Giving Voice to Your Dreams

What do you truly desire?
When is the last time you asked yourself that question, allowing yourself to reach beyond the confines of everyday real world into the realms of possibilities? It can be habitual to stop ourselves from dreaming out loud by listening to the inner and outer critics who will say – you can’t have that, do that, be that. There can always be a reason of not enough time, money or self-love to let yourself give voice to your dreams. Then of course there is always the how. Whatever your dream is, to write a book, learn to play an
instrument, go on a journey, start to sing or find a new love. For now, leave the how and say yes to the feeling and the possibility.

My grand piano dream.
As a young music student at university I didn’t have much money. Just enough for rent and food. Certainly not enough for what I wanted most which was a black grand Yamaha piano. I would joke about it when someone asked me if I’d like anything. They were referring to a drink of water, tea or juice if I was lucky. I would always answer the same – a black grand Yamaha piano please. They would look surprised and then laugh.
There’s no way I had enough money for such luxuries. But inside me I knew what I wanted. I dreamed about playing this piano and the music I could make. I felt the flow of creativity move each time I though of it as I played on my digital piano practicing for school. Years later I had a cheap upright piano and had rented studio time to record on a beautiful black grand piano to make my first instrumental CD. I asked my piano teacher from years back if I could have a soiree at her house to share some of the music on her black grand piano to get some feedback. As I played my compositions I felt so much love and gratitude to be able to share my music on such a beautiful instrument. I stopped for myself and the invited guests to take a break and a man popped onto the piano bench beside me grinning ear to ear. He told me that his wife had died of cancer and left him her piano which he couldn’t bear to sell. He said he’d been listening for just the right sound and that he found it in my music. He offered me his big black grand Yamaha piano which I still have to this day.

7 Steps to Giving Voice to Your Dreams:

1. Imagine light pouring through the top of your head and filling you up with peaceful energy. Let your body relax as you envision this light pouring into you and ask yourself what you truly desire.

2. When the answer comes to you – be it a feeling, an inner knowing, a
remembering or a quiet voice, say yes to it. Say yes you can have that, be that, create that and you don’t have to know how right now.

3. Give voice to this dream by sharing it with close and supportive people and by creating a picture of you having it, like in a vision board. So you can see it and feel it.

4. Amplify the feeling of this desire, this beautiful dream, by imagining you already have it just like I imagined I was playing on my big black grand piano.

5. Hold your focus on this vision and the feeling of already having what you desire. For me, chanting the Lakshmi chant (link to sample on Medicine Music) is a powerful way of doing this step. This chant is all about abundance and manifestation.

6. Then let it go with ease and gratitude.

7. Repeat step 5 daily and share your dream with enthusiasm and gratitude as you surrender the how it will show up to your higher creative power.

I dream of elephants.
Just last year I did this process and found myself full of a dream to go to Africa. Not as a tourist but with a purpose – to learn about the culture, to share my music with beautiful people and to spend time with elephants.
Within a few months I was invited to play at an opening for Gcina Mhlophe,
http://www.gcinamhlophe.co.za/ an amazing South African singer, storyteller, author and activist who was in Canada at the time. Later that evening she invited me to visit her and stay in her home in Durban, South Africa. We performed together, toured the townships and became close friends. She rocked my world and taught me so much about the music
and the history of her country.

When we give voice to our dreams we are taking a huge risk. We are saying – this is what I want. I might not yet be good at it. I might not know how I can do this. Yet something in me is moving me toward this experience. I love the idea that the thing I am desiring and reaching out to, is also reaching out to me. Reaching out to me …. with it’s trunk. In this moment I was completely fulfilled and overflowing with gratitude.