The title is of course a partial quote of Dorothy’s famous line from The Wizard of Oz when she realizes the world around her is not her familiar Kansas.

For some who choose a path to expanded awareness, an event may occur which will turn their current, and sometimes comfortable, belief system to rubble, or at the very least create a huge editing job.

One of those life-changing events happened to me during a journey in the early 90’s, well more precisely a couple days after the journey. The journey took place before my first trip to The Monroe Institute, although I had been using the Gateway Experience tapes at home for some time. I asked my guides, what is the most important thing I can know and understand at this time. I waited, and waited, and nothing came. I knew however that sometimes the answer does not come immediately, and may actually come days or weeks later, so I continued my journey and allowed the question to just “float out there.”

At the time I was living and working in the Los Angeles area and a couple days after asking the question, I had just begun my daily forty-five minute commute to work when I was hit with the most massive rush of unconditional love energy I have ever experienced. It was as if every part of my entire being was vibrating at an incredibly high frequency. When the vibrations peaked, I received my answer.


You are in complete and total control of your life and experiences. No one, or no thing, can have any effect or control over you unless you allow it.

As my eyes filled with tears and my vision blurred, I somehow managed to navigate across three lanes of morning-commute traffic, and into the emergency lane without making a cameo appearance on the morning traffic report. As the level of the vibrations came back down to a dull roar, I managed to find something to dry my eyes and realized my life had completely changed. I continued on to work and I was there, but not really “there.” The vibrations lingered, but at a tolerable level for the rest of the day, and I could not get those two sentences out of my thoughts (as if I actually wanted to).

During the next several weeks, months even, I pondered the changes that were happening in my life. I certainly could not be a victim because I was in control. Even if I allowed someone to victimize me, I wasn’t really a victim because I had allowed it, and whether I allowed it consciously or unconsciously was irrelevant, I had allowed it. If something was not working in my life, it was no one’s fault but my own. If I did not like my job, I had chosen it so it was my doing. If I stayed in a job I did not like, that was my choice as well. No one was forcing me to stay there. From that point forward I started to live my life keeping those two profound sentences in mind. And if I happened to slip, I had a wealth of friends who would kindly remind me.

Today with a much stronger and clearer connection to guidance, and all the benefits that brings, my life flows along pleasantly and quite smoothly. If a rough spot should come up, then it’s time for a journey to figure out why. Sometimes it may be a challenge I have chosen, and other times it may indicate the need for a course correction. At other times, it may simply be a matter of bad timing – getting the cart ahead of the horse.