As I stepped into the chocolate shop at the airport, everything smelled sweet , a warm mix of sugar, roasted nuts, and something buttery in the air. A slightly round woman in her mid-forties, with curly red hair and a cheerful face, was waiting for me with a wide smile. She welcomed me and led me straight to the staff changing room.
There, she handed me a uniform, a fitted dress and a scarf I was supposed to tie around my neck. I was used to wearing temple clothing back then. It felt perfectly normal to me to wear a specific dress to express a sense of belonging, of serving something greater. But now, I was in a different world.
Standing behind the counter, surrounded by sweets, sandwiches, and glossy cookies, I felt completely lost. The fear of making a mistake was overwhelming, and I did everything I could to prove how willing and eager I was to learn. I honestly thought it was a miracle they didn’t send me home on the first day.
At first, it wasn’t easy to work the register. I didn’t know how to handle money, especially the different currencies back then. I couldn’t do mental math , not because I was stupid, but because I had never really learned it. The women looked at me as though I had come from another planet.
I was told to weigh pralines and cookies and wrap sweets into delicate little boxes ‘ and I didn’t even know what “tare” meant. It was all so new and overwhelming. I felt afraid, insecure, and deeply out of place.
But I knew I had to keep going.
When I received my first salary, it felt surreal. I had never earned that much money in my life, and I honestly didn’t know what to do with it. It made me uncomfortable, as though I wasn’t allowed to have it. I felt guilty and unworthy. It was all so unfamiliar.
The other women were surprised by me. I asked for help constantly. I was vulnerable, anxious, and ashamed. But I sensed that they were curious about me ‘ and to my surprise, they were kind. They helped me. Bit by bit, I became one of them.
I walked on eggshells. I had learned that to be accepted, I had to submit. I had to prove I was good enough. I feared rejection. I carried that with me ‘ this need to be perfect, to be pleasing, to be useful , in order to feel worthy of love. It made me rigid. I couldn’t afford to make mistakes.
What a small world that becomes ‘ when your sense of value depends entirely on whether others approve of you.
And yet, despite all of that, I felt something new: dignity. I had made a choice for myself. I had taken a step into the unknown. I was no longer just a housewife hidden in someone else’s life. I had started to become someone of my own.
Privately, things in my life were changing as well. Not all of it was easy. Out of fear of hurting others, I made some decisions I later regretted. I wanted to do everything right, but in the end, I hurt myself the most ‘ and, sadly, my son. But I say this with compassion for the woman I was. I had come from chaos. I was doing my best with what I had learned.
That job, that moment, was the beginning of me unraveling the old identity I had carried for so long. It was the beginning of seeing that the person I believed myself to be was shaped by the circumstances of my upbringing , not by my true self.
As Neville Goddard said, “As within, so without.” We experience our world through the lens of our consciousness , and that lens is shaped by what we believe about ourselves. If we carry fear and self-doubt inside, the world will mirror it back to us.
I hadn’t learned how to take up space in society. I didn’t believe I was important. I believed I had to prove my worth to be loved. And so I kept shrinking myself.
But that first step — the chocolate shop, the courage to say yes — was the beginning of something else. It was the first step into a wider life.
And so, the journey began — not just into independence, but into reclaiming who I truly was.