Anne-Marie Pauley

 Anne-Marie Pauley

The artist. The survivor.

Her story and interview told by a good friend. 

Where to begin...

Anne-Marie Pauley is an innovative and soul-driven artist. She's a profound writer and a spiritually dazzling music composer. Her debut album entitled, "Forward, The EP" just released all around the globe and is now available on Amazon and iTunes for download. She is the founder of Undergo Music and Undergo Video, an independent music, publishing and film company featuring music, music video, film and meditation. AM's creative works are all written, composed and directed for each and every heart and soul out there in need of healing, and for all those in need of strength and a dose of hope. She artistically operates within the creative field of energy, body, mind and spirit. Performing all around the globe in a wide variety of venues, from the streets of Rome, to the most historic stages in Hollywood, and now performing LIVE regularly at Los Angeles yoga studios and yoga studios internationally, Anne-Marie Pauley is an artist that brings us back to our soul. Both her voice and her music have the ability to illuminate our divine, eternal Light within: the power to love and the power to create the life we dream about--the life we long to live. Her poignant words and lyrics inspire the higher self, leading us closer to what she calls our "authentic self" and our true happiness.

AM: "The deeper meaning to our every life event must be illuminated if we are to truly grow and change. We have to learn how take with us the wisdom hidden deep within every life event, especially those events that break our hearts into a million pieces. I want to help with that."

Anne-Marie refers to her music and literature as an artistic offering, an opportunity to take a moment, or an hour, or a day, or a even a lifetime if we're lucky, to calm the hectic mind that drains the energy in our body, and the energy in our soul--our joy and our peace. It takes but only a moment, she says.  

AM: "It takes but only a moment to change everything. And, a mind that's calm and sleeping peacefully awakens the spirit." 

 Anne-Marie believes firmly that we must revive and remember our essential God given powers: the power to create our destiny and the power to love for no reason. "We must do this every day, all day...over and over again, before we forget"...she says with grave concern.

AM: "All too often we forget to remember what we should never forget, and that is Love. We forget to love, but if we were, instead, always to remember...life would always gets better. It's via the power to create unity and harmony in our world through the act of unconditional love, forgiveness and compassion that will make our world a better place. It'll make us better people too. We can do this with music, or we can do this with the simple act of kindness. The truth is a very simple one. It's not hard to understand, despite all rumors."

Anne-Marie Pauley's goal as an artist and as a human being is to transpire the real meaning of life with her music, with her writings, with her voice, with her relationships and with the world. She believes we can each do all of this via the simple virtue of our own self discovery.

AM: "But, it's team work too!"...she retorts..."I use to say I'm on no one's side but my own. I had heard that once, thought it was cool, and I decided to feel the same way. It was my side or the highway. Now, I realize that's not true, and there really are no sides at all. One size fits all, unless we live in a box, and I don't want to live in a box! I want to live and think outside the stupid box. I want to spread my wings and fly, and I can't do that in a box. So, there are no sides. There is just openness all around when we are open and honest with ourselves and with each other. We're all here together, and ultimately we don't really know why. So, we might as well come together...like the Beatles once suggested."

Anne-Marie says we can all come together in the name of Love, but only after we've forgiven our deepest pain and those we feel have caused it. "In the name of the creative spirit that lives inside of us and in the name of choice and happiness we can heal...together"...AM declares. Her music, fostered by the care of her heart and inspired by the pain she's endured, music all stemming from Anne-Marie's own deep desire to heal, is in fact a glory in itself. Music heals. And, AM offers her deepest gratitude and appreciation to all those who strive to heal as well, and who strive to empower the world by empowering themselves. All it takes is love...she says...and some beautiful music.

AM: "Every walk of life paves a beautiful path when that path is tread in gratitude, and when love is given back in return. If we can just say "thank you" every now and then...or "I love you", we would be so much happier on our journey."

AM: "And...the journey is different for everyone. We're not all the same, we don't think the same way. We don't all function the same way. Some of us are brave, some of us are terrified. Some of us are strong, some of us are weak. Some of us have our health, some of us don't. But, we are all one...ultimately, beyond the faulty perception of the mind. Those who are afraid need those who are brave. The weak need the strong. Those who are dying need those who are living. We all fit together, if you think about it... and we all need each other in order to help each other.

It's like Bono said; "We're one, but we're not the same. We have to carry each other."

Anne-Marie simply aims to be of help to someone, anyone and/or everyone. Her message is Love. Her music is calming. Her words are honest. Her deepest desire is to be free, free from limitations and fear, and she wishes the same for the entire world. Her stage performance is radiant, enthusiastic, healing, and even comical much of the time. AM's motto: laughter heals.

AM: "Make 'em laugh! It's the best thing you can do. Laugh, and laugh away the hurt...and then laugh away the hurt some more. It takes a lot of laughter."

