This is a beautiful post - I have long loved your music because the messages you sing about come from a strong, confident and resilient place. After listening to this post I feel the warm genuine person behind your lyrics. I love the topic of starting over - I have never lived anywhere else and I was an educator in this community for 32 years - both of which which brought the blessing of consistency throughout what was an otherwise tumultuous life that involved three not-good-for-me significant-other relationships AND the opportunity to be a mom and a step-mom. Also included have been the death of a husband ten years ago and the flying from the nest (nine months ago) of my 22 year old son (fortunately he is on a healthy path now after his own tumultuous start at this life-happening). Over two years I have begun a new career within my city government - I am learning to be a care coordinator - a position where I am in service to folx who are struggling in all manner of ways, from all walks of life and all ages. I am privileged to receive each of their change stories and I’ve often said to colleagues and friends that I feel as though I have mirrors all around me. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to accompany the people I meet through some of hardest of life experiences including mental and behavioral health challenges, the misuse of substances, physical health issues, disability and death. As I am aging I am choosing to listen to/watch podcasts that help me stay well in all of the ways we can be well but also I find myself searching for conversations and teachings that help me to prepare for my eventual physical departure from this plane. I am on my own for the first time, learning the most I ever have in my life. I suppose it’s the right time and mindset for it. I am grateful to you and for you and for life happening🙏🏼❤️✨
I’m just now finishing the video.. I will start by saying I’m someone that grew up in and out the hospital. I’ve started over numerous of time. I’m starting over again now as we speak. I will say each time I’ve started over, you been apart of that journey since high school.. I thank you for this post. It was needed. I start a new career tomorrow actually. Starting a new program in the morning. My health is not the best but I’m blessed for the life I have! I’m so grateful for it all and that you are of the human experience. My life journey! I’m in a new season of healing mentally, physically, and emotionally! 🥹🫶🏽
I appreciate you for even making space for this. Ive started over a few times but last year I lost my son at 37 weeks, a child I never thought i'd ever have with a man i never thought i'd meet. After losing my sweet perfect boy i realized I have to pivot and s h i f t. Out of all of my shifts this has been the most challenging but absolutely enlightening. I am finding out who I really am vs who I thought I was. My son healed my heart and now a fire has been lit in me to live beyond the boundaries I didn't even realize I put on my being / my p e r s o n (s e l f). I owe it to my boy to live now. I am forever grateful.
I'm going through a transition right now to start over. This transition has been lonely and has had loss. An enlightment of who is present and who is transactional. Love is short and it's time to have the life I deserve.
Change is a constant, and I realize that at many different times in my life, I was fighting change. How silly and pointless of me? Fighting against what will be. I choose now in life to embrace the change. It's the adventure we are granted, the opportunity to experience life fully and embrace the change. Today is a new day, and I am different than I was yesterday because of yesterday. Today, I embrace it, knowing that if (and because) I woke up, it's on purpose. I will set out today to find all of the reasons why. If I wake up tomorrow, I'll do it again! Thank you for this heart-felt reminder to lean into the change that today presents.
Thank you for the post. I have been through many start overs, I’ve had 2 kidney transplants and I have been through 2 divorces unfortunately, amongst other start overs with these 4 being the major ones.
I never looked at these situations as start overs, but just life and you have given me a new perspective. You have been a major part of my journey with your music and words helping me to get through the rough times. It is my prayer to one day meet you and get to know you on a personal friend level. Again thank you for speaking what’s on your heart ❤️
Thank you for sharing this video. Hearing about your life is an inspiration to me, and I'm sure to many others.
Sometime last year, I came across the saying, "the only constant is change", and it stuck with me pretty hard. In January, I re-entered school as a non-traditional music student. It's been challenging and I've had 2 distinct moments this semester where I felt like I wanted to stop and return to my comfort zone. Right now, I'm pushing through the journey, but like most human experiences, it ain't easy but hopefully will be worth it.
I have had many changes, some that I chose, some that chose me and some that were chosen for me by people, various situations and unexpected things in life.
