As I begin my last day posting here I wanted to give you a heads up on a couple of things as I begin to say goodbye to Tiny.

Fearless In The Face Of Karaoke – UPDATE

First, let me say a huge “YOU ROCK!” to those incredibly courageous and inspiring people who have already recorded their songs for my Sing Your Truth Fearless Karaoke Festival! (Believe me, you’ll be blown away by these awesome people when you see them – some big names, too.)

If you want to be included in the vid – you have until Thursday 9pm EST to get yours to me. Read the instructions and get recording before it’s too late. Remember, you don’t have to sing – just be courageous and fiercely fearless!

UNBlog Yourself!

I was honoured to be interviewed by the Swedish charmer Samuel Tornqvist for his blog UnblogYourself.com about my approach to creativity. I was surprisingly articulate given that all of my interviews are done when the sun isn’t even up yet – so if you want to hear my thoughts on getting unstuck creatively, on flow, processes and support systems that I use to help me do what I do, then check it out here.

One day to Go before The Big Move!

xxx

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Fearless Karaoke
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A “Thank You” To All The Tiny Soprano Readers

Are you ready to show the world how fearless you can be? With your voice?

Ways this could work.

You could stand on a busy station at rush hour and belt out a few tunes with nothing but an upturned hat on the ground and a scribbled list of songs.

If that’s too much, what about singing karaoke? It’s dark, you’re probably a few drinks under the table, and your friends are so pissed they’ll scream for more no matter how bad you are. Much easier. Plus you get to choose the song.

With that in mind, I now have the pleasure of presenting to you….

The Sing Your Truth Fearless Karaoke Extravaganza!

Yes, as some of you may have noticed from my ramblings on Twitter, I am almost done with preparations for the Big Move.

In less than 48 hours, you will find my usual divatastic insights and inspiration at my new address -  SingYourTruth.com. (The site is still password-protected, so no peeking!)

There will be more details in the coming days, but as part of the launch of my new site, I’m putting together a very special video.

I wanted to do something different for the launch that was musical as well as challenging – that shows what it really takes to be fearless and independent of the good opinion of other people…

What else could it be but Karaoke – but with a twist!

What is it?

I’m putting together a short video of awesome people singing along, karaoke-style, to “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen. (I know it’s cheesy. But I defy you to listen to this song and not want to rush out and conquer the world.)

And I want YOU to be in it.

What do you need?

A web cam, an internet connection, a microphone, possibly an MP3 player and probably a few stiff drinks.

But I can’t sing! Are you nuts???

You don’t even have to sing. You could speak it. You can play air guitar. Or do the Bob Dylan thing and hold up some cards with the words written on them. Or mime, even. But if you have a voice, use it!

Three easy steps to Karaoke Stardom!

1. Here’s the YouTube link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZhWmyAhWig
2. Listen to the song through your headphones while recording yourself singing on your mic and webcam. Awesome crazy scary fun.
3. Email me at thetinysoprano {at} gmail {dot} com to let me know you’ve done it!

Then I will edit together all of the videos I get into one song! It will be done with consideration and no one will be made to look foolish.

Sounds complicated…

I promise it’s easy.

The most important thing is that you sing along to the karaoke track without letting the actual karaoke track on to your recording.

That way it’s all easy-peasy for me to edit. This is important.

So if you listen to the song through your headphones, make sure it’s not up too loud.

If your computer/software insists on recording what you are hearing through your headphones, then you may find it easier to just download the backing track as an MP3 and listening to it play from your iPod or MP3 player.

You can very quickly create an MP3 of the karaoke version by copying the YouTube url above into http://www.listentoyoutube.com/ and it will convert it to an MP3 that you can download. (This is fantastic for anything on YouTube by the way.)

Do I have to do the whole song?

You can do as much or as little as you like. The song is only 3 minutes long.

But for those of you who are a little less bashful, why not record the whole song first, then go in again and vary the camera shots? Perhaps a few close ups, or grab a friend and dance, or play air guitar or drums. Be creative

But I really hate Queen/don’t even know this song!

Hmm, this is perfectly reasonable. If this is YOU, then why not film yourself APPLAUDING? I can then include you at the end giving all of the singers a cheer! If this is an option for you, just go ahead and do it NOW.

Then what happens?

The finished video will have a full credit sequence at the end with the names of everyone who appeared, as well as little profiles on my site for link love.

I may also approach you for an interview for the site afterwards – on how the experience may/or may not have scared you stupid, made you feel self-conscious, or a even encouraged you to be a little more fearless.

