• ~ Behind the Scenes ~ My TEDx Talk: Dreaming BIG…and Being Invited

    You read that headline right, friend. I am on my way to becoming a TEDx speaker. (Click to Tweet!) Like, officially. (Yeahhhhhh!!!) Come May 9th of this year, yours truly will take the stage at the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury to give a Ted talk, on a theme near and dear to me: Misfits and Pioneers. To say I am thrilled to pieces would be a huge understatement. Pause. Rewind to 2013. I sat my writer-speaker self down and wrote three lofty goals: To be featured on the Huffington Post To speak at TEDx, and To sell my Healing Boxes in hospitals. These goals seemed next to impossible. Unachievable. Especially, the…

  • Trailblazer Interview: Esmé Wang & Creativity in Healing

    Esmé Weijun Wang is a writer and speaker. Her site, at esmewang.com, is where she provides resources for artists, writers, and makers seeking to build a creative legacy. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she attended Yale, Stanford, and the University of Michigan, went from intern to Assistant Editor for an international lifestyle magazine, and was a writer and editor at ModCloth before launching Esmé Weijun Wang Productions. Author of the book Light Gets In, Wang has written for and about in The New Inquiry, Salon, the New Yorker Online, the New York Times, and Clementine Daily. I’ve admired Esmé’s work for many years and I’m delighted and honoured to share this interview.…

  • TEDx Here I Come

    Although I’d wanted to be a TEDx speaker for a long timer – after all, the TED stage is legendary – the experience is quite different to what I’d imagined. If you are wondering what it’s like to be a TEDx speaker, or how to manage a big event when living with chronic illness and life challenges, then I’m here for you. I’m sharing my experience in the hope that it’s useful – which in many ways, is what speaking is all about. TEDx begins with an idea worth spreading. Once you find your idea worth spreading, it needs to be summed up in one sentence. If you can’t do…

  • Loving My Body: An Act of Resistance

    I had a realisation in yoga recently, while I was struggling into a pose my newly numbed limbs couldn’t quite reach: I love my body. It doesn’t have to work the right way for me to love it. It doesn’t have to look a certain way. I will love my body and take care of it. I love myself, in fact. Always and always. And I love you, wherever you are in your journey with your body too. However, I have, sadly, spent many years acting like this wasn’t the case, and pushing my beautiful body to go further than she could. I’ve been angry at my perceived ‘failures’, and…

  • Entrepreneurship and Disability

    Are you dreaming of starting your own business but don’t know how? Want to make a difference in the world yet struggling with illness? I’ve been there, and in the face of multiple disabilities, I not only consistently defied my prognoses; I overhauled my diet, earned a degree (with honours), built a global business, & launched a worldwide non-profit foundation. When you have a change-the-world-build-a-business dream and want to see it become a reality, then head this way. Too many of us are held back by the illness/no time/no money struggles and the world needs what you have to offer. I want to help you live your business dreams too, that’s…