Last night after the sun had already set, I stayed on that beach long after dark. The stars came out, and Israeli families had hours earlier packed up toys and sandy towels. The sandcastles built by toddling children were melting away from the incoming tide. A mile of beach was all mine. I sat down in my own personal Mediterranean bathtub, feeling the ebb and flow of the water rise waist high and then rescind from me, again and again.
I started to sing.
I looked left and right. No one was around. I sang louder as the sound of the waves rolled, both of us singing with full voice and full heart. I sang the songs that I have written and performed across the world on this tour. I sang from that place where it didn't matter if I sounded good, or if my voice cracked on the high notes. I pulled up music from the deep of me, and watched the music float to the deep of the sea.
About four songs later, it came to my realization the significance of what I was doing. My mouth dropped, and tears welled up in my eyes. Across the world on this tour, I have been gathering you in audiences, singing to awaken the dreams inside of you, driving alone from city to city with everything I own in the back of my car with only one message to give you... that I believe in you, and I believe in everything you can possibly do for your biggest dreams to come into your reality. Living in a world with my global family who are all helping each other pursue their biggest, most luscious dreams fearlessly...is my dream. I just can't say it or sing it enough.
On August 7, I shared with you here that something I really wanted was taken away from me. I have not fully recovered from that experience. The details of it are not necessary to share, but what is significant is that, like we all are inclined to do, my instinct for the past month has been to build walls around my heart to protect me from the pain. I started to feel jaded and cynical about dreaming too big. Since that event occurred, I have been really struggling with believing in my dreams.
Last night, I was giving myself my own performance, as an audience of one. Without a pre-determined understanding of its pure necessity, I was taking myself through the songs of my concert, awakening my own dream, and inviting my heart walls to crash down into the sea. As I write this, tears once again are welling in my eyes...because it worked.
I think I knew that at some point during this concert tour, I would have to sink very low, and get very wounded, and then partake of my own remedy to see if I really believe in my product. I am not fully healed, and I expect the journey of my healing will continue in its perfect timing. But I cried last night, allowing my salt water to swirl with the salt of the waves. I felt a release as a simple song, like the tide, crumbled the firmly built walls of my sandcastle.
During my performances, I conclude with a song about gratitude. I introduce the song, saying that no matter where we are on the dream journey, whether we are ready to follow a new dream, rest from the wounds we acquired from pursuing the last one, or don our boots and get ready to risk everything we've got to embody our biggest one yet, there is always something we can find to be grateful for along the way. I believe no matter the phase of the journey, life is ready to support our partnership with it as we live this brilliant earth life adventure.
In that very instance, I was given another reason to feel grateful. Just as I was entering the last verse of the last song, I saw my shadow form on the water. As I was trailing my voice up to the high note of the song, I turned around slowly, and saw a perfect full moon rise over the cliffs. I sang the note out even stronger, just as full as the moon, my mouth spontaneously forming into a smile.
The passing of time is a good friend to me. And there will be another sunset tomorrow.
