learn, to challenge yourself,
and to feel a sense of professional accomplishment in the work world.

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time
for you to either consider a career transition or to make your existing
career transition more successful.

Your Career Transition Specialist,

Cynthia

I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

No job experience? What do you do?

When you graduated, you couldn't wait to start working in your
chosen career. You knew you wouldn't become company president
tomorrow. You realized that you still had a lot to learn. But
you were excited about getting started with the next phase of
your life and enthusiastic about landing your first professional job.

New beginnings are always exciting, but they can be a little scary
too. What do you do about a resume? What types of things can you
include that will make potential employers see what a great addition
you would be to their company when you don't have much work experience?
You want to jump in and start your career, but every job you apply for
seems to require experience. How will you ever be able to get experience
when you can't seem to get hired in the first place?

These are issues that new grads always grapple with, but they become
even more frustrating during difficult economic times. You thought you
had aced that job interview. When the company called you back for a
second interview with the head of the department, you felt you presented
yourself well.

But then you discovered that there were four other candidates who had
been called back and one of them got the job. Did that person show more
enthusiasm than you did? Had she attended a better school? Did he know
someone in the company who helped him get the job? Did she have
more experience?

Today there is more competition for fewer jobs. Sometimes you're not
just competing with other recent grads for those entry-level positions.
You might be competing with people who already have experience but who
have been laid off because of budget cuts at their company. Maybe you
interned at a company and were told that they were pleased with your
work and hoped to hire you at the end of your internship. But then the
new position wasn't approved because of a tight budget.

So although you graduated with a marketing degree a year ago and have
been diligently trying to land a job where you can utilize your degree
and learn more about your chosen field, you find yourself working at the
local cleaners or waiting tables or driving a cab. The longer you go
without working in your field, the harder it will be to convince potential
employers that you are qualified to do the work. On paper, you will not
look like someone who is serious about her chosen career. You won't be
viewed as a go-getter. Spending five years doing filing or answering
phones will give you some work experience, but it still won't be the
experience you need to break into your field.

If this is happening to you, chances are that it's getting harder and
harder to stay positive about your job search. In fact, you might find
yourself becoming very disillusioned about the work world.

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time
for you to take control of your career transition.

Your Career Transition Specialist,

Cynthia

I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

Many of you have been following my blogs about my struggles after a lay off from a corporate job. My relocation back to the Chicago area from Dallas brought with it frustration and fear but also a sense of adventure.

Now that I've been back home for a few months, I'm noticing many wonderful new gifts that I've received after all my clutter clearing and simplifying. There's the obvious one of being able to work from home. I can work until 2 a.m. and then sleep until 9. Or I can be up at 6:30, working at my computer with a cat in my lap and sipping a cup of tea while everyone else is sitting in rush hour traffic. If I want to meet a retired friend for coffee in the afternoon, I can do that. And I don't feel so isolated any more now that I'm back near my family and my long-time friends.

The other day a friend asked me if I was still having problems sleeping. This had just started during the last few years of my life in corporate. I'd be so exhausted when I got home from work that I would collapse in front of the TV, waking up at 1 or 2 in the morning and unable to get to sleep again until 5 and then still tired when it was time to get up.

Well, that problem has vanished! And so has another one--being surrounded by negative and competitive people. They've all disappeared--whoosh! I told my friend that I only allow positive and collaborative people into my life now. I'm happy and content for the first time in a decade, and I feel excited about the future and yet peaceful in my core.

The one little niggling concern that I still had stemmed from the money issues I mentioned in the earlier blogs. I felt taken advantage of when I sold my belongings for a pittance and I just broke even in selling my house. (I know that I was very lucky to even do that.) Yet after I moved I ended up giving away several hundred dollars to a local family that needed the money more than I did at the moment. (That sure didn't seem very logical to me, and yet I did it, with no expectation of ever seeing that money again.)

My severance ended at the beginning of March, and I had enough money for the bare basics for the next 4-5 months while I waited for my new business to kick in. My budget didn't even allow for bargain matinees or having the plumber fix the leaky kitchen faucet. And at the end of that 5 months I would have to make some tough decisions if I hadn't yet started to pull in some money.

In spite of this, I wasn't having any trouble sleeping, I wasn't having anxiety attacks, and my stomach wasn't acting up--in fact, I found myself enjoying life more and more every day.

Then last week the real miracle happened. I received a windfall! No, I didn't win the lottery. But suddenly money started coming in from all over the place. First I received a $300 refund on my home owner's insurance. Next, I got a $2,300 check from the bank for the unused money I had in escrow. Then on Thursday a fellow layoffee sent me an email message asking if I had just "gotten something." She knew that was vague and told me to call her.

Something told me to check my bank account before I called. When I did, I was sure there was some mistake. My checking account was about NINE times what it had been the day before. I just stared at the computer for a minute, counting the number of digits in the amount over and over. The big bump had been caused by a direct deposit from my former company. Even if there was one more severance check due to me, it didn't account for this humungus windfall!

When I called my friend, she said that she had also gotten a check, and she'd already called the company to make sure it wasn't a mistake. Evidently, the company did quite well when they merged with another company at the end of last year and so they decided to give bonuses. Funny, the possibility of big fat bonuses was one of the lures when I took the job, but the reality was that over the 4 1/2 years I was there the bonuses never materialized because we had never made our sales numbers. Now suddenly, when I needed it most and when I was no longer with the company, a bonus came through.

