Pop Singer Starling on the drive for success, what our trauma teaches us and finding safety in a big & ambitious life

Gorgeous Listeners, welcome to this week’s episode of Finding Your Way Home,

And what a share it is…

Harriet Starling is a singer like no other. Powerful, intuitive, unnervingly emotionally-attuned and profoundly committed to elevating her audiences. To change lives not only through her lyrics, but through provoking conversations on self-worth, core belief and reaching big. A trauma-informed Coach, Somatic Practitioner, Educator and Pop Singer, she defies industry expectations of what a woman in her 30s should think, say, do, and expect from this wild and wonderful life. 

In our tender conversation, fresh off the release of her new single QUEEN, we dive straight into her story & how it has shaped her mission as an artist. Starling shares her personal struggles with family addiction and trauma; the therapist that saved her life (for free); and her musical rise in the haziness of 00s London. She speaks with rare honesty about her own battles with mental health, self-belief and staying faithful to your vision even when “success” feels evasive. We talk fame, visibility, using your voice and finding physiological safety from the inside out. 

It’s a beautiful, vulnerable and truly insightful episode - for my Creatives, my Visionaries, my soulful guides, this one is for you. 

To find out more about the wonderful Starling:

Find her on Instagram @starlingsworld or visit https://www.starlingsworld.com/
Or search for her new single “Queen” by Starlings World, wherever you get your music.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2J6DqodvesSK7lcpH7gzul?si=6-5TPHx6TQaDaYFgqs7pZA
https://www.youtube.com/@starlingsworld_/videos

Stay connected with the podcast

Thank you for listening; it means the world to us as a team, and to our guests. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and share the conversation with friends who might benefit from learning about this powerful somatic tool. You can also follow us on  @ab_embodiment for updates, behind-the-scenes content, and upcoming episodes, or visit our website for further information. 

And to explore working together more deeply

• Join our free newsletter for insights, events and self-healing resources.
• Book a Clarity Call to explore working together intimately in 2025
• Apply for an Early Bird place in the 2025 Advanced Facilitator Training - From Head to Heart.
• Reach out via email / socials to apply for a unique place on our private Costa Rican retreat: Journey to the Heart. 6 days of sacred ceremony for self-connection & love, set in the most beautiful landscape you will ever encounter. 

Sending care, wherever this finds you.

