***UNDER CONSTRUCTION***

Maya's Personal Journey

Growing up in Texas
I am Native American, born in South Texas into a poor, farming family. At an early age, I knew that money was an issue. We lived in run down rented houses, moving when ever my mother and father found work because farming did not sustain us.

To my parents credit, their instilled in me the importance of an education. So the schooling of myself and my siblings was a priority. Throughout my school years, I studied hard and earned top grades in my class. Math and Science were my favorite subjectsI won an achievement award in middle-school and was inducted into the National Honor Society in my high school junior year. I graduated high school in the top 1/2 percent of my class with a 3.95 GPA. Even with all my achievements, I was not supported to receive a scholarship by my counselor. Today, I believe that I was discriminated against, either because I am female or because I am Native American. In fact, my counselor advised me to either take classes to become a secretary or become a hair dresser. Please understand that I think highly of secretaries and hair dressers; I just had aspirations of pursuing math and science in my career. At 18 years of age, I escaped from Texas knowing that I would not be able to fulfill my dreams there.

California here I come
I arrived in California with $9.00 in my pocket. I met a wonderful man who I married shortly after meeting him. He took care of me well. We have a son together. And still, once again, my dreams were not being fulfilled. My husband wanted me to be a wife and mother--meaning no college education, no career. I really did my very best for 9 years, but I was dying inside. So sadly, I divorced him and became a single mom, working and putting myself through college.

I remember some nights being so exhausted, I dared not sit down because I knew I would not be able to get up again. I would be up until 1AM doing homework and then up early to take my son to childcare, then go to work. Sometimes I would wake up in the morning still sitting at my table with the course books as my pillow. Those were very difficult years. And there was more difficulty to come.

I remarried and was in heaven for a while. For our honeymoon, we traveled to the east coast and took about 4 months off to really enjoy and celebrate our union. This was more fun than I had had in a long time. When we got back to California and settled into daily life, I discovered that my husband was a manic depressive who had tried to commit sucide previously. He could not work so I was the bread-winner. Most days I would come home dreading to open the front door, not knowing if I would find him dead. During the last few years of our marriage, my husband became physically abusive to me.

My Angel Gina
My sister had been ill most of her life and was becoming more ill. She asked me to care for her 12-year old daughter, Gina. Although my home environment was not the best, I provided a good home and education for her. At the age of 17, Gina was diagnosed with leukemia and given a couple of months to live. She was a beautiful being, full of life and love until the very end. Although Gina was in lots of pain, underwent chemo therapy, bone marrow transplant, transfusions, she NEVER gave up. We hired a tutor for her because she wanted to keep up with her school work. At the end, she refused pain medication because she wanted to stay awake and alert. She wrote beautiful poetry and recorded passages from A Course in Miracles which I will always cherish. Gina died before her 18th birthday. Whenever I think I am having a difficult time, all I need to do is remember Gina, her courage in pain, her aliveness in the midst of death. Aloha sweet Angel.

Loria and Dad
Several years later, my sister moved in with me as she was unable to take care of herself. She was a great teacher for me having studied A Course in Miracles and other meta-physical studies. She was the catalyst for my spiritual path. She lived with me for 10 years until she passed away three years ago. My father passed away the same year of the same disese CPOD. Aloha dear Angels.

The New Story
Why do I tell you all of this? Because there is another story underlying the sad one. This one is full of visible miracles. And as I look back the sad story was full of invisible miracles.

I finally got my degree in Computer Science after 8 years of attending night classes. I graduated with highest honors. That is a miracle in itself. During this time, I was working for a freight line company that went out of business. I won't go into this story now, but just know, this company had several discrimination and harassment suits filed against it. Anyway, I was the one who ran the computer department for the company. Fortunately, I had developed relationships with employees of our vendor, Hewlett Packard. Because I knew of the company through the HP support personnel I worked with, I knew I wanted to work for HP so much I could taste it. I asked my HP associates to pass along my resume and I had two scheduled interviews from that. Wow! I could hardly believe it. HP was very rigorous in its hiring policy. They conducted a preliminary interview, then a group interview if you passed the first one. I remember years later as a manager, we were told that every new hire was a million dollar investment, so hire wisely.