I started doing a Happy Dance around my kitchen as I continued talking to my friend. The amount of this deposit was more than twice the amount I had put away to "tide me over."

When I got off the phone, I thought about the real significance of this gift and I was filled with gratitude at the abundance I had just been given. This wasn't just a windfall. It was really the Universe taking care of me, providing for me so that I could continue on with the work that I am doing, finally following my passion in spite of my fears. Taking the risk of falling in order to start soaring!

The Universe was confirming that everything in my life was in alignment and that "all systems are go" for me to move ahead confidently in my new direction.

Cynthia

Is Job Dissatisfaction Making You Angry or Apathetic?

Do you feel bored in your present job? Do you know deep inside that
you could do so much more if only someone would give you a chance?
Have you been trying to work your way into management but keep
hitting a brick wall because you don't have the right connections
to help you? Are you someone who tries to avoid office politics
because you feel that your work should speak for itself?

In my own case, I spent years trying to get a promotion from Editor
to Senior Editor without much luck. In fact, when the Senior Editor
I reported to was out on maternity leave I was not only passed over
but had to report to someone at my own level who didn't have a clue
as to how to manage the project.

Much later on it dawned on me that I was being punished because I'd
previously looked into a job at a sister company when our own
HR department approached me about a transfer that would have meant
a promotion.

My department head was thrilled when I decided to stay, yet I had
to prove myself all over again and suffer the humiliation of
reporting to someone who was incompetent. Luckily, the Senior Editor
came back from maternity leave in time to straighten things out and
she gave me autonomy on my part of the project. But it was still
another year before I was promoted.

When you know that you can do more but are consistently passed over,
you might react in different ways. You might get really angry and
look for another job, you might stay but remain angry and disgruntled,
you might stay but become apathetic and stop giving your all to your job,
or you might do what I did and take the punishment but vow to prove
yourself to the powers that be.

But what kind of toll does this take on your self-esteem over the years?
Maybe you've been taking on more responsibility or covering for someone
on your team who isn't pulling her own weight. Have you come up with
creative solutions to problems that no one else can solve only to find
that someone else is taking your ideas and presenting them as his
or her own?

Maybe your boss relies on you in the crunch and yet doesn't show any
appreciation when you work extra hours for weeks on end. Perhaps you've
gone back to school for an extended degree or volunteered to do beta
testing on a new system but you still haven't received any recognition.
You might have even received a few promotions, but now you've hit
the ceiling. You realize you can't go any higher and so you see yourself
at a dead end for the rest of your career.

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time
for you to either consider a career transition or to make your existing
career transition more successful.

Your Career Transition Specialist,

Cynthia


I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

Job Instability - What do you do?

Given the state of today's economy, most people have friends or relatives
who are out of work or afraid they could be at any moment. Or they are
worried that their own job may be in jeopardy. Perhaps they have survived
a round or two of layoffs, and now they feel guilty that they are still
there while others were let go. Yet they probably also feel resentful
because they have to pick up the slack.

Is any of this true for you? It was certainly true for me.

For almost a year I felt like a zombie, going through the motions of
performing my corporate executive job while feeling hollow inside. I
understand firsthand the worry that is keeping you up at night and the
difficulty you are having trying to stay positive and motivated at work.
Not only was I worried about myself, but I was worried about my staff.

The company was for sale, and no one knew if we would be bought by another
publishing company or by a group of investors. There would be difficulties
for us no matter which way things went. Meanwhile, since we had not been
making our sales numbers, no one received bonuses. And everyone who made
over a certain amount of money had to forego a raise as well.

Before I could drag myself into work every day, I would meditate, read
spiritual materials, or say affirmations. I'd listen to uplifting music or
a motivational CD on the drive there. But as soon as I walked in the door,
I wanted to turn around and run.

The situation did not bring out the best in employees. There were people
trying to make it look like the company couldn't survive without them. They
wanted to get all the latest information about the potential sale, as well
as product development, marketing, and sales; but they didn't want to share
any information. This made it impossible to work as a collaborative team.

Others came in every day terrified that their job was on the block, and so
they couldn't concentrate on their work. They spent their day listening to
the latest tidbits of gossip and then asking their supervisors if any of it
was true.

Still others became rude and abrupt, snapping for no reason at all. There
was a lot of jockeying to get close to the president of the company too. It
made me sick to watch all the "brown nosing" and one-upmanship.

Finally, a merger was announced during the summer. I had a counterpart at
the other company who was better placed politically than I was, so I was
the one who was discarded. It happened on September 2, 2009. Although I
was caught off guard at the particular moment I was pulled into HR to get
the bad news, I had actually been anticipating this for several months and
had been working on my Plan B.

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time for
you to work on your own Plan B by either considering a career transition or
making your existing career transition more successful.

Your Career Transition Specialist,

Cynthia

I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

Back in January I wrote a blog about my experiences with a major life transition--moving back to Chicago from Dallas after losing my corporate executive job back in September. I'd misplaced and then found the $1,670 in cash that I had received from selling some almost-new furniture for about 1/4 of what it was worth. I had been feeling taken advantage of by "friends" who niggled with me over prices while acting like they were doing me a big favor.