Anthea x

Transcript

0:02

So I graduate from drama school thinking I'm going to be a famous Hollywood star. I had a gap year because I didn't get into the drama school I wanted to get into in the first try. So I had a gap year working in this bar. Then I've trained three years, got, I don't know, 30, 40 grand in debt, as you do as a student, to pay for this goddamn training. Then I go back into minimum wage. Back into that bar. So on one hand, you and I know that bar I've just explained was like a members club. It was very important. The people that came in, it wasn't like working in pizza express, but on the other hand, when I was living it, it was. Oh, I'm back here. Now, parts of me thought I'd be some kind of Hollywood star, and other parts of me knew that things don't happen overnight. But interestingly, with the acting, like, I really struggled to get an agent. And interestingly, with the music, it all happened so fast. Really quite quickly. And so we've got to listen to the whispers of the world around us. And that's why I'm so pro teaching self connection. So you can actually hear, because when you're running around and you're manic or you're over caffeinated or you're this, that, and the third, you are not hearing like how the world is trying to support you. Hello gorgeous listeners and welcome to this week's episode of finding your way home. I, today is another one of those days where I realize that I have the best job in the world Starling is the, an incredible, beautiful force in the music world, and I was immediately touched when I first met her. We were introduced through a friend, and when we first met, the warmth of her heart, the tender humility of her, and yet this vivacious, open, uh, energizing presence that was in the room was just impossible to ignore, and We actually find her today fresh on the release of a new single called Queen, which I'm going to include as one of the pieces of audio in today's episode. And it's therefore kind of a special moment for her because she's fresh off the cusp of releasing that into the world. And just before we turned on the recording, she said this phrase to me, which stood out so profoundly. She's a writer as well as as a singer. She said, when I write for me, I write for many. Starling, introduce yourself, say hello, and maybe start with letting us know what that phrase means to you. Anthea, I am so moved by the intro. I'm like, is it okay to cry within one minute of this? Of joy, of emotion, of, of just what it is to be alive. Thank you for the intro. to answer your question, let's, let's get into it. So I, I write my own work, right? I do write for others too, um, occasionally, some, some years I write a lot for others and it varies, but, um, I write and release my own material under Starling. And last year, which was 2023, um, this is coming out in 2024, last year was one of those, you know, years where, you know, life throws you stuff and you just digest it. You calibrate it. But 2023, either I was going through a burnout or some kind of energetic transition or the shit just hit. Um, whether it was my sister getting hit by a car, whether it was my roof collapsing in, whether it was someone trying to sue me for something I didn't do, there was just a sequence of very heavy negative events. And I felt like I couldn't really. Breathe to the point that I had wondered, and I've been in the game as a musician quite a while now. I want to say about eight years, possibly nine. And I wondered if I should just give up. I can't, I can't really believe I'm saying it, but the truth is I wondered if I should give up music and I knew that I couldn't, but it was. difficult for me, Anthea, because on one hand, I knew I couldn't give up, but on the other hand, I knew it was too hard to carry on. And so it felt like a rock and a hard place of like, I have had record deals, but for various reasons, I'm independent. And I enjoy that. There's a lot of pros about owning your own intellectual property, being the leader, being the creative. Director with my manager, but the shadow side of that is funding it yourself. And the shadow side is the responsibility of a streamlined team. And, um, and are you making the right choices? Can you get this right? And all of that. And like any career there's ups and downs, but I had to ask myself last year. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I had to ask myself, is it worth it? You know, a lot of my friends, I'm in my thirties now, I've got promoted or got this or got that. And I had to ask myself, is this worth the emotional, financial, physical? So I was living between Los Angeles and Margate. I mean, that's quite a commute. Jet lag, you've got emotions, LA's expensive, I mean there's a whole thing. And I had to ask myself, can I carry on? And of course I knew I had to, but I knew that a part of me was exhausted. So I wrote Queen for me, but really when I write, I'm hoping that I'm not. And I know, I know, this is nonsense, I'm hoping, I know if I write for me, I write for many. And I'm hoping that people relate to the specificity. And if I ever teach songwriting, I don't really, I mainly help people with their careers and their confidence and their income around, you know, being an artist or being a leader, doing something that's unusual. But if I ever was to teach songwriting, I would say you write a hit When you're personal. Because personal is universal. You never write a hit when you say, Hey, let's write a hit today, and let's be as general as possible. Because although we think we're speaking to the masses. We end up speaking to no one. And so my role as an artist, I believe, and a songwriter, I believe is to stay self connected and I teach a lot about self connection to stay self connected, to make sure I'm not over caffeinated or underslept or overworked or underfed. And if I can stay self connected as much as I can in this crazy world, I can hear the whispers. I can hear what my body's saying and doing. I can hear different parts of me and then I can put that in a song. And then when I do that, often, more often than not, I find like a song called Every Single Time, which is about being good enough, or a song called Cool Girl, which is about not being the cool girl, and now we've got Queen, I find that when I am truly honest, as scary as it can be to release that vulnerability into the world, I often find there's at least a couple hundred thousand people, if not a million, saying, hey, me too. It's amazing and it's so profoundly true for me, um, and there is no one that I work with that I don't see the manifestation of that truth in their life as they evolve, but it's fantastically brave. I, in some respects, can't imagine anything more exposing than being a creative in a real space of visibility, and especially when you're writing your own material. It's not even, I'm taking someone else's material, I'm trying it on for size. This is your insides. brought into the outside realm. And it really strikes me that you're also doing that in a particular subset within music that has a tendency toward the general, the emotionally heightened, like pop is an interesting realm. We were talking about this a little bit when we first met, and you shared with me at the time that Part of your mission is to revitalize, redefine how we view pop music and maybe the level of integrity and meaning that it can have. And I wonder if that's part of why your ethos around your writing is so specific to your own personal experience and also therefore to these universal pain points, which is part of what you're describing in your work. That's so beautifully said, Anthea. And I think to your point about pop and what we were speaking about when we first met, okay, so there's pros and cons to everything, right? So whether that's a person, a place, a genre of music. And the pros and cons of pop in, just in my opinion, I'm not saying that I'm right, but in my personal opinion as a pop singer, is pop is so accessible. You've got a hook, whether it's my song with the chorus, uh, I know I'm enough, I can feel it, I know I'm enough, I can see it. Or whether it's some kind of baby in the