Liberated from my own fears…

"My deepest fear is not I am inadequate, it is that I am powerful beyond measure…’

What does it mean to be powerful beyond measure? Do I really fear my light and not my darkness?

I had been asking these questions for years already when I bumped into Marianne Williamson's words in her poem based upon a spiritual text, ‘A Course In Miracles.’ 

Even as far away as I felt from the truth of these words, I still felt compelled to write music to Marianne’s words.

I thought I might be able to sing them into place. 

At the time I set music to Marianne’s words I was going through a very difficult time of feeling quite lost and alone. 

Even though I was singing publicly and connected with my audiences when I was offstage I was at quite a crisis point of feeling lonely and isolated. 

I had experienced such highs in my career and this place felt like an all time low.  

Marianne’s words felt like a beacon of light in the dark and my task was to walk towards them step by step.

I was a teenager when I started singing with my Dad in musical theatre at the Citadel Theatre back when the late Tommy Banks was leading his orchestra. 

I was extremely shy and the thought of singing solo terrified me so I never thought that this would be the path that I would go down. 

After music school in spite of this I got swept up into a career of singing, performing and touring for many years. 

I sang David Foster’s song at the 1988 Olympics, toured with Mary Wilson of the Supremes, hung out with the Commodores in London, sang for the richest man in the world the Sultan of Brunei and toured China, to mention a few.  

I recorded four CD’s and wrote three national theme songs, one being for the 2001 World Championships.     

The world in my head told me to keep going and to push harder and to struggle through any doubts I might have about my career.

Having moved around as an army brat growing up in England the feeling inside of me was that I wanted to find my home again and stay put. 

I wasn’t aware of this at the time or maybe I wasn’t willing to admit it.  

I continued to push through these feelings for years and years trying my best to ‘make it’ as a singer and denying the feelings inside of me that wanted a different life, to settle down and have more stability. 

Marianne’s words, ‘Who was I not to be? I am a Child of God,’ resonated in me at that time but also colluded with the part of me that wanted to use these words as a way to find Great Success in the world far away from my bubbling feelings.  

I felt I needed to prove myself in my career and my Great Success would help me to feel that I was indeed powerful beyond measure. 

Over the years I sang the song ‘Who Are You Not To Be’ believing I knew what the words meant and watched as people lit up when I sang the song to them.  

In the eyes of the audience I saw how much people needed to hear these words. 

In 2010 I saw that Marianne Williamson was presenting at a women’s weekend in Los Angeles about fierce women, brave women rising or something like that. 

I knew I had to go and meet her. 

I had tried all weekend to have a face-to-face with her but it didn’t happen so I gave up on it all together until a chance meeting happened on the Saturday night of the event weekend. 

Cutting a long story short, I unknowingly entered a singing competition (and won!) in a lounge in the hotel where the conference was being held singing one of my favs, ‘God Bless the Child.’

At the end of the song I heard a group of women clapping and as I looked over I saw them all standing and cheering saying ‘look she’s one of us!’

Amongst them, and the loudest of them, was Marianne Williamson.   

She came up to me after my performance and told me that ‘God Bless the Child’ was her favourite song.  

And that’s how we met and I gave her a copy of the song. 

No matter how many competitions I won or how many amazing gigs I did I could never get the approval I was unknowingly looking for through my singing, my looks or my relationships.  

It took me losing my voice before I finally stopped and began the slow turn towards all the years of what I had pushed down inside of me.  

I did not know back then how much healing uncovering and recovering my voice would teach me and still does. 

Early on in my singing career I began teaching singing and this became my home, my place of sanity, stability and peace. 

This playground of teaching singing is where I found much joy and satisfaction and ultimately began to pass on much of what I was learning about singing and connection. 

Each nugget that I learned I offered to students, as more understanding about my voice and my body came to light.

The feelings that I had been suppressing in me for so many years were finally starting to bubble up to the surface.  

Bit by bit I began to hold and unfold these feelings and as I did my voice began to reflect the depths within me that I was connecting to. 

The instrument of my voice was the vibrational medicine for this healing and continues to be. 

Singing and the study of singing is the most accurate representation and barometer of healing and wholeness that I know. 

A very wise singing teacher from 1912, Valborg Webeck Swardstrom, calls the whole body an extended larynx which is a profound statement of what it means to allow the light to stream through the body without the body hindering it in any way. 

My Authentic Voice work is a culmination of years of uncovering my voice that I have been teaching for over 20 years. 

I don’t know if I will ever realize these powerful words of Marianne's or be liberated from my own fears. 

But along the way an important arrival is developing in me, and that is the ability to love and care for all the crazy and beautiful feelings that happen upon me each day as I unfold and peel away that which cannot withstand the light.