Prior to my near-death experience I had been wracked by extreme remorse and repentance for an action I had taken a few years earlier. It was something that I was unable to speak about. I lost so much weight and was very thin. I isolated myself socially, but was able to work thank goodness because my job involved sitting at a computer on my own, not having to talk to anyone.

My near-death experience took place the same weekend that princess Diana was killed in Paris in 1997. I had been very busy with a group of people, in a leadership role, and I was absolutely exhausted. I felt like a useless leader. I had been to the doctor and they told me I had adrenal exhaustion and the nurse who looked at my test results expressed amazement that I was still functioning.

At that time, I lived in an intuitional environment which was heated by radiators which always seemed to be turned on. My bedroom was very hot. I came into my bedroom in the late afternoon after the group activity and locked the door, took off my clothes because it was so hot, and collapsed on my bed with exhaustion and despair and fell into a deep sleep.

Suddenly I was awake and in front of me were two doors representing--as I knew intuitively--a choice, to die or to live. 

The door on the left was the door to death, but there was nothing wrong with it. There was a white light, like a white cloud, through it. There was no fear at all. It was peaceful. I felt as though I was "allowed" to choose death, if that was what I wanted. I *knew* that all I had to do, to go through it, was to exhale. It was as easy as that.

The door on the right was the door back to life on earth. I knew that if I chose it, I would be starting at the bottom of a spiral staircase and go upwards. I immediately chose the door on the right, with the instantaneous understanding that for every step up that I took I would never go back down, and that I had the hope that one day I would understand my life and become a wise old woman. I did not want to leave this earth with the null-legacy of a miserable life.

In another instant, I had returned to my body which felt like an oppressive dead weight, like lead. Then I felt a life force surge into my body. I lifted my head to look at myself and saw creases in my skin, like the creases I had seen in my father's skin when he died a few years earlier. 

I thought that I must have died and come back. I knew that the direction of my life had changed and I was now on the metaphorical staircase going upwards. My strength returned. I became healthy again and began running and began to live once more. Later, I got married and had two children. My dreams were coming true.