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November 14, 2023 16 mins

086. Ever been struck by a dream so big it felt divine, but found it completely at odds with your current reality? That was the pivotal moment of my life. A God-sized dream demanded a seismic shift in my actions, my lifestyle, and my understanding of the life I was living. Join me as I peel back the layers, revealing for the first time the mammoth dream(s) I've been nurturing. We’ll traverse the fascinating journey of dreaming and its potent influence on our choices and destinies.

The exploration doesn't end there. We'll explore the correlation between grand dreams and the discovery of our life's purpose.

I also reveal one of my own GSDs (God-Sized-Dreams) which is hiding in the form of a puppet. (I'm trying not to give a spoiler).

This episode does not shy away from the tough realities of altering life's course, the challenge of being creative in a niche world, and the art of making thoughtful yet powerful changes.

Whether your dreams feel larger than life or seem to have been side-lined, this conversation is going to get you motivated to start thinking about your ideas and dreams in a bigger more impactful way!

✷ Watch Missy May's first Video→https://youtu.be/bsCGFJuu4qo

✷ Order Book From Amazon→ https://amzn.to/48pwHOQ

✷ Website → https://marijanel.com/

✷ Companion YouTube Video → https://youtu.be/hi-lAruDy7s

✷ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/marijanel/

✷ Support the Show → https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Marijanel

✷ Music → https://www.epidemicsound.com/

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you have a God-sized dream that is so big
you feel like you're carryingeternity around in your heart
and it's gonna explode in amillion directions and you don't
know where to focus, to evenbegin to pursue your dream.
You don't even know how toniche down, as they say.
Or maybe you're the opposite,where you feel like you haven't
been dreaming enough, like yourdreams have been minimized,

(00:23):
diminished, shoved in a corner,stepped over through your life
and you wish you could have aGod-sized dream.
Either way, today's podcast isfor you.
Let's get to it.
So today I'm talking aboutGod-sized dreams.
I'm gonna share a little bitabout my own story of coming

(00:46):
face to face with my God-sizeddream and the reality that it
wasn't even in the realm I wascurrently focused in and that I
was gonna have to make a bigshift.
That was an uh-oh kind ofmoment.
I'm also gonna reveal to you aGod-sized dream that I've been
keeping a little bit of a secret.
It's been on the down low andyou're gonna think, oh, marriage

(01:07):
.
And now, what have you got upyour sleeve right now, and I've
given you hints along the waythrough this podcast, but today
I'm gonna reveal to you what itis, simply for the sake of
confessing it, because I believethat putting our dreams out
there, confessing them to peoplewe love and trust and for me
today that's you it makes itmore real, like the first step

(01:29):
in the vulnerability of lettingthat big dream come to pass.
I'm also gonna talk about someshifting seasons and being able
to flow with the shiftingseasons and the peace.
I've learned about niching,because niching is very hard for
people like me.
You don't have to be anentrepreneur or a creative to
enjoy what I'm about to tell you, but I have a feeling, if

(01:51):
you're here and you've followedme this far, you have a creative
bone or two in your body,because I talk often about all
things creative, includingfollowing our intuition,
listening to our gut and knowingourselves in a way that leads
to the freedom of creativity.
So let me start with a storyRewind.

(02:16):
About two years ago I was in abusiness group and it was an
amazing group.
I got so much out of it.
But there was a challenge, adirective given to us in the
group where we were to defineour B-hag for our business.
So I was in the group with avery specific business purpose

(02:36):
brand and, you know, supposed tohave a goal and we were given a
directive homework to defineour B-hag.
If you're unfamiliar with whata B-hag is, it's the acronyms
for big, hairy, audacious goal.
So essentially, what is a goalso humongous, full of dream and
purpose that you could have foryour business, slash life?

(03:01):
And I was excited about thishomework because that's right up
my alley.
Mary Janelle loves to dream.
I wake up every day with newideas.
Thank God I don't pursue themall, but I was just like really
pumped up about this B-haghomework and I got out my
journal and all my like businessplan notes and new ideas and I

(03:24):
sat down to define my B-hag.
And it's like I hit a wall,like a completely dark room, and
I had no vision for my B-hag.
No vision.
I was just stumped and I gavemyself the time and space there
to just really think like whatis wrong?