Early life: By the youthful age of fourteen, Anne-Marie had composed her very first original song entitled, "Dreaming Wild". She says all the years of parental-forced piano lessons had finally paid off, and she was in fact, dreaming wild. 

AM: "I was locked in a world of instability and sadness. I came from a broken home and I was raised by a mother with a broken heart. So... for me, to dream was to feel wild. I finally felt happy and free, and I did it on my own, because nobody else could show my how to. It was the best thing that ever happened to me...music."

An ever-so youthful Anne-Marie was ready to begin her life, and she was living her own life for the very first time, and she was only a kid.

AM: "I grew up fast, but I grew up smart. I gave myself no other option. I refused to be stupid. I was my own best friend." 

Anne-Marie recorded her first song at Sugar Hill Production Studios in Houston, Texas where she was born and raised for the first thirteen years of her life. She had a demo tape in one hand and a dream that  lead the other. She had her whole life ahead of her too, and still does...she says. This newly self-proclaimed, gleeful, extremely ambitious teenager was maturing at the speed of light, and as she sat alone in her bedroom day-in and day-out for years upon years at the ledge of her piano keys, she hummed a catchy melody and a hook that would shape her entire life. And, while dwelling profusely in her imagination and contemplating her next song, Anne-Marie found herself lost in a plea of teary-eyed prayers.

AM: "God, though I didn't know what he was exactly, was always my invisible shoulder to lean on. I didn't know where to find him other than in my heart, and that gave me hope. That gave me a sense of self-reliance and the belief in myself that I desperately needed."

Anne-Marie feels like "God" was something she was born to discover from the start. And it's discovering God that she will forever encourage. 

AM: "God lives inside of us, and when we go within, we go beyond. We go beyond the world and beyond the pain this world causes." 

Anne-Marie's early life continued...

AM: "I didn't really have any friends growing up, and those who were my friends, I would soon leave behind. So, I never got too attached to anyone. I wanted to spare myself any extra hurt I could possibly endure. I went to 17 schools, starting in kindergarten. By the time I was in first grade, I had already been to three schools, and due to my anger over a lofty lack of steadiness and comfort, I failed the first grade. I was always the new girl...every year of my life, and now I was a year behind. So, everybody got younger, which was not helpful. All I knew was that I was new. Nobody gave me a chance to feel loved within those school-hood walls and halls. I was the girl who everyone picked on in school. The unfamiliar girl. The dorky girl. I sat alone at lunch. Sometimes I cried, though I tried to hide and hold back the tears. By the time I was a senior in high school, I was over it. I didn't give a shit. I realized then; people are mean, and they get started young. For the sake of having nothing to lose, I re-invented myself over and over again, but I always ended up being "me"... the same old me at the end of the day. I was no one else, and looking around, I wished to be no one else. So, I embraced my oddities, my strengths, my talents--my Light. I already had my own original ten song album by my highly-anticipated last year of highschool, or as I liked to call it "lowschool". I had a dream. I didn't care about anything else, not even college. And, nothing and no one really bothered me anymore. I felt I had bigger and better things to do, I couldn't be bothered by anything less. So, I'm thankful for all the instability and all the rejection and torment and pain I endured, and continue to endure. It made strong. It's made me brave. I got a lot done. Still do."  

Her childhood was not an easy one, but nothing good comes easy. Amidst the winds, she was tossed into a sea of hope. She was only a kid and she had discovered her gift, her passion--her dreams. And, she knew it was going to take a long time to get there, years and years of "trying to make it". She feels she was born ready, and though brave, she was always nervous. Her relentless years of songwriting had begun, her creative-spirit was born and so was Anne-Marie Pauley. That story marked the beginning of a journey that has lead this woman all the way to where she is today, and she can gladly say that it's her heart that has always lead the way...the entire way.

AM: "Though, I stand face-to-face with tremendous fear just about every single day of my life, it means nothing to me...the fear. When it does, I'm done. And, I'm not done. I have too much to say and too much to do to ever be done. I'll be dead when I'm done."

Anne-Marie wishes the same courage and fearlessness for every sweet soul out there who walks a path paved in dreams.  

AM: "Let no fear stop you, because you simply have too much to do here. Plain and simple." 

She continues...

AM: "Fear is always there...waiting...but we don't have to be. We just have to be here, fearless and free. Free to love and to hear thy bleeding heart. For, only the heart can birth the power of love and the will to survive the tremendous pain that this life deals to each and everyone of us.

Our heart is our truth, and our truth is our freedom. Our freedom is our beauty. Our beauty is our will to love...just because. So, listen to your heart and let her lead you the way. She will do know harm, and she'll always love you...every single day."

"Much Love & Light to you and all the world.  

~Anne-Marie Pauley"

An artist. A believer.