In keeping with the theme of my new book, When Life Changes, Or You Wish It Would: How to Survive and Thrive in Uncertain Times, (available in bookstores this month) I am sharing some recent stories about life changes from readers of this column. The key principles in all the stories are: having the courage to be who you are, keeping the intention of what you want, and letting the universe handle the details.

FACE THE PAIN OF INAUTHENTIC CHOICES

Soren Wolf writes, "The biggest change occurred soon after we bought our house in Tulsa in December of 1999. My partner and I were both very depressed and unhappy with our lives. I was working in a job I really didn't like, and Rob was doing occasional freelance illustration work. Tulsa was a very painful place for us to live for many reasons, but although we had been trying to leave the area for about four years, we were afraid to move and didn't know where we'd go--we just felt trapped."

Soren and Rob almost parted after eight years, but decided to try to make their relationship work with the understanding that things would have to change. "We had set ourselves up in a very safe situation, aspiring to all the things that we were told would make us happy, only to find it that it didn't bring us fulfillment. We realized we had taken a hard turn from our authentic selves around the time we graduated from college five years earlier. We both decided to throw out other people's views about how our lives were supposed to go and start living intuitively."

Simplify and Take Action

Around the New Year, Rob and Soren set in motion their desire to live authentic, intentional lives with a simple, but meaningful ceremony, incorporating a special handmade candle given to them by a friend. "Within two months of lighting the candle," says Soren, "our whole lives had changed. In that short time, job offers came pouring in from the Bay Area (where I had believed it was impossible to actually move). We put our house on the market, sold every item in our lives that didn't have deep importance to us (which was about two-thirds of all the things we owned), and moved to Berkeley.

We found an apartment the first day we were in town during the tightest housing market in decades. Shortly afterwards, Rob started school at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Since then we have learned more about ourselves and accomplished more than we had in the entire first twenty-eight years of our lives."

Things were going very well for Rob and Soren until the events of 9/11. Like many of us, they felt life had gotten beyond any sense of control, and the idea that we create our own reality seemed unrealistic. "We are just now starting to believe again that we can handle things, and that we are responsible for creating our own way, even though our world leaders - especially our own leaders - are behaving so thoughtlessly.

"I've only mentioned a small sample of the remarkable things that have happened to get us where we are," says Soren. "We're continually being challenged to view every situation as an opportunity to have a better understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe. At this point, I can do nothing better than to just take a moment to stop and listen and pay attention to what the universe has for me... to actually see the helping hands instead of slapping them out of the way because they are new or unknown."

Pick Up the Phone, Life is Calling

As I was writing this column, I synchronistically received a call from a reporter from a New York newspaper called The Staten Island Advance, Lisa Ann Williamson, who was researching an article on numerology. As it turned out I was fascinated by how her life and career were also advanced by helping hands-people showing up at just the right time and giving her just what she needed to pursue her innermost dreams. Lisa Ann told me that a few years ago she was working in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in production for a popular television show. At a colleague's going-away party, she met a woman who was leaving her job as a reporter at the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The woman asked Lisa Ann, "Have you every thought about writing? You should call personnel, and take my job." Lisa Ann, assuming the woman was merely being polite in her offer, never made the phone call. "I had never thought of writing for a living, and I just forgot about it, until I ran into her again. She asked me if I had called, and I said, No, and she said, 'Oh, you must call. They're waiting to hear from you.'" Unable to resist the obvious hand of synchronicity a second time, Lisa Ann called and set up an interview with the newspaper. "The only example I had of my writing was something I had done for a hospital newsletter. As it turns out, they didn't even ask for any samples of my writing. They had seen the television show and liked that I had worked there, so without even the right resume experience, they hired me! At the time, I thought working as a reporter would only be temporary, but it's turned into a great career that gives me lots of flexibility to pursue other interests such as acting." Lisa Ann's experience is a good example of how we might miss the first signal of synchronicity at work, but, if it's meant to be, we'll get a second wake-up call.

Also, notice that Lisa Ann changed careers without having to have a perfect resume with exactly relevant experience. So often our logical mind insists that we don't have what it takes to make a change, or that we need to go back to school or take some other overt action before "getting ready" for a new direction. Be open to the idea that your life can change in the blink of an eye. Keep talking about what you want with people, and eventually, someone may give you a great lead. The conventional way isn't always the quickest or necessary route to success. Anything is possible.

The Zig Zag Route

But Lisa Ann's story unfolds further. When a friend-knowing her aspirations for acting--suggested that maybe it was time for her to move and pursue opportunities outside Iowa, Lisa Ann didn't have a clue as to where to go. Her friend helped her set up some interviews with The Washington Post and The New York Times at a job fair. Feeling somewhat exhausted after her interviews with editors from these newspapers, she sat down at a table to catch her breath. The table, it turned out was part of the booth for The Grand Rapids Press located in Michigan, and they asked for a copy of her resume. She says, "I didn't even remember having given them a resume when they called for an interview. I had my heart set on going somewhere in the East like New York or Washington, so Michigan didn't have any appeal to me. However, once I talked to them I was so impressed with the boss and how willing he was to help me fit together my interest in theater with the reporting job that I wound up taking the job. I had a great time reconnecting with theater during the time I worked there."

Lisa Ann's interest in acting kept growing, and once again, her intuition told her it was time to move to New York. As it turns out The Grand Rapids Press has a sister newspaper in the East, The Staten Island Advance. Her boss contacted the editor there, and they were delighted to offer her a job on whatever terms she wanted. "They were very flexible and willing to let me work either full-time, part-time, or free-lance," says Lisa Ann. "In addition, they will let me be off for three months while I do summer stock in Muskegon, Michigan. Not only that, but I only work half- time and I get full benefits and receive 401K matching funds just like full-time people. None of this has been a struggle. I'm sure that if I had come to New York on my own and took a direct and conventional route of applying for a job, none of this would have unfolded. I could never have figured out to have everything turn out so perfectly."

One last story is from Lisa in Los Angeles. An events planner, she had been sending out resumes for months, but wasn't getting any calls for interviews. "I was invited to a housewarming party, and started talking to a friend about looking for work. She immediately told me of a friend of hers who was leaving a job working with the Academy Awards organization. At that same moment, the person walked into the party. When we told her we were just talking about her, she said, 'I had no idea you were looking for work.' And then she said those magic words, 'Call me in the morning.' I went in the next day and they hired me without even looking at my resume!"

So there you have it. God is moving you in the right direction. Just tell her what you want.