“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.” ~ Robert Fritz.
“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” – J.K. Rowling

I read a tweet first thing today that went something like this:

“Great day. Awesome yoga class this morning, now sitting in airport lounge at JFK enjoying a drink. Nice!”

Such a seemingly innocuous, harmless little tweet.

But at 5am in the morning, in the dark, it was like a red rag to a bull for me.

When was the last time I sat quietly enjoying a drink in anticipation of a flight somewhere? Or actually made it to a yoga class? Why can’t I just decide to jet off and have the points or credit card to do the whole lounge thing?

Ooh, I was suddenly really, really MAD. Mad with frustration and envy. Mad because I had things holding me down. Mad because I know I have a violent unlived life bubbling away under the crust of my day to day.

I was mad at my kids.

If I didn’t have kids I would be SO much richer. I would be having sex all the time. I could leave nice things that were breakable on shelves below eye level. I could lie on the sofa and read a book during the day on a weekend without feeling guilty about my husband having to clothe/bath/feed/entertain/perform damage limitation/counsel/bandage up/prise apart…whatever.

I could actually have one of those movie mornings where I wake up in a fresh white linen bed, passionately kiss my man, romp, eat breakfast and drink hot, fresh coffee while poring over the papers, romp some more, then emerge for a walk somewhere bracing and picturesque.

Ha!

I was mad…suddenly all I could see were seemingly childless women everywhere on Twitter. Doing retreats. Slipping off to yoga and then curling up with a book at night. Leaping off to conferences and tweeting madly from Vegas over too much champagne.

In my moment of Mad, it didn’t matter that these women might be miserable. Or that they might trade everything to have a gurgling bundle of chubbly baby in their arms. All I felt was twisting, angry jealousy that I was squeezing every inch of writing I could into the dark, cold hours of morning before my day became a muddy fingerpainting of food and nappies and cleaning up toys and putting away the HUGE baskets of laundry that three children somehow manifest.

A full two coffees later, and The Mad had gratefully eased off a little. I realised that I was mad at a much bigger, messier picture.

What was I really envying? The travel? Yes. The connections and me-times and networking? Absolutely.

But these things are not about my children.

They are about giving myself permission.

I could go on a retreat. I just don’t allow myself because it wouldn’t be fair to leave the children with my husband on his weekend off.

I could fly somewhere, anywhere. I just don’t because there are few places I would ever want to go without my family to come along and enjoy the ride, and buying five plane tickets is crazy expensive.

And that movie morning thing? I could so totally make that happen if I wanted to. (And if the movie morning thing turned into pile of kids on the bed, sitting on the papers and spilling scrambled egg all over the duvet, then that could still be fun.)

Because the truth behind The Mad is this:

You don’t have to have kids to have a handbrake holding you back from what you give yourself permission to do. It’s just that kids make the challenge to negotiate through the chaos greater.

Kids are massive, volcanic calls to action. They summon you out of your slumber (literally and metaphorically!) and shake your arse in the air, screaming “Do something now! Make it important! Leave me a legacy! If you want it, JUST MAKE the time!”

Because with kids you have no choice. You have to want it so bad that you stay up, like Gary Vee, until 3am to make it happen. You have to properly decide it’s worth doing and then give yourself permission to do it, without guilt.

So for all you women out there living a relatively hand-brake free life, I say this – you have so much freedom. Don’t forget to give yourself the permission to do what your freedom so blissfully allows you to do.

And I’ll keep working on giving myself the permission to do even more.

Comments – Sing It Back To Me

What parts of your unlived life are begging to be let loose? What thing do you most want to do that only needs you to say “yes”? Can you give yourself – today – the permission to do one secretly haboured, magnificent thing?

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We’ve all had them. A big, chewy, hole-in-the-stomach failure. The kind of screw-up that you can only successfully make in front of everyone.

When you have just so completely gotten it wrong that when the thought of it creeps into your head (usually just before you go to sleep) it’s like an evil snowball. It just rolls over and over, gathering more and more evidence, collecting as much proof as it can of your ability to spectacularly flop – and then thwack! You’re covered in chilly, icy flakes of horribleness.

