The Resonate Podcast with Aideen

The Power of Intuition Can Transform Your Life With Deonna Marie

• Aideen Ni Riada • Season 1 • Episode 71

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Emmy award-winning vocalist and intuitive vocal coach Deonna Marie shares her powerful journey from childhood trauma to becoming a transformative voice teacher who heals more than just vocal technique. Through her unique approach, she helps clients remove psychological masks and connect with their authentic expression, teaching that true singing is about feeling, not just sound.

• Discovering her singing talent during childhood trauma when her mother went to prison
• Overcoming drug addiction and finding forgiveness through unexpected personal experience 
• Receiving divine guidance that led her to classical vocal training in Italy
• Developing intuitive abilities during three years of vocal silence after surgery
• Creating an unconditional, judgment-free space where clients feel seen and understood
• Teaching clients to identify and remove masks that hide their authentic selves
• Focusing on emotional connection before technical singing ("a feeling, not a sound")
• Using daily meditation and specific intention-setting to stay aligned with purpose
• Asking three daily questions: "What do you want me to do? What do you want me to say and to whom?"

Whatever your heart truly desires belongs to you. If something is in your soul and heart's desire, it's because you're supposed to have it. Don't let anyone, including yourself, tell you that you're not worthy of your dreams.

Connect with Deonna


Facebook: @deonnamarieofficial

Instagram: @officialdeonnamarie

Website: www.deonnamarie.com

LinkedIn: @deonnamariecattledge



Support the show

Thanks for listening! To book a free consultation with Aideen visit https://www.confidenceinsinging.com/contact/

Aideen Ni Riada:

Welcome to the Resonate Podcast with Aideen. I'm Aideen Ni Riada. My guest today is Deonna Marie, and I am so excited to meet you, deanna, how are you today? I'm so well. How are you? I'm great. So I found Deonna Marie in such an unusual way. She is another intuitive vocal coach and because I had been, you know, working as an intuitive voice coach, I was so surprised to find you online and I had to, you know, meet you and I had to get you on the show but to talk about all things voice coaching and about using the intuitive powers that we have. I think each of us has that opportunity to tune inward and feel what is real in a situation, not just from the mind, and I am excited to find out more about how you do that.

Deonna Marie:

Oh, I'm excited to tell you, and everyone else as well, this is going to be great. I'm excited it is.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Let me tell everybody a little bit about you. I'm going to read out a little bit about you and then we'll get started. Deonna Marie is an Emmy award-winning vocalist, storyteller and intuitive vocal coach from Grand Rapids, michigan. She is the multi-passionate, light-hearted writer and creator of the Deonna Marie Experience, a one-woman show about surviving her very unique life journey. It debuted in 2023 in Oklahoma City. She is a classically trained singer with over a decade of experience and has worked with internationally known vocalists, stage directors and choral conductors. I can see there, this has been a journey right. It's like this. There's the hint there of what you've had to survive in your life. And then we see also emmy award winning, we see you classically trained, international clients. Tell us about that journey a little bit like what was it that brought you to where you are today?

Deonna Marie:

I would have to say music if I was to say put it in one word yeah.

Deonna Marie:

So so when I, when I discovered my voice, I was actually I wasn't talking because my mother had just left my sister and I to serve a prison sentence for a year and she didn't tell us that she wasn't coming back. So the day that I found out my mother wasn't coming back, I stopped speaking. Now I didn't know that I could sing yet. So maybe a month later, I guess, I was singing in the in the bathtub and my cousin burst in the bathroom and she thought that I had stolen a radio and she didn't know it was me singing. So she was shocked and she wrapped me in a towel and she took me out of the tub and plopped me in front of the living room and called all 13 other people that lived in the house and said do it again, you know. And I did it again, you know. And everybody's mouth was on the floor. They didn't really say much, but I knew maybe something was kind of special then. But my mom came back from prison and a little bit late and then and then after that I ended up in foster care. So in between, my mother coming back. I really didn't sing that much, I was probably nine or so, and then I was in foster care and my foster mom she could sing and she loved my voice. She had me singing all the time, whether it was cooking or cleaning or at the random people at the grocery store or the dentist's office. I was singing all the time. And so that's when I discovered maybe I had something special, and so that's kind of where my voice was discovered.