After I misplaced all that money, it didn't seem so worthless after all. And I started to reflect that I had gotten rid of the things that no longer served me. Quite a bit went to charities, so even though I made no money I felt my belongings were now going to someone who really needed them. I was clearing out everything as I started my own business and moved on with my life, making room for new and better things.

Update:
My adventure with the $1,670 continued when I went to the ATM and attempted to deposit $1,000 of that money. I put ten crisp new hundred dollar bills into the machine, only to have it eat up the money without giving me a receipt!

The other day I finally received a letter from the bank saying that the temporary credit they put into my account is now permanent--unless they discover at some future time that there was an error--in which case they will null the $1,000 credit! Shouldn't it be pretty easy to check an ATM machine at the end of a day to see if there's an extra $1,000 in $100 bills in there?

Next came my big travel adventure. I sure am glad that I used a small moving company and followed their truck to Chicago. I was driving alone with three cats and wasn't looking forward to the 1,000-mile drive in mid-winter.

When we left Dallas on a Thursday afternoon, it was raining. To avoid a bad snowstorm hitting Oklahoma, we went through Arkansas and Memphis. After we got past Memphis the sleet started, so we stopped for the night. The next morning car and truck were all glazed over in ice, with snow on top. This is the most treacherous kind of weather, as far as I'm concerned. Thank goodness I had a little plastic ice scraper with me--we both had to use it.

Once we got on the road we could only go 40-50 mph from 10:00 a.m. until late afternoon. It was snowing the whole time we were going through Missouri, and the windshield wipers on the truck kept freezing up so we had to keep stopping. The snow tapered off once we were in IL and eventually stopped--yeah!

I got to my house about 12:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, The mover was at my house by 8:30, ready to unload. The one screw up with the woman who coordinated the move was that she really should have sent two guys instead of one. But the mover was resourceful and we recruited a tall teenager who had been walking through the neighborhood. He amazed me when he picked up three suitcases in one armload and carried them up to the second floor!

As it turned out, the teen and his family were about to be evicted from their apartment, so he could really use the money the mover and I gave him. His mother is getting dialysis, and neither he nor his 24-year-old sister have a job. I found out about this the next day, when Jeffrey came back to ask me if he could help me with anything else to get my house in order. I ended up giving him an extra $300 that I really couldn't spare because I felt that his family was in much worse shape than I was.

It's all relative, isn't it? They didn't have pots and pans or a toaster and I had extras of both. I started putting things to the side for him to take home, but no one in his family had a car, so I offered to drop them off. But the next day when he came back he did some snow shoveling and then asked if he and his cousin could borrow my shovels to try to earn some money--they were still short on the rent money. They only made $30, so I ended up giving him another $50, pretending that I had borrowed it from a friend. I told him that I was out of work myself and so really couldn't do any more to help him except to give him the things I'd put aside. At this point, I'd given him about $400 total.

I ordered him some business cards online so that he could pass them out to people who might need help with odd jobs, shoveling, or moving. But before they arrived, he'd changed his cell phone number.

Jeffrey never came over to get the items when he said he would, so I finally lugged them to the car and took them to Good Will. He didn't come back to shovel after the next snow. He never really did any of the work he said he would do. Twice when he stopped over at about 5:00 p.m. I smelled liquor on his breath. Since he never shows up when he says he will, I've stopped expecting him to work off the "loan" and have also stopped answering my phone when he calls because I'm afraid he's going to keep asking for money.

But this time I'm not angry and resentful about "losing" my hard-earned money. To him, I probably look rich. I have a house and nice furniture and boxes and boxes of things to unpack. He's a drop out who is unskilled and doesn't even have his birth certificate to apply for a job. He's worried about his mother's health and about having a roof over his family's head. I guess if you're worried about being evicted any day, it isn't so important to have a toaster or pots and pans. They're just more stuff to drag along with you when you're put out on the street.

Isn't it amazing how we learn some of our biggest life lessons seemingly by chance? Just when we think we are about to lose everything we have, we meet someone who is much worse off than we are.

It really IS all relative.

Cynthia

Is the Negative Work Environment Dragging You Down?

Has anyone ever told you not to complain about concerns you have at work
because you're lucky to have any job at all in the current economy? Are you
concerned about the rumors of layoffs or reduced hours at your company? Maybe
there have already been layoffs and now you and the rest of the "surviors"
have to divide up the work of the missing employees. Has there been a
moratorium on raises or bonuses? Have you had to take a pay cut in order in
order to keep your job? This sure doesn't seem like an environment that fosters
high morale among employees!

Is there a double standard where you work that allows your boss to come in late
and leave early several times a week while each employee must be at work on the
dot every morning and closely adhere to break, lunch, and closing times? Is an
an employee docked or chewed out every time she has a doctor's appointment that
has to be scheduled during work hours or has to pick up a sick child from daycare?
Has your boss or a co-worker made a nasty comment when you requested to take your
vacation time?

Do you feel like your boss watches your every move, counting the minutes you
are away from your desk or the time you spend exchanging pleasantries at the
coffee machine? (We're not talking here about visiting with someone in your
office for an hour or taking a two-hour lunch!) Maybe your boss has even
told you that what seem like arbitrary rules are company policy, yet you can't
figure out why they only seem to apply to certain employees and not to others.