What if I’m just too embarrassed/scared/timid/paranoid to put my voice out there?

I know and I understand. Is there any way you can turn this into a challenge? An adventure? A personal epic battle against your own terrible fear goblin? As an opportunity to experience the fear of criticism but say **** it, I’m going to stand up and sing just for the joy of it?

I’m in! When do I do it?

Wheeee!!!!!!!!! Now get recording and email me to let me know you’ve done it by Thursday 15th July 9pm EST.

Comments – Sing It Back To Me! Literally!

If you’re up for being a star, add yourself to my glorious list of people who are striving to be Fearless in the Face of Karaoke! Join me in the comments….

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Have you ever caught yourself projecting? I mean, when you notice that you’re actively judging someone for something that you should really be working on yourself?

Like criticising your parents for hoarding and never being able to just let go of things. Despite the fact that every drawer of your desk is filled with clippings and paper that you, too, can’t bear to part with.

Or railing against your selfish friend who thinks she’s so much better than you, when you inwardly fear that you are indeed a failure.

I’ve never really given much thought to the idea of projecting until I began devouring a book called The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self this past week. It’s written by Debbie Ford, Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson, although the Shadow phenomenon is very much Debbie Ford’s Jungian passion.

Your shadow is described as the parts of ourselves we deny but that still have power over us. Your shadow depends on a belief system that began to be constructed when you were small.

That time you raised your voice too loudly,  and were told to be quiet. When your friends laughed at you, and you felt ashamed of being stared at. When you were told to stay still and stop wriggling.

Over time we create a version of ourselves that is fashioned from the criticism or approval we receive. An ego-driven version that may be suffocating the full expression of ourselves. Who we think we “should” be as opposed to who we “could” be. It steals away our choices.

For me, it was when my parents divorced when I was five, and my dad simply disappeared. I didn’t see him again for years. Cue major abandonment issues and huge sticky fear of being unwanted. Add to the mix a severe teenage weight problem, a step-father who couldn’t stay away from laying it all on the gee-gees and a mother who couldn’t resist laying it all on the Johnny Walker.

Needless to say, I have one hell of a Shadow.

And you know what’s almost hysterically funny? That I’m even writing about this here at all.

You see, I’ve accepted that my personal journey is to allow myself to be who I am, without fear of being rejected. To embrace the whole messy history and say proudly, this is what made me. And to be grateful for the whittling away, the firing in the potter’s furnace.

But to put it out here? The whole me? Are you crazy?

Because I gave up therapy long ago as it felt soooo indulgent. Sitting and talking over and over about my dreadful problems seemed to me to be a complete waste of time. What is past, is past, so what. Just stop complaining and get on with it.

As I grew wiser (oh grasshopper), my coaching and love for all things self-realization taught me that perhaps this isn’t a technique that works for everybody. And certainly this book challenges us to stop ignoring our demons and hope they’ll go away. Because that only makes them stronger.

Instead, we are called to go straight to our most vulnerable negative beliefs and embrace them. And by recognising them we can then use their power over us in positive ways. To allow us more choice about how we want to live our lives. And in my book, anything that gives us more choice is GOOD.

When we see the gifts nestled in our shadows, we begin to “extract the gold in the dark”:

…we bring radical honesty to the places where we’ve been in denial; forgiveness and compassion to the parts we’ve been ashamed of; love and acceptance to the difficult experiences from our past; and courage to the areas of our life where we’ve been afraid to admit our vulnerabilities. It’s not a process of smoothing over, or covering up, or pretending that the things we do to sabotage our success are not that big a deal. In fact only by admitting the cost of some of our behaviours will we unlock the energy to defy the gravitational pull of our past and step into the infinite possibilities of our true self.

And funnily enough, when we are kind to ourselves in this way, it means we are more ready to show the same generosity to others who are in the arms of the same shadows.

If you feel your life is sometimes like a soap opera with the same storyline playing out over and over, chances are that a beasty of a belief is lurking in your shadow, too. Here are some strategies that I found most useful from this book:

1. Start with being non-judgemental. Give yourself a break from the incessant criticism – of not being kind enough or generous enough or hard-working enough. Meet yourself where you are now and go from there.
2. Notice the yuk feelings then let them go. When you feel affected in a negative way by someone else’s actions or words, chances are you’re projecting. This is a sure sign that there’s a kink in the road at your end that could do with some attention. Go there, acknowledge how it feels and then look for a quality in that kink that would serve you. If it’s selfishness, ask yourself “How can selfishness be a good thing?” Sometimes selfish is what gets books written, for example.
3. Rebuild your emotional body. Deepak writes, “If you had a rock in your shoe, you wouldn’t hesitate to remove it. Yet how long have you endured emotional rocks in your shoe?” If it feels horrible, that’s a sign to find something that feels better. So start practising better feelings at every opportunity. I’m a huge believer in the power of this as personally it has changed my life completely.