club song, doesn't always have to be deep, but you know there's a hook, right? The chorus in pop. And why I love that is it doesn't matter Uh, the language you speak, your intellectual ability, your background, it doesn't matter. You can understand it, right? You can digest it. So then the role as the artist is really to share the message, because if you know it can be digested so easily through melody, then it's our responsibility as musicians and writers to just be a bit conscious, just be aware of that messaging. Um, quite the opposite of the song I grew up with, Britney Spears, hit me baby one more time, but also a banger. Um, but back to the pros and cons of pop or anything, yeah, there's good things and bad things, the, the shadow of pop, in my opinion, is this kind of manipulation of women, um, the misogyny, um, the, um, youth obsessed, I don't know if you know this story, forgive me if you do, I was told at 26 or 25 when I first got signed, um, you might just have enough time. And you can imagine how that made my nervous system feel. You might just have enough time. It's like, what? I was a baby. I'm now in my 30s. You can go and F yourself. Um, so you get a lot of Um, you know, terrible kind of messages and um, there's a lot more in pop we won't go into which can feel over sexualized. Not just for women, but just in general, it, it can feel fake. Let's just be honest, it can sometimes feel quite dumb. It can feel quite fake. It can feel quite, yeah, surface. Um, but as I've just shared, there's some positives I feel. I wouldn't say as boldly I'm trying to redefine a genre, because I'm not that yet. But, if I was to straighten my crown, I would own the fact that I hope I'm a voice in shifting what pop looks like. And pop can still be digestible, but it can have more substance. And I'm hoping, with Queen, A cool girl. That there is, yeah, I, I know there is actually, I don't need to keep saying, hoping'cause I get these messages every single day. My daughter loves it. Oh my God, my daughter's got more confidence. Or Oh my God, I've just decided to recommit to my business. Or, oh my God, I just went on that date and I felt gorgeous. And it's like, wow. That's the power of music. And that's also the power of the writer who's being intentional. And so that's why I really consider deeply, what am I writing? Who is it for? And how could that impact someone's life? Which comes across when you listen. it only got released yesterday. But as soon as it came onto my, uh, onto my screen, I then listened 16 times on repeat. I would not normally classify myself as a pop listener. Although having said that there was a phase a couple of weeks ago where every morning I would turn on the Spice Girls. I love the Spice Girls.. It was an era in my, in my sort of early teens and it takes you somewhere. Music takes you on a journey. And when we begin to study the nervous system, which I know you and me have a very shared passion for, you know, you start to see how the mind and the body, how the system overall is responding to these emotional expanders. And I wonder if music for you is something that you were always intimately impacted by. Because you said that you got signed at 26, like, take us as far back as you feel inclined to with your passion for this world and the, the journey that you went on. Oh my gosh, this is such a good question, but can I just have a moment for the Spice Girls? So I must have been, I don't know, five when I, bought them my first album or six or something and like dad can we go to the high street and i think it was like our price or hmv i'm talking the 90s like mid to late 90s now anyway we clearly have this in common i did not know that so the spice girls to answer your question is a perfect example of i don't know how much we want to go into it but my childhood was um Scary, uh, parts, um, violent, there was a lot of mental health, there was a lot of addiction, there was also a divorce, and, and it's weird, Anthea, because on one hand I've struggled, I've been honest with the writers in the, in the songwriting rooms that I'm in, in the studios, of what's gone on, but publicly I want to be careful, A, because my family did their best, but B, because, There's this sort of an interesting stigma that I'm again, I'm trying to help shift, which is because there was food on the table because I am middle class, my dad ended up doing, doing quite well in science. And there's this part of me that always thinks someone had it a lot. a lot worse. And, and whilst there's, there's, there's truth in that, and I'm essentially a very privileged person to have had the food on the table and my needs met, my emotional needs 100 percent weren't met. Um, there was so much chaos, there was so much addiction, um, and then of course violence. So why do I share this and why is this related to the Spice Girls? Well, to your brilliant point and the whole journey, um, I, I, I struggled a lot with my confidence. I struggled a lot with the divorce. Um, yeah, it was about six or seven when my dad was gone. Um, and the Spice Girls, like, yeah, I think they saved my life. Like, sorry, I feel so emotional. But like, it was, a slice of like fun in an otherwise really unfun environment and I would go to the park, I would have a packet of crisps, maybe a can of something, cocoa, 7up, and I would swing on the swing and listen with my Walkman or whatever the hell it was in the 90s. and listen to the Spice album. And it was fun and it felt, I don't know if it was new for the time, I don't know enough about the history of music, but it felt new. Like Spice Girls, power, girl power, spice up your life. And as a young girl who, yeah, really, really struggled, it gave me some hope. Anyway, so I always say that I'm in pop for my inner five year old, and she was a Geri Halliwell mega fan, and maybe one day I'll meet, uh, Geri. So, I wear fluffy clothes for my inner five year old. I wear shiny clothes like a mermaid for her, and I wear short skirts, big platforms. And I don't care if people might associate that with someone who's not very intelligent or somebody that's a little bit whimsical or whatever, but to me, I'm like, I'm doing it for her. You know, even if I'm 30 something, I'm doing for the five year old. So the Spice Girls is literally a spiritual topic, so I just absolutely love that this has randomly come up. But to your question around the journey, in a nutshell, I thought I couldn't sing because there's like six siblings in my house and everyone's like, shut up! So I kind of had that feedback. Then thought I'd sing a song from the Titanic. I think it was My Heart Will Go On. And I was so nervous when I was a tiny child that everyone shamed me and booed me in the school hall. So I was like, okay, I'm a terrible singer. I then got into acting. I learned very young. It was something I was very, very good at being somebody else. So I was the best actress, managed to get a scholarship into a private school for four or five years. So I was at a private school on a 50 percent 60, 70 percent scholarship, a high scholarship. Um, and it was an incredible school by the way. I loved it. And, uh, also got me out the house. Um, and I, I was an actor. I then got into drama school. I auditioned for musicals like you do, and they told me you can't sing. So this whole narrative is not that Starling will be a singer or Harriet, which is my real name. Harriet will be a singer. It's that Harriet is an actress. And she can't sing. And for whatever reason, like, I've just kind of done some joining of the dots. That was, that was that. Anyway, the last year of drama school, I got into a really good drama school and I did the whole training. I loved Shakespeare. I just saw your teaser about someone talking about Shakespeare. I loved, like, I've always been into literature, reading books, escaping through people's stories, escaping through characters. Honestly, since I was tiny, I would even, like, study Marlowe. Like, honestly, a true geek. Anyway, uh, fast forward to sort of the last year of drama school, I must have been about 22 or something like this. And one of my friends, Beth, I'll never