Who I Am

Hullo, it’s good to meet you. My name is Barbara. I was born in Sydney, Australia, in the 50’s of the last century which means I’ve lived through some pretty amazing times. I went to see The Beatles play live at Sydney Stadium, I watched as man walked on the moon for the first time, I felt the resounding global shock waves that came with the assassinations of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, I stood up against conscription for Vietnam and shared a meal with Americans on R&R, I was a flower child and lived on a commune, I bought a house and sold a house and repeated the pattern some more, I travelled the world, I got married, gave a drug free birth to a beautiful child and I’ve loved and been loved and I’ve done and achieved masses of other stuff. It’s been a rather full life and it just keeps on being busy and amazing.

I’m the sort of person who other people tell their stories to – it’s always been that way. I meet a stranger on a bus and before the journey’s over; they’ve shared their deepest secrets and asked for advice on what to do about how they feel. My husband used to laugh at the frequency of this occurrence, telling me that I really had to stop saying “How are you?” to anyone. Of course, I didn’t. I’m genuinely interested in everyone I share time with and I actually do care about their welfare so it only seems natural to listen as they open up. It’s also worthy of noting that, after a couple of decades with me, all this care and interest has rubbed off onto my husband and he, now, comes home with many a tale of what happened after he politely replied, “Fine. How are you?”.

The simpatico I feel for people has always heavily infiltrated my life and my careers – acting, jingle and song writing, singing, authoring, editing, publishing, seminar creator and facilitator, energy healer, psychic, EFT practitioner, hypnotherapist, NLP Master, Life Coach and, of course, mother, wife and friend. Understanding and caring about others’ feelings allows me to reach deeply into the depths of my own being and often find amazing revelations and wisdom.

I am extremely sensitive – most probably, at least partly, due to a rather terrifying childhood. I won’t go too deeply into that period of my life – no need to bog down in such extreme unpleasantness – suffice to say that fear was my constant companion until some time after I left home and found my own way.

Mind you, it’s worth mentioning that all the terrible things that happened to me and around me in that early period of my life taught me an astounding amount. Not only did it heighten my sensitivity and teach me how to disassociate, it also taught me to be very compassionate and, eventually, it taught me how to forgive and let go. It seems to me that there’s always something to learn, no matter what we endure.

My childhood also held some obvious positives. I could sing and act and, after winning The Jack Davey Talent Show when I was five, I started working in show business. I was in masses of commercials, including being “the girl on the swing” in the Australian famous Aeroplane Jelly commercial. I did documentaries and voice over work. I had a bit part in the film “The Sundowners” with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr and, yes, I did spend some quality time with both stars – after all, I was seven years old and cute and precocious and I think they were both missing their own children. I was chosen out of multitudes of others to play “Brigitta” in The Sound of Music with June Bronhill as our “Maria”. I was also the young heroine in pantomimes which really are a lot of fun to be in.

Another big positive occurred when I began high-school and became friends with a great group of people of a similar age. I finally had a best friend andLorraineand I would spend hours and hours talking about anything under the sun. When we weren’t at school or on the phone, we were at our nearby beach every minute we could possibly be there and we shared our lives and our happiness with lots of other girls and boys who became our “family”. It seems that particular time, with those particular people, is awash in innocence – we always felt safe with our male buddies there to protect us. Mind you, we were also soaked in our own sense of immortality and did some stupidly dangerous things (riding pillion on a motorbike, dressed only in a bikini, combing my hair springs immediately to mind).

I left school and worked in my parent’s theatrical agency for a year and then went to NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) at theUniversityofNSW. During this time I escaped my family home and ended up sleeping in my old, beat-up, pink car (a Holden), on the streets for awhile until I managed to find a way to rent a place in Surrey Hills (not a great place back then) and filled it with fellow NIDA students who could help me to pay the weekly bills.

After graduation, I was consistently in work on stage or on screen. I did pop operas, music halls, theatre companies, musicals, film, radio and lots of television. You can still check out some of the series I had the good fortune to co-lead – “Seven Little Australians”, “Young Ramsay”, “The Box” are all appearing on YouTube.