I have always been a believer of “everything happens for a reason” and in that I find my peace and live through that change to do my best to survive it and come out better for it… no matter how hard or easy, good or bad it may be or may have been.
Learning the lesson, or experiencing that particular session of life, feeling the emotions, the pain… or whatever it was that I was in at that time… I feel have all made me who I am and are the reasons that I am ever changing today.
From child abuse to child birth to divorce to new found love to heartache to health concerns to being kidnapped and even traveling afar and falling in love all over again and having a child at 40 lol… life is ours but, we control what we can and learn how to navigate it with each day that we live.
I always try to be better than I was yesterday and believe that doesn’t mean that I’m always at my best - and that is also… ok.
And to add, in my latter years, I’ve always had one of your songs to help carry me through. Music is medicine.
1. I love how this is making you reflect and see things differently or more in an open eye kind of way.
2. I feel like I have started my life over quite a few times. I feel like I have to start myself over every time I end a relationship but when I think about my first time, I think about when I moved out of my parents house at 19/20. It was one of the most Fulfilling things that I have ever experienced in my life because up until that point I was living my life for them. I was exhausted because I was trying to be everything that they wanted me to be, and it felt like with minimal reward. My mother was reactive as a child which turned into abuse. That caused me to be very anxious, more introverted, and fearful. Then I had a stepfather who was trying to prove himself and cause separation between me and my mom, as our relationship began to turn in a good way. My father was in and out of my life and was verbally abusive at times. So to be a child being around adults and needing to be the adult was stressful. I felt like I was always walking on eggshells. When I finally got the opportunity to leave my parents house and move out into my own apartment since I was working full-time, that first night, I just cried and smiled, cried and smiled. That was the first time.
3. The second time was a year later from the one above because I relocated to North Carolina for love and I was laid off from my job and couldn’t find one. So I moved for a love that never lasted and transitioned into a new career that I had never experienced in the finance industry 7 hours away from all that i knew. I have been in the finance industry since then. It’s been 16 years and that was a major shift going from making the amount I was making in Delaware to a lower amount in North Carolina and going to a lower level than what I was at in my career and needing to work my way back up. I did it! But it required a lot of hard work and dedication. There were many lessons between.
4. Another time I had to start my life over was when I broke up with my ex a few years ago. My life was wrapped up in my ex and because of all of the childhood trauma that I had, I had to unlearn a lot of things that I was raised to believe. I also had to unlearn all of the things that my ex liked that I wasn’t aligned with, but allowed during that time. I had to learn boundaries! I had to learn self-care. I had to learn myself. I had no idea what I truly loved and enjoyed because it was all about what everybody else wanted and what everybody else liked. I’m a recovering people pleaser. That has been a life change for me that I’m still working through, but I realize that setting boundaries has been life-changing for me in a good way.
5. The last one I’ll say that was a life change was getting displaced from my company over a year ago, losing many friends that weren’t fulfilling anymore and having new friends in my life who see me without extra work. I’ve been in layoff situations a few times in my career, whether it was a scare or something that truly happened to me. When it comes to friendships, I begin to develop authentic friendships without me needing to prove myself. Without me needing to have a guard up. The most secure I’ve ever been in friendships. But also because of being displaced, I ended up getting a job a couple of months later where I had to relocate to a different part of North Carolina away from everything that I knew and every person that I knew. That was a life change. Learning a new environment and trying to make friends and connections in a new place. The city i was in before I’d spent 14 years there. A lot has happened in my life, but like mama said, it’s just life happening and I’m learning to just go with it and stop fighting it.
I struggle with change. Many of my family members have passed away so I’m starting over creating a life for myself with a different image of family. I’ve been struggling to give up a compulsive habit. Now I’m thinking the struggle may come from me having to changing. Watching this video reminds me of the Octavia Butler quote,“God is change.” I must see the God and good when going through these transitions in life. Thank you for the message India. 🙏🏾
I really appreciate your post. I have loved your music for over 20 years, and many of your songs have played on a loop throughout some of the most challenging times in my life. I am so grateful for that. I have always recognized in you a deep spirituality, strong sense of self and of introspection. I admire how you can so beautifully put that into music that is deep while also being so, so great.