Deonna Marie:

But then life happened, as life does, and I ended up using drugs with my mother when I was 18. So we're just going to flash forward, okay, and that was a crazy journey that I had and that we shared. I mean, I had a deep journey for a mother, for a mother that loves me, accepts me, see me, hear me, understand me, and I figure maybe if I join her where she is, I could have that. Well, that was definitely something that needed to happen. Um, and I'm going to.

Deonna Marie:

I'm saying that because I carried a lot of hatred and, um, a lot of resentment for my mother and my father, because how my childhood was, and it was something about when I, when I, used the drug with my mother. 18 years later, after living this, this childhood, I forgave her. I forgave her because I understood the effect of the drug in one time, one time, and so I began to. I felt convicted because I had carried so much resentment and and um from from my mother and and other people who use drugs too. But it hits you different when you do it. You know I had a completely different perspective, um, but you know that was a five-year journey. And then I ended up um at Grand Rapids Community College where I met my first voice teacher. Now he told me that I was an opera singer and I said no, I'm not. I don't think I'm. No, black people don't do that. Totally ignorant. Now, mind you, he's African American.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Okay.

Deonna Marie:

And and I didn't. I didn't believe him, and it's just, and I was 27 at the time, I had already was starting late, so to speak, you know. And I said, ok, god, the universe, whoever you are, I need you to show up again, because the first time I asked this question if you're there, I need you to show me by doing this I asked to be delivered from drugs. Well, long story short, I woke up clean One day. I woke up and I was clean. That's how it happened.

Deonna Marie:

So I said, oh, I'm going to try that voice again. I remember, I remember. So I said okay, if you want me to be an opera singer, I'm going to make a deal with you. Okay, if you want me to be an opera singer, I need you to. I want to go to school in Italy and I want to learn Italian, and if you do that for me, then I will take this, because I heard it would be at least a decade If I was to go this opera route and train classically I would.

Deonna Marie:

I would at least need 10 years. I said, ok, well, if you do that for me universe, god, whoever, because I was, you know then then I, then I'll commit the 10 years. Well, be careful what you ask for. Okay, because the next summer that summer I was in Italy studying at the Università Percianieri I stayed on Via Frave Vignati. It was crazy and I said what? So I knew, I knew. Then I said, oh, not only do I have a special connection and I can make very specific requests, if I'm very specific and I really, really, really want it, you know, um I, I have um this journey that I have to embark on now. So that's what I did.

Aideen Ni Riada:

I did that. It was a commitment. Right, it was you were. You were committing to something and allowing yourself be guided by the circumstances around you. I mean, for me I was always very stubborn person. I was like, well, I want this, I want that, and I I spent my first 40 years chasing things that weren't coming.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Naturally that my, that my family were trying to dissuade me from that. You know people were going. I'm not sure if that's the right thing for you, but I could not hear anybody else's um opinion. If it wasn't coming from my own mind, I would discard it. And to just cause.

Aideen Ni Riada:

You don't know my story that well, some of the listeners do. But I in my forties, asked Okay for guidance and I said I want to do more with music. I don't know what that is and I I really need help with this. And three weeks later I heard a voice in my head saying do a singing workshop for adults. Now, the reason I knew it wasn't me was because I didn't want to do it because my mom's a music teacher. She's a guitar teacher.

Aideen Ni Riada:

I, like I'm not a singing teacher. When I asked, could I do more with music? I wanted to sing at weddings or something right. So I had my own ideas, so I have some experience with that, so I'm really there is something out there that wants to help us along the way, but I think people find that difficult to discern where like a good idea, is it not a good idea? And we use our brains to filter that. And now you've mentioned you know that you are an intuitive vocal coach. Yes, so from what you're saying about you know asking for guidance and you know the fact that you do intuitive vocal coaching. Asking for guidance and you know the fact that you do intuitive vocal coaching. What is it you say to people to help them to tune in to something?

