How I quantum changed my life
2025 is upon us
Dear loved ones,
I expect this email comes amid a barrage of other emails with miracle cures for this and that, regimes for whipping you & your finances into shape, gurus telling you to work more, gurus telling you to rest more, some telling you to surrender to the process, others telling you to fight fate with every fibre of your being.
Tricky eh?
This email isn’t one of them. It’s just an email with some reflections on my favourite poem I’ve ever written, still, which is called ‘Quantum Change.’ I open my musical cabaret Love Story with it every show and I never tire of it. I find new instruction in it every time. It’s one of my greatest hits.
I have completely quantum changed my life over the past three years but I didn’t do it through adopting a new regime, finding a dream job or shaming myself into being “better”. Of course, I have learned new life skills - such as discipline, strategy and artistry, as well as landing some great opportunities and launching Love Story. But all of these external shifts were secondary to the work I decided to do on myself, the biggest task of which was learning to love & accept myself.
Learning to love myself was particularly challenging because I did not really know who I was. Around four years ago I found myself half-asleep at a computer typing an excruciatingly boring academic literature report about the lifecycle of washing machines and thought: “Shit, I’ve taken the wrong turn here”.
I had to rip off the mask.
I’d lived my life according to a bunch of “shoulds”: I should get a doctorate, I should be a serious writer, I should make a sensible living, and above all I should fit in, I should pretend I enjoy doing things that I didn’t. But never ever had I asked myself what I like, what I love and what I want. What I want is glitter, glamour, rhythm and rhyme, showbiz, beauty, lipstick and diamonds! And that’s OK. It might change, but right now show business sets my soft poetess heart alight. The rigour and flair of my poetic style is enhanced, and not diminished, by sparkle.
I have spent much of 2024 coming to terms with the things that I really want in my life and accepting that they are not frivolous, they are not selfish, but actually these desires enable me to share my unique gifts with the world. My deepest desires are pins on a map that show me where to go next.
So next year, I want to be more myself than ever. I don’t want to be shiny and new, I want to take what I’ve already got and build on it. I want to see myself even more clearly, because we can only see the world with the clarity with which we are able to see ourselves.
Each new chapter of life comes with a new challenge, or as I say in my poem, new “alien worlds” to swim through. We rise by first losing our footing and falling. We must constantly “recalculate the maths” & remap the coordinates as we venture more deeply into our inner oceans, unmapped territory through which we alone can venture.
But always, always, no matter how murky the waters around us get, no matter how terrifying it is to feel we are free-falling through the unknown, we can look for the light inside each of us and know all we ever have to do, every time, is come home to ourselves. This is why Quantum Change ends with the lines:
Remembering why I came here I would find my way back home.
This is Quantum Change
I loosened all my knots
and bound my body up in hope
all safely bundled tight
I threw my being in a boat
and rode the ocean waves
until my salty skins were soaked
I slept in certain faith
that I could keep myself afloat
that stars were keeping watch
that there is magic in those skies
that freedom’s only shown
once binding forces are untied
And seas stand wide and open
to brave people who have tried
to love
through fear and loss and pain
who've learned to watch their minds
(a light for those toes bold enough
to dip in changing tides)
I loosened all my knots
so I could feel for different paths
so I could swim through alien worlds
recalculate the maths
and dive into the blue, into the black
through depths unknown
reach subatomic levels
of my jellied, quantum bones
and Freed from wretched safety
Freed from that which plagues me
Remembering why I came here
I would find my way back home.