So much of my brain this week has been devoted to thinking about how I can be as authentic with myself – and with you – as I can possibly be. So I’ve really appreciated the message of this book.  I trust that it will help me to forgive the shadows in my past a little more willingly. And to be as open as I can be to the expression of every tiny bit of craziness that makes me who I am.

(If you’re interested in learning more, you may like to view the trailer for the book too.)

I am on a mission to help you find other brilliant, inspiring and provoking books and articles to help you be the change you want to see. This is the first in what will be a regular series of reviews here on the site – every week I look forward to sharing my thoughts on a resource that may end up being The Book That Changed Your Life. If you go on to buy using my links then you’ll be helping me to keep this site blissfully ad free. And I want you to recommend your favourites too! More soon…

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As some of you may have noticed, stuck is the word of the year so far.

Look, there’s Stuck on the red carpet! And on the cover of Help! magazine. Here’s a a really dodgy picture of a topless Stuck smooching with someone on a beach. (In fact, there’s probably someone feeling Stuck right now.)

Yes, indeed. Stuck is at the podium, every day, giving another tedious acceptance speech for the honour of ruining another person’s fabulousness.

So why are we honouring Stuck with so much damn attention?

The more I see stuff about Stuck everywhere, the more Stuck seems to show up, flaunting its latest frock in front of my face and daring me to look away.

I want to stop talking about Stuck for a moment.

*A single tumbleweed drifts by.*

That’s better. I want to talk about Trust instead.

Trust is like the Indie alternative to Stuck.

Trust is kooky. Quirky. Unique only to you.

When you’re with Trust you can go anywhere you like. But it’s always downstream, easy, no bumps against the rocks at the bottom.

Trust floats. Trust is bouyant.

Trust is cool with that. Trust is yeah, whatever turns you on. Trust makes you feel like the most gorgeous person in the room.

So why not talk more about Trust? About how much you trust yourself? Why not look at your situation and say, “I can trust that it will work. I can trust that the process is for a point.”

Why not allow Stuck to just do its thing somewhere else, while you hang out with Trust on bikes in the forest somewhere in your head, where it’s sunny and there’s a cool breeze, and you have a picnic in your pannier bags and an eye for the perfect sprawling tree to sit beneath?

Because even if you get a puncture and the weather turns, so what? Movie moments are made for kissing under sheets of thunder, soaked to the skin.

Much more fun.

Comments – Sing It Back To Me

Why are we STILL talking about Stuck? Isn’t there a better word we can use? One that goes along with us for the ride instead of gluing us to the spot? Thoughts please!

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of having a lazy lunch with the rather awesometastic Catherine Caine! Today is her birthday and she is celebrating by releasing her new product, aptly named “Awesome Fear Wrangling – Tame Your Website Fears, Grow An Awesome Website”.

When I started my blog, I had all sorts of fear and scarey going on in my head. But for me, one of the most powerful ways to deal with these kinds of monsters is to talk to people who have been there, slayed the dragon and bought the t-shirt.

And this is why Awesome Fear Wrangling works – when you listen in on her fear-busting interviews with inspiring and smart bloggers, marketers, coaches and entrepreneurs like Sonia Simone, Dave Navarro, Jade Craven, Fabeku Fatunmise, Johnny B. Truant, Charlie Gilkey, Wendy Maynard, Kelly Diels, Sparky Firepants, Ash Amberge, LaVonne Ellis, Mel Brennan, Sinclair – And yes, me! – you will come away with excellent strategies for understanding your own particular brand of scarey – plus proper actionable material that will support you on the journey.

You can find Awesome Fear Wrangling here (aff. link) but please make sure you enter your special discount code -  tinysoprano to get a special rate just for you!

Watch Our Backyard Chat!

If you’d like to watch me interview Catherine check out the video below – we hung out on the grass in her backyard and just talked – I was the one holding the camera and you’ll see in the vid that while I rock at being an opera deev, I suck at flipcam cinematography. (Scroll down for the bonus vid where you get a proper peek at Catherine’s actual face. )

Extra Bonus Sequal! Where my camera pointing suckiness miraculously disappears! Yippee!