Deonna Marie:

greater than themselves for guidance if they need it. Well, in in with my clients, um, I introduced meditation. We all read, um a book called the four agreements, um, and we we kind of take a deep dive into, and one of the agreements. The first agreement is be impeccable with your word, and it really breaks down how powerful the word is and it breaks down different scenarios and how we break ourselves down with our own words on a daily basis throughout our lifetime, and how it piles on us and so we have to kind of so. So the whole thing for me is tapping into the power of their word, the power of their thought. That's how I get, but usually how I get people to tap in right away. When they first come to me, I usually tell them something that only they know. So then, and I'm also very, very transparent and vulnerable as well so some people maybe don't need that, they need to hear something about me that is like you know, that's shocking or whatever.

Aideen Ni Riada:

I don't know, you know, uh so I try to open someone up, you know, because this is it's about trust, right? Yeah. So if you can bring out something, if you can help them to trust you or help them reveal something that they are unwilling to usually share, yeah, and you create a safe space. So one of the things I, you know, I talk about sometimes is that I have this idea of this nurturing environment. Like it's almost like, you know, everyone becomes my friend. Like I had a client walk out of the house the other day and I said love you like that. And I walked back in and the two guys who were still in the room, I said I just told her that I loved her and I said I probably shouldn't have done that. It's not professional, but I love you guys too. So I guess that's just the way I tend to create these relationships with people. That is, um, that isn't just a bland, you know, exchange. There's something way deeper to it and it feels to me like that's how you're working as well.

Deonna Marie:

A thousand percent, a thousand percent. I tell them I love them all the time. Um, some I give them affirmations. I tell them you are loved, seen, heard and understood. I'm thinking about you. Here's some energy for you, like, just, I love them, like they're. They're my family, you know, because they're led to me. So I feel like they're a part of my soul family, they're a part of my tribe.

Deonna Marie:

I have a, I have a job, I am a light for the lights and um or or a healer for the healers, and so when people come to me, I consider myself as they are. When they come, they are a spiritual hospital for other people, which is why people come and they open up themselves and they but you have to be careful with that. You have to be careful and only open up yourself, up to those who are assigned to you, and so that's another thing that I, um, I really work on is people's energy and seeing, like I tell them we have a cell phone, you start off with 100 percent battery. Where is your battery going? By the end of the day?

Deonna Marie:

Most people really wake up at 50 percent and don't even really understand that there's 100 percent. But that's another story altogether. But I bring them to an awareness of their energy and their power. And then we go a little bit deeper and we talk about the things that maybe they never talked about about their childhood. That that's really. I see it as a chain that's bound to them spiritually and once we begin to, you know, talk about these things and it's locks, that kind of come off their voices. Then I was like now we can train it, let's go.

Aideen Ni Riada:

That is awesome. What I mentioned to you before we came on and started recording was this idea of identity, because of all of the stages of your life story and all of the ways that others would have seen you in a certain way, because, oh, you've been through that or you did it to your mom even. Do you know what I mean? We have a judgment. When somebody's going through something, we see it as a kind of failure, like for me. My mother moved to Ireland. She's American, from Michigan, but my mom and dad broke up. So I was like well, mom, you made a mistake. Obviously, you know you made a mistake because you didn't stay together. I I had a difficult time in my teens because of all of this and then eventually, years later, you come back and like that you can forgive and you realize it's not a mistake.

Aideen Ni Riada:

And at my wedding, when I, when I got married about six years ago, I just said that it's not a mistake and I I stood up in front of everybody there and I said there's no mistake and we all deserve second chances. And so, yes, we can be hard on our moms, right? I think everybody does.

Deonna Marie:

Sometimes, once they get that second chance, a third, fourth and fifth and sixth is not necessary. And a lot of times people hold on to people, places and things because of their titles, because they feel entitled, because it's my child, it's my mother, it's my spouse. No, no, you don't have to take any abuse from anybody because of what their title is. And so for me, over the years, I had to learn to cut some of those ties because it wasn't serving my highest good and I'm better, and I'm better and I'm not you know, yes, well, I can know that is a tough one.