Perhaps your boss has blamed his or her boss for establishing these policies,
pretending to be the "good cop" while the higher level manager looks like the
"bad cop." How could you ever find out if this is true without getting in serious
trouble for bypassing your immediate boss? It's because of policies like these
that employees start to describe their relationship with management as "us vs. them."

Do you long to work collaboratively with a team that supports and values each other's
strengths? Are you sick of putting up with back stabbers-people who put you down behind
your back or take your ideas and present them to management as their own? Have you
consistently picked up the slack for another employee only to discover that person has
gotten the promotion you were hoping to get? Are you disappointed because you haven't
received recognition for the extra hours you put in or the new time-saving procedure
you introduced?

If you work in an environment like this, how motivated are you to put in extra hours
during a crunch? How do you feel when you're informed that your department must come
in on Saturdays or stay late at least one night every week? How can anyone feel positive
or motivated in such a negative environment?

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time for you to either
consider a career transition or to make your existing career transition more successful.

Your Career Transition Specialist,

Cynthia

I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

Are unrealistic deadlines, working with difficult people,
and job burnout getting you down? Do you start the day tired
because you spent most of the night tossing and turning with
worry? Are you afraid that you can't keep up with the pace
of an impossible schedule? What about that co-worker who doesn't
do her fair share of the work, leaving you to pick up the slack?
Does it seem like no matter what you do or how many hours you
work you just can't please your boss?

If you're a manager, do you worry about keeping your staff
motivated when you see no end to the long hours? Maybe you
really need more staff to get the job done but the budget
doesn't allow for it. Are you having trouble finding reliable
yet affordable outside vendors? Do you feel that upper management
doesn't understand the enormity of the project or just doesn't
care about the morale of your staff? Are you stuck in the middle,
trying to please upper management by making that impossible date
while trying to support and nurture your staff?

If this has been going on for some time, you're probably
experiencing additional physical or emotional symptoms. Have
you found yourself snapping at your co-workers, staff, or family
recently? Are you too drained to help your kids with their homework?
Are you eating more junk food? Have you stopped exercising? What
happened to that hobby you used to love? When's the last time you
went to the movies? Have you lost your sense of humor? Can you
remember the last time you really laughed?

Are you suffering from digestive problems, weight gain, rapid heartbeat,
dizziness, headaches, frequent colds, inability to concentrate, negative
self-talk, anxious or racing thoughts, depression, or frequent nausea?
Do you pace a lot? Bite your nails? Experience anxiety attacks? Do you
often feel the tears stinging just behind your eyelids? Are you drinking
more than you should? Maybe you've even started smoking again.

Yikes! I'm getting stressed just reading this list!

Way back in June of 1983 Time magazine ran a cover story calling stress
"The Epidemic of the Eighties" and referring to it as our leading health
problem. Since then the problem has continued to get worse. In the '90s a
report from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
indicated that 40% of workers felt their job was very or extremely stressful.
In 2000 the "Attitudes in the American Workplace VI" Gallup Poll sponsored
by the Marlin Company found that 80% of workers felt stress on the job. Phrases
such as "going postal," "desk rage," and "phone rage" have become common
terms in our vocabulary.

According to the American Institute of Stress, the cost of stress to U.S.
industries due to such problems as accidents, absenteeism, employee turnover,
lowered productivity, and direct medical, legal, and insurance costs is over
$300 billion a year. It's estimated that 60-80% of accidents on the job are
stress related and that 40% of job turnover is due to stress.

What toll is job stress taking on you?

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time for
you to either consider a career transition or to make your existing career
transition more successful.

Your Career Transition Specialist,

Cynthia



I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

Are Unrealistic Deadlines Cramping Your Style?

Have you ever found yourself frazzled and tense, madly rushing to
make a schedule deadline that you know is impossible? Maybe
there wasn't enough time allotted for planning in the first place, so
the planning time ran over into the production time and now you're
expected to make up the difference.

Perhaps when the project manager made up the initial schedule, you
could see there wasn't enough time to complete the project; but a
client wanted the product by a certain date so the Sales Department
had promised it would be ready. After all, the company couldn't afford
to lose such a big sale.

Or maybe your boss kept changing the guidelines after production started,
even though the end date couldn't change. The only way to finish the
project on time was to add staff, but the budget didn't allow for it and
you didn't have the time to train anyone new anyway.

For whatever reason, here you are in the throes of an unrealistic deadline
once again and the clock is ticking. Your charge is to make the deadline,
stay within budget, and ensure a quality product.

First you started to eat lunch at your desk, hoping to get in a little
more work every day but still be home on time. When the schedule continued
to slip, you started coming in early so that you could get more work done
without being interrupted. But you discovered that as people arrived in
the morning, they spent some time settling in and talking about last night's
reality show or the hockey game on TV. Normally, you would join in; but
now you desperately try to block out the loud banter and the laughter so
that you can concentrate on your work.

Last week you almost missed your son's game because your boss called an
emergency meeting 15 minutes before you planned to leave the office. And
this wasn't the first time you'd been late for or even missed some family
function. Your spouse and kids are complaining that you think more of your
job than you do of them.