I am starting over right now. My 20 year marriage is ending after a deep betrayal and the pain and loss for me and my three children has been heartbreaking and brutal. But I am in love again with someone new, and he supports and loves me in all new ways. I am still healing from the divorce but starting over is certainly how I would describe it. I keep reminding myself of the progress I’ve made instead of focusing on what remains hard or the anger that I am honestly tired of feeling. The only way to get past this is to go through it. So I am doing that.
I wish you all love on your journey and this next phase of it for you. With the beautiful qualities I see you possess, you will soar. I can tell. ❤️🕊️
Thanks so much for sharing this. My start overs in my acting career came when I couldn’t afford living in NyC and restarted from my homestate in RI performing in theatre regionally. Once I reached a point where Infelt maxed out in what was possible it led to starting over as an audiobook narrator a few years later and then becoming a coach. Each start over included grieving that things wouldn’t happen the way I thought they would but it also made room for more abundance in a way I didn’t even know was possible. India, your reflection is inspiring. I feel like I’m in the middle of a shift of some kind but not sure what it is yet. Grateful for this space to ponder. ✨
Thank you for sharing this, India, right on time. I have been mourning the fact that I have spent the last 10 years being an in-person caregiver for my mother, and 17 years managing her care for vascular dementia. She was diagnosed right around my college graduation at just 18 years old. I have done okay regarding school and my career, but in the last month I have been heavily mourning the in-person care decade that feels like a "lost decade" and the fact that I have to start over when she transitions. This gives me some perspective that in some way "starting over" can be universal... I am not sure EVERYONE has to start over at something, but many of us will. I wish you all your best in your new chapter!
India you are so beautiful…I smile all the time when I see and hear you talk about your journey of life…I know how spiritual and important you are to this world…one love
I had a "9-to-5" for years and decided to take on my creative dreams. The transition is indeed scary, but my spirit would have kept tugging on me until I made a move.
As my therapist said to me...starting over is your chance to get the life you want and deserve
This is a beautiful post - I have long loved your music because the messages you sing about come from a strong, confident and resilient place. After listening to this post I feel the warm genuine person behind your lyrics. I love the topic of starting over - I have never lived anywhere else and I was an educator in this community for 32 years - both of which which brought the blessing of consistency throughout what was an otherwise tumultuous life that involved three not-good-for-me significant-other relationships AND the opportunity to be a mom and a step-mom. Also included have been the death of a husband ten years ago and the flying from the nest (nine months ago) of my 22 year old son (fortunately he is on a healthy path now after his own tumultuous start at this life-happening). Over two years I have begun a new career within my city government - I am learning to be a care coordinator - a position where I am in service to folx who are struggling in all manner of ways, from all walks of life and all ages. I am privileged to receive each of their change stories and I’ve often said to colleagues and friends that I feel as though I have mirrors all around me. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to accompany the people I meet through some of hardest of life experiences including mental and behavioral health challenges, the misuse of substances, physical health issues, disability and death. As I am aging I am choosing to listen to/watch podcasts that help me stay well in all of the ways we can be well but also I find myself searching for conversations and teachings that help me to prepare for my eventual physical departure from this plane. I am on my own for the first time, learning the most I ever have in my life. I suppose it’s the right time and mindset for it. I am grateful to you and for you and for life happening🙏🏼❤️✨
I’m just now finishing the video.. I will start by saying I’m someone that grew up in and out the hospital. I’ve started over numerous of time. I’m starting over again now as we speak. I will say each time I’ve started over, you been apart of that journey since high school.. I thank you for this post. It was needed. I start a new career tomorrow actually. Starting a new program in the morning. My health is not the best but I’m blessed for the life I have! I’m so grateful for it all and that you are of the human experience. My life journey! I’m in a new season of healing mentally, physically, and emotionally! 🥹🫶🏽
I appreciate you for even making space for this. Ive started over a few times but last year I lost my son at 37 weeks, a child I never thought i'd ever have with a man i never thought i'd meet. After losing my sweet perfect boy i realized I have to pivot and s h i f t. Out of all of my shifts this has been the most challenging but absolutely enlightening. I am finding out who I really am vs who I thought I was. My son healed my heart and now a fire has been lit in me to live beyond the boundaries I didn't even realize I put on my being / my p e r s o n (s e l f). I owe it to my boy to live now. I am forever grateful.