Aideen Ni Riada:

That is a tough one Because when, when I, when I kind of pulled away from my parents because they were going through their thing and it felt like a betrayal, okay, um, I started to look to other people who did not deserve me, to give them any time, you know.

Aideen Ni Riada:

I was looking for another safe place, but I wasn't always choosing the right people, um, so I went on a huge journey with that myself. But, um, tell me something about identity. That's what I was trying to. I went on a tangent as well. Well, like who? What do you identify with? Because it like you. Okay, we talked about you know, being multi-passionate, lighthearted, like when people come to you, they are coming with all that stuff. They identify with a certain version of themselves. What can you tell me? I just have this feeling that you've something very profound to say about this.

Deonna Marie:

About when, when, when people come to me, how do I get them to identify with themselves? Yes, well, first of all, people are covered in masks, so we have to identify what those are first. And so I, I, we, we go through and say, okay, how do you act at work, or how do you act at school, or what's your professional voice or what's you know? So we have to identify where it is that they're hiding, so we can begin to crack the mask one by one, destroy them, and destroying that means so every time we break one, we realize they find a piece of themselves. It's like a treasure chest. Once they crack the mask, they find something like you know what? I really don't like that, or I really should have said this Ah, okay, you know, and so it's. You know, it depends on how many, it depends on the person and it depends on how many masks they carry and how strong that mask is. How long have you had that? What made you? What made you feel like you had to?

Deonna Marie:

Because a lot of people they, they don't understand. The more mass they create, the more they lose their own identity. And so I, I really pride myself on helping people find them. They're, they're real now, because it's so lost in society and the way our world works and the way the system is. So many people are just floating around and I just our world works and the way the system is, so many people are just floating around and I just grab them up and say, wait a minute, let's look at this in reality, not just what you think it is or what you perceive it to be. What it is it really is.

Deonna Marie:

A lot of times we have a perception of things to be one way, like my childhood. One person could say you know your parents are terrible, you know they left you hanging, they let you get abused, they put you in different foster homes, and I can see that perspective. But I see it as a win, because every spiritual scar that I have on my back is not for me, it's for other people, because I was designed. I heard that same voice that told me that I, my voice, was to help. I was created to help, to use my voice to help raise the consciousness of humanity, in whatever facet that is. And so that means too much is given, much is required, and so that means too much is given, much is required. And so now I identify, I think, the hardest trials of my life. I identify, you know, as the warrior, as a survivor, you know as the thriver, as the one who is supposed to stand on the front line and help weave the fabric of humanity back to its rightful place absolutely amazing purpose.

Aideen Ni Riada:

You've got a very definite purpose in that. One of my favorite lines I read in an email from a spiritual therapist was that no one gets left behind. And that's means so much to me, because when I see some of the stuff going on and you can see the person who's vulnerable, you can see the person who is being, um, you know the victim in a situation like truly, that they are a victim of that situation to some degree. And to the oppressor is the one that I'm going. Hey, they, they got. That person needs so much love right now. And they to. To change your mind about something that you've believed for a long time, to change your mind about you know prejudice, or to change your mind about, um, you know what's right or what's wrong. It takes a huge amount of self-compassion and courage. When we're being too critical and too hard on ourselves, we can't give ourselves the grace to change. That's good, that's true, that's true.

Deonna Marie:

We can't, you know. You said nobody's left behind. Let me expand on that a little bit if I can. Nobody's left behind. Let me let me expound on that a little bit, if I can, Unless they choose to be left behind. See, there are people, places and things in this world that choose to stay tethered to the system, tethered to ideals that they've made up or that they've gotten from outside sources besides themselves, and sometimes you have to let them stay, because the energy that it takes to pull them you could have pulled. You could have found a hundred people who are ready, who are searching, who are, who want to come, and so you also. You know I, I, I teach and I feel and I live this way. You also have to be careful who, how long you're pulling, if that's what you're doing, or how long you're trying to make something happen, because that you could be wasting valuable energy on something that is not assigned to you that's really beautiful.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Thank you that this term being assigned to you. Are you using that? Is that based on Florence Schoville Shin? By any chance she talks in that way. Do you know her?

