This week has been a slightly challenging one. I’ve been carrying on my days with a lingering sadness, when someone you love has passed that feeling seems to follow you around. There’s so much suffering in the world right now. I think a lot of people, especially empaths may be feeling it as well. As I feel so powerless to help that side of the world, raising money for charities close by that I can impact, such as Refood Almancil has given me hope and encouragement.

There has been all the excitement that Christmas anticipation brings in the form of Christmas markets and performances. I love embodying the Christmas spirit, you’ll always find me kitted out festive jumpers and all the accessories. However, this week with all that’s been going on, my voice has temporarily checked out. If you don’t believe me, listen to out this interview I did with the lovely Belinda (who runs everything where we perform down at the Family Park).

Thank you to Kiss FM having us on to talk about the children’s charity single for Refood and the Par-tee Christmas market. I was freaking out a little as I knew I had a full set with Bruno (the most gorgeous artist & singer/musician). He is very special and I adore working with him. There will be more about that in January!! So the performance this week could have been tricky, yet somehow, we made it all work. My amazing friend Nat Katzler stepped in to lead vocal all the carols and I could harmonise and join in when I could. She was in “Finding Nancy” and has a beautiful voice. She has amazing energy and she is such a talent not to mention the ultimate Miss Honey (she is also a teacher at Nobel Almancil). We are very lucky to have her down here in the Algarve. This is what Theatre Club is all about, community and support and this is the perfect example. Even my gorgeous partner dancer/choreographer Debora sang and it turns out she also has a set of pipes! These women constantly blow me away with their skills but also with their kindness and support.

This song “Loneliest Time Of Year” by Mabel is one of my Christmas faves. It was written by an old friend and collaborator Tre Jean Marie whom I’ve written many songs with. We started out songwriting together back in 2010 and I’m so proud of all he has gone on to achieve. He’s probably one of the most well known writers and producers in the world right now! The guitar was played by the super talented Kirk McElhinney who is an absolute pleasure to work with. I miss our guitar lessons a lot! I literally found this guitar track in my logic files from 2018 and could not believe I hadn’t sung the melody on it before. Thank you Kirk!! I hope you love it. You can watch the live video recording on YouTube here or stream the audio on all platforms.

I recorded this week’s single on Tuesday night as I could feel something was off with my voice so I thought it better to do it at the beginning of the week and I was right, it was gone by Wednesday. I felt like Ariel who just gave her voice to Ursula.

My voice doesn’t often disappear on me so it does make me question, why and what’s going on internally for me at the moment. The throat chakra (in Sanskrit Vishuddha chakra) is the centre of communication, emotion, and creativity. If any of those are imbalanced it can affect your ability to express yourself & your thoughts. When your throat chakra is  blocked it can be difficult for energy to flow in the area hence resulting in loss of voice and a sense of powerlessness. I wonder if also there’s a sense of my body being afraid to continue on this path, perhaps being afraid of pain or rejection. I always find when I get closer to living my dreams I tend to get scared and want to stop. This time I’m bypassing any of those sneaky feelings though and even with a lost voice I’m still writing my blog and releasing music! I’ve been doing lots of unblocking Vishuddha mediations and all I can do is be patient, take my time and drink ginger tea by the gallon (which I love). So I’m all good here. Now I need to continue to rest and self care hopefully my voice will return in time for the performance for Nobel Lagoa tomorrow.

Thanks for being here till the end!
Love always,

Raquelle