So you start again, with all eyes watching you. You venture bravely out into the chilly wind of the next uncharted adventure. You’re knee-deep in the cold, but dammit at least you’re doing it, right? Until it all goes tits up and it’s another snowball smack in the face.

Thwack!

You stand up. Brush yourself off and try again. And it all goes wrong. Again.

Thwack! Bam!

Argh, cold! And bruised! And numb!

Once you’ve been hit enough times, it’s pretty tempting to just go home. To rug up somewhere cosy and warm and foetal and never venture out again.

But I promise you, the success is in the snowballs.

With every thwack you get, you can choose to learn. You can adapt. You can regroup and reassess. You can learn to dodge faster. To duck. And soon, you may even start to have some fun.

Because your journey is not about outcome. It’s not about showing the world that you can get it right first time. (And even if you do, you’ll only end up demonstrating how to screw it up even better further on down the line, that much is guaranteed.)

Your genius is not in the light bulb. It’s in the thousand ways it took to glowingly arrive.

Read any story of greatness and you’ll see that for every public success there are thousands of epic, now-forgotten failures.

Start paying attention to the journey that it takes to get to the top. This is where the flow hides, in the nooks and crannies of the long, snowy line between inspiration and “ta-da!”

So – why be ashamed of revealing your tracks? Why not celebrate your failures as a focusing mechanism? As proof that you are alive and thinking and striving for a glimmer of greatness that only comes when you leave the snug safety of your bed and go forth into the blizzard?

Know that there will always be people in this world who practise really hard at throwing snowballs. Whose raison d’etre is pointing out the fail.

You know what? Thank them. Embrace it. Retweet their criticism to the world. Highlight your mistakes with a firm stroke of yellow and shout “I am doing! I am making tracks in the snow! I’m going somewhere! Exploring!  Growing and taking action and testing and trying! It’s why I am here. ”

And in retrospect, when you look back over the tracks you have carved for yourself, you will have proof that the process was worthwhile. That the success and the victory that is yours was born in those tracks.

Say thank you every time you fail. For in each and every freezing thwack is the beginning of a truly fantastic snowman.

Comments – sing it back to me.

Think about the brilliant successes you’ve had in your life – what numbing failures did you endure that made those winning moments possible?

If this post worked for you, perhaps you might like these too:

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Last month, on a gloriously warm Easter Sunday morning, my husband and I hid tiny chocolate eggs in the bushes in our garden.

I watched as he led my second child – a petite 2 year old diva in the making – on an intrepid search…Daddy told her they were “looking for clues” as they walked along the path beside our house.

Doubtless she had no idea what “looking for clues” meant, but on discovering her first shiny, dew-covered egg beneath a tree, it was clear to her that whatever a clue was, this was one of them.

The “Clue Egg” was born.

For days after this magical weekend, every time she wanted to tackle the tricky unpeeling of foil-covered chocolate yumminess, she would sweetly ask, “Clue egg? Pease?”

That morning she followed the trail of the clue eggs until they were all uncovered, collecting as many as she could nestle in her tiny hands. It was an expedition of deliciousness.

I realised that this is what we, as sensible grown ups, should be doing every day. Following the trail of the delicious, tasting life one melting drop at a time.

Keep searching everywhere for the beautiful. The gleaming. The divine.

The tiny things that sparkle and crackle and shimmer beneath the dark bushes, hidden amongst the spiders…

The things that give you joy. That make your mouth water and your heart sing. Wonders that you can hug close to you like little treasures.

Keep looking for the things that make you thrilled to be alive.

Because they are clues….

If this post worked for you, perhaps you might like these too:

How To Be Deliciously Overworked
How To Get Past Your Well-Meaning Fears
The Success Is In The Snowballs

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!

If this post worked for you, perhaps you might like these too:

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We Raised $120 For Haiti!

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?

If this post worked for you, perhaps you might like these too:

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(Warning: there are a few swear words in this post. Eek, I know! But I couldn’t help it. Apologies if you are easily offended.)

You may remember that I’m currently dealing with a slippery fear monster who is actually stalking me.

