Published in Avatar® Journal, Volume XII, Issue 1, Fall 1997. Used with permission.

In January 1992, I joined many of my friends in the Connecticut unemployment line. The bank I was working for had gone Chapter 11. I had spent almost 30 years in information systems and I enjoyed computers, but I now wanted a career where I was working directly with people. I wanted to make a tangible contribution to the lives of others.

One of my good friends, Isabel, who was supporting me in finding the "right" job, called one morning to tell me that she and her husband were doing a course called Avatar. She wanted me to attend the first day of the course as a support to her. I thought, "No big deal. I can support her -- she has certainly supported me." But she also asked me to consider taking the whole course with her -- and that was wishful thinking! I had made a career out of taking growth courses and had become somewhat jaded about the whole idea. I had taken Silva Mind Control, est, the Forum, the Insight courses, Women Sex and Power, and Robert Monroe's The Gateway Voyage, to mention a few of the better ones. I did get value from these experiences. But I had reached the point where learning more about my past patterns or decisions still hadn't released me from them. I was still dealing with the same stuff! I was stuck in the same box. So when Isabel's call came, I was already looking for that missing piece of the puzzle -- the piece that could free me from the recurring issues that I didn't want in my life.

When I attended the first day of Avatar, another old friend, Harriett, turned out to be the trainer. She and I had done volunteer work with another training organization that offered self-discovery courses. Avatar sounded just like it -- and many other courses I had taken. Sure, I'd probably enjoy it, and yes, I'd probably learn more about my issues. But so what? I found myself listening to Isabel and Harriett through the filter of "Been there, done that. Next?"

But that changed as soon as I participated in the Transparent Belief Exercise. I took my issue of not being able to find the right job as the item in the exercise. I wanted to determine what I was believing that was transparent to me, that was getting in the way of finding the job I wanted. What I discovered stunned me.

First of all, I immediately uncovered the specific beliefs that were the problem: "I'm likely to fail at something new," and "I am my work, so if I fail I'll be lost." But more importantly, I realized that I had completely underestimated the effect that a belief could have on my life.

I had known that my beliefs had some impact on the events of my life, but I had fallen into the trap of merely understanding this conceptually. In this exercise I had a direct experience of the power of my beliefs. It was like a door had opened on another level of reality, a door I didn't even know existed.

It occurred to me that if this simple process could produce such a powerful insight in me, then perhaps Avatar's claim might be true after all: I could be taught techniques that could eliminate any unwanted conditions in my life.

I borrowed the money. I did the course with Isabel and her husband. And, yes, I created the job of my dreams. And that job was only the starting point of redesigning what I experience as my life.

I had finally found a set of tools that allowed me to not only determine what was holding me back in any area I desired, but also gave me the missing piece, a way to get rid of what I didn't want -- once and for all!