Last week I was sent an email that asked a really profound question that has stuck with me ever since.

"How does one deal with emotions? How does one feel sad without feeling sorry for themselves?"

This is a really important question for us to consider as introverts and highly sensitive people. For those of us who internalise the world before outwardly expressing. Do we have outlets for our emotional response to the world? Are they healthy and productive?

That's what I talk about in this episode. And I share something special with you that serendipitously fits perfectly with this theme...the exclusive first listen to the new version of my song, Best Days.

Sometimes when I write a song I feel a deep emotional connection with it right from the word go. It lurches forward from within like some creative vomit. The best way I know how to understand what I'm feeling or thinking beneath the surface.

Best Days is one of those songs.

Life happens in seasons and cycles. Change happens. It's an inevitability. And it can be painful.

Over a short period of time we had received inordinate amounts of bad news from people around us. Losses, illnesses, and breakdowns in relationships and situations. It was like we were tapped into a cannula of sadness where the situations just kept flowing in.

In the midst of it all, I sat at my piano and looked out the window at the sun setting over the industrial units at the bottom of our old garden. There was always something remarkably inspiring about that view. It enabled me to noodle on the keys without any destination in mind. Invariably this would sew the seeds for ideas to be potentially harvested from the voice memo app on my phone at a later date.

The ideas that would turn into Best Days landed in one of these moments.

Once it landed it came together fairly quickly. I dug around and uncovered the chorus, which turned out to be the key for the inner room the song wanted to explore.

Themes and Patterns

YOLO (you only live once), life is short so you might as well enjoy it.

I felt like this was an idea worth exploring at a deeper level. What does it truly means when we're staring mortality in the face? And I wanted to twist the modern day concept, which is more IOLO (I only live once) than YOLO, and examine the feelings and experiences, especially for those going through what so many people around me were going through.

At a time when so many people seemed to be suffering, particularly with cancer, I just couldn't shake that feeling of loss. Losing those we care about, and knowing that everything is going to change in huge ways. What do we do? What CAN we do? We can live, sing, embrace, and love. And do it now, because now is all that matters.

It's a song of hope and love, desperation and sadness, one at a time and all at once. Every time I sat down to work on it I would feel something different pulling at me from within. I guess that's how I knew it was one to pursue.

Recording

I originally recorded it at my home "studio" (bedroom) in 2015 and released a video to accompany it. But as I began drawing concepts together for the EP, I knew it had a place on it. It exuded nods to the Arrow of Time, the themes of entropy, creation and degradation. How life changes whether we want it to or not, and the choices we have in how we respond to that. Do we give up hope or do we continue to seek out those cracks in the wall where the light gets in?

Let love touch this moment and sing the song in your soul like there's nothing to lose.