I hear it tapping the windows of my bedroom at night. I’ll be in the middle of something, and BAM! I swear I can see it next to me but when I turn around there’s nothing there. Sometimes, I can actually feel its breath on the back of my neck.

I’m sick of this creepiness.

Because it feels like my fear is out to get me. And over the past few days, and I’ve been feeling really ill. And low. And weepy.

I even used the word “breakdown” this morning.

*Deep Breath*

You see, when I started The Tiny Soprano 6 months ago, my orginal impetus was to create a platform for a global Twestival-style charity event for opera lovers. As a way of showing how tiny things (I.E. me) could make a big difference (I.E. get singers to stop drinking in the pub and start doing something awesome like help build a well.)

But very quickly I discovered that I could write about life and I could write about music pretty much the same way. Which completely blew my mind. So the blog grew to become a place to explore life and change and fear and growth – but with really beautiful music playing in the background.

A month or so passed, and then I discovered Twitter. Which destroyed any dreams of ever lolling around doing bugger all in whatever spare time I had left. *Ah…pointless sofa lolling…sigh*

However, the real craziness started when I began having ideas. For collaborations. For interview series, and books and just blissed out conversations with the people I was “meeting” online who just got me. (No blank stares and glassed eye boredom here! Not like my own FAMILY who haven’t even visited my blog let alone have anything to say about it.)

I got talking to Megan on Triiibes where we’d both been hanging out, completely unaware that we shared a singing thang (and a WELSH singing thing at that). Next thing you know we’re working on all sorts of goodies to combine our magical-music-idea-whizzy-powers. Like our Pigeonhole Evacuation Kit*. (Isn’t that a cool name?) Yay for collaboration!

Then I put it out to the world that I wanted to make a recording – and do you know what happened? I was contacted two weeks ago by a boutique label about exploring doing a recording with a legendary conductor. The kind of conductor who has a “SIR” in front of his name. Who I’m singing for – in two weeks.

Again, those who have been with me for a while will know I took a break from singing to have my tiny flock of mini-mes, and that it’s been a few years since I stood center stage as a proper diva. And I’m now stuck with a neglected post-baby diaphragm, no less. But it’s meant I’ve been kicked into warming up my voice every day, and singing arias that I haven’t touched in ages. And the more I practise the better it sounds, until I’m even imagining my dream of singing at the Met in New York may actually come true.

So here’s me, spinning plates – my blog, my baby, my kids, the dishes, the voice, the thing with Megan, the flying to Melbourne to sing for legendary conductor thing, the phone bill (which I’m loathe to deal with – oh how I despise thee, TELSTRA) and that’s before I’ve even finished unpacking from my move. Or washing my hair, even.

All these chunks of terrifying that keep landing on my head.

And then I find this.

*slaps forehead*

And this, too.

Go ahead and read them now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait….

*stares out of window waiting for you to come back*

So you see? Now it’s all ok!

Because I chose this. And it’s truly up to me to choose how I perceive the craziness.

I can choose to be stressed about it – because somewhere along the line I decided – unconsciously – that the truth of my situation was stressful.

Or…

I can examine what the facts are and then rewrite what my truth really is.

Breakdown averted. Hoorah!

Because the truth is I am being inundated with gorgeousness.

The universe is responding to me with such immediacy and brilliance that I should welcome the craziness with open arms, ask it to get comfy and make it some tea and cake.

That I can accept the stuff I have to do is not necessarily the stuff I need to do.

That I can get off whenever I want.

That I am perfectly capable of dealing with said craziness like the powerful little diva that I am.

And that I am already streets ahead. I started my blog. I reached out and made connections. I unpacked my opera scores and sheet music just in case.

I even had a baby in the middle of all of this. I mean, I built a whole new person, dammit!

So fuck it. I can do anything.

And so can you.

Comments – Sing It Back To Me

Has “deciding to choose” empowered you or made you feel even more pressured? Do you have a situation where you need to create your own truth? And how do you deal with stress so you feel capable rather than terrified?

* P.S For the more beady-eyed among you, this is just to say our Pigeonhole Evacuation Kit (or PEK…how onomatopoeic is that?) will be launched in the first week of April. Which is really soon. Argh!)