(03:46):
Why are you experiencing thisblocker, mary Janelle?
Why can't you think of this bigdream for your business?
And I allowed myself to start todream about whatever it is that
could come to me and,interestingly, the dreams that

(04:07):
were arising in my heart thatday, that I would consider a
B-hag or a God-sized dream, werein a totally different realm
than where I was actuallyworking or supposed to be
focused in my business in thatseason and I allowed myself for

(04:28):
I think might have been about atwo hour dreaming session, to
just sit there and like let mymind wander and really dream big
and it had nothing to do withwhat I was supposed to be doing
and that was a bit scary.
It was liberating, but a bitscary because did it mean I was

(04:52):
doing something in my life thatI shouldn't be doing and my true
dreams and purposes wereactually over here?
Or did it mean that I was doingwhat I was meant to be doing
and I just have to learn to likeharness the big vision and
bring it into the realm?
I, you know, like I don't know.
I could split that hair 500different ways, but what did

(05:14):
happen was that I came face toface that day with the fact that
I had god-sized dreams thatwere in a completely different
realm of life than where theseason that I was in and I
needed to figure out what to doabout that.
And everyone, if they come faceto face with that, is going to
handle it in their own personalway, in the way that your

(05:35):
temperament, your personalitywould lean.
For me, I needed to stop what Iwas doing, or at least halt it
and slow it down, and it is partof the catalyst of what led me
to start this podcast.
So in fact, you're seeing todayin me through the podcast, my
mentorship programs and myillustrative work, my work as a

(06:01):
storyteller and illustrator,where I create whimsical
critters and imaginary lands.
All of that was connected tothe god-sized dreams that woke
up today.
So that day in my dreamingsession, I came face to face
with a hard reality that mygod-sized dream in this realm

(06:22):
wasn't aligning to my actionsand what I was doing in the
season, the current season of mylife, and I had to make some
changes rather than just halteverything.
I just slowly started to shiftand this would be a little
negative encouragement to youthat, if you know there's

(06:42):
something in your life that'snot aligned, it is possible to
shift the seasons, to allowthings to gradually change over,
and you have to be thoughtful,intentional and intuitive about
doing that, which is somethingwe all can do as creatives.
But I saw a gaping void in mylife where I'd really let a lot

(07:08):
of other business ideas andfocuses take over and it was
diminishing and putting aside mygod-sized dream of illustration
and children's storybooks and,in fact, producing a children's
show, which I want to tell youabout in just a minute.
I will reveal the mysteries,but you may have heard me say

(07:33):
through the years that I havehad a difficult time embracing
my role and niche as anillustrator, and that is true.
But the part of the difficultyof niching down and perhaps
being known as illustrator wasthe fact that as an artist, as a
multi-form artist, I do so muchmore than just illustrate.

(07:56):
It was hard to put one word onme as a label and I've never
been a fan of labels which hasmade it hard to hold all these
god-sized dreams, because whenyou share your dream with
somebody, they kind of want alabel.
They're like what is that dream?
Oh, it's this, and they want itdefined.
And yet dreams don't definethemselves like that.

(08:18):
They're big and the magnitudeis like if you looked up into
the sky and you can't even countthe stars.
That's how the bigness, thegrandeur of dreams feel.
And so how could I bring allthat down from heaven and tie it
into one tiny word called, oraction, called illustrate or

(08:39):
write or produce.
That was so hard for me to do,which is one of the number one
reasons why creative people findit hard to niche down, is
because of the magnitude of ourdreams, the diversity of our
talents, the way that our Iwon't call my octopus arms
stretch out wide and we do anarray of things and it's hard to

(09:01):
narrow that down and give itone label, and yet it is
important.
In the business world it's abest practice to niche and I had
a really hard time harnessingmy God size dreams and bringing
them into a niche and I have.
I can tell you this I found alot of peace in a saying.
I don't know which guru outthere said it first.

(09:23):
I didn't say it first, but Ifound it somewhere and it's this
niche for now.
We don't need our niche or thelabel or the bio that goes on
our website to define us forevermore.
It's a season, it's a time anda niche for now.
So when I was in music, I wasknown as a musician and it was

(09:45):
my niche and a purpose and focusthere.
And then I shifted into visualarts and I niche in photography
and once in photography I nichedown even more into weddings and
specifically got known for that.
Then another shift in seasonchange came and my hands were in
the clay and I was sculptingand doing pottery and I niched

(10:06):
within that to be known oh,you're that potter who makes
those pieces with all thebranchy sculptures and really
earthy organic textures.
And I got known and niched forthat.
And then as a podcaster if youwould have seen my website a
year ago, which many of you didit had the brand of being a
podcaster all over it I wasniched for now and the seasons

