YOU KNOW ALL THOSE KIDS in the mall with their tattoos, low-slung jeans, and tricolored hair? Do you notice how similar they all look to one another? Yet, ironically, I so well remember being a teenager, and the most important thing in the world was to be different—to mark out my own identity, separate from my family.

But the ironic part is that in all that effort to be original, my friends and I were more conformist than we ever realized. I remember wearing my hair just like my schoolmates (hanging in my eyes with no discernible style), wearing my sweater draped sloppily over my shoulders, just the way my girlfriends did, and talking, walking, and thinking pretty much like every other kid in my school. I guess we didn't see that in trying to discover our unique identities, we were photocopies of everyone else.

And it didn't get a whole lot easier as I grew into adulthood. The same questions haunted me—Who am I? What am I doing on this earth? What's my purpose? I spent a lot of years—conforming and not conforming—just trying to figure out the answers to those questions. Sometimes I felt as if I were constantly arriving at a crossroads, with paths stretching out in a myriad of directions, each one promising that if I pursued that path—that one alone—I'd finally be at peace. Those paths included politics, a variety of religions, feminism, yoga, relationships, academia, fiction writing, business. Along the way came marriage and parenting. And so much of life was good. Great, in fact. But still, those questions wouldn't go away.

One of the religions I came across was Christian Science. And like so much of what I was pursuing during those years, Christian Science was to me just one more tantalizing path. Maybe it held the answers, I thought—or at least some of the answers. As I began to read the Bible and Science and Health, I had some pretty dramatic physical healings—healings that couldn't be explained by any other logic than the scientific facts about my spiritual identity presented in Science and Health. For example, an instant and complete healing of a burn came about as I prayed, thinking deeply about the words of the 23rd Psalm. Addiction to alcohol completely lost its grip on me, and a years-long struggle with severe and frequent migraine headaches just disappeared. Along with these healings, little by little, the questions that had confounded me for so many years—that had actually been obstacles to me—began to be answered.

I guess the most compelling question was, Who am I? Christian Science showed me that I was not just the mortal person with the rocky history and insecurities I'd always imagined myself to be. I began to understand that my real identity was spiritual—and that my real history didn't have anything to do with where I was born or who my parents were. The only history I had was spiritual, my eternal relationship with God. I really started to understand that I emanated from God—that this was my being—and knowing this gave me peace and confidence. Enough confidence, in fact, to stop trying to conform to other people's standards and expectations, and begin to trust my own thoughts and values.

For the first time, I wasn't so invested in what other people thought or valued. For example, my politics, which had been so strident, became kinder and more tolerant, even more inclusive of other people's beliefs. That's because I no longer identified with a specific agenda, or felt I had to prove any political point of view. I was identifying more and more with a higher point of view—God's perspective on His creation. What freedom!

Eventually I did discover the path that was right for me—the one that did offer the answers I'd been searching for. It had to do with pursuing this spiritual concept of who we all are. And the more I studied this concept, the more I came to know myself. I was no longer trying to fit in, or gain other people's approval. I was increasingly secure in feeling God's love for me.

The peace of mind I was gaining didn't come all at once. Gradually, and in small moments, I became aware of God's unfailing care for me, and at some point it just became an integral part of my everyday thinking to turn to God for guidance and assurance. I didn't realize how much this had become part of my thinking process until one day a few years ago, when I had a choice to make. I had developed a business, teaching writing seminars to all kinds of businesses, both in the public and private sectors. I had started this business with a woman who was a dear friend and a fellow graduate student.

After a few years, though, my partner no longer needed to work, so she withdrew from teaching the seminars. Our business had succeeded modestly, and I was now alone, doing all the marketing and teaching. Being a single parent, I was so grateful whenever I got a new client—it meant I was one step closer to a secure income.

The university where I'd graduated from asked me to give a presentation to graduate students on career possibilities outside of academia. Another woman who shared the panel with me was the director of our state's lottery.

After our presentations, she asked if I would be interested in giving a series of seminars to her agency—and she had hundreds of employees. (Boy!) As she painted the picture of my upcoming career move, all I could think was, KACHING! I'd make a small fortune with that much business from just one client. Of course I'd be interested, I told her enthusiastically.

Later that evening, however, as I was mentally spending my forthcoming bags of gold, I thought a little more deeply about what I was getting into. Was this really the right step for me? Why not? The lottery was legal. And didn't those employees deserve the benefit of what they'd learn in my seminars? They surely did, I told myself. But I also had to ask myself if, by earning money from the state lottery, I was following my own highest intuition of what was right. As I tangled with this thorny question, I thought, "No one would fault me for this. I need the money. And there's nothing evil about the lottery" I surmised that this was exactly what most people would say if I asked them.

But in my heart, I didn't feel comfortable earning money from an enterprise that takes people's money on what is essentially betting. I thought, "People—and mostly people who have very little money—put their dollars into this venture in the hope of winning millions. And they never do." So it just didn't feel right to me that I should benefit from this system of dead-end gambling.

The point is, regardless of how sanctimonious I might have appeared to others, I knew I had to trust my ability to think for myself. After praying about it, I felt at peace and called my former partner. I said I didn't feel comfortable taking the seminars and offered them to her. She thought about it for a while and agreed to teach them. I was genuinely very happy that it worked out that way and assured her that she should keep all the proceeds. Neither of us ever judged the other for our separate decisions. We both felt comfortable thinking for ourselves and trusting that our friendship was strong enough to support our individual decisions.

In the end, the lottery seminars never materialized. Nevertheless, this decision on my part marked a valuable step toward relying on my own independent thinking, trusting God—not other people's opinions—to guide me. This one incident laid the groundwork for future marketing decisions in which I did not pursue prospects when I felt the businesses in question conflicted in some way with my own values. And I never suffered for those decisions. I always had enough work to support myself and my children.

It turned out that the peace of mind I'd been searching for all those years was always right with me in my own heart. All I'd had to do was trust it.