Deonna Marie:

no but I have, I have, I have goosebumps all over, so I should, or maybe I do, and I you know, yes, yes, wow.

Aideen Ni Riada:

so for those listening and for yourself, dionne um, florence Schoville, shin um is an author who wrote a book called the game of life to her and how to play it, and she wrote another book called your word is your wand, and she has a number of absolutely amazing books and she has a way with words like the way that you use that word assigned. It just reminded me so much of her. So definitely worth looking her up, um, for spiritual kind of you know wisdom. There's really a lot of wisdom about how to manifest, how to change. You know your way of thinking about things.

Deonna Marie:

Thank you, that's good. I had goosebumps, so I'm doing it, don't worry about it.

Aideen Ni Riada:

What else would you like to talk about during our interview today? Because I feel like there's so many aspects you like are certainly multi-passionate. There is so much, I mean, and such a deep wisdom. I know it's been hard one and you see that it is all worthwhile and I love. I love that because we've all been through some things and when we make, when we see the lesson and we can take the um, the goodness, out of the bad, that is a very, very um resilient and a very strong approach. I really admire that. But I have a feeling that you have something you'd like to say to us, so there are people listening right now. What is it in your heart that wants to come out today?

Deonna Marie:

Well, um, I, I want a little uh, expound a little bit on, uh, what you just said, and, and as far as perspective, it's so easy to, um, um, think that something is happening to you instead of it's happening for you. You know it's, it's it's. This person did this, they said that, but what is it in that that can make you grow? What is it that you need? In that there's something, because there's nothing that happens by chance. Every single thing happens for a reason, and so it is our job, and this is also a thing that I teach my clients too.

Deonna Marie:

We reflect daily, because when I speak to people, I ask before, before the day begins you know, um, who, what do you want me to do, what do you want me to say and to whom? So I know anything that comes out to any person, it, it, it's an, it's an assigned. They're assigned to me because I was talking to everybody when my gifts started really firing off and I realized the magnitude of some of them. I wanted to help everybody, every single person, because I'm like everybody's on fire, not, so to speak, but you know, even if it's in their mind, if it's in their heart, you know, and, but that it was draining, it was killing me. Yeah, so, and that's just my heart, my nature. I want to give, I want to help, I want to heal, that's what I'm a servant. So this is when I got wise and started asking wait a minute, who am I supposed to talk to? And when I need you to tell me specifically, I need them to light up, like the 4th of July. So I know. So, if people come up to me and they do every single day, everywhere I go, I don't know why I'm here, I don't know you. Oh, I said I hugged them, I embraced them, I said come and we talked and I tell them what the message is for them and they're just and that and that's that. So, so now I don't have to work so hard.

Deonna Marie:

I think a lot of us work really hard, work really hard on a lot of things, and I believe that if you just sit down and visualize it, if you just believe it, if you just talk to other people about it and have them to agree with you, if you just know without a shadow of a doubt what this thing looks like, what it feels like, that is the only job that you're supposed to do, how you're going to do it when it's happening is not your business. And we are so inundated with so many ideas in the world and so many things going on in our head and, um, we don't really take the time to sit and just ask and just wait for an answer. Or if you, if you don't want to wait for an answer ask for a specific sign, then I need I need to see, uh, a black crow. Or I need to see, uh, um, a ladybug. Please give me three butterflies.

Deonna Marie:

If this is real now, the butterflies can be anywhere. This is where people miss it. Let me tell y'all y'all listening. Don't miss it, because I know what you're thinking is cold outside there are no butterflies, okay, but there could be a butterfly on somebody's car. There could be a cup that you happen to get at a coffee shop that has butterflies on it. There could be butterflies in that you happen to get at a coffee shop that has butterflies on it. There could be butterflies in somebody's hair, barrettes in a kid in a store in front of you. Don't miss it. And a lot of people ask for these things. They're asking and they're begging and they're missing their answers Because they're not present in the moment to understand. The answer is right in front of them when it's time.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Tell me this prayer when you get up in the morning. You're saying to the universe, to God, whoever it is, where do you have me go? What is those three phrases? Tell us so we can write this down.

Deonna Marie:

What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to say and to whom?