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Lately, I’ve been trying to lose weight.

Mainly because one of the blissful side-effects of babydom is a little extra padding – like everywhere.

Five months has passed since baby was born (five months! Where did that go???) and I’m bloody bored of wearing the same three slouchy t-shirts and my lifesaving spotty wrap dress. (I swear ladies, a wrap dress with spots is like the rock star of chub camouflage. If I had any sense I would start my own clothing line with just that one dress. And maybe a spotty t-shirt for the boys. Spots rule.)

So last week, I resolved to get tough. And thusly, there is now a lot of grouch.

Especially as my husband keeps buying my favourite chocolate biscuits and putting them in the freezer, which incidentally is the perfect way to eat them.

They’re called Tim Tams, and they’re best devoured as a Tim Tam Slammer.

First, you bite a little chunk off each end of the biscuit. Then, you dip one end into a hot drink like a straw (preferable coffee or hot chocolate) and suck through the biscuit. Then you must quickly pop it into your mouth before it dissolves into a velvety chocolate explosion of gooey perfection on your tongue.

Hmmmmmmm. Almost better than sex. Well actually, probably not, really. But so, so good. (And I bet sex with Tim Tams would blow me away, but I’m too tired to try.)

However, even though I’m more than a little cranky and annoyed at the abundance of yum that I absolutely resolutely definitely MUST refuse -

*no biscuits no chocolate no wine oh god no wine??? grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!*

…I’m actually the most chilled about being a little overweight than I have ever been.

Mainly because I don’t actually give a shit anymore. I mean really – I’ve been 46 kilos and I’ve been 69 kilos, and neither looked great on me, I can tell you.

I have also embraced how my weight affects my voice. Singing is incredibly athletic, and I truly believe from experience that a teeny bit of extra cuddliness gives me a certain solidity. Just enough to feel grounded and earthy.

So while I feel less insecure about my shape, I’m determined to at least tighten up the most expansive bits I currently have wrapped around my bones.

To do this, I have in my tiny hands a strategy.

If you are trying to change something, you MUST have a strategy.

A strategy is what gets us from A to B. From cubicle to naked laptop blogging in the backyard. From chubby diva to yes, my arse does indeed look fab in that elevator mirror thank you very much.

But a strategy is only as good as the proof that supports it. This is why we all go a-modelling in search of someone that has successfully done exactly what we want to do, so that we can copy what they did and get some of the same mojo ourselves.

It makes sense – if you want to bake a cake, you find a reliable recipe. If the recipe works, voila! (As you can see, I’m compensating by using cake as a metaphor instead of eating it. Sigh.)

And yet there is always the delectible, pick ‘n’ mix way of getting things done.

You know, when you read twenty different recipes and they all sound gorgeous and kind of similar, so you take the best bits from one, the easy bits from another and ignore the parts you don’t understand and leave out the bits that call for ingredients you just don’t have in the house.

If you’re Nigella Lawson, this might be a strategy that works. But for the rest of us, it just makes a shit load of washing up.

If it’s important, don’t experiment.

Some things are too important to test out on yourself.

If you want to quit your job, don’t spend months or years doodling fantasy business plans on an envelope. Get a strategy. Find someone who has successfully started their own business ask them how they did it. Find someone who screwed it up and asked them what you should avoid. Then go jumping off the diving board.

Or if there’s a serious stuckeggio that needs shifting, then you have to find other stuck-escapees similar to you who can show you the ropes and demonstrate the best way to untie them.

And while some strategies will only work under the right conditions, the best strategies are the ones that will stick, no matter who uses them. That don’t require you to be a super-human god-like uber-positive health-fanatic motivated list-builder over-achiever.

And this is sooooo much harder than it sounds! Why?

Because it’s tempting to reinterpret advice. To mould it to fit your circumstances. To snip a little here and there. To read chapter one, flick through a few more pages then forget to read the rest. To get too clever for our own good and intellectualise or rationalise.

Or to listen really hard but then not actually do anything.

Don’t let your self-help become shelf-help.

A few years ago in London, I was at a Anthony Robbins money seminar where the main speaker Chuck Mellon was showing us how to interpret charts for dealing in stocks and options. He explicity demanded that if we wanted to make money, we needed to do exactly what he was telling us to do. Exactly.

But he knew that 99% of the room would go away, inspired and revved up, with their notes and their folders and their scribbled contacts…and then quietly do fuck all.

“This is not smart mastery! This is wealth mastery!” Stop trying to be clever and just do what I tell you because I know that it works.