I'm going through a transition right now to start over. This transition has been lonely and has had loss. An enlightment of who is present and who is transactional. Love is short and it's time to have the life I deserve.
Thank you for sharing. 💜
Change is a constant, and I realize that at many different times in my life, I was fighting change. How silly and pointless of me? Fighting against what will be. I choose now in life to embrace the change. It's the adventure we are granted, the opportunity to experience life fully and embrace the change. Today is a new day, and I am different than I was yesterday because of yesterday. Today, I embrace it, knowing that if (and because) I woke up, it's on purpose. I will set out today to find all of the reasons why. If I wake up tomorrow, I'll do it again! Thank you for this heart-felt reminder to lean into the change that today presents.
Thank you for the post. I have been through many start overs, I’ve had 2 kidney transplants and I have been through 2 divorces unfortunately, amongst other start overs with these 4 being the major ones.
I never looked at these situations as start overs, but just life and you have given me a new perspective. You have been a major part of my journey with your music and words helping me to get through the rough times. It is my prayer to one day meet you and get to know you on a personal friend level. Again thank you for speaking what’s on your heart ❤️
Thank you for sharing this video. Hearing about your life is an inspiration to me, and I'm sure to many others.
Sometime last year, I came across the saying, "the only constant is change", and it stuck with me pretty hard. In January, I re-entered school as a non-traditional music student. It's been challenging and I've had 2 distinct moments this semester where I felt like I wanted to stop and return to my comfort zone. Right now, I'm pushing through the journey, but like most human experiences, it ain't easy but hopefully will be worth it.
I have had many changes, some that I chose, some that chose me and some that were chosen for me by people, various situations and unexpected things in life.
I have always been a believer of “everything happens for a reason” and in that I find my peace and live through that change to do my best to survive it and come out better for it… no matter how hard or easy, good or bad it may be or may have been.
Learning the lesson, or experiencing that particular session of life, feeling the emotions, the pain… or whatever it was that I was in at that time… I feel have all made me who I am and are the reasons that I am ever changing today.
From child abuse to child birth to divorce to new found love to heartache to health concerns to being kidnapped and even traveling afar and falling in love all over again and having a child at 40 lol… life is ours but, we control what we can and learn how to navigate it with each day that we live.
I always try to be better than I was yesterday and believe that doesn’t mean that I’m always at my best - and that is also… ok.
And to add, in my latter years, I’ve always had one of your songs to help carry me through. Music is medicine.
1. I love how this is making you reflect and see things differently or more in an open eye kind of way.
2. I feel like I have started my life over quite a few times. I feel like I have to start myself over every time I end a relationship but when I think about my first time, I think about when I moved out of my parents house at 19/20. It was one of the most Fulfilling things that I have ever experienced in my life because up until that point I was living my life for them. I was exhausted because I was trying to be everything that they wanted me to be, and it felt like with minimal reward. My mother was reactive as a child which turned into abuse. That caused me to be very anxious, more introverted, and fearful. Then I had a stepfather who was trying to prove himself and cause separation between me and my mom, as our relationship began to turn in a good way. My father was in and out of my life and was verbally abusive at times. So to be a child being around adults and needing to be the adult was stressful. I felt like I was always walking on eggshells. When I finally got the opportunity to leave my parents house and move out into my own apartment since I was working full-time, that first night, I just cried and smiled, cried and smiled. That was the first time.
3. The second time was a year later from the one above because I relocated to North Carolina for love and I was laid off from my job and couldn’t find one. So I moved for a love that never lasted and transitioned into a new career that I had never experienced in the finance industry 7 hours away from all that i knew. I have been in the finance industry since then. It’s been 16 years and that was a major shift going from making the amount I was making in Delaware to a lower amount in North Carolina and going to a lower level than what I was at in my career and needing to work my way back up. I did it! But it required a lot of hard work and dedication. There were many lessons between.