Aideen Ni Riada:

What do you want me to do? What do you want me to say, and to whom?

Deonna Marie:

I love it. So now you know, and when you believe that it is so, because you have to believe it, you have to believe okay, thank you is. So, if you, because you have to believe it, you have to believe okay, oh, thank you right. So if it's, if it's a male man that comes to your house and he never knocks on the door, but today he knocks on the door for whatever reason, you're supposed to say something to him or he's supposed to say something to you, don't miss it. Don't miss it because so many people, it's, it's the little things, it's, it's the, it's the little, it's the little things that, uh, the whispers of the wind, um, the ruffles and the and the and the trees, like these, these things are speaking to us often and again we're missing it because of the noise in our mind.

Deonna Marie:

So I am very, very, um, vigilant and I teach very like we. We do hardcore meditation, you know, and it's hard for people. It's hard sometimes and I say, okay, we're going to start with 17 seconds, no big deal, 17 seconds. Think about what it is that you want. You just want a peaceful second, just breathe 17 seconds. That's all you got. This is all you need to get in the zone, we take a breath, we do that and then, uh, we, we get up to, uh, I don't know, three, four hours, sometimes, it depends, you know. And they, because they understand that time stops and it's fun in there. This is awesome.

Aideen Ni Riada:

so I have a theory, okay, because, um, obviously we both have been teaching singing voice right, and so my theory is that what you're doing is you're bringing people into a deeper sense of presence, self-awareness, self-compassion, and from there, that is enabling them not only to be in the world better, but also they can be, they can communicate through their singing in a completely different way, so there's a different level, right, singing in a completely different way, so there's a different level right, it's a completely different.

Deonna Marie:

I can't. It's like I'm trying to. I saw a big tree. I saw a big tree and we're and so let's just say we're trees walking and some people, but it's time to be rooted. It's time to be rooted into yourself, into your gifts, and a lot of people don't know what that means because they've been unplugged their whole life or most of their entire life. So what does that even look like? To be still and plug in and and just sit with your thoughts, sit with yourself, sit with the good, the bad and the ugly. Let's talk about the bad and the ugly.

Deonna Marie:

You know, and a lot of people are when they come to me oh you, oh, you shouldn't have did that, but I love you anyway. We gonna figure it out. You know, because it's a, it's a, it's a no judgment zone. Who am I to judge? You know, I, I want I create a place where people are seen, heard and understood and loved unconditionally. So now, with that condition off, because a lot of people don't even know they love with conditions. I love you if you do this. If you don't do that, it's conditions in there, man, and so I, I take the conditions off and I and they feel it. So. Therefore, some things come out that you know maybe they would never want to say even to themselves out loud, but that's okay. That you know, maybe they would never want to say even to themselves out loud, but that's okay. We need to, we need to figure it out, let it come out, let it flow, and it's freeing for them. It's like poison coming out of their soul. Then they can stand in their power, then they can sing.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Juicy, very juicy. I just feel so inspired by you, so inspired. I'm like, wow. So these clients that come to you, they're like what they're getting way more than what they might expect from. I mean, the word intuitive is in the job title but still they think they're coming for a voice coaching or vocal coaching. Do you get a lot of surprise clients? What's happening when you get in there?

Deonna Marie:

Well, I let them know that we have a consultation first, and the consultation I'm like surprise, I know you thought it's so funny because I'm real silly too. So we're, we're cracking up I mean crying, okay. So. So, because laughter is a big part of this thing, you know, because it's like if, if we can just laugh through, all of this is hilarious, and I don't even know where we're going. That's the thing I know. Your whole life is going to change. You will not be the same. You're going to come in here and you're going to walk out different all the way around. I don't. So that's what I got.

Deonna Marie:

Well, we, you know, and I just let them know. This is what we're doing and this is why you're here again, in the door. I tell them why they're here. They don't know, but I tell them because I speak. Their soul speaks to me and I speak to them. I said, ah, you're here because of this, this and what. What happened to your mother? Why didn't you tell her that before she passed away? So now we have to find, we have to tell her.

