Follow Your Dreams Boldly: Inspiration from the Story of One of My Favorite Dreamers & Speaking Your Story
Sometimes it’s what you’re most afraid of that’s part of your purpose 👀 – for me that was speaking! 😰 These are the confessions of a former major introvert… I used to shake in my boots literally on-stage and even when I had to talk in class as a kid my heart would beat loudly…😩 Growing up shy I hardly talked as a little girl and people would ask my mom if I was mute🤐. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I squeaked Oprah👑 – I wanted to speak and use my voice to inspire others but didn’t know how i was gonna cause I was too scared.😖
Through practice and perseverance I got through that fear and surprisingly now speaking is my FAVORITE thing to do! I find myself on stages and in classrooms (where I’d probably pass out or drown in a puddle of my own sweat years ago🚣🏽💁🏽) speaking my story and singing encouraging songs🎤 to inspire other kids who were like me to overcome their fears and live their big dreams…🔥
Recently I got to speak with a group of teen girls in Dallas (some of them pictured here) about the journey of dreams💖 – how God has a big dream for each of our lives and how even when things get tough everything works together for good for those who live on Purpose.💥 We talked about the story of Joseph the Dreamer in the Bible who is my fave (go watch the Emmy-award winning movie based it, it’s awesome and Joseph ain’t too hard on the eyes;) and how even when he was in a pit and the prison he trusted God and served others with his gifts until his big dream came true. God used all of those trials to develop him into a true, powerful leader who would go on to save his people – a foreshadowing of another great leader to come… 👑
Ever since I was younger God told me my story was like Joseph’s and the word “dream” was always in my heart. Everything about my businesses and life had the word dream included somehow since I was a kid (as did gifts my friends gave me pictured here🎁). Like Joseph I overcame years of confusing circumstances and now I’m living out the very dreams I had written down years before – speaking, singing, serving others’ dreams and creating a multimedia company that inspires youth to live on purpose. With Love everything is possible💖 – so go follow your dreams and dare to share your story – someone needs to hear you speak about how you overcame too. I truly believe your story can set someone free and I believe in you!
Love and peace ✌️ Julene
P.S. Have a group of kids or teens who could use some inspiration through speaking, singing and a creative interactive presentation? Feel free to send me a line and let me know how I could help!💞 Together we can inspire the next generation!
Let Your Heart Be Full of Joy and Songwriting Sessions
I love the wonder and joy of the Christmas season – especially how kids remind us of how fun it is to anticipate great things🎁 and enjoy life in a carefree way. Whatever you may be going through right now I pray your heart is filled and overflows with that kind of childlike joy🙌, light🔥, love💓 and peace✌🏾️ that surpasses understanding not just now but into the New Year and beyond!
You are so very loved – believe it baby, let Love give you the freedom to anticipate and have hope for great things ahead and courage to live out your purpose to create the life of your dreams!😘 much love – Julene
P.S. Some things are better expressed in songs – here’s a snippet of the lyrics of one of my songs “Take It Back” about redeeming the freedom, hope and joy we had at the beginning of our lives, stay tuned for more from my songwriting sessions…
Face That Fear to Live On Purpose and…Grad School Musical?
Here’s a snippet of a recent pep talk I did on overcoming fear to live out your purpose especially in the time we live in…and apparently my life is a musical so I apologize in advance for any random outbursts of song and dance… 😉
My Diary: Love Is Everything
“I have found the one my heart loves…” Love is everything. It was a few years ago when I had a life-changing experience that rocked my world. I found myself waking up in the back of an ambulance and then in the hospital after passing out at my house and was scared of what was happening.
After having one anxious thought after the other a calm came over me and I experienced wave after wave of God’s presence and love like I never had before. He soothed my fears away and said through an electric encounter, if you only knew [how much He loved us] and how love on this Earth is just a glimpse of how He intended our love to be. I found His love in a way I never had before and ever since then I want MORE. The whole experience is too WHOA to be captured in a single post but I will be sharing more of it on the Dreaming of Love series at DreaminSoul.com, stay tuned for more…
When you find Love – the kind of love that’s unconditional, passionate and everlasting you’ve found everything you need. Love finds us and brings us to our purpose in life – to be forever united with Him…
I have this song on rotation on my worship playlist and am so inspired by it. Colin and Paige Edge are a couple who are worship leaders at my church and their music is so refreshing. Take a listen and click here to check out their album “Break Heaven Open” on iTunes.
Arise and Shine: Join Me On the Dare Dreamer Music Journey & Renaissance Artist Project
Above is an animation showing a snippet of lyrics for my song “Arise and Shine (Dare Dreamer)” and a little venturing into stop-motion (I love trying new things) The lyrics in the clip above say:
“Arise and Shine, Dare Dreamer can’t you see you’re full of purpose and possibility! So arise and shine O Sleeper, don’t give up now dare, Dreamer, arise and shine Dear Dreamer come alive!” That’s my message to YOU today and everyday!
A while back I shared how I have been pursuing my dream of inspiring others through music. It’s weird but I’ve been realizing that one of the reasons why I’ve been avoiding doing music is because I’ve been feeling so unconnected with so much of the music in the world and felt like I had to follow the way things have been done. I was like I’m not even as passionate about singing as I am about other things and as much as music artists are, I don’t feel like a “singer,” I’m a speaker/writer/visual artist why do You want me to do this??? Then He told me though multiple ways and people, why can’t you be both, I made you that way…why can’t we merge our passions into something that hasn’t been seen before?