Now you're working several nights a week, snacking on junk food from the
vending machine and then grabbing fast food on the way home at 9 p.m. You're
exhausted when you finally get home, but you can't wind down. You finally get
to bed at 11, but you sleep fitfully, waking up in the middle of the night
worrying about the report you have to finish up first thing in the morning,
provided some other crisis doesn't occur to mess up your priorities.

On the nights you don't stay late at the office, you take work home. This
makes you feel guilty because you can't spend time with your family even when
you're home.

And you still don't see how you're going to make that deadline without the
quality of your work really suffering. You know you're missing things that would
never get past you if you were rested and fresh when you started your work day.

If you've connected with what I've just shared with you, then it's time for you
to either consider a career transition or to make your existing career transition
more successful.

Your Career Transition Specialist,

Cynthia



I invite you to join me in the Career Transition Community
where we Prepare, Present & Profit! Click Here

Last night sometime between 7 and 7:30 pm central time, in a suburb of Dallas, TX, I finally had a mini-meltdown. I sat sobbing on the springs of my couch in my family room, with the cushions thrown on the floor around me. An adult Dorothy stuck in the land of Oz, I just kept repeating over and over, "I just want to go home. I just want to go home. I just want to go home."

A few minutes earlier I had been madly rushing through the house, rifling through drawers, dumping the garbage on the floor to look through that, searching for $1,670 in cash that I had misplaced. My cats flew in front of me, unable to figure out where I would turn next. Running out of places to look, I feared that the money had accidentally gotten into the bag of clothes that I had left on the porch that morning for a local charity.

That money was all I had gotten for more than $8,000 worth of almost-new furnishings that I had just sold to my hairdresser. I'd been feeling angry at myself because I had caved in and taken less than I had originally asked for and resentful of him and his wife because they were friends and I felt they had taken advantage of my situation. But the universe had a real lesson in store for me. Now I couldn't even find the lousy $1,670, and suddenly that amount seemed like a million dollars to me!

So much had been happening to me over the past 4 months and the stress had been building. I was laid off from a corporate job at the beginning of September, losing whatever sense of identity I had gotten from being an Editorial Vice President. Somehow the title didn't sound so impressive any more. In fact, it sounded empty and hollow. I knew all along that it had not defined the true me, and yet I was surprised at how odd it felt to lose the job and lose the title even though I had seen it all coming when my company was put up for sale a year ago.

I'd been working on setting up my own business, but that was kind of scary and kept pushing me out of my comfort zone. I was stuck with two mortgages because I'd been unwilling to give up my townhouse in my hometown of Chicago when I took the job in Dallas. So suddenly I was under financial pressure to get rid of the house in Dallas, sell the furniture, and get back to Chicago, hoping that I would be able to keep that house.

It took two months to get an offer that was way less than the asking price, but after getting myself out of the tailspin from that, I decided that I was lucky to get a contract at all and I'd just have to cut my losses and move on.

Whenever I've moved, I've always felt a little sad about leaving a house that gave me peace and joy. This time it's much more emotional because I'm giving up many of my furnishings as well. Everything that I've slowly built up over the last 4 1/2 years is evaporating before my eyes--poof! Or is it? A house is still another expression of myself, but does it define who I am any more than my title did?

Maybe these things are being recirculated, spread around to people who have need of them, because I no longer do. Ah---isn't that an interesting way to look at loss? If I hadn't shed my corporate job and title and my house and furniture, I wouldn't be able to move on to become an entrepreneur and to make room for all the new and positive experiences I am having or the people I am meeting. There wouldn't be any room for new physical things to come into my life either because my life had been chock full of things! And I wouldn't be in alignment with my purpose in life the way I am starting to feel now. My river had been blocked up with a dam built of things and titles and status. Now suddenly it's free to flow and I am swimming along with the current.

Aaaaah! Take deep breaths! Let the gratefulness wash over you. Feel the abundance that you still have and that is still to come. This is an ending but it's also a glorious beginning, a new adventure, a new life! Doesn't it feel better to look at the situation this way?

OK, so I know you're dying to find out if I ever found the money. Well, after I got all my fear and rage out of me, I finally stopped sobbing. I hadn't gotten that hysterical since my divorce many years ago, but I felt strangely better for letting it all out. I was still crying, but now I felt relief. All that pressure had been released.

And then I felt two furry little bodies rubbing up against my leg. I looked down into their glowing and compassionate eyes and realized that they had been worried about me. Now they were letting me know that everything would be OK. And in that instant I remembered putting the money in an old wallet for safe keeping. It was such a safe place, in fact, that I'd forgotten I'd put it there. But there it was, safe and sound. (And this morning it is going into the bank, where it will be safe and sound; and I hopefully will not forget that I put it there!)

So I'd gone through all that angst for nothing--but then again maybe it wasn't for nothing. This morning I am feeling calm and clear. The pressure is gone, as is the raging anger. It was a catharsis!

I'm not sure if all the fear is gone, but it's probably OK to be just a little bit scared when you're starting a brand new life.

Mt. Shasta Quest on 9-9-09
First, let’s get the geographical info out of the way so that you all have some idea of where Mt. Shasta is located. This is from the Chamber of Commerce’s site:

“The City of Mt. Shasta, nestled at the foot of imposing 14,162-foot Mount Shasta (4,317 m), is surrounded by natural beauty and offers many year-round outdoor activities. The mountain is the second highest volcano in the United States and has been a prominent landmark along the historic Siskiyou Trail -- the track of an ancient trade and travel route of Native American footpaths between California’s Central Valley and the Pacific Northwest. Today’s version of the Siskiyou Trail is Interstate 5, which provides easy access to the City of Mt. Shasta, located midway between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon.”