Choose just one thing – then go ahead and do it.

Accept that something has to change, then go in search of just one specific, proven strategy to help you on your way.

Challenge yourself to stick to doing one thing. Provoke yourself. Dare yourself to give up.

The traction you gain from taking action will be powerful and encouraging. And it will make the next, scarier step so much easier to take because you’ll have the confidence that only comes from conquering the little demons first.

Stuck is powerless in the face of action.

Just doing something allows you a new perspective on your problem. You can recalibrate. Reassess and adjust. Nudge yourself a little more in the direction that’s right for you.

So, when I finally resolved to beat my extra wobbles into a kind of shivery submission, I looked closely at all of the various diet books I had collected over the years. What was it that united all of the disparate theories, methods and fads on my shelf? What core truth did I need to understand that would form the platform for my strategy?

Eat less.

Whoa. No way. Really? Didn’t know that now, did I?

The core truths.

Smoke less. Drink less. Watch less tv and hustle more. Winge less, contribute more. Focus on what you want, less on what you don’t. Stop spending money on crap.

I’m not saying it’s easy.

Not at all. But when you nail down one strategy that works, at least you know where you stand. At least you can measure your progress. You can decide more clearly and with more certainty if it is working or if it sucks.

Comments – Sing It Back To Me

What strategy can you assemble for yourself to improve your vision of the life you want? Who will you go to? Who can you hang out with to learn the easy way instead of needlessly experimenting the hard way?

P.S Want to know my secret super strategy for losing weight? Eat a small enough dinner to make sure you always go to bed a little hungry. Works every time .

P.P.S Watch Natalie Imbruglia demonstrate the art of the Tim Tam Slammer on the UK’s  Graham Norton Show.

P.P.P.S More divatastic strategies coming soon – the Pigeonhole Evacuation Kit is on its way!

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Have you ever used one of those draught excluders that look like long snakes? They lie across the floor along the bottom of gappy doors to stop the cold air sneaking inside.

When I lived in the UK, these snakes were really important, especially in those deep winter nights when the tip of my nose would start to ice over.

I could snuggle up in bed, safe in the knowledge that the nasty frigid air could never penetrate the defences of my trusty door snake.

That was until the one night I needed to get up in the night to use the loo. I grumbled about in the chilly darkness feeling for the bedroom door, and tugged it open, forgetting that my snake was lying in front of it.

Thus – with a squelch, my door snake was jammed tight beneath the door and the floor, leaving a gap barely wide enough to pass my arm through.

What to do?

I tried pushing the door closed again to dislodge the snake, but it was so firmly wedged beneath the door that no amount of tugging and yanking would work. It simply rolled underneath it.

I was trapped. Couldn’t go out, and no-one could get in. It was dark. It was cold. And I was standing there desperate to pee.

All kinds of uncomfortable. Frustrating. Feeling stuck, jittery and helpless and desperate.

Now imagine for a moment that you too have a trusty door snake, but it’s inside your head.

It holds all of your reasons for doing what you have always done. Stuffed with reassuring familiarity. With habits. With fear and with insecurity and vulnerability. With regrets. Outright lies, even.

Stuffed tight.

And you arrange your Trusty Door Snake of Reasons along the bottom of the drafty door of your world, as it valiantly works to beat away the cold and the fear and keep your confidence from icing over.

Until one night you have a dream of something big!

And in this dream there is such an urgency! Your big idea – your need to do your thing – shakes you from your sleep.

You almost throw yourself at the door, desperate to fly away like a bird against a window.

You grasp in the dark for the door handle and pull.

But no! Your trusty snake locks you in! It hisses as you try to drag the door over its back. “Don’t go out! Sssssssstay here where it’s warm and safe!”

Your snake is guarding you from failure. But it stops you from escaping your comfort zone only because you have put it there. So when the time comes to leave your room – when you are inspired and zapped with energy and you absolutely MUST get out NOW – it just gets in the way, lodging itself beneath your feet and snaking protectively around your ankles.

Don’t be left standing desperate at a half-open door unable to get out – invigorated – into the world!