Deonna Marie:

And they're like you know, and most of the time, at this point, there is no shock, there is no. Well, how do you? How do you know? Because I am so confident that whatever speaks through me is a thousand percent accurate. I have no conviction, I have no. You can take it or not, it's up to you, but this is why you're here and this is what I'm going to help you do, and we're going to do this and that. And they're like so, yeah, it's, it's intense, it's intense, but it's so because I like to have fun too. You know, a lot of people forget to be children, and I forgot to be a kid too.

Deonna Marie:

And let me tell you how I even got to being an intuitive vocal coach. I had done 10 years of study at the university, at one of the most prestigious universities in the country, the best voice teacher I mean, they're, yeah, voice teachers everything. And I ended up having a vocal cyst right after I graduated, the largest vocal cyst that my surgeon had ever seen. I thought I was going to Broadway, I, literally or the metropolitan opera, because I had audition set up, everything you know. And no, it didn't happen. Like that. I, I lost my voice and I had a 50% chance, rather, I would ever sing again. I had to have the surgery. If I ever right, right, right, right things. I know drugs and I know music, and now the music has been taken away. So I get the surgery, okay, I got the surgery and I was silenced for three years and even if you know me just a little bit right now, you know I like to talk, all right, okay, okay, so, um, that was very hard because I felt like God, the universe, had abandoned me, had had what, what are you doing?

Deonna Marie:

Like I had already been through all of this crap. Now you're taking my voice, one, you know, and, um, it was in my silence that my spirit began to speak volumes and give spiritual gifts, gifts that are beyond anything you can imagine, for me for sure. Begin to speak, begin to grow. And it was that.

Deonna Marie:

Now, when I graduated, I was a soprano without high notes.

Deonna Marie:

I had done all the work, but I couldn't sing high notes, even after graduating with two degrees, which is why I end up having the vocal cysts, I believe, because I was trying to sing these high notes and nobody ever spoke to my soul.

Deonna Marie:

They didn't realize I didn't have high notes because when I had gone through the sexual abuse and trauma as a kid, I never screamed. It happened so often that I held my my voice and I held myself. So I had never even screamed on a roller coaster if someone scared me, but nobody, they went, they didn't go that deep because it's university, it's not professional, it's not you know, um. So I needed I. I need, I needed to meet somebody that could unlock me and see the trauma from the inside, and so I had to become that, and so that's kind of how I became that, and things were revealed to me why I wasn't able to sing high notes. I mean, I'm fine now, but it's crazy how I had to be silent for three years to even understand the journey that I would take myself through and others.

Aideen Ni Riada:

That must have been quite daunting to go back into singing after those three years.

Deonna Marie:

It was hard. You know what I mean. I had a whole team of eight people putting me together because I decided I wanted to go back to school and get, and get a master's in voice with no voice, and that's what I did. Okay, so I went and I applied and and and I got in the school of music with no voice and my voice teacher, Dr Streets, and a whole team of people just literally helped me to build my voice back from nothing during that that three year time. I usually, as the masters, are two years, but it took me three because I couldn't sing. You know, I had to build it and and I'm talking about building it slowly after that three years I could get through my hour recital, which is a requirement for different languages. You know you have to have an hour recital to graduate out of the master's program and I was able to do that. So I worked three years just to do that. Amazing.

Aideen Ni Riada:

I had an experience of kind of losing my singing voice. At one point. I was working in um recruitment on a headset, you know, working to KPIs like performance indicators or whatever they are, and I was so desperate to do singing I was. I felt like a piece of my soul was missing and I went to my teacher. I went to an audition for voice lessons and a woman called Evelyn Dowling and I could sing five notes, like I think you know, I could nearly get to a, g or something, but then my voice stopped and I remember that the the relief I felt when she said I think there's a, there's a good voice in there, you know, and she believed in me and you never forget that.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Like every time I have someone come to me, I've I've worked with people who will they can barely sing happy birthday. Actually, here's here is like big reveal. I've worked with people that are still struggling to sing happy birthday but they have gotten so much from being in this in the playful learning of that they needed me for something in that moment and that was. It was really a pleasure and it's the deeper work that I find the most interesting now and even though I love, I love the impact that singing can have. Like when we sing and your soul is soaring and you're completely in the moment and you're not in your head and you're communicating your truth and your emotions, there is healing in the room for everybody. And I don't care if you've had the 10 years of training you could have had no training but you can have an impact. So I believe everybody's got the song in there somewhere that they need to sing and it takes you somewhere Like look where your singing has taken you, look where it's taking me and your clients, of course.