It was during “The Box” (a television soap about the supposed goings on at a television station) that I met my husband-to-be. Rod Kirkham was a well known pop star doing a three month stint with us – on screen, he was the naughty boy, I was the eternal virgin – off screen we became a bit more than friends after I suggested we sing together for a telethon. A “bit more” developed into a lot more and we were married in 1978.

A few years after marrying, I became decidedly clucky and, even though our initial intention was to go Europe after travelling across Australia, when we reached Perth (the most isolated city in the world or so I’ve been told) we decided to stop, buy a home and get pregnant. We also started a jingle business – writing and producing those catchy, annoying songs on commercials that you just can’t get out of your mind. We also wrote television and radio tags and real songs for telethons. We loved what we did and were able to employ the very best musicians.

Our beautiful son was born. We sold the house we’d now renovated and bought another home, with a truly magical garden. We made music, day and night and I also did masses of voice over work and become one of the judges on a television talent show. And I wrote lots and lots of songs. 

It was because of those lots and lots of songs that I wanted to go to America. It seemed logical, at the time, to pursue my song-writing ambition and Rod’s singing ambitions. Hindsight says it was not so logical and that life would have been much, much easier if only we’d stayed in our little slice of heaven.

Still, life is what it is. We did go to America–Los Angeles,USA– and we learnt an astounding amount and met wonderful people and had some fine opportunities. If we’d been able to stick it out for a few more years, we most probably would have achieved more of our goals but we discovered we had other priorities. Our son was now old enough to go to school. He’d been attending kindergarten and loving it and he was loved by his playmates and teachers. We thought it would be alright for him to go into the “big” school but his teacher begged us to take him home, back to Australia. She insisted that such a gentle and open child would be in real danger in their school system at that time, stating that violence was a real possibility. (Hopefully everything is much better by now) We certainly weren’t prepared to take any risks when it came to our son, so back to Oz we came.

The years flew by, our son grew up, we ran another jingle business for a while, I did voice work and taught acting and wrote stories and songs and seminars. The world of the Internet began and I created websites, while Rod became an IT consultant and a database developer. Together we launched a publishing company (Bright Light Multimedia) and developed a site to sell our books and the many self-growth and self-awareness CDs I created. Together we built another site for writers and poets and artists with the proviso that their work has to be good and it has to be positive (brightlightcafe.com). Together we created a book on how to have a happy marriage, (Married and Loving It!) and published a novel on the afterlife by me (Letters to Michael) and a collection of some of the best stories and poems from the Bright Light Café (Speaking of Love). Together we ran the seminars I created. Together we dance and sing and produce the songs I write and, together, we love our dogs and our home and our grown up son with all our hearts.

On my own, I studied hard and, along with my Bachelor of Dramatic Art (NIDA) degree, I became certified in a variety of healing and helping modalities. I discovered that Life Coaching mixed with NLP and EFT and Hypnotherapy and a few other therapies is very powerful in assisting people to achieve their multitude of goals and I love that. I love the way my clients become stronger and more focused and increasingly self-aware. I love watching them win and I love witnessing them realise that living a wonderful life is their right and completely within their capabilities. It’s a good feeling all round.

My entire life is centred on self awareness. I wake up aware of how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful world and I spend my days and nights consistently ensuring that I am aware of what I am thinking and feeling. I believe myself, and all life, to be in an intensely spiritual experiment. I believe we all come here to live lives packed with fun and fulfillment and all we need to do is remember how to do just that. I believe it is my purpose to ensure as many people as possible are living their very best Me experience.

Thank you for taking the time to meet me and read this potted history of my life. I look forward to meeting you and hearing your story too. I hope you enjoy all you will read and see and hear within my pages here. Please, feel free to ask me questions about what I do, and let me know what you do too. Here’s a hug or a handshake (which ever feels more comfortable for you) and here’s to a long and happy friendship.