I remember the interviews flowing like magic. I was not highly experienced in interview techniques but it seemed everything I said resonated with the interviewer. I was relaxed and it felt like a dance between us, each of us inquiring and responding like having a conversation with an old friend. A week later, I was invited back to have a group interview with some of the employees and was taken to lunch. Again all went smoothly. They liked me and I liked them. It was like "deja vu" in another set of interviews for a different position.

Driving home I thought to myself, "This is too good to be true. Will I be offered a job?" My heart's desire was to work for this company that was so admired in business with happy employees and with great opportunities available. Out of fear of wishing too hard, I let the thoughts go and relaxed into the long drive home.

A few days later, I got a call at work. It was a personnel manager from HP. She said calmly, "Sylvia, we would like to offer you a position at HP." My jaw dropped! "You interviewed for two positions and we agree that you could do either quite well. So we are offering you the same salary for either position. You can choose the one you would like the most." My jaw hit the floor! "Sylvia, are you there?" I took a deep breath to regain my composure. "Y-yes, I'm here. Thank you so much. I would like 24 hours to think this over. Is that alright?" She said, "Of course, take whatever time you need. Call me when you have decided."

I hung up the phone and started shouting and jumping. I was so happy, I could not contain my excitement. My associates came into my office area and began congratulating me. Wow, it actually happened. A miracle for sure.

I had many wonderful positions at HP throughout the years. When I was hired, I chose the position of software support engineer and 10 months later, interviewed and got the position of team manager. A year later, I became department manager of a small department, then a year later, manager of a large department. The following year, I became support operations manager for North America with employees in Altanta and Silicon Valley. Every year for 5 years, I was promoted, given more responsibility and larger organizations.

When I think back, what happened does not seem logical. There were others, my peers, who were more experienced and had worked longer at HP. Why did I get the promotions? The best way I can explain it is this. In each position, I just knew what to do. I don't know how I knew, but I did. I followed this "knowing" and took action on my intuition. I had a sense of what was on the horizon and was able to anticipate actions to mitigate or take advantage of an opportunity, whichever was appropriate. Not only was I managing an $20 million business, I was sponsoring many strategic change initiatives. Again I was in a wave of forward moving energy.

One of the projects I led, had a major impact on me. The project was to design a world-class customer support center. We pulled in representatives from all parts of the organization to be the design team. What I saw astounded me. People were laying down their organizational boundaries, collaborating on designing an organizational model that could eliminate their jobs. These people were creative and innovative and "lit up" in a way I had not seen before. They were contributing beyond their training and expertise and were rising to the occasion. Well, I saw the light, a job that was so much fun and impactful. This is what I want to do next--work with people to make changes that matter. I also wanted to travel to other parts of the world.

Just as I was thinking about this, my former manager call me. He said, a peer of his was starting up a new support organization in another part of the company. He thought I would be a good fit for that organization and asked me to apply. Hmmm...another synchronicity. So, I applied for a position as global program manager to lead a world-wide project to make massive changes for the purpose of servicing the customer better. For this project I traveled the world: Europe, Asia and some of the US. In my previous position, I had already traveled to most of the major US cities.

I really learned how to work with people from different cultures and different styles. I was able to "morph" into a culture easily. One of the most meaningful compliments I received from an associate in Germany was, "You don't seem like you're American." There was a "knowing" that came from my heart regarding how to behave and what to say to my European and Asian associates.

When this project ended, I took a job as a senior business consultant. This was the most fun of all my jobs. I got to work on a team of bright, dedicated organizational design and business consultants. I got to bid the projects I wanted and deliver to those projects, working in all of the businesses in the company.

How I got this job was really fascinating. To be continued...