(10:31):
have shifted and changed onceagain, awaking parts of the
God-sized dreams to embracesomething different that was
dormant for a period of time.
Remember how, a couple weeks ago, I shared with you about the
storybook Weight Darling Weightthat I've released my first

(10:52):
debut kids book about a littlechicken sitting on her nest and
the animals on the sunny farmdiscover patience and positivity
with chicken's big surprise Iwonder if you can guess what the
surprise is and I shared withyou the story of how I wasn't
ready to release this book and Ineeded to wait.
And it is, in fact, the storyof the book actually, which is

(11:16):
kind of cool.
The author went through thewhole story and it's really
authentic, genuine story.
Okay so, just as a quickintermission to today's show, I
want to remind you all that mychildren's storybook Weight,
darling Weight, is available onAmazon and all the links are
found below.
You can also type in my nameMary Janelma.

(11:36):
You are gonna love thisprecious book.
This is my gift to the world, astory that I know you're gonna
want to read with the child inyour life.
Let's get on with the show.
The moral of me sharing thatsliver of the story is that I
needed to wait for the season.
I needed to shift with the time, and sometimes we feel the

(12:01):
shift coming because ourGod-sized dreams shift within us
, or that we allow ourselves toeven dream and find out our
actions aren't aligned with thedream.
And so that day, rewinding tothe story I was telling you
about being given the directiveof finding my B-hag, I didn't

(12:22):
have a B-hag and I started todream in a completely different
realm.
What was the realm?
The realm was developing mycharacter, missy May Hedgehog
Many of you who follow Instagram, you might be familiar with my
little character, missy May andI began to dream big about this.

(12:42):
It just opened up in my heartinto something huge, so big.
I didn't even know the firststeps I should take.
I didn't know what direction toaim or even how to niche, but
I've known and I've carried withme the knowing and sense that I

(13:05):
need to act upon this GSD, thisGod-sized dream.
And so today, for the first timeon my podcast here on YouTube,
I want to introduce to you MissyMay Hedgehog.
For those who are listening onaudio, just imagine this she's
super cute and she's a handpuppet.
And here she comes for thefirst time on the Marriage Nails

(13:26):
Show.
It's Missy May Hedgehog, andisn't she adorable?
My friend Melissa wascommissioned to make her and she
is felted by hand, absolutelyprecious, and I love her to
pieces and I think that childrenare going to love her too and I

(13:49):
want her to come to life.
She's not going to talk todaybecause her voice is still
developing and you all know thatI'm very passionate about
developing our voice and messageand Missy's working on hers.
But you can see how beautifulshe is and the dream that within
her I have, the dreamsurrounding her.

(14:09):
I should say I've been takingthe intentional steps to make it
happen.
The intentional steps by numberone developing her character as
I illustrate and dream storiesand then having Melissa create
her as a puppet for me, andwe've created an entire world

(14:29):
that I'm not ready to reveal yet, but her entire puppet stage is
in production, kind of likethree quarters of the way done
and I will share it soon enough.
Thanks for being on the show,missy.
What a perfect guest.
I wanted to share with you theGod size dream because I believe

(14:53):
in taking the steps ofvulnerability to share with
trusted people, in a trusted way, what our dreams really are.
Who could you trust with thevulnerable definition of your
dream, like going to someone andsaying I have a dream that I
need to tell someone and thatcould even be messaging me.

(15:13):
I'm totally open to that.
But I want you to activelyengage in your God size dreams,
to have them there and to figurethem out, to.
Sometimes dreams are okay tojust let it be a dream that is
valid too but other times theyare connected to our destiny and
calling.

(15:34):
They are put there by ourcreator to prompt us to leave a
mark in the world, and so that'swhat I feel like my role is as
a mentor is to lead by examplethrough all the hard things I go
through figuring out the lifeof creativity and following the
path of faith.
I feel that I'm to stir it upin you and challenge you to take

(15:58):
a look at these things and totruly consider the impact you
can make in your lifetime.
Thank you for joining me on theshow.
All my links are below.
I'm so thankful you're here andthat you stuck around listening
to me talk about God's eyes,dreams, be hags, seasons
shifting, and just telling youthe stories of my life and the

(16:22):
fact that you got to meet MissyMay Hedgehog and share, in the
beginning, the reveal of thatdream, because I'm super excited
where it could go someday andyou've been here at the very
start of it.
So, thank you, until next time.
Keep on in the full potentialof you.
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