Imagine yourself: young, naive, very quiet, and extremely shy. Your moving away from your small home town to a city of half a million people.

A life that should have been fun and exciting, instead, takes you on a journey beyond the thinkable.

You experience non-acceptance, unhealthy relationships, oppressive burdens, social/peer pressure, dis-respect, emotional bullying, and workplace abuse.

The workplace abuse/emotional bullying becomes the most dominant of experiences. Experiences that take you from bad to worse, with each new job. And, not knowing better, and thinking that this is the norm, you continue to work within these abusive environments for the next 20 years of your life.

Picture This: Your at work and it's time for a coffee break. You go into the cafeteria, and find a table with 10 to 12 employees around it. You don't want to intrude, and besides, there's no more room left, to sit at this table. You sit alone, at another table. In walks another employee-----you're so pleased that she sits with you. Suddenly the 10 to 12 employees at the other table ask her to join them. She gets up and leaves, leaving you to sit alone, again. As you quietly get up to leave the room, tears begin to fill your eyes.

Or This: Your supervisor deliberately leads you to believe in a false hope. Upon finding this out, you are left with a feeling of deep betrayal (emotional pain). You confide in your H/R representative, to later find out that she too betrayed you. During the yearly evaluation, your supervisor repeats to you, almost word for word that which you confided to your H/R representative. The supervisor gives you a lesser evaluation than previous years, and tells you, that if you don't sign it, you won't get any kind of a raise, no matter how small.

Or This: You break your ankle in several places and your orthopedic surgeon tells you, that if you weren't so fat, you would not have broken your bones.

Only those who have endured abusive situations as these, can really understand the shame and the embarrassment that comes with these experiences of emotional bullying and psychological harassment.

Because of the many years of continuous bullying, it would have been very easy to change from victim to bully. Instead, these experiences created an inner awakening. An awakening to self awareness, which then led to self discovery, and on to self empowerment.

As I continued to work, I enrolled and completed a psychology/social work, diploma program (knowledge only), which then led me to volunteer work. My interest peaked when I began observing other people's behaviors, and began listening to their beliefs.

It is this knowledge, my own personal experiences, along with studying other's beliefs and behavioral patterns, which led to the making of Self-Awareness Journal on CD-ROM, a computer software program, a self-help tool designed to guide and inspire those seeking to change their lives through self awareness. And, allowing one to document all pertinent information regarding abuse and bullying.