Why is it that the fabric of our reality, of our very existence, seems to hinge on people or situations that, in the end, truly have no power to create our lives for us? Why does life often seem so meaningless? Have you ever felt that you’ve lost the true core of your individual power?

What, exactly, is this thing I call individual power?

Is it money, a relationship, a career? The latest car, biggest home, or newest diamond watch? A corporate takeover or political move? No. Yet in our twenty-first-century society, many – perhaps most – would have you believe that your very life, livelihood, happiness, well-being, and future security hinge on any one or a number of those things.

Perhaps someone – your spouse, your employer – has led you to buy into the false view that your happiness or security lies in his hands.

Well, as a woman who was born into wealth, traveled the world, experienced the finest of life on planet Earth only to have it all stripped away, I learned.

I learned there are masses of people who do not have a voice, who cannot speak out for themselves, largely due to lack of money and, thus, lack of perceived power.

I learned, in an unjust legal custody battle, how money buys justice while it shields the truth.My eyes opened during my darkest hour.

They opened to the oppressed, the grief stricken, the homeless, and the hungry.

No longer was I among the elite, the in crowd. Now I was among the masses, and it was simultaneously an empowering and a tragic position to find myself in.

So I realized people, you, need a voice.

Not an advocate, not another political representative who will strip you of even more of your individual power. No. People, you, need your own voice. With that voice you can reclaim your power and create the life of your own choosing, independent of the belief system you have bought into and, in most cases, in spite of it.

My purpose in this book is to hit home with you, my new friend,my reader. To hit home with truth that will engage your mind, challenge your perceptions, and stir your soul into uncharted territory.

Then you, too, can awaken and reclaim your very own self. As a result, the consciousness of humanity shall be raised: your consciousness, your light, your purpose, and your responsibility to yourself and to all others.

So in this journey, let the truth sink in, and fear not a change in your paradigm, for it has been your paradigm that has swallowed up the courage to uplift yourself far beyond where even you have told yourself you can go.

No, this book will not soothe you. It will challenge and inspire you to blaze your own trail.

As a result, your light shall be a beacon for those whose lives you touch.

And what a profound concept that is: to touch the lives of those dearest to you not by doing more but by being more!

So come. Let us go to a place we have rarely visited, that place of true individual power.

Barbara Rose

March 11, 2001