It came to the point where I couldn’t even listen to music or enjoy it much, like I always felt like something was off for me. Not because other music is bad music but because when God wants you to step out into the unknown to create something new He makes you restless and annoyed until you do it, lol…so don’t avoid your purpose. You won’t feel fully alive until you fully embrace your calling.
Dreamers often get frustrated because what God asks them to do doesn’t make “sense”, as they are made to do something new and get tired of the status quo – usually because they are meant to shake things up to change the world – misfits are lit yo…🔥 we weren’t made to be “normal.” We color outside the lines to pioneer a new path that no one has seen…
People like Walt Disney🐭 and Oprah Winfrey🎬 inspire me (I might have been their wild child😜) because they paved new paths, defined their own success and innovated unique dreams that did not exist before and didn’t wait for anyone’s validation. That’s my dream – to meld my passions into something new that may not “fit in” but expresses that part of God’s heart I’m created to be. For the longest time I felt pressured to do what others expected me to or to fit a mold so others can like me but that’s no way to live!
I don’t want this to be about me – stars don’t shine alone in the dark sky. My dream is not celebrity but community – to ignite a movement to unite singers and artists who have a heart for creating art with a greater mission and together we support one another, collaborate and change the world. Sound like you? Send me a line!
<3 Why do so many great artists fall and why do so many artists struggle - maybe because we were never made to carry glory alone or to be worshipped but to unite to draw people to the greatest Artist of all.
So much of music today follows a pattern and that’s cool, I understand there is strategy for commercial and practical reasons so people can sing along, but there’s something stirring in my heart that’s sooo…different. Something spontaneous, free and that breaks out of the “create music for an industry” mindset. It feels wrong trying to put on somebody else’s armor, and like I’ve been striving to be a “music artist” or make music that fits a mold – verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. I’ve written songs like this but it’s also okay to break out of the mold…
What if we could create with childlike wonder, what if that’s the way we were meant to be and dream since the beginning, since we were kids – everyone as artists, creating like their Creator, the ultimate Dreamer not art for applause, awards or career’s sake but because it’s like a heartbeat, a wild love language, it comes naturally like we breathe creativity and creativity sets us free to be more like Him and to be with Him…create art for Love’s sake.
What if alot of what we call excellent art today is excellent conformity? God is about patterns and order, but He isn’t predictable, containable or mechanical. We needa break out the box and color outside the lines to truly express Love’s heart!
There’s a new Renaissance brewing, of artists creating unseen, unheard-of art out of encounters with God to draw others in to deeper encounter with Him. This art is beyond what we’ve experienced before. Now is your time to arise and shine a greater light into the world, creating art “that draws on a different realm of beauty, excellence and creativity,”(words inspired from Bethel’s School of Creativity that I was able to experience recently).
From taking theater and ballet classes and taking part in a music training program I’ve been learning to stretch myself and grow in ways I never thought possible…
People from my church have encouraged me with words that I’m meant to be different and create a fusion of the visual and performing arts, and make music from the heart of God that sets people’s hearts free, songs of deliverance that maybe even supernaturally break through the mind and goes to the soul, words of truth that speaks to the lonely and broken and that they can speak over themselves. If that’s not a motivation to make music I don’t know what is…my dream is to bring true healing to people’s hearts and to do it differently.
Music is a language, from Heaven and it’s even more powerful than we even think. Our voices are world-changing – God spoke the universe into motion through His voice and the Word.
An industry doesn’t own music, “singers” don’t own music, God made music for everyone to embrace – everyone has a song! There’s something important to music, more important than the perfect voice, riffs and runs – there is something that connects us all, like it was a language we were all meant to use to communicate and it frees us to do it. What if we can sing like Heaven does to release Heaven on Earth?
Even God sings over us and this whole Uni-verse is His song over us, a beautiful song of love, every breath, star and flower a story of redemption and beauty, of a Lover drawing His children back in. What if the first language we ever heard was music, what if they sang in the Garden (whoa) and that we’ll sing for all eternity…
Above: Some lyrics of my song “Take It Back,” all about redeeming your life to embrace your freedom and the way life was meant to be…
In the past few months I’ve been taking vocal lessons, doing songwriting sessions, setting up meetings with mentors (I was signed for two years on an artist development contract with a record label whose main goal was to prepare your HEART so you could be ready to actually minister to people – it rocked my world), working on recordings and music video concepts and following this dream little by little, bit by bit.
Update: Join me on Periscope @dreamfleur and YouNow where I’m sharing the journey of creating music and inspiring songs I’ve written. Our last broadcast was fun, I enjoyed chatting with you and hearing some of your dreams! <3
I’m channeling my inner rapper for new songs I’m writing – swag all the way, ;)… Recently I’ve also had some vocal lessons and am finding that breaking through to grow & unleash my voice is a cool journey in itself – stay tuned for more…
Don’t you give up on your dreams! Stay tuned to find out how we can make beautiful music together to shine a light in the world. My soul speaks through music and poetry (poetry is written/spoken music to me) and I’ll be sharing the journey of launching encouraging music with you to inspire you to live your dreams too… Let’s get it.
This is my DareDreamer Diary📓💖📝…I want to share the process and behind the scenes with ya’ll, from the rough cuts to a dream to spread light and my heart through music, especially to the kids I get to speak to at events and schools – join me on this journey of purpose and living out our dreams…
– Julene