For all those times you stood by me
For all the truth that you made me see 

I had been singing professionally for about three or four years in and around Montreal when I got this phone call on an early Monday morning:

"Hello, Rachelle? This is the Musical Director of Celine Dion. We saw you on stage last Saturday and we enjoyed your performance very much. We'd like you to join us on the next world tour as a back vocalist for Celine. It will last about a year. Would you be interested?"

If I was interested? Of course I was interested! I mean imagine the opportunity it is for beginning singer.

But, honestly, the amazing opportunity was not only to tour with Celine. It was actually a way to make the money to fulfill my true dream -- to go to Paris and join the new hip French music scene and contribute in my own humble way as a singer-songwriter in La Langue de Maria. That was my dream.

So, with that in mind, of course I went on the world tour with Celine. And, for almost two years, played in dream places, living the high life. But as I had made a promise to myself to stay true to my dreams and follow my own path, I decided it was time to leave.

I knew anyways that if I didn't get out now, I might never want to leave this luxury cruise ship. But also, I may never discover new shores. So I packed my things, pulled up my sleeves and left.

And guess who was on that very first flight off to Paris? Guess who? My French music hero of the time, MC Sola, standing right behind me in the queue to check-in.

I mean did I see the sign? I saw the sign.

Oh, baby baby it's a wild world
It's hard to get by just upon a smile.

Yeah, indeed despite all the smiles I gave, things in Paris didn't work how the way I was dreaming of -- not even close. So in resume, after almost ten years of constant effort, ten years of leaps of faith, ten years of risk-taking, ten years of non-stop belief, ten years also of repeated refusals and broken promises and letdowns by record companies until the next hopeful opening -- not to mention the financial disaster I found myself in, and the embarrassment that comes with this situation -- I had no choice but to go back to Montreal.

Things started looking up again, though.

My dream was starting to come true again. I found a manager. I found a record deal. And I was even announced to the media as "the next big thing coming on the francophone music scene."

Until life hit me with another punch. It is now 2007 and my days are spent in the dark hoping the phone doesn't ring. I just can't face my reality anymore; life has become unbearable, because I've just been terribly betrayed and scammed by my manager and I don't know if I'm more angry at him or at myself for letting this happen. Because, you see, three years before that, my intuition had clearly warned me not to work with this guy. It clearly warned me to stay away from him. But my head -- desperate and eager to see my lifelong work become a success -- went ahead and accepted his offer to be my manager.

Well, he managed one thing all right. He managed to disappear with both the money planned for my album and with my final recordings. And he was nowhere to be found. Nowhere. The album that I had worked so hard on -- the album that I had sacrificed everything for -- went unheard. The doors that were once opened now closed. My singing career, of course, blocked and basically finished.

The pain the shame and the humiliation of the situation kept playing over and over and over in my head all night, all day. It felt I was imprisoned in a nightmare.

Stone, le monde est stone
Je cherche le soleil
Au milieu de la nuit

J'ai la tête qui éclate
J'voudrais seulement dormir
M'étendre sur l'asphalte
Et me laisser mourir
Et me laisser mourir

My heart and my soul, though, they were still alive.

And they craved -- they craved for a way out. I knew that I needed to learn how not only to listen to my intuition, but to obey it. Well, God listens to pure desires, because in the midst of my depression, a ray of light came to me through my angel -- my mother.

Her choir director offered me to be the guest vocalist for their upcoming concert. I accepted although I really feared I would not even be able to sing anymore. But the power of the music pulled me through. In the choir, two young women, both lovely and luminous and adored by my mom, came to her after the concert and asked if I was pursuing a spiritual path.

"Oh yes," she said, "and since a long time."

"Hmm, because we felt very strong vibrations coming from your daughter. Would she be interested in meditation?"

Obviously God had managed to read between my thoughts of rage and revenge, and was sending me help I so profoundly needed.

Love you've come to rescue me
To heal my wounds and carry me
Home

The girl's name was Ozlem. She invited me to her home for the meditation session. Her calm voice led the way and suited my heart already.

So I was sitting down for a while with my eyes closed and my hands opened when, suddenly, something wondrous started to happen. It felt like an invisible zipper was coming down slowly from my forehead down to my feet. And then a layer of darkness and heaviness, just falling off of me, literally like an old skin. And on that newborn skin, a gentle but powerful wind was blowing. And then, all around me, and then above my head, an amazing flow of energy by pulling up as if reconnecting me directly back to the divine.

It felt so amazing. So safe. So comforting. I don't remember ever feeling like this in my life. I also noticed there was a profound silence in my head. Within me, I felt a closeness and intimacy with myself I had not yet known. And the peace. The peace. The Amazing Grace.

I could see how everything was, well, different around me, but mostly in me. The pain was gone. It was gone. It's as if the past didn't even matter anymore -- as if it was somebody else's life. And what that man had done, it seemed like nothing compared to the power of my spirit.

I could forgive him, easily. I had struggled so much to forgive him, but I could forgive him easily, because I understood that he was trapped in the thick walls of his ego (like I was) and he did not know his spirit, but I had just met mine -- the most beautiful encounter of my life:

That state. That space. That silence. That stillness. That joy. That clarity. They became my new compass.

My inner voice was clearer than ever and my capacity to obey it was now free of obstacles. And I had hope again. I had hope again.

When I learned that the kundalini energy awakens in others like a candle lights up another candle, I deeply understood my life purpose. God had to make me discover that true power that was inside of me first, and then go out there and use it for the highest purpose. When I understood that with every cell of my body, soul, and mind, things took off like a rocket. It was amazing. Right now, I don't have the time to tell you about all the amazing, miraculous turns of events that happened following this realization. But if I am standing here before you today at TEDx, my dream, it is because I have finally succeeded in listening to my intuition, and I obeyed it to the point of living a blissful and fulfilling life.

If you knew how all these things, all these circumstances got resolved, you would be flabbergasted, I think, like I was, at how the universe helps you when you help it by trusting your intuition and following it.

Namaste. Thank you.

***

For more inspiration, join this weekend's Awakin Call with Rachelle Jeanty. RSVP and details here.