I set out to actively lead a life that truly feels good in the Spring of 2008 after a series of setbacks in my personal life. My aim is to spread whatever I learn about feeling good to others through this blog.
My Story #6 - University: Law of Attraction in Action
When I started University I had no idea what the Law of Attraction was - I wouldn’t find out about that for another 4 years but looking back now this is one of the clearest examples to me of it working.
My University Goals
I had had almost a year to think about University before I actually started it. I was very clear about exactly why I was going - it wasn’t to get a degree (that was just a side effect), it was to get my career back, or start a new one I should say.
I had two very specific goals. First of all I wanted the highest grade possible. There was absolutely no point in spending three years of my adult life at University with no income to get anything less than a First Class Honours degree. Furthermore, not only did I absolutely make the decision that I was going to get that grade but I never doubted it - well only occasionally at the end!
When you know what you want and you have absolute faith that you will have it, the Law of Attraction says that it MUST manifest. The second goal was to impress the staff in some way. I wanted to be able to come away from University with references that would allow me to get a job.
Three Wonderful Years
I had a fabulous time at Uni! Two weeks into term I turned 32 so I was obviously one of the more mature students but I seemed to just fit in. My dreams of studying in a big library were granted and what a library it was! I would spend hours in there wandering around all the rare books, the scientific periodicals and all sorts of weird and wonderful collections. Occasionally, I actually did some study in there (in between the day dreaming and the sleeping!)
There was only one tiny little hump to deal with - my partner decided that she wanted a baby! It was something we’d talked about a couple of years earlier and I had decided against but she really wanted one so we went ahead and tried. Being two women, the natural option wasn’t available so we had to have fertility treatment.
In the first year of uni we had all the treatment to deal with. This was quite emotionally draining as we had a few failures which my partner took very badly. However she got pregnant and I must say the pregnancy was wonderful. Our son Evan was born on the 26th December 2004 (the same day as that awful Tsumani!) and so the second year was somewhat marred by sleepless nights!
Thankfully, I didn’t need to work very hard at Uni! I was at a distinct advantage because most of these kids were 18 and had no experience and of course I was already an experienced software developer so most of the classes in the first couple of years literally sent me to sleep. I slept quite a lot at Uni, particularly in the second year when I wasn’t getting so much at home!
A Medical Setback to Test Me
At the end of the second year a couple of days after getting my results (straight A’s whoohoo!), I started to experience severe abdominal pain. I’ll cut this story short as well - a cyst on my ovary had ruptured. I had surgery. Something went wrong. I ended up in intensive care. 11 days later I came out of hospital sporting 15 inches of surgery scars - I had a second op whilst in intensive care. Something wasn’t right. I had contracted MRSA in hospital and a couple of weeks later I had to go back in for treatment. I was in there for another 11 days.
Something happened to me during that time. I was left with not only two major operations to recover from but all sorts of other weird and wonderful conditions. Over the next few months I had just about every illness going - tonsilitis for 3 weeks, a cold that lasted a shocking 8 weeks, a 3 week neck cramp, and lots of other things. Walking around campus was extremely tiring and I found myself sleeping in lectures even more than usual only this year was finals, it was tough and I needed to stay awake!
To make matters worse, 3 months after coming out of hospital I lost my voice. It turned out to be caused by the intubation tubes from intensive care. This went on for three months and made Uni extremely difficult. Strangely, it cleared up all on its own before I could get treatment.
In the year following those surgeries I was tested to the limit. The surgeries themselves took much longer to recover from than I had imagined - over six months. I couldn’t exercise and my weight ballooned to an all-time high. Evan was 9 months old and it was a difficult age, I really wasn’t coping with the whole baby thing all that well. The University work was extremely hard and of course I was starting to think about graduation - would I be able to get a job?
Faith Is The Key
There were times when I felt down, when I was so tired, when I hated myself for allowing myself to get so fat, when I started panicking that all this struggle would be for nothing if I couldn’t get a job anyway but I persisted. I must have faith and I wouldn’t allow those thoughts to linger, I was stronger than that now.
My faith paid off and there was of course a happy ending to this story.
Not only did I get my First Class Honours degree (straight A’s in year 3 too!) but I was also voted the best student in Computer Science! Now this really did look good on the resume! A few weeks before the end of the final term I confided in one of my lecturers about my dark past. A couple of weeks before graduation she sent me an email telling me of a job that looked like exactly the job I was looking for and this was with a company that she had worked closely with for 10 years.
She agreed to speak to one of the managers on my behalf about my situation. She did and they agreed to give me an interview. I was so nervous! At last after 4 years of effort here I was at what seemed like judgement day!
The interview was weird - I waited for the dreaded questions about my past and what I had done but they never came. After about 20 minutes I started to panic - what if there had been a communication breakdown and this guy didn’t know about it? I plucked up the courage to ask “um, are you aware of the situation with my last job?”, the response floored me - he said quite flatly “yes, we’re aware of it and it’s not an issue”!!!!!!
That was it! 2 minutes later I had a job offer - I had reached my goal. I can’t begin to tell you how good that felt. All those years of work, never taking my eye off the goal, never doubting (well very occasionally) that I would reach it and it was mine!
Well, for a while anyway…
In true soap opera fashion tune in next week to find out what happened and why my new job turned out to be so short lived! :-)
Stumble it!
Maia Berens
August 22, 2008
Faith, belief in yourself and working through your emotions’ll do it.
Maia Berenss last blog post..Law of Attraction - a Best Seller!