forget it, said, um, you know, do you want to sing? And I was like, I can't sing. Anyway, we jammed together and I was like, God, I really, really love this. So the seed was planted. And in a nutshell, I, after drama school was, was in this bar job in, in, in Soho, it's like a member's club for celebrities. And, um, although it was just minimum wage bar job, I met amazing people and I'm still so thankful I had this job because, it really changed my life. And I got discovered by a band called Massive Attack, uh, when I decided to stand on a table and sing. And, and basically that's how I got signed. Um, and I didn't believe that I could sing when I got signed, um, and worked with them, worked with Zero Seven, worked with a lot of, um, a lot of people. Um, but I, I then slowly had singing lessons after I got the and slowly built my confidence. It's a really amazing image and it's such a good example of the serendipity of allowing yourself to be really yourself in an unexpected moment. And then someone sees you. They're captivated by your charm. Yeah. Whatever life it is that you're exhibiting in that moment, you know, artists, they're sparks of life for the people that are more inhibited or that struggle to believe that there's permission to be visible and vocal. And so there you are standing on the table, singing your lungs out. And then of course, of course the universe is like, well, there you go. You know, they're not small names. We are not talking small names in the music industry. So as humble as you are by temperament, I'd like to just, really reinforce that you're not only a very seasoned singer, songwriter, musician, you've worked in some really significant environment. And when I heard you talking about being a kind of a self led artist now, you know, part of me on your behalf was just really proud of the fact that you've been in the industry for long enough that you sort of know what you stand for. You sort of know the legacy that you want to leave and the mission that you're here to deliver. And you're willing to take the accountability to do that yourself. I think that's phenomenal. And I imagine, as you say, that it, allows you to avoid some of the potential manipulation and coercion and all of the things that come in any career where you're significantly in the limelight. A question probably on the, the minds of the listeners is around what that level of visibility and success was like at the age of 26, especially given that you weren't working for that in your mind at the time, like what was that exposure like for you? That's a brilliant question, but I must say. I was always working for that. I could just give you a, an image. So I'm behind this bar. So I graduate from drama school thinking I'm going to be a famous Hollywood star. I had a gap year because I didn't get into the drama school I wanted to get into in the first try. So I had a gap year working in this bar. Then I've trained three years, got, I don't know, 30, 40 grand in debt, as you do as a student, to pay for this goddamn training. Then I go back into minimum wage. Back into that bar. So on one hand, you and I know that bar I've just explained was like a members club. It was very important. The people that came in, it wasn't like working in pizza express, but on the other hand, when I was living it, it was. Oh, I'm back here. Now, parts of me thought I'd be some kind of Hollywood star, and other parts of me knew that things don't happen overnight. But interestingly, with the acting, like, I really struggled to get an agent. And interestingly, with the music, it all happened so fast. Really quite quickly. And so we've got to listen to the whispers of the world around us. And that's why I'm so pro teaching self connection. So you can actually hear, because when you're running around and you're manic or you're over caffeinated or you're this, that, and the third, you are not hearing like how the world is trying to support you. Um, so I definitely wanna speak to that. But moving on to the visibility piece, I don't think I was, I'll be honest with you, I don't think I was aware like who these bands were. I was just like, oh, that's cool. So I don't think I realized, like, the magnitude, like, I was in the rooms with, like, Adele's writer, Ed Sheeran's, I mean, literally, all within six months, so, yeah, it was very quick. Um, but what I mean by I was working towards this, so, although the coaching is within the last, sort of, five to six years and, um, therapy, I've been in for 14 years or suicidal at 22. So I got, I got in quite quickly and I had such an extraordinary therapist. Um, what I would say underneath all of that therapy and coaching is when I was serving drinks. So here's the image. I'm serving drinks on a quiet night or a busy night in this members club. I would sneak my phone underneath. And have Law of Attraction stuff going on, on YouTube, anything free. I had no money so I'd steal the bread, I'd steal the lemon so that I could eat less, like, I was literally on the breadline. So I was running around running this job, but I knew I had to get out. And it was so interesting, it was a basement bar with, like, grills across the windows. You know when you really feel like in a jail, even though it was a cool bar. So I'd like, look at these fucking grills and be like, Ah! Um, and at the same time, it's so dramatic, right? and it was so many drugs and drink and it was so fucking cool, but it was also so toxic, like, you know, in equal measure. It was fun and it was debauched, but it was also not what I wanted forever. So anyway, I played these videos and I started to understand a very, very simple rule that a lot of your listeners will know anyway, you certainly know, which is to act as if. If I could walk around as if I'm the pop star or as if I'm the actor or whatever I was manifesting at the time, my life will get better. I will be able to leave this bar. And as I say, it's nothing against that bar specifically because it was so well connected, but it was just not where I wanted to be much longer. And I was there in a total of seven years. So it took a lot of courage for me to hold the vision because I didn't know I'd be discovered. I just was like, right, what could I, could I watch, like, how do I go busking? Like, what do I do? And I didn't know about coaching at the time and I didn't even have money, although I probably would have found it. Um, I just didn't know about this wonderful world of development, personal development. So the thing I would say, if anyone is like really, you know, the beginning of their journey, and I'm sure your listeners aren't, but There is stuff that you can listen to that you can just take, whether it's, I'm sure this podcast is free or whether there's a YouTube or something that people resonate with, because what you consume is who you become. And so when I was consuming this, although I was not like, you can see, I wasn't, I didn't know what I was doing and I was sort of scrapping around and all that. I. I was intelligent enough to know, and I started to go to like Louise Hay events, and I was so young, but just starting to like, yeah, figure it out, and I'd started my therapy, of course, as I mentioned, so that was analysis, and he was amazing, because he said, pay me when you, when you can, so I built years and years of a bill up, and then paid him thousands. So who comes across someone like that? No one. I was so blessed and lucky, and wouldn't be here without him, I truly believe that. So yeah, I would say I was planning for this. I was, I visualized getting out of that bar and I did it through what I consumed. And that was listening to free things. I would love to repeat that sentence for those that are listening. What you consume is who you become. I mean, I feel that rippling through my entire system as you say it. And of course, inevitably, I am cast back to the childhood that you described and a context of addiction. And we've talked about that, you and I, a little touch. and I think it's really fascinating to see how many of the people that I know that have had that kind of a context, how many, then go into some sort of realm