STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

British politician Andrew Bennett famously said, “The longest journey you will ever take is the 18 inches from your head to your heart.”

Two women who have bicycled around the world challenging people to discover, live and realize their dreams will challenge the men of the Sun Valley area to journey to the center of this hearts this weekend.

The Singapore natives— Tay Siang Hui and Val Tan Xin Hui--are holding a workshop titled “From the Head to Your Heart” from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, June 14, at Light on the Mountains Spiritual Center five miles south of Ketchum. Cost is $38 and men can reserve a place at eventbrite.com or bring a cash or check to the workshop.

“It’s a fairly impromptu but powerful workshop for men and dads,” said Ari Drougas, who is friends with the women. “It’s to help men step out of self-limiting beliefs, heal themselves and show up in more healthy and powerful ways in their lives, their families’ lives and their worlds.”

The workshop is designed to get participants to relax in their true beings beyond forms they’ve been pressured into. And it will attempt to help them connect with the highest vision for their lives and liberate them from expired stories and imprints holding them back so they can start leading authentic uncompromised masculine lives of fulfilment.

The workshop has its roots in bicycle trips the women took through several countries on a project called “I Believe Dreams Can Come True.”

Starting from Singapore, they bicycled through Taiwan, Japan, Hawaii, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and the western part of the United States. Their goal: To meet as many people as possible to ask one question: What is your dream.?

“We hoped with that one question to awaken awareness and get people to think about who they wanted to become and what they wanted to do,” said Val. “If tomorrow the world ends and your life ends…What are the things you need to do today?”

The two were working in TV but found themselves unfulfilled amidst deadlines and tight budgets, even though they’d just debuted a show that was getting good ratings.

They took the money for the next month’s rent and went on a backpacking trip to Taiwan. While there, they met a man who was living out his passion for trains.

He worked as a train master for 33 years, even though he had an engineering degree and was the first from his village to get a college degree. And, when he retired, he bought a train car home to live in.

“Everyone laughed at me and said I was crazy,” he told the women. “Why would someone spend their money on a train that could no longer move?”

Pretty soon, the train master had turned a train car into a restaurant that became so popular that lines formed out the door. He bought more cars to use as motel rooms or what the Taiwanese call “homestays.”

“There is a sense of satisfaction when a dream is realized,” he told the women. “It gives me unlimited energy.”

But Luo Papa had one dream that remained unfulfilled: To cycle around Taiwan, taking a picture of every train station.

The women were so stirred that they agreed to spend 30 days cycling 1,500 kilometers or 932 miles to visit the country’s 210 train stations, even though Val was didn’t know how to ride a bike.

And, as they helped Luo Papa realize his dream, he gave them a new dream: To go around the world documenting people who have realized or are realizing their dreams and share those short stories with others on the Internet.

“My first reaction was, ‘I can’t do it,” said Val. “I had to carve out a career. I had to get a car. I had to get married. I had to have children. And I had to have good retirement plan. I had to have all that before I can think of what my dream might be.”

But both she and Tay thought back to the age-old childhood question: What do you want to be when you grow up? And they took the plunge.

Today the award-winning filmmakers document stories of people taking their first step towards dreams, people in the midst of chasing their dreams and people living their dreams.

They went to Japan where nursery children drew the treasures in their hearts. And they met with a group of hearing-impaired students who had no concept of the word “dream”—only the stock answer that they wanted to work at McDonald’s or some other job customarily set aside for the hearing impaired.

“We share these stories in the belief that dreams can come true, in hopes that stories about other people’s dreams coming true will inspire dreams in others,” Tay said. “And it’s our hope some of that comes out in our workshops, as well.”

We often do things, Tay said, because it’s expected of us. Or because we don’t think we have the money or resources to achieve our dream.

“But Luo Papa wasn’t born wealthy and he faced the usual societal and family expectations. But he is living his dream.”