How To Shift The Trusty Door Snake Who Is Now In Your Way

1. Acknowledge that your snake is only trying to protect you. Our barriers are formed slowly and carefully over time in order to prevent those achey stones-in-the-stomach called failure and shame. This is normal. It’s important to realise that your snake has only your best interests at heart – it’s just going about it the wrong way.
2. Show the snake some gratitude. It has done an excellent job of keeping the draughts away from your toes while you were lying down. Now that you’re up and ready for action, it’s time to say thank you. Thank you my trusty door snake, for preserving the toastiness that has allowed me to incubate my fizzy sleep-shaking muse. You have done good. Indeed, you have done awesome. But now it’s time to let me and my idea out.
3. Move your snake before you try to escape. If you don’t take the time to move your snake out of the way before you go charging at the door, you risk being tripped up, or worse, unable to get out at all. When we’re inspired to take action, our limiting beliefs and fears can surprise us by suddenly wedging themselves in the gap between where we are and where we eagerly want to go. Instead, it will help you to see your snake, say thanks, and then gently put it to the side. This doesn’t mean you have to remove it entirely. Just nudge it away enough to give you the space to move forward.
4. If your snake gets stuck in the door, massive action is required. Jiggling and tentative tugging won’t work. You need an enormous push to roll over the snake. You need momentum.  Ask for help at this point if you need it. Summon every sinew in prising open the door wide enough for your action to pass.

The best part about a snake like Trusty is that you know he’s there for you should be overtaken by the need to hibernate under the duvet. We all have moments like this, where the cold becomes unbearable and the only comfort is a snuggly bed and the reassuring, safe warmth of the familiar. We don’t have to go charging into the cold and dark with a bold idea every night. But when we feel the need to launch into the unknown, it’s good to know that we don’t have to be trapped by the very thing we put in place to keep us cosy.

Comments – Sing It Back To Me

Tell me the name of your Trusty Door Snake! (And does it have more than one?) And I want you to share your brilliant awake-in-the-night Idea that is begging to be set free too – then we can all talk nicely to each other’s Snakes and send them away to slither joyously together somewhere else. Hooray!

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Two years ago today, I almost died.

But then I’ve actually almost died, like, three times. (And those are just the times I know about. I have no idea how many other potential brushes with death I have had. Probably loads. Who knows?)

The first was when I got stuck into my parent’s cask white wine in the middle of the night and ended up in a coma for three days. Which would sound almost normal if I had been 16 at the time. Alas, I was 5. My dad discovered me unconscious on the living room floor.

When I finally woke from my coma, the first thing I said was I was hungry. (Like hangover food, people!) I believe the doctors were not so much blown away by the fact that I’d drunk some alcohol, more that they discovered so much in my system that I must have gone back to refill my cup.

So that probably explains a lot.

The second time I nearly died was when I got mowed over by a car at the age of 15 trying to cross the road to buy a foot stand for my classical guitar lessons. My whole family were parked across the road watching it all in slow motion, as I basically did cartwheels on my head.

I was hit by a Mercedes, so at least I almost died in style. Luckily I got away with a broken leg, a fight-club looking set of knuckles  and a handful of stitches in my head. Fun.

Then I make it to my third and most recent brush with the black-robe-wearing-scythe dude. But really, this wasn’t in the least bit fun. At all.

Basically, without going into any really gory details, I experienced what they call a post-partum haemorrhage. (You know what’s bloody awesome? – if you pardon the unfortunate pun – I can now spell haemorrhage without even looking it up.) This is where you get to have a baby, everything is really fine for about an hour or so, and then everyone realises that you are basically bleeding to death.

To give you some context, the human body contains approximately 5-6 litres of blood. Being of tiny size and of the female variety, my blood volume was on lower end of the scale. I managed to lose just over 2 litres, which as you can imagine wasn’t the most sensible thing for me to do.

I remember lying on my bed (it was a home birth, which didn’t help, obviously) and I was weakly massaging my abdomen to try and get my body to contract to stop the bleeding, while my husband was on the phone to the emergency services. Baby had arrived just before 6am, and by this time the sun was streaming through the window and as I lay there I could see the sky gleaming and blue. It looked like the perfect day. Except for the whole life ebbing away feeling.

This isn’t supposed to be happening.

How can I have attracted this? Baby was beautiful and supremely healthy, the birth had gone like a dream, and all I wanted to do was cuddle her and eat the toast and coffee that was going cold by the side of my bed.

Yet there I was, red all over and glistening. Everything sounded very, very far away.

I spent the rest of the day being pumped with bags of blood, heated beneath a large inflatable quilt and sobbing. I knew I was in shock. I could see the nurses and doctors talking and I had no idea whether I was going to be ok, or whether they were just keeping some dreadful secret from me about my impending demise.