that is oriented around not just self development but sharing a message of healing and hope and progress. you know, you take the lemons and you make the lemonade. Relative to the amount of suffering that you have and the options available to you at the time, and, I think, the spirit that you come into the world with, there is always capacity at least to ask yourself what could the learnings be once you've had enough support that really validates your personal experience at that time. And it's why I would never say to someone to skip the healing that they receive. I was talking to someone yesterday about this because she was asking me about, do I go into a coaching training at this stage? And I was like, have you fully received have you fully allowed yourself to become full of Health and, and love and support and compassion, because if you haven't, then any coaching that you practice, you will be inevitably coming from that place of head orientation control. And although that's very effective in some styles of leadership coaching, it's never going to create the sustained healing for your clients. That is what's needed, because what you have to teach them is how do they. really embrace the healing for themselves. How can you be just the holding space that allows that for them? Absolutely. And when you speak out there, I'm so reminded, and you're a living example of this, just even being in your presence. So, so refreshing to every part of me is that you have to embody, you know, embody your story, embody your truth, and then embody the transformation. I think one of the things I'd like to bring up, and I don't know why I'm feeling called to share this is, and I mean this with love to one of my parents, but I, I grew up with. One of my parents who's very victim. And you have a choice in life, and I don't mean to come across harsh with this. But there are so many opportunities to be a victim. Like there are so many bad things that happen to each and every one of us. And so it's, it's a way, it's a process of how we can alchemise. with compassion. And I, I really mean with compassion because the victim is just a misplaced sense of self compassion. Like life can be really hard, right? Things can happen to us and things, we can be abused. Like the whole thing can be, yeah, on different shades. It can be trauma with a capital T or it can be trauma with a little T. Um, but what we get to do with your point about embodiment and presence is really make choices. And even when we feel like we don't have a choice, Like me with the no money in the bar and this and that. And the third, uh, YouTube's free. I'm not saying that as a strategy, by the way, but it's what I had. And it led me to all these various people and this extraordinary world I'm in, which is music. Yes. Whilst I love music. I don't necessarily love the music industry, whereas I love the personal development industry. And I'd say more of my friends are in that space. So when we are leaving the kind of, not leaving because I never want us to leave any parts of ourselves, they're all valid, but when we're leaving the identity perhaps of the victim, and we're entering more of like the heroine, um, the journey, the hero's journey, or the part of us that knows we can pop ourselves back into the driving seat, We, we have more options because the prefrontal cortex comes back on board. We're a little bit more like, okay, let me tune into what I can do. And then it ricochets and builds momentum. And the YouTube video, I cannot tell you what it really led to, whether it was massive attack or whatever, but it also led to, you know, working to some, some of the best people in the industry. 2020 when American got tour, I ended up training Susie Ashworth and beyond. Um, all sorts of people. So it's just really following those breadcrumbs. Self connection is the key and understanding that a lot of us have had a lot. To deal with we didn't choose the cards we would doubt. But, but rather than becoming a drug addict, which I could have done after my childhood, maybe you say it's the spirit I'm born with, but the option I had is to go down that alley or to go down the path of when I've really helped me. And I believe it starts with that, by the way, I can help others. And now I'm so overflowing with energy. You know, healing is never done, but I'm so, I'm so okay with where I'm at, who I am, I like myself so much, that I can be really present with people, and really, um, Um, hear what's going on for them you know, I'm doing this house concert tour and it went viral. But one of the things I found out there is I did 30 minutes music and 30 minutes of the circle, which is like a conversation. Everybody has the same worries and it was so healing for everybody to just speak, you know, how has the music moved them from the concert piece, but also what are the themes and the songs and what are they going through and how can we kind of add a perspective for them on that? I love what you've just shared and the clarity that I have there is that there are two parts of this stunning healing experience. we do the opposite of discounting someone's painful personal experience, right? So we hold space for validating what they've gone through, which is always that person's experience. It doesn't need to be objectively verified. It doesn't need to be confirmed by any of the people involved. It doesn't The validity is in that that person's unique moment in time, and we offer them the opportunity for choice from this moment onward. I suppose the reason that that feels really relevant relative to what you shared is that The same as you, had I taken a couple of different turns, um, alcoholism, drug addiction would have been a very natural avenue for me to solve the soul whole. Um, and probably at the time it would have been the only one that I would have been aware of. So part of this is also, how exposed are you in your family system, in your community, in the country that you live in, how exposed are you to other ways of seeing and being? And as you describe, when you start to orient two circles of people who are interested in these themes, it becomes more and more and more your world, which is exactly the same as the statement that you gave, what we consume is what we become. But what's really stunning, and then the second part of that equation, is people are brought together, ideally, By the good feeling thought. Have you heard that Abraham Hicks phrase, follow the good feeling thought? People are actually more unified in togetherness if they can be oriented towards something that has a warm texture. And it's so tempting to orient down the negativity path, not least because the way that we've evolved neurologically, that is literally where the brain orients. It's similar to what you're describing with the victim mentality, that that can become its own actually very addictive mental cycle. So it's not just that it's ingrained in thinking, it's not just that it becomes emotionally hardwired, it becomes a form of identity that the person feels so nervous of letting go of because it is their form of safety, structure, belonging, interrelation within a family system, that it becomes entrenching and it becomes embodied. And they're not then able to move beyond it. And I think, I'd love to know your opinion on this, I think that sometimes, one person is born within generations of people that have been in an addiction or a victim narrative, and one person is born, I feel like I'm describing the Lion King, one person is born with the opportunity of, of opening the narrative and living as a new message and that that creates healing all the way up the chain. And something that's happened and I'm like, I always never know how much to share in public and what's fair on my family. But, um, something happened to me three weeks ago and that was, I got married. And I was never bothered about getting married, but we'd been together eight years, and we were like, yeah, sure, you know, long story short, yes. It was never on my vision board, but I love him so much, and, yeah, it's great, I'm so happy we did it. But something about the wedding day that blew me