Since no planes fly into Mt. Shasta, we flew into Redding, CA, on Labor Day and stayed there overnight at a very nice spa. (We never had any time to check out the spa though!) My old friend Julie flew in from Chicago and I flew in from Dallas. Our room overlooked a beautiful courtyard with a large pond full of koi, fountains, pairs of white and black swans, and a little red bridge.

Tuesday morning we got on Interstate 5, mentioned above, and started driving south, away from Mt. Shasta rather than toward it, to the town of Red Bluff. We wanted to check out a rock shop there, which turned out to be that as well as a jewelry store and a museum that had some beautiful examples of amethyst, citrine, jasper, and so on. I wanted to get a few more types of crystals to take with me—we were told that we could bring some crystals if we wanted to have them specially energized by the activation of the large Atlantean crystal located within Mt. Shasta. This was the purpose of the 9-9-09 celebration at the mountain.

When we were done at the rock shop, we got back on Interstate 5 and headed north to Mt. Shasta, retracing our route past Redding and driving along a winding, mountainous road for about an hour and a half. The scenery was magnificent, though I didn’t dare look too closely since I was driving. My eyes were glued to the road and my hands to the wheel! We had dinner in a very cute restaurant that looked like a cottage and the next morning (9-9-9) we took a 10-minute drive to the foot of the mountain to meet Antera and Omaran. (Their real names are much less interesting!) As it ended up, 40 people had signed up for this special day, so we were broken up into two separate groups starting at two different times. We all had lunch together though.

Neither Julie nor I knew much about the significance of this Atlantean crystal; however, each of us felt drawn to this place known to be one of the most powerful and energetic sacred points in the world. Since I’ve been back in Dallas, I’ve done a little research (which does fit with what they told us there) and so am filling in some info here for you. This story will sound like a myth to you; however, both of us came to see the spiritual truth in it from the experiences we had learning about Atlantis and meditating in the pyramid that this couple (and loads of other people who answered the call) had been told to build by Metatron, the archangel known as the Lord of Light. (Antera channels him.)

Twelve years ago Antera and Omaran were told to build this pyramid, but lack of finances hindered them until this summer. Metatron told them that if they could have this pyramid ready on 9-9-9, when the crystal in the mountain would be activated, the pyramid itself would channel the energies of the crystal in the mountain. So Omaran, who in his more ordinary life was in construction, started to build the pyramid. Whenever he needed help, someone showed up to help him. Some were locals and some came from various parts of the country. Some helped for a day here and there; others stayed for a few weeks. The pyramid was finished the night before we got there and no one had been in it for more than a few minutes before we arrived at 9:30 a.m.

During our first session in the couple’s house they showed us pictures of the various stages of construction of the pyramid. We also learned about this crystal within Mt. Shasta, as well as eight others that were made more than 12,000 years ago in ancient Atlantis. These crystals were powerful energy sources in that ancient civilization, but because of political intrigue and misuse of the crystals, Atlantis was destroyed. Some of the leaders saw this coming, and they had the nine master crystals sent to various parts of the world to be awakened and reactivated at a future time. That time is now—more specifically, December 21, 2012, for full activation. This is humanity’s chance to get things right and to ensure that the crystals will never again be abused.

Starting in 2008, the various crystals would be activated at 25% power. Every year more crystals would be activated, and the ones already activated would get stronger until the last ones become activated in 2012. Picture a grid superimposed over the world, with one crystal awakening triggering others along the grid until all are activated.

Many of the people who are drawn to the activation celebrations were probably once crystal masters who used to maintain the system. Some actually helped to relocate the crystals. This explained to me why so many people at Mt. Shasta didn’t quite know why they were there—they just felt called—but in reality we were fulfilling part of an ancient contract or promise to participate in the crystalline awakening.

Ultimately this awakening is going to raise the energy of the planet and actually reprogram the DNA of human beings who are open to it so that we can vibrate at a higher level. The higher the level of vibration, the closer one gets to peace, love, and wisdom. (You may have heard Wayne Dyer and other teachers such as Sonia Choquette talk about the importance of raising our vibrational level. We can do this by controlling how we think about things—the more positive and loving thoughts, the higher our vibration becomes. Fear and hate are at the bottom of the vibrational scale.) Earth and humanity will be vibrating at the level of Atlantean wisdom—the highest frequency ever obtained on the earth plane.

This energy will help us to bridge the gap between the right and left sides of our brains, as well as the gap between the conscious (ego) mind and the subconscious (Divine) mind. People will be better able to understand their soul path and set their life priorities. In addition, they will be more able to manifest and maintain feelings of nurturing, kindness, and brother/sisterhood. And it will be easier for us to exhibit unconditional love. We haven’t been able to accomplish this living in the 3rd dimension, but the activation will enable us to receive reception from the 3rd to the 12th dimension and even beyond.