If this post worked for you, perhaps you might like these too:

Three Ways To Deal With Fear Crashing Your Party
Is It Really Worth The Sacrifice?
Are You Ready To Give Yourself Permission? Part One – Why I’m Mad At My Kids

UPDATE! We raised $120 for Haiti – massive thanks to everyone who helped me by purchasing this recording – I will continue to donate 100% of the profits from any continuing sale to Partners In Health…so you can hear me sing and contribute to an excellent cause at the same time. Thank you!

So here it is!

Me, singing.

As part of The Help Haiti Blog Challenge, I’m offering this recording of my singing to raise as much money as I can for Haiti.

The recording is of the Hermit Songs, written by American composer Samuel Barber in 1953. It is a group of 10 songs in English, composed to a collection of anonymous poems written by Irish monks and scholars from the 8th to the 13th centuries, in translations by W. H. Auden, Chester Kallman, Howard Mumford Jones, Kenneth Jackson and Sean O’Faolain.

These songs are beautiful, quirky, moving and heartfelt in their simplicity.

There is even a song giving heavenly thanks to beer. Which means it must be good, right?

This song cycle was recorded way back in 1996 and it is strictly bootleg hush-hush (even though I’m here plugging it to the whole world on the web.) As most of my life is still packed away in cardboard boxes from the move back to Australia from the UK, it was the only recording I could get my hands on fast. It was professionally recorded for broadcast, but because it is bootlegalicious I can not really say any more about it.

Except that I really hope that you’ll love these songs as much as I loved singing them.

When you click the button below, you will be treated to a download of the aforementioned musical loveliness for the bargain donation of $10. This will go to Partners in Health in Haiti to assist in bringing urgently needed medical relief to this shattered country.

So go click! And thank you.

Natalie Christie – Hermit Songs Op. 29 By Samuel Barber

• “At St Patrick’s Purgatory” (translated by Seán Ó Faoláin)
• “Church Bell at Night” (translated by Howard Mumford Jones)
• “St Ita’s Vision” (translated by Chester Kallman)
• “The Heavenly Banquet” (translated by Seán Ó Faoláin)
• “The Crucifixion” (translated by Howard Mumford Jones)
• “Sea Snatch” (translated by Kenneth Jackson)
• “Promiscuity” (translated by Kenneth Jackson)
• “The Monk and his Cat” (translated by W.H. Auden)
• “The Praises of God” (translated by W.H. Auden)
• “The Desire for Hermitage” (translated by Seán Ó Faoláin)

If this post worked for you, perhaps you might like these too:

The Help Haiti Blog Challenge
We Raised $120 For Haiti!
What The World Cup Can Teach You About Singing Away Your Fear

I’m a great believer in not watching the news.

Especially since I became a parent. There is a British comedian called Al Murray (aka ‘The Pub Landlord‘) who observes that the minute you have children you suddenly find yourself more right wing. (In context this is really funny – sadly you won’t get the joke here.) The often grotesque and explicit images fed to us via the media – particularly those involving children -literally make me physically sick.  I feel that twisting, clawing, eating up inside that comes from observing people in distress…and I don’t like that feeling.

BUT if there is a cry for help, I do not turn away and do nothing.

I have written recently about the idea of contrast and we can use how negative events in our lives as a defining mechanism – as a way for us to observe the devastation and to launch within ourselves the desire for something better.

So when a disaster of the magnitude of the Haiti earthquake takes place, it is for us to take it in. And then to focus intensely on making the situation better.

While the mainstream media glory in the death toll, the footage of bodies piled into tractors and the failures of the emergency systems to fully cope, it is up to us to do whatever it is we can, however small, to construct a different future.

When Kelly Diels launched The Help Haiti Blog challenge (inspired by Danielle La Porte) I was immediately in.

Regular readers will know I am already throwing everything I can at the scarce snippets of time that I have at my fingertips.

But hell, why not start spinning another plate?

Danielle was offering to donate her full Firestarter session fee. Charlie was offering coaching in a very dark and unshavenly kinda way. Kelly started collecting the links of other passionate bloggers who announced their own unique initiatives.