Deonna Marie:

Yes, but you know I had a voice teacher, a Florence Birdwell she, when I first got there, she, when I first got to OCU, she took music away from me. This is before the surgery. She took the notes away from me because I was hiding behind the music. I was hiding behind my beautiful voice and I wasn't saying anything. And so my, my model for my studio and this came from her it's a feeling, not a sound. So a lot of times we won't even sing for six weeks because I really don't care how beautiful your voice is or what you really want to do, if you're not saying anything to my soul, I really am not interested. And I say it just like that. Ok, all right. So we take songs, let's just say we take a song and we begin to build a backstory, something from their life, something that they felt in real life, and so they can now begin to open up their souls, which we began to allow other people to just open up theirs.

Deonna Marie:

Um, I teach to brand the souls of your listeners. I'm not. I'm not interested in just you singing me a pretty song. I really don't. If you're not willing to and they must, if they come and work with me, you have to tap into the deepest part of you, so then you can tap into the deepest part of the souls of others.

Deonna Marie:

And again it's a feeling, not a sound. So even even in that works two ways as well. It feels like something when you're singing correctly, when you're in alignment. So instead of I don't use a piano, I don't use any music, I make them feel it in their body. We build, we build a piano, we build an instrument in their body. So if they sing a G sharp, let's just say they know what that feels like. So if the microphone goes out or if something crazy happens cause it always does Sometimes, they're there, they're so reliant on their soul and not the music they can just sing and let it come out anyway. So I, I, I took, I took all that out too. So people have nowhere to hide.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Ooh, and that just looks like such a great thing when you say it. It sounds like a great thing and, of course, if we can tap into our essence because that's really what we're expressing in every area of our lives there is absolute magic. That can happen and that's the magic sauce that we all need in this world when a lot of people are feeling very lost. We're going to wrap things up now, deanna, but I know I really want to keep talking, but is there something you'd like to say? There's people listening right now. They're probably going. Oh my gosh, my brain, I don't know Like. So much has been said. There's so much wisdom here, but is there one thing that you'd like to leave with people or something that you'd like to tell our listeners right now?

Deonna Marie:

Don't let anybody, including yourself, tell you that you are not worthy. If it's something in your life, in your mind, in your heart that you feel that you want, it's because you're supposed to have it. So let's just say, for example, you know, I'm 50 and I want to start music, or I want to win a Grammy Award. If that is in your soul and your heart's desire, it belongs to you. It belongs to you. So be careful of who you tell your visions to and your dreams to, because the naysayers will keep you from going forward.

Deonna Marie:

You must find people that agree with you, that can see beyond what they perceive is happening now, because there's many things that are happening. More things actually are happening in the unseen than what we can see. So believe in yourself, understand that you have the feeling, because it is yours. It is yours, and so I just I encourage people to really sit with themselves and really ask themselves what do I want? I don't care about your age, I don't care how much money you have, which, your lack of love, none of that matters. What is it that the inner child wanted as a child? You have to go back. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to humanity to figure that out, because you too are here for a very specific and special person, to deliver something that only you can deliver to the world. That's what I would say.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Amen, hallelujah.

Deonna Marie:

And so it is.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Awesome Thank you so much, deanna that Deonna Marie is here, she's in the house, she's living her truth right now. She's available for people to learn from and connect with. I'm going to put all of your details with the show notes and you've got an amazing story and I would highly recommend people to check out your website. There's some great information about your life everything there.

Aideen Ni Riada:

We are so pleased that you've taken the time to listen today, but, most importantly, please start listening to yourself and listen to your heart, and that will guide you always beautifully. Thank you everyone. We'll see you on the next episode of the Resonate podcast. Bye-bye.