Here’s a list of the crystals by their locations, along with the date when each one will be activated:
1.In Arkansas—
Blue Crystal of Knowledge 8-8-8
Emerald Crystal of Healing 9-9-9
Platinum Crystal of Communication 11-11-11
2.Bimini Bank—
Ruby Fire Crystal of Energy 12-12-12
3.In Brazil—
Gold Crystal of Healing Regeneration 9-9-9
Violet Crystal of Sound 10-10-10
4.Mount Shasta—
The Om Crystal of Multidimensionality 9-9-9
5.Lake Titicaca, Bolivia/Peru—
Sun-Moon Crystal of Light 9-9-9
Crystal of Thoth 12-12-12

The Blue Crystal of Knowledge was activated at 25% power last year on 8-8-8; however, when four other crystals were activated in various parts of the world on 9-9-9, the Blue Crystal reached 75% activation. (I think this has special significance for me personally, as you’ll see later in my notes.) So five of the crystals have already been activated, with one more on 10-10-10, another on 11-11-11, and the remaining two on 12-12-12. Full power for all of them will be reached by the winter solstice on December 21, 2012.


OK. That’s the background. Now to get more into the experiences Julie and I had while at Mt. Shasta—

As I mentioned earlier, the first session in the living room was informational. Antera began by giving us background about Atlantis and how the crystals were taken to various parts of the world for safekeeping. She also told us that we had all lived in Atlantis and that was the reason why we were drawn to this activation celebration. Then she asked us to introduce ourselves. When it was Julie’s turn, she started to cry as she recounted a recurring dream she had had for years. She never knew what it meant, until now. It was a dream of fire and destruction during which she watched her beloved house become engulfed and destroyed. She mentioned how much she loved living there and how she felt so sad that it was being consumed before her eyes. Now she realized that house had been in Atlantis. She also told the group that she had felt drawn to Mt. Shasta and had emailed me late one night, asking if I was interested in going there with her.

I spoke next, indicating that early the next morning I read her email and decided immediately that I was “in.” That night we got online and on the phone together to coordinate the trip. I told the group that I was a Chicagoan transplanted to the Dallas area and living a rather isolated life of work and study there for the past 4 years, with regular trips back to Chicago to see friends and family. I told them that now I’m in the process of moving back there because I feel that my time of study and isolation is complete. (Later on, various people came up to me and said they knew how difficult it must have been to be living in such a “hotbed” of conservatism without very many like-minded people. I mentioned that while I generally found that to be true, I had actually found two places—the Center for Spiritual Living and a wellness center called Hope House—that really were communities of spiritually oriented people.)

After we learned more about the crystals and how our life in Atlantis came to an end, Julie started to cry again, this time out of happiness because she never thought she would see this group again and was so thankful that we were all being reunited. I have to say that this really surprised me. Although I had a very peaceful and comfortable feeling with everyone in the room and didn’t sense anyone’s ego getting in the way of what we were doing, I didn’t have any sense that I had at one time been close to these people. I didn’t “recognize” them as Julie did. But she was so moved by reconnecting with everyone that I felt it had to be real. During the break, several people went up to her and gave her hugs of welcome and reassurance.

After the break, the second group arrived and had their first session in the living room with Antera while our group went upstairs with Omaran. This is where I experienced my own “aha” moments! Omaran took us on a meditation during which we “visited with” each of the various crystals being activated that day, as well as the Blue Crystal of Knowledge that had been activated in Arkansas on 8-8-8. Before he began the meditation, he mentioned that he felt we were going about teaching our children in the wrong way, that we were not being true to the knowledge imparted by this crystal. In the meditation, I think he started with the Mt. Shasta multidimensional Om Crystal, worked through the others, and then ended again with the Mt. Shasta one. Some of the crystals “spoke” to me more than others, and since I didn’t write down my notes immediately, some of them have blurred into each other for me.

I know that I felt a connection to the Om Crystal of Mt. Shasta but then when we went on to the Blue Crystal I felt a real “hit.” I found myself standing in front of this huge, magnificent blue crystal that is the deep cobalt blue I so often see while I am meditating. I could feel the power coming off of this crystal, and it began to speak to me. It was then that I realized I was the Keeper of the Blue Crystal of Knowledge. I was its guardian, its protector. I was supposed to love and protect Knowledge and ensure that it was not misused. The crystal was welcoming me “home.” As the recognition dawned on me, I found tears rolling down my face and suddenly all the pieces of my life clicked together—I knew my purpose and why I had spent my whole career planning, writing, and editing textbooks for children. And I also knew why I had become so disenchanted with the way we teach our children and continue to “dumb down” our instruction and lock ourselves into teaching to the state standards. We are destroying the love of learning.

Moving to the Emerald Crystal of Healing, I felt another surge of energy—and what a gorgeous, bright and clear green! I also have a strong connection to this crystal, though it wasn’t as specific as the one I felt to Knowledge. I felt another strong connection to the Sun-Moon Crystal of light that was being activated in Lake Titicaca, Peru. This isn’t too far from Cuzco and Machu Picchu, which I visited about 30 years ago, so the power of that connection didn’t surprise me. Suddenly I saw a magnificent white light that at first looked like a huge quartz crystal and then later shifted into textures of clouds and feathers swirling around me. There was another healing crystal, the Gold Crystal of Healing Regeneration, being activated in Brazil. I felt that connection strongly as well, but it was a deeper type of healing in this crystal than in the Emerald one, more of a karmic healing than a medicinal one.