away is it was actually not In the end, so much about me and Ed. It was about me and Ed, right? It's about the couple, the bride and the groom. But this, oh I might cry again. It was, the healing power of love, that my parents were in the same room for the first time in 27 years, that my stepmom spoke to my mom, that my brother, that my, like, just the healing that happened, maybe because they're ready, but maybe because we stood there as, as a couple that have been through hell and back, like eight and a half years is a long time to be with someone. So we, we see this relationship as a spiritual assignment. We see this as an opportunity at every corner for growth and we're, we're in the, we're in this together. And I made a speech and I said, The thing about me and Ed, we've, we've been through ups and downs, but the truth about me and Ed is that we always stay in the room. And um, yeah, this is a big thing. And um, anyway, the point is I, I, as someone who was so wounded as a child to talk about love. Yeah. To talk about my heart, it is so locked up and the key is thrown away that why would I get married when the divorce was part of the problem as a kid, or it wasn't in my opinion. Um, you know, who knows what could have happened if they stayed together, but the point is that it created pain for us kids, yeah. And so then now I'm getting married as something that wasn't on my vision board and something that was essentially something as a concept that created pain to me as a child. And yeah, I stood there and though it was about me and it was an amazing day, by the way, absolutely extraordinary. My heart was expanded by the love that surrounded me rather than just the love that's in the unit between me and Ed. Um, and, and that, and that changed my life. I mean, I'm still calibrating, I'm still digesting this because it was so, it's three weeks ago. And to your point, I'm the eldest girl of six. There's an older, older brother, he struggled a lot with drug addiction, although now he's clean, so in a way I felt like the older, the, the eldest, but really I am the second. What happened at 22, for me, was so bad, I, I didn't realize I'd been sexually groomed, and I basically was suicidal, and I found a therapist, at rock bottom by me staying in the room with my therapist and attending every Tuesday 10 a. m. I want to write a book called Tuesday 10 a. m. I didn't realize that then my brother started therapy then my other brother started therapy, then my sister started therapy, then my other sister started therapy, and so now you have six siblings all in therapy, or having had it, or just some level of, you know, deep understanding of themselves and family dynamic, and the parents, cannot, through the power of osmosis, stay the same. And that's the truth is when we healing ourselves, we're actually healing the unit and the web, the network around us, whether we're aware of that or not. Now at 22, I wasn't doing it to heal the family. I was doing it because I was going to die. I was at rock bottom, but by doing that, Didn't even tell anyone to get therapy, just to be completely clear to the listeners. But I, I was doing it, and then through osmosis, to your point, everybody else started to decide to do it, and then see the benefits. And the honest conversations we have, the Christmas dinners that we have, that we never had, is just like, I want the day to last forever. Whereas when I was younger, I couldn't bear but be with my family. so the healing power of this work cannot be underrated. And if anyone's listening and thinking, oh, that hasn't happened to my family, it might never. But often things do, they do shift, but they have a habit of taking a decade or two. Things don't happen overnight. I certainly never thought we'd be in this place. So beautiful. I mean, I, I really see that. Um, you know, really to honor what you've shared, we, we went through in some respects, something quite similar. And I remember how profound it was for me the first time that I saw my mother and my father properly in the same room, sharing a drink, enjoying each other's company. I mean, it was, it was actually bizarre. initially, and then wonderful. And as you're speaking, I'm also really reminded that, again, you are someone that's in a space of visibility. And although I know that it's exposing to reveal this kind of thing on a public broadcast, equally, what happens by virtue of you doing it is that people learn that that is possible for them. So I really want to commend you sharing it and, and also commend the fact that it sounds like there's an enormous amount of forgiveness. in you, not just for yourself, which is the first place we have to shine it. But there sounds like there's a lot of forgiveness for you of the limitations of the people that brought you into the world. That's a space that a lot of people don't ever get to, especially if they're staying in a victim story. I am the victim. They are the victor. No change can come from that. No. And you know, Anthea, I really want to speak to this, if I may, around forgiveness. I remember when I was very, very young and by very young, I mean, I don't know, early twenties, mid twenties. And I started the Hay House things and listening to people like Gabby Bernstein, who I adore, but she kept saying, you know, forgive. And this is no shade on Gabby, but I was like. Are you having a laugh? Like, I have bruises on my body. Are you, are you mentally okay? Forgive? And it's not that I was necessarily consciously stuck in the victim or stuck in the victim at all. I was just angry and that was my, that was my truth. Forgiveness felt like I was letting someone off the hook. Anyway, here's my two pence on forgiveness. I don't believe that forgiveness is something you can actively do. That's not what my experience is in my journey, but Might be for someone else. What I've noticed in my journey is just by looking at my inner child, my wounded parts, all that stuff, like taking, honestly, hours if not years on taking care of my inner world, my inner landscape. The external world, which by the way is done and dusted. Our childhood is done and dusted. By looking then at the external world and the people that raised me and what went on in that dynamic, it's not that I have forgiven them. This is where it gets very complicated with language. It's just that I am inside me resolved. Mm. So it's not that I forgive violence is not, is absolutely categorically. Um, I literally, I'm rageful thinking about it's unforgivable and I will not do that to my children. If I have children, but the forgiveness for me is not like an active, I don't know how to describe this. I apologize if it's a weak explanation, but it's not an active thing I do. It's not like Gabby was saying forgive because that felt like betraying my inner child and I will never betray her. But what I do is I just take care of those parts that are in pain through certain processes. IFS is what I love, but also young Ian, I'm also trained in certain things. And I just really look to them, and I just think, what can I do for you? Because my god. You're amazing. And you were in a, a very, a very difficult situation and you were helpless. So I take care of them now. I really love that distinction. Thank you so much for sharing that. And as you say, you know, it's done and dusted and we're left with the pieces and with a framework like IFS. You know, one of the beautiful aspects of that training, which you are now very expert in is the capacity to bring every part online. Nothing is ostracized. And as we do that, wholeness is the word that comes up for me. You know, I was picturing you and Ed on your wedding day and that, that feeling of, okay, It happened, I've taken the time to nourish, and I've taken the time to water the soil, and all of those parts of me have now come into a level of union, which means I don't need to keep focusing on the story, or the events in the past, but I also get to recognize that it was a very painful part of my experience. And, and that just be the reality, then be the facts. Yeah, and I just want to add, Anthea, just in case someone's listening and they're