It was just after 4am. Hubby and I turned on the football to hear what sounds like the biggest, angriest bee hive in the universe.

Hubby had his Italian head on, wherein he reverts to his Neapolitan genetic heritage like a true Mamma’s boy and starts shouting “Viva, Italia!” and “My son, he will play football!” Sweet.

As we settled in with hot coffee and the promise of a great game, it was time for the national anthems. The cameraman stood poised at the top of the Italian lineup as they jiggled and jumped in their boots, all tattoos and tanned swarthiness.

The Italian anthem with all its brass flag-waving jauntiness kicks in…

And we were stunned to see the boys singing at the tops of their voices.

No mumbling, shifty attempts to lip-synch their way around having to look patriotic. No silent, steely-eyed gaze that said I’m Too Focused On Winning To Sing (but really I don’t know the words and I’m also worried the camera will pick up how crap my voice is.) No half-arsed squeeking here!

Never before had we witnessed such vocal abandon! Lustily they plowed on, hairy eyebrows raised sky-high on the high notes. Big, puffed out chests, clear diction and even a brave stab at staying perfectly in time with the backing track.

God knows how nervous they were. Defending champions. Pressure to be glamorous and flamboyant and technically awesome. Millions of people tuning in to watch their performance.

Could there be any more eyes on you than this?

What better way to channel all of that adreneline than to sing?

You don’t have to be a tightly-wound football player on the world stage to experience a little stage fright of your own. That feeling of psychotic-butterflies on caffeine overload having a debauched rave in the pit of your stomach? It’s normal when we are faced with something our lizard brain is trying to get us to run the hell away from.

That crazy sick oh-shit feeling you have is adrenaline that has got to go somewhere. You are now a can of Coke that has been violently shaken by the Bad Ass Fear Fairy and that level of frothy scare needs to be let out. It’s a huge amount of raw energy that needs something to do.

Singing is perfect because it channels your fear.

When you’re nervous and terrified and you start to sing, it’s impossible to stay nervous and terrified. You might start like a mouse, with a whisper and a blushing croak. But once you hit your stride, try staying scared now.

There’s nothing to be scared of. Deep down you know that life’s just a game.

The whole of it. This football match. That stressful deadline. The oh-shit-I-must-do-something-meaningful-with-my-talents drama.

If the nerves and the stage-fright are kicking in and you feel yourself bobbing up and down in your shoes desperate to start running in the opposite direction, why not take a tip from the Italian boys and start singing? Something, anything? Put on a song and sing your heart out. Or play the tune in your head and karaoke wildly along with it.

Let the fear go with a song!

Comments – Sing It Back To Me

Can you choose something that becomes your Anthem For Fear-Busting? Is there a fizzy build-up of fear that you could dissipate with a little random, unabashed karaoke?

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“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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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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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?

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Why You Need To Start Getting It Wrong

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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Do you have a back up plan lurking somewhere?

Is it propping you up?

Is it standing by your side,  stroking your brow?

You can almost hear it whispering a creeping sleepiness that causes your ambition to get all snoozy and want to crawl back to bed and snuggle under the blankets.

You get comfortable. You stretch and yawn and pat your inflatable life raft reassuringly.

Yup, still full of air.

And so you drift off to sleep.

But listen!

ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss…….

How do you expect to face the giant swells ahead of you in a life raft with a slow leak?

Your back up plan isn’t designed to hold your purpose.

It can’t possibly contain those wriggly, restless passions that keep you awake at night, snoring in your ear, stealing away that comfy blanket and squatting beligerently on your chest.

Your purpose needs ballast. Something weighty with a solid platform. How do you expect to surf tall and straight on a flaccid fall back that has had most of the air sucked out of it?

Your purpose wants room to accommodate others, those you can serve, inspire and encourage. How could you ever hope to shift them, move them, transport them, when your safe little boat has barely enough room in it for you?

No. You want to cross an ocean? You need a ship!

Never rely on your back up plan to house the monster that is the thing that you really want to do.

Because even if you hit that iceberg and go down in a watery blaze of glory, that little life boat will only get you so far. It may prevent you from freezing over in despair. It might rescue you from suffocating from failure.

But it sure as hell isn’t going to be enough to support the journey you really want to take. That you must make.

Are you clinging to your back up plan? Or are you focused on launching, maintaining, repairing and clinging deliriously to your ship?

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I remember standing next to the diving block, staring down at the strong smelly pool water, and being scared out of my mind.

There was no way I was going to jump in.

I could see some of my school friends taking the leap next to me, but they were so much taller that me. (I’m only 5 feet tall now, imagine how small I was when I was 7 years old.) They were more experienced, had stronger arms…and besides I couldn’t stand getting water up my nose either.

I remember stepping up onto the block and the teacher cajoling me from the side of the pool. “Jump!” he cried out.

And then a thought occurred to me.

Ok, I’ll jump. But I’ll jump as close to the edge as I can, so I can hold on to the side of the pool. That way there’s no way that I’ll drown.

I closed my eyes and threw my tiny body off the diving block, aiming for the edge…

Next thing I knew I was being pulled from the water, a mouth filled with blood, while one of my precious little teeth floated away to the bottom of the pool.

That day I learnt some valuable lessons about leaping into the unknown.

• Lesson #1 : Expecting something dreadful to happen, usually makes it pretty damn certain that something dreadful is going to happen.
• Lesson #2: Forget your excuses – you don’t need to know how to swim to be free to jump. Just get the hang of floating first.
• Lesson #3: Ironically it’s safer to jump where the water is deepest.
• Lesson #3: Don’t half leap into something, thinking you have a back up plan when things go wrong. If you’re going to jump, just bloody well do it.
• Lesson #4: Have faith – because even if you have nothing to put under your pillow, the Tooth Fairy still rocks up. Awesome.

So tell me, what’s stopping you from jumping in at the deep end?

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