There was also mudslinging and shoe throwing all over – and not unjustified – from those who saw this as a blatant form of profiteering from disaster by desperate, broke, link-hungry bloggers.

But I believe that if you have something of value that you can share with others AND contribute to a cause, then isn’t that better than sitting on your hands?

There is momentum in providing value for a charitable dollar. If you don’t get this, just ask Bob Geldof why he didn’t just get musicians to donate money instead of perform at LiveAid….

So what was I going to offer?

I could offer my new online voice critique service (to be launched this week) but I expect not many of my readers are aspiring singers (although email me if you are). I am still working on my first product which won’t be ready for a few months yet. I could offer to donate for comments or links…but honestly I thought I was capable of creating something a little more unique.

Then it came to me.

It was ridiculously obvious really, what I needed to put together, and most of you will be like, ‘Duh, silly woman. She must still be suffering from preg-headedness, poor thing.’

What I have assembled is a very cheeky, naughty little bootleg selection of recordings of me…you know, like…

*come closer so I can whisper it to you*

…singing.

I know!! Cool huh? So I’m hugely excited and can’t wait to throw it out there to all of you who are interested in finally hearing the kind of racket this Tiny Soprano makes.

I won’t go into too much detail here suffice to say that if you fancy hearing some gorgeous music – hopefully that has been done some justice by yours truly – then stay tuned Monday night 9pm EST. I will release the link for the recording then on Twitter and here on the blog.

100% – that’s every last cent – of the profits from the sale of the CD will go to Partners In Health.

I look forward to helping the people of Haiti by sharing some of ‘me’ with all of you.

x Natalie

UPDATE!!!

You can see the full details of the project I created here.

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Well, all I can say is finalmente.

It’s been almost three weeks since the birth of my little boy. Almost 21 days of soothing and rocking and holding and snuggling and swaddling, clutching at spare minutes of sleep and crisis-managing the occasional nappy FAIL.

But I am very pleased to confirm that he is truly scrumptious.

There is nothing more delicious than a newborn baby. There is a certain freshly-baked scent that barely lasts a day or two, but in those first hypnotic days it fills the room like a siren song. I’m sure it’s all part of the charm offensive…

I’m hooked. But I can now, with cast iron certainty, declare…never again.

Three kids?? Why, oh why did I start my blog three months before giving birth to baby three? What was I thinking? Why didn’t someone shake the hell out of me, slap my cheek in a kind of 30s movie style kinda way and say “For God’s sake woman, get a hold of yourself!”

Surely I was trying to do too much?

The truth is, you see, I have never been one to take it easy. If I start spinning a plate, I tend to say “What the hell, let’s spin twelve.” My imagination has always struggled to slow down and wait patiently for my circumstances to catch up, red-faced and puffing and apologising for the mess.

But despite the exhaustion and the guilt and the spinning spinning spinning, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Because there is only NOW.

There is no perfect time. There is no ideal situation, no golden moment for you to start that life, that inspired business or that project you dream about in the early hours of the morning.

When I woke up back in October last year with my muse fizzing at my heels, I knew I had to start my blog that day. It didn’t matter that my whole life was due to be turned inside out and dangled upside down by a pair of tiny wrinkly hands in a matter of months.

If there is something you want to do, there’s nothing to stop you waiting until you feel the time is right.

But the risk with this strategy is that that right time never shows up. And sometimes when you miss the boat, you never get off the island.

I know my life just got a whole lot more complicated. I understand that the squishy, comfy center of my life is now fully overgrown by my three green and leggy children. ‘Me time’ is now what plays upon the fringes of my day. But that’s ok.

My scrumptious little boy is snoring in quick, faint little breaths by my side. My girls are building a cubby house out of pillows and quilts and fighting over Mr. Men cups in the next room.

And I’m writing my first post of the New Year, a head full of possibilities, while my muse is treating me to a much needed shoulder rub. (Well, I made that last bit up. But I can dream, can’t I?)

It’s delicious and it’s all mine.

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Have you ever stopped to notice how often you complain about something?

Think back over the past 24 hours and try to remember the conversations you had, not just with other people, but with yourself.