not 14 years in therapy or this, that, and the third, this is coming from, um, from me, from a lady that's very, um, has done, like, huge amounts, and it's not saying better or worse, but it's just, wouldn't expect that if you're in your first year of therapy or, or, or personal development or anything like that. Um, your story matters. And one of the things I learned from my first therapist, Camillo, is that he always said you need to learn your story before you let go of your story. And if you don't learn it and you just go to spiritual bypassing like a lot of coaches do and like, Oh, it's fine. It's, No, it's not fine. It happened to you. So we need to validate that, but now we then get to transmute it. But that alchemy piece is a lot later and you'll know when it's time to alchemize. If we'd spoken five years ago, I would not be saying these words at all, at all, I would just be still very, you know, hurt and angry. I mean, I have to manage a lot of, uh, repercussions of, of my childhood every single day. There's, there's a lot of, of trauma with a capital T, but I am so committed to my self connection, um, that it's, it's really not a problem. It's not a blame game. It's just how I keep tending to what pops up. There's a, there's a commitment to being alive that I'm hearing in what you're sharing and I know that a big part of this journey for you particularly in the kind of recent two or three years has also been looking into the relationship that you have in an embodied sense with those experiences. So looking at the nervous system, looking at somatics, looking at the physical ways that There is an imprint and I wonder if you'd be happy to share with us a little bit about your experience with your body and how that's changed over the course of this time that you've been so dedicated to your healing journey. This is an amazing question and again I would say I wasn't aware of somatics until the last, oh this is really recent, four years, maybe, with nervous system training, um, EFT tapping training, all those kinds of things. Um, I was always in my head, and a lot of people give talking therapy, like Youngian Analysis that I was in, they give it shade because it is two talking heads. For me though, that's what I needed. Um, the somatic stuff, yeah, maybe could have come in earlier, but to be honest, I just needed to figure out what happened. I thought my childhood was normal. I mean, that's really how unaware I just knew I was down, but yeah, so we had to pick that one apart. To anyone listening who's ever been nervous or had stage fright, the other piece that I didn't share around my singing career, I always thought, not only can I not sing, but I will not sing under pressure. I will not be able to achieve that because I'll be so nervous and I always had a blushing problem. I always felt a lot of shame, which you would if you, if you also had a violent upbringing and a lot of chaos. and so I thought this is going to be exposed, whereas acting, you kind of might not hear that in the, in the speaking voice, anyway, one of the things my friend taught me is, is tapping and that categorically. Got me onto the stage and then, I recently trained in it. I think it was 2021 or 2022. I actually trained in it and I can help people with it. Um, and I use it mainly for, for performers around stage fright. You come to me, they're looking for a record deal or they're looking to up level something. And I, we should definitely see if this helps. Um, but moving on apart from tapping, which I know is very, very famous and a lot of people do already enjoy it and get benefits from it. Um, I do, I think it's called neuro somatic work. I'm not sure, but I do things like certain tongue movements, which sounds crazy. I wish people could see us and eye movements, eye flickers, um, as well as, um, certain moves. and that helps me embody what I call embodied safety. So when I noticed, Oh, I'm really quite, um, Manic or hyper would be what I'd go into more of the flighty kind of thing. I would bring myself down and my tip for anyone listening is if they're new to it, just learn one or two nervous system practices, maybe from yourself from a video and then put an alarm on. And if you put an alarm on every three hours on your phone, you won't forget to do it. But more importantly, your awareness will increase because you'll be like, Oh, I was, I was really irritated, so I was in fight mode. Or I was really running around, so I was in Or I was really freezed up about how to make money, so I sat on the sofa, scrolled Instagram, right, let me come out of that freeze. So if the alarm goes off, it takes the responsibility away from your own memory to remember. I need to do this and so one of the things, this is very recent, this is in the last 18 months, I've been doing is having nervous system drills to keep bringing me back and at the moment I'm only on two a day. What, what my next piece is, we spoke about this privately, is how to feel embodied safety in front of hundreds of thousands. Um, I'm still, that's still at my edge when the audience size is bigger, I don't know what it is, but it's something I'm just looking at about how I can remember we're all one, and I can do that at the moment in the house concerts and in traditional stages of say, you know, 500 cap, but. When it gets bigger, I can feel myself enter a freeze mode. And so I'm just, yeah, that's probably what I'll work on in 2025. I'm going to give the listeners, just in case this is your first episode with us, that you're coming across this podcast because of the gorgeous woman in front of me. I'm going to give you guys just a little teeny insight into why the nervous system piece is so relevant to what Starling is sharing. So, What most people don't know, especially if they go through biology at school, my god, I remember only two or three details of that vast, multi year long education. What most people are not taught is that your body is reading signals before the signal is sent up to the brain. So there's something called neuroception, which is basically how your body assesses for safety or threat. Normally in our society, the orientation is more to look for threat and to seek to avoid threat than it is to look for the safety thriving environment. So if you think about it on that level, whenever I go into any kind of environment, but particularly one that has associations of exposure or newness, the nervous system just has to think it's new for it to be deemed as dangerous. The body is looking for the threat. All of the things that could be in that context that it could define as a problem. And when that is the signal that your body is giving you, it's going to send a signal up into the brain that basically says go into one of your early adaptation responses. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn. The reason that talking therapy is so phenomenal is because of the awareness piece, and it's because of the rewiring piece, and it's because fundamentally the connection that you have with that human being who hears your story like you so beautifully described, darling. Who hears your story, who validates it, who gives you the opportunity to potentially rethink it over time. That is the most healing environment possible. But if you arrive into that space and you feel fundamentally physiologically unsafe, the amount of progress you'll be able to create with that person is inevitably limited. So the reason nervous system drills have become so fantastically popular in the last kind of couple of years is because people have started to realize that if I do that first, a body based intervention first, it's far more effective than going straight in with the mind, which is in an adaptive response. So just to explain that for anyone that was listening, Starling, and really wanting to get a clearer understanding of what was being referenced there. And as, uh, as you were describing, you know, there's then this opportunity to keep a regulated baseline all throughout your day. Because like you say, there'll be little tiny triggers, and then there'll be much bigger triggers, like standing on a stage in front of hundreds