Later that evening, I was relatively stable, but I looked like a pin cushion, full of canulas and catheters and drips. I sat up in bed nibbling on dark chocolate to up my iron levels (like I needed an excuse for chocolate at this point.) The two ambulance medics that drove me to the hospital came back at the end of their shift to visit me, and make sure I was ok. This only made me sob some more, as I was so touched that they would visit me instead of go home and have a beer. Or sleep. Miraculous people.

The days following my arrival home from hospital were a blend of relief, baby hypnosis, gratitude and anger.

Why did this happen to me? How had I attracted this depleting, emotional near-tragedy into my life? What was a doing wrong?

I was seriously pissed off at Abraham.

It took months to feel even remotely normal again. But with enough steaks and iron tablets eventually I stopped looking like Edward Cullen’s older sister and now, well I feel great. I even went and had another baby just to prove that I could do it again without being an attention-seeking drama queen.

Now I know you could come up with dozens of personal examples of woo woo not going your way. Where shit happens and the silver lining just gets stuck in your throat. The ditches appear, the plans get screwed and you feel like you are just having one long bitter screaming match with the universe.

But you do know where this is going, don’t you?

When The Law Of Attraction Sucks, It’s Really An Opportunity In Disguise

Do you think I was happy when I carefully padded my way to the car after leaving the hospital? Would you believe I was more grateful than ever to be alive? Can you imagine how tightly I hugged my kids when I got home?

I couldn’t plan fast enough. Dream grand enough. My future at this point was now an avalanche of ideas, schemes, passions unfurling.

I booked our flights to Australia. The seeds of this blog were sown. I started singing again. That screenplay I had always wanted to write? Done.

Fought the baby weight (fat! vanquished!) and got jogging again. Yoga? Tick. Meditating? Yep.

My sharp jabby but important point is this – do you need to have a brush with death to have the fuel to start doing the things you have always wanted to do? Does the Law of Attraction need to be about shiny lovely happy things?

Or can the perfectly crap stuff that shows up really be about giving you choices? Whether you like it or not?

I don’t pretend to know for sure why things happen the way they do.

But I do believe this – Bad Shit Happens. But then – you get to choose.

You can let yourself be defeated by the weight and enormity and the effort of grieving over the shit that life throws your way.

Or you can be the alchemist. You can be the magician. You can transform whatever it is you are enduring. Because as long you can breathe and have a heart that beats and blood that pumps through your fingers – you have the might to turn it around.

What can you learn from it? What does it make you grateful for? What can you do differently? What must you change?

Ask yourself the tough questions. And use the moments of suck and stuck and luck-gone-wrong to your advantage. Use the momentum of the Awful to defeat it, Aikido-style.

Today, I’m rocking the gratitude of still being here. And my little one’s birthday. Life is brilliant my friends. Don’t wait until it’s on its way out the door to tell it how much you love it.

Comments – Sing It Back To Me

What can you choose to do today that you have been putting off? What concrete step can you take to make a buried dream a reality? What can you tell yourself to turn around something that the world is beating you down with?

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Fear.

A horribly drunk and evil gatecrasher of the party that is your life.

It bitches in the kitchen behind your back about how dreadful the food is, how much your colleagues are bored by your work and how you’re boyfriend is flirting with that girl from marketing in the next room.

It steals the cash from your wallet and pinches the fat that peeks over the top of your jeans.

Fear is basically a bastard.

But it’s also kind of sexy.

Fear is kind of like those people you know you shouldn’t fancy because they screw everyone and make you feel awful, used, insecure and ugly. But somehow you just can’t help going back for more.

Because it’s addictive, this obsession with fear. And when all the vodka is drunk, the place is trashed and you wake up feeling like death, its pretty damn useful to have nasty old fear to pin the blame on.

But it still ruins your party. You spend weeks trying to get the stains out of the fabric of your life.

So how do you deal with fear crashing your party?

You could try not inviting the bastard to come at all. In which case you’ll probably spend all night anxiously waiting for the doorbell, being fearful of fear not showing up because you’re not cool enough. Or hot enough.

You can try feeling the fear. Which is probably a really bad idea in this scenario, as we have already agreed that fear is rather sexy and addictive, and any unrestrained cavorting with fear will only make you feel worse when you are caught in a compromising position amongst a pile of coats.

Perhaps ignoring the fear could work. Especially that kind of “I’m ignoring you but really I fancy the hell out of you so I’ll ignore you but occasionally catch your eye and then suddenly look away but then straight back again” kind of ignoring. Which we all know is a big fat lie. The bastard is in the room and you are clocking every move.