4. Another time I had to start my life over was when I broke up with my ex a few years ago. My life was wrapped up in my ex and because of all of the childhood trauma that I had, I had to unlearn a lot of things that I was raised to believe. I also had to unlearn all of the things that my ex liked that I wasn’t aligned with, but allowed during that time. I had to learn boundaries! I had to learn self-care. I had to learn myself. I had no idea what I truly loved and enjoyed because it was all about what everybody else wanted and what everybody else liked. I’m a recovering people pleaser. That has been a life change for me that I’m still working through, but I realize that setting boundaries has been life-changing for me in a good way.
5. The last one I’ll say that was a life change was getting displaced from my company over a year ago, losing many friends that weren’t fulfilling anymore and having new friends in my life who see me without extra work. I’ve been in layoff situations a few times in my career, whether it was a scare or something that truly happened to me. When it comes to friendships, I begin to develop authentic friendships without me needing to prove myself. Without me needing to have a guard up. The most secure I’ve ever been in friendships. But also because of being displaced, I ended up getting a job a couple of months later where I had to relocate to a different part of North Carolina away from everything that I knew and every person that I knew. That was a life change. Learning a new environment and trying to make friends and connections in a new place. The city i was in before I’d spent 14 years there. A lot has happened in my life, but like mama said, it’s just life happening and I’m learning to just go with it and stop fighting it.
I struggle with change. Many of my family members have passed away so I’m starting over creating a life for myself with a different image of family. I’ve been struggling to give up a compulsive habit. Now I’m thinking the struggle may come from me having to changing. Watching this video reminds me of the Octavia Butler quote,“God is change.” I must see the God and good when going through these transitions in life. Thank you for the message India. 🙏🏾
I really appreciate your post. I have loved your music for over 20 years, and many of your songs have played on a loop throughout some of the most challenging times in my life. I am so grateful for that. I have always recognized in you a deep spirituality, strong sense of self and of introspection. I admire how you can so beautifully put that into music that is deep while also being so, so great.
I am starting over right now. My 20 year marriage is ending after a deep betrayal and the pain and loss for me and my three children has been heartbreaking and brutal. But I am in love again with someone new, and he supports and loves me in all new ways. I am still healing from the divorce but starting over is certainly how I would describe it. I keep reminding myself of the progress I’ve made instead of focusing on what remains hard or the anger that I am honestly tired of feeling. The only way to get past this is to go through it. So I am doing that.
I wish you all love on your journey and this next phase of it for you. With the beautiful qualities I see you possess, you will soar. I can tell. ❤️🕊️
Thanks so much for sharing this. My start overs in my acting career came when I couldn’t afford living in NyC and restarted from my homestate in RI performing in theatre regionally. Once I reached a point where Infelt maxed out in what was possible it led to starting over as an audiobook narrator a few years later and then becoming a coach. Each start over included grieving that things wouldn’t happen the way I thought they would but it also made room for more abundance in a way I didn’t even know was possible. India, your reflection is inspiring. I feel like I’m in the middle of a shift of some kind but not sure what it is yet. Grateful for this space to ponder. ✨
Thank you for sharing this, India, right on time. I have been mourning the fact that I have spent the last 10 years being an in-person caregiver for my mother, and 17 years managing her care for vascular dementia. She was diagnosed right around my college graduation at just 18 years old. I have done okay regarding school and my career, but in the last month I have been heavily mourning the in-person care decade that feels like a "lost decade" and the fact that I have to start over when she transitions. This gives me some perspective that in some way "starting over" can be universal... I am not sure EVERYONE has to start over at something, but many of us will. I wish you all your best in your new chapter!
It’s a different feeling to hear someone else experience and feel seen, understood. I appreciate you so much.
India you are so beautiful…I smile all the time when I see and hear you talk about your journey of life…I know how spiritual and important you are to this world…one love
I had a "9-to-5" for years and decided to take on my creative dreams. The transition is indeed scary, but my spirit would have kept tugging on me until I made a move.
Thanks for this post.