of thousands of people that will amp the nervous system up into a sympathetic mode, into even, um, a depressed dorsal mode, depending on how your nervous system runs. And if we have these tiny interventions that allow us to really quickly get out of that response, we then swap into rational thinking and we're able to strategically plan and prepare ourselves for whatever it is to come. And interestingly, between the neuro world and the nervous system world and the manifestation world, we're now getting this really phenomenal interweaving of those messengers who are all saying essentially the same thing, but they're just describing it in different terms. So I love that you're priming yourself for that. The big visibility piece, because from what I know of you, it is so what you're here for, and the only way that we get to that place is by beginning to push into that growth edge. Unfortunately, as much as we would love to, it is not possible to grow in the vacuum of the life that you've created of safety for yourself. There has to be a bit of push, with compassion, like you say, but there does, there has to be that tiny bit of friction that you can then alchemize into the next big step. I wonder, sweet one, when you think of these stages, do Is there anywhere in particular that you're picturing, like if you think about your vision board for the next couple of years, do we have any specifics that you could tease us with? Yeah. And actually this one, the first one that comes to mind is actually quite small. Um, but I guess I went to a lot of shows there and used to live by there and that's Brixton Academy. That'd be my next one. Yeah. Bigger, I go straight to like all Wembley Arena. And then I think of like even bigger, which is like Madison Square Gardens, which I believe is more of a stadium. So, but it's not so much that this. If I'm being honest with my vision, it's not so much that I'm like, Oh, I'm a stadium girl and that turns me on. It's not that because whilst you gain eyes on you, you also lose intimacy. Like there's something amazing about, I should speak about this tour in a minute, but I'm going, it went viral. So in May or June, I made a video and, um, I said, I'm tired of everything being online. I'll take this offline. I'll come to your house. There's no charge. I'll sing in your kitchen, your, your sitting room. I did 35 houses in six weeks, traveling 4, 000 miles. And, uh, the only one rule is that the host has to bring 20 people. So they're small. You know, Now, obviously I've played bigger stages and normal stages, not people's houses and bigger venues. But the point is, is that For me, it's not so much about size. For me, what it represents, and I can't explain it, but it feels like this is part of my mission, is if I can learn to feel safe in any environment and feel like I belong and I can root my feet into the ground, like I can ground myself wherever I am, um, I feel then I can communicate better, my prefrontal will be on board, I can communicate clearly, and if I can do that I can help more people. So it's not so much I'm turned on by like, oh she's going to play Madison Square Garden, I think that would be kind of a vibe, but if I died and never did it. It's not necessarily my, my thing, but my thing is how to communicate with more people. I'll tell you in a nutshell, the two things that have changed my life, and this is why I commit my life to it. The first thing is conversation. So whether you paid like the therapist or not, or whether it's a friend that just says, Oh my God, I totally get why you had that argument and it just validates you. So it's conversation. And the second thing is music. And so if I can commit my life to the two things that got me out of the gutter, then I feel like, yeah, I can't be the only one that values these two things so much. Can I ask you, what would be your dream imprint to leave a listener with, not a listener of this show, but if someone comes to one of your concerts, whether it's a 500 seater or whether it's Madison Square Gardens, I'm just putting that up in the ether, what would you love them to feel as they're listening to your music? That they're powerful, and that they doubt themselves too much, and to remember that, yeah, they've got this, and they're a fucking badass. And when I really think about my mission, it's very clear it's, it's for women, although it's for everyone, but it's also very clear if we trace right back to the beginning, that it's for that five year old sitting on the swing, who didn't feel she was a badass, didn't feel she could get out, and didn't know that life could be so beautiful. I'd love to give you an opportunity to celebrate all of the things that you're proud of from where you sit right now at this precipice moment. Wow, is that to answer? And yeah, that's probably the best podcast question I've ever been asked in my life. And I've been on quite a few shows. Okay, let me just calm my nervous system. So everything that I'm proud of in my life. The things that really stand out as you sit here right now, in reference to everything you've already shared, this gorgeous creature that went through so much and proactively healed herself through so fucking much. What are you proud of? And then it makes me want to cry because all the things that I put on my press pack of how many million streams or how many famous people I've worked with, it just feels like nonsense. And I know it's important to list that so people know like, Oh, she's good, or she's popular, or she's going places. But, um, if you're asking me in this moment, sorry, I'm bursting into tears. I would say I'm most proud of. My relationship, because we've chosen love when we were both so wounded, we could have chosen to run away and we chose to stay in the room. So I'd say that, and I would say one of the other biggest achievements, um, or something I'm most proud of is choosing to commit all my life and my finance to therapy and personal development because it worked and it's helped me feel safe, be brave. And self express. Oh, I am so touched by those responses. You know, your commitment to all of this comes through so profoundly. And I'm reminded of what you said at the beginning, when we were talking about pop, and you were like, You know, I know that it's easy for people to associate pop with like lightness and superficiality and that singers are not intelligent and I was just listening to you being like, I cannot imagine anyone meeting you for a flicker of a moment thinking that this is not a phenomenally smart woman with an enormous amount of heart and drive. I'm also smiling because those are all of my people. All of the women that I adore, they have that combo. This, this ability to be vulnerable and tender without seeing it as a weakness, and in fact, seeing it as a fucking superpower. If you can be resolved enough when you're sharing to know why I'm sharing. It's not about exposing yourself, for some form of catharsis. It's, this is a message that has a meaning for the people that are here and the people whose lives I'm going to touch. And my love, I just know you are set to touch so many people. And I'm so profoundly grateful that you gave me the time to sit down with you and get to know a little bit more of your heart because, it's really a treasure to hear your story. Thank you so much for coming on the show. thank you, Anthea. Your questions and your sheer presence is just, it's like a sparkling diamond. Thank you so much. Listeners, we love you so deeply. That's probably cringingly obvious. And I'm going to make sure that you have all of the access to all of the things. Starling's 15, 000 trainings, all of the opportunities to go and hear her beautiful music. Um, and please do reach out to me with any questions that you have on her, on upcoming guests and on fun things that we are doing here on Funny Way Home. For now, go and rest and soak in Queen and, uh, relish yourselves. That's the whole point of being alive. gorgeous listeners. Thank you. So. So. much. For your ears. I hope. You enjoy today's. today's. episode. To find. More about our. Featured guests. Have a look in the show. Notes.