Finally, we moved back to the Om Crystal of Mt. Shasta. Omaran guided us to experience the change in our DNA. I could see the spiraling double helix with various segments lighting up as if being activated for the first time. After the meditation several people described their experience as one in which they saw huge molecules of DNA floating around them.

Omaran asked if anyone else would like to share their experiences, and I surprised myself by speaking up. I told the group that I had felt drawn to Mt. Shasta because of the connection I felt to Lemuria, the original home of an earlier advanced civilization in the Pacific Ocean that had also been destroyed by some catastrophe and was submerged into the sea. Many believe that the survivors made their way to shore and re-established themselves within Mt. Shasta.

In my current lifetime, I have spent my whole career in educational publishing (and met Julie at a publishing company more than 25 years ago) but have become more and more disillusioned as the years have passed. In fact, Julie and I had just been talking about the problems in teaching and education the night before! And when Omaran talked about the problems with how we are teaching children, I felt a resonance. Also, during the break I had told Julie that while I sensed that I had lived in Atlantis, I didn’t have any remembrance of the experience or what my role was.

I told the group that during the meditation I had a real affinity for the Blue Crystal of Knowledge and had discovered that I am the Keeper of this crystal. I also told them that exactly one week earlier I had lost my job and that was why I was moving back to Chicago. Julie told me several people clapped or sort of cheered. I don’t remember that, but I do remember one woman saying that now I was going to write very different types of books for children. (I had not told them that I was a writer/editor—just that I had worked in educational publishing.) By the way, I wasn’t the only person in the group who had just lost my job—another woman lost her job two days after I lost mine. I feel certain that we had to be freed up from what we were doing in order to help people prepare for and understand what is happening right now on the planet!

During the lunch break our group had a chance to mingle with the second group. A woman from TX started talking to me about the dearth of spiritual connections there. I asked where she lived, and she said Arlington, which is a suburb of Dallas not all that far from me. I told her about the communities I had discovered. Then I also spent a lot of time talking with the other woman who had just been laid off.

After lunch it was time to prepare ourselves to go into the pyramid. Antera took us outside and had us lie down on the ground in order to do a meditation that would connect each of our chakras way down to the core of the earth. After that, we went to the medicine circle and did a four-direction meditation outside the pyramid.

And then we finally had the chance to go into the pyramid and meditate there for an hour and a half. Our one major directive was to think only positive thoughts and to redirect them any time we felt any negative thoughts coming into our awareness. We walked down a ramp and then climbed up a ladder to get into the 24 x 24 ft room. It was dark except for the light that came through the capstone at the top of the ceiling and a few candles that had been lit in the corners of the room. There were 20 of us, and we took turns sitting directly under the capstone. Each person had 5 minutes of time in the center of the room with the rays of the light flowing down on him/her. There was amazing energy as well as peace in that room. I have to admit that it did start to get a bit warm in there, but I had more trouble with the stuffiness and its affect on my breathing—by the end of hour and a half I felt that I wouldn’t have been able to stay for more than another 10 minutes or so.

Each person was with his/her own thoughts during this time. I spent my time visualizing as many of my friends and family as I could—even my parents and sister who have passed (and even some people who have made my life difficult)—and wishing that they find peace and clarity on their soul journeys in order to discover and follow their paths.

When we emerged from the pyramid, it was about 5 p.m., so we had had a very full day! I suddenly felt exhausted and yet I knew we had another hour plus drive back to our hotel in Redding. I had a 6 a.m. flight the next morning, and I needed to get back in touch with the outside world. The ride was a good transition, and Julie and I were able to talk and debrief.

My meditation inside the pyramid seemed pretty ordinary to me. Although it was an opportunity to think about people in my life individually, there wasn’t anything unusual about my experiences. Julie, however, had some amazing visions! All 20 of us were seated in a circle around the perimeter of the pyramid. As each person took a turn in the center, his/her back was to me. But Julie was facing each person and could study each one’s face. As she did so, she saw a transformation almost every time. Sometimes a man became a woman or vice versa. And Julie got information about what their roles had been in Atlantis. It was fascinating to hear her describe the information she received. Unfortunately, though, when she had her own 5 minutes in the light, she was unable to get much more specific information about herself.

What she got about me was quite fascinating and backed up the information I had gotten myself during the earlier meditation. She saw me as a wizened old man who looked similar to Dumbledore, the Headmaster from Harry Potter. I had, in fact, been the Keeper of Knowledge and tried in vain to get the people of Atlantis to understand the difference between Knowledge and Wisdom. I explained that having Knowledge without using Wisdom was an abuse of Knowledge, but no one listened to me. They just thought I was an old man who didn’t know anything. But as later events proved, they really should have listened. If they had, the disaster might have been averted.

Obviously, it’s going to take awhile to absorb and
process all of this information. However, I have to say that it all feels right to me, and it explains so much about my work in this lifetime and the disillusionment I’ve felt over the past several years, as well as the knowing that I was meant to do something else—I just didn’t know what that was for such a long time. I’m still not sure what’s in store for me, but now I’m open and much more attuned to the guidance that I’m receiving—and I’m getting explanations and direction much more readily now that I’ve calmed my life down so that I can hear the quiet messages and done my clutter clearing so that I have room for all the new insights to come into my consciousness!

And now the real work begins--