So how to get the fear out of your party – or at least out of the center of the room – for good? Here are three ways that might work for you;

• Try humanising it. For example, we would all probably concur that Robert Pattinson is hot. And that Beyonce is a bit of alright, too. But verily, they doth burp. And probably pick their noses. This is your opportunity to notice what is unattractively human about the fear. Is there a pimple somewhere you can zone in on, an overly flourishing nose hair maybe? Or a just a really unattractive voice? (David Beckham springs to mind.) Strip away the celebrity perfection of the fear and you may feel the shakes disappear.

• Allow the fear. This isn’t the same as feeling the fear. This is where you just let it get on with making a mess everywhere else, while you focus on enjoying yourself in another part of the room. You’re not running into another room, you’re not talking about it with anyone, and you’re not hovering nearby it to make sure it doesn’t throw up all over the carpet. Eventually even the most hardened life-crashing fear will bore of being starved of attention and will slink away in search of a more attentive audience. Fear lives off resistence. So humour it.  When you stop resisting, it zaps away the power of the fear leaving it all floppy and impotent. And in this case, that really is a good thing.

• Make it a dress up party. If you can’t change the fear, change the theme of the party instead. Make it wear a stupid clown costume, a bunny suit, nothing but a pair of fluffy pink handcuffs (whatever floats your boat.) I used to do that old trick of trying to imagine the panel of an opera audition all naked in their chairs as I stood shaking before them. (Which is far, far more frightening than the fear of singing a wrong note.) So get your fear and dress it up in something that is non-threatening and welcoming.

I get loads of crappy fear gatecrashers at my party all the time. In fact, I have a really slippy bastard of a visitor hanging around this very moment. This is a fear that is not just a gatecrasher but a stalker.

But… I’m working on stripping away the mask. Turning on the lights and shooing all the ugly out through the front door.

Comments – Sing It Back To Me

You don’t want fear at your party. You want a jaunty, funky little soiree where the music just gets better, the punch bowl overflows and everybody fancies you.

What other ways can you think of to get over your crush on fear? What have you done to boot fear out the front door in your life?

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We all want a little luck in our lives, right?

Check that. We want buckets of the stuff. We want luck stalking us and spamming us and kneeling at our feet.

But what is luck, really?

Some would have you believe that luck is a mythical beast, and that those who say they are lucky are just lying to make the rest of us feel better.

Some would persuade you that luck is kind of a meandering and vaguely dipsy do-good fairy, whose Wand of Fortune makes a random appearance every now and again (but is never to be relied upon for a star turn at children’s parties.)

But most of us would agree that luck is out there, somewhere. We just wish there was a way to summon it to us (heeeeeere lucky lucky lucky! Come ‘ere luck! Here boy!) and make it stay (down luck, down! gooood boy.) Ok, enough with the doggy talk already.

But yesterday, I was standing at the kitchen sink, thinking about the word luck while I stared at my boxes (did you know that moving house is supposed to be more traumatic than divorce? And I have moved so many times that I should be in permanent therapy really. Seriously. I can’t even tell you how many times I have moved because then you may think I’m a little strange or something. AND I have a nine week old baby and 2 other kids. Feel free to send me chocolate. Or red wine.)

Anyway, I was rolling the word “luck” around in my head and noting the ways that we use it in our conversation. Because very often the way we use a word gives us a powerful insight into the nature of the word itself.

So, when we use the word luck, we say things like “We’re in luck” or “I’m feeling lucky” or “Oh, that was lucky”. An object can be a lucky charm. Or we can look forward to “My Lucky Day”.

And it occurred to me that we seem to have an understanding that luck is truly a state of being. We are in it or feeling it or being it.

It is not something that “happens” to us, any more than happiness just “happens” to us, or fear just “happens” to us.

It is a state of mind, a feeling that we can choose to feel.

If my hubby buys me flowers for example, this makes me ridiculously happy (mainly because this just isn’t something he normally does.)

But he doesn’t have to buy me flowers for me to feel happy. In fact, he doesn’t have to do anything at all for me to feel happy. He could even buy me flowers and I could feel miserable because he never buys me flowers and the one time that he does buy me flowers only makes the times that he doesn’t really stand out.

So if we can choose to feel happy despite our circumstances, then equally we can choose to feel lucky. To be in luck, in the state of luck. So why wait for something to happen in order to justify the feeling? That’s like saying “I’ll just wait for something to make me happy first before I feel it.”

(And there are many, many people who do this all the time. Ironically, they are often the same people who are total ninjas at feeling fear without any justification at all.)

So why do you need evidence to appear before you can feel lucky? Perhaps feeling lucky first is the best way to get more of it?

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