What an amazing week I have had, with parts a long way out of my comfort zone, but mostly surrounded by amazing women!

I will focus on the parts that were out of my comfort zone – after all that is the theme of the blog – but please be aware that the majority of the week was like a snuggly, warm hug.

A little out of my comfort zone was attending the SheEO Australia Summit in Sydney on Monday.  A room full of women all with a common set of goals (#radicalgenerosity along with creating companies and products that improve the world we live in) is never going to be uncomfortable, but for me spending 10 hours with people I don’t know is not something I usually seek out. In this case I am so glad I did!

A little further from my comfort zone was putting up my hand during the #ask session to request more people to share their stories with me for this blog.  I can’t wait to share the results with you all, but asking was hard! I felt embarrassed and awkward, but got a great response so it was worth it!

On Tuesday I drove nearly 1000km from Sydney to visit a friend on the NSW north coast. Not really uncomfortable, just different. I find driving long distances on my own weirdly zen.

Fast forward to Friday and I was at a yoga retreat, something I did the same time last year, and did not think that I would find myself out of my comfort zone at all… next time I should read the schedule more carefully!

Some background for you – I struggle a lot with rhythm and tone. Someone once tried to teach me the drums when I was young and kept telling me to hit the drum with the beat of the song playing… I thought I was! A 6-year-old gave up on me playing guitar hero with her after trying me on all instruments and me failing entirely to stay on beat. Someone once asked if I was singing along to the same song they could hear playing in the car – my version sounded so different. Anyway, you get the context.

On Friday afternoon I joined my very first positive music circle (think drum circle but with more instruments)! When asked my goal for the session I just wanted to be more accepting of my lack of rhythm. I think trepidation is the best way to describe my initial feeling!

I started gently by picking an instrument I felt I could do little damage with – a frog with a ridged back and a stick to run along the ridges. And I found myself having fun! Even when we had to replace the instrument sound with a vocal version. I wandered around the room happily with my little frog. Even doing a fairly enthusiastic ‘woo’ after each 5 beats. Then we sat down again and I found myself with a drum. And I decided just to go for it. We were repeatedly told that there were no wrong notes, which gave me a lot of comfort. I won’t say I was the core of the music we created, but I was definitely contributing! And more importantly having a fabulous time!

Then the really interesting instruments came out. I played a wha wha tube, a happy drum, and eventually a singing bowl. At this stage (the end of the session) everyone was just playing and adding to the music however they wished. The facilitator then began slowly stopping instruments one by one. Until there was just me with my singing bowl and some bells. Then it was just me. I was making music. On my own. Not hiding in a group.

I cried tears of joy as I finished off our session.

I may have to find myself a music circle.