What did you spend your time focusing on? The good stuff? Or the stuff that really made you mad, annoyed, sick, upset, depressed or pissed off?

We tend to get a lot of mileage out of being miserable. Why is this? Is it somehow more beautifully tragic? More attainable? A tasty way to get more attention? Or do we place so little trust in our own ability to deal with our negative experiences that we have to seek out the solutions (and sympathy) from other people?

Or maybe it’s just that we’ve learned, over time, that no-one wants to hear how great we’re doing. That would be bragging. Cocky. Just weird.

We can get the same effect by storing up all the crappy stuff in our head instead, like a proud and wounded ninja unwilling to burden those around us with our noble inner turmoil. But the effect is still the same, whether you share it with the world or keep it to an internal monologue.

It’s called focusing on the stuff we hate. And it only breeds more of said stuff to hate. Which makes you talk about it more, think about it, broadcast it to others, label it in neon lights as “true”…before you know it, there goes another funky little failure mantra over and over in your head like a bad song on a loop.

Getting To Love The Bad Stuff - With Abraham And Esther

A few days ago, I had the chance to spend the whole day in a hotel conference room on the Gold Coast watching Esther Hicks do her thing on stage. This was a pure masterclass on the disabling power of focusing on stuff we hate. Surrounded by 750 or so other people (including one Yaro Starak and his mum) and despite being 9 months pregnant and uncomfortable and waddling about the hall trying to get baby to stop wriggling so much, I was transfixed.

Let me tell you – whatever you believe, Esther Hicks and Abraham rock.

At every level, the message resonates with the same underlying principle – fall in love with the contrast in your life.

This goes beyond the simplicity of the Law of Attraction, where you get to manifest whatever you want into your life by becoming a vibrational match to it, like a human magnet. That is only part of the equation, and it is in no way the most important. In fact, the law of attraction is called a law simply because it will happen, regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not. The law itself isn’t under your control.

What you do get to control is how you perceive the stuff you hate in your life. How does it make you feel? How can ascribe a meaning to it that will allow you to observe it and then release it? Can you get to a place of feeling good – no, feeling incredible – about the better, more fantastically wonderful version of your situation lurking just over your shoulder?

Because in Abraham’s version of the universe, every time you experience something that you dislike – something that contradicts or is in contrast to what you are really wanting – an equal and proportionate solution is formed in the world of potential. (Deepak Chopra calls this “the field of infinite possibility” or “pure potential”.)

What this means is that whenever crap occurs, a better and more perfect version also happens. It’s just not in front of you staring you in the face. It’s on 193 FM when the problem you are focusing on is on 901 FM. Now that you’ve noticed the crap, you’ve got to tune out of one frequency and tune back in to the solution on another.

With me so far?

We Need The Bad Stuff To Know How To Appreciate The Goodness

So the real fun (and it’s supposed to be fun) is in allowing the horrible, negative stuff to poke the desire for something better out of you. To use the contrast between what is good in your life and what is not as a way to sift out a better story for yourself. It’s yin and yang. Up and down. Inside and out. Light and darkness. You can’t appreciate one without the other. And sometimes, we just have to get a little of the stuff we don’t want in order to know more clearly exactly what we do want.

Learn To Love Dancing With The Contrast

Abraham wants us to enjoy the contrast in our lives and actually have fun with it. To enjoy the contrast is to appreciate that it is a defining mechanism, a focusing tool that sharpens our real desires into fuller focus. We need it to expand. The universe needs it.

Make peace with the contrast in your life. Abraham put it this way:

Wouldn’t it be great to get to a point where you can say “I’m so enjoying the dysfunctional way in which I work.”

Today, Seth Godin put the same idea into his own words:

Entropy isn’t the enemy, and the goal isn’t for “everything to be all right.” Without random events, there is no dance. There is no good, there is no bad, there’s just what happened. Dance with it.

So try to get jiggy with the bad stuff. When you dance with the bad stuff, you “respect and admire it.” You honour it for what it illuminates for you. Every wrong step, every clumsy shuffle and bruised toe reminds you how graceful a dance you really want your life to become.

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