I am forever blown away by folks who were not raised with music in their lives. In fact, it literally makes no sense to me. I come from an incredibly musical family, although I’m one of the least musical – I only play piano, keyboard percussion and the tenor recorder. Both my brothers are very accomplished performance musicians across a number of genres as well as instrument teachers, I have a couple of music teacher aunts, a recording artist nephew and a snare drum, banjo playing father – just to name a few.

And this is how I was raised. Music surrounded me all day, every day. And it still does. As a youngster, family outings were to Elton John or Dire Straits concerts or whatever musical was playing in Brisneyland at the time. As we got older, we would meet Dad in the city for lunch and this would always include a trip to one of the indie record shops.

And then there were the gigs sans parents. My favourites to this day remain The Huntsman (brother’s band) supporting Spy vs Spy (at age 16), Wall of Voodoo, Paul Weller and Kylie… yes eclectic is the correct word. And as I write listening to the ModFather Paul Weller, I remain perplexed. I truly do not understand how anyone can go a single day without music. So much amazingness being missed out on.

More specifically for me, there’s also the connection to your inner knowing which can be completely missed without music. And what, may you ask, is the connection between music and inner knowing? It’s interesting question.

Have you ever heard a random tune playing somewhere that simply defines exactly how you are feeling? Or noticed words in a song that seemed to reflect perfectly what you were thinking in that moment? Or thought of someone close to you and a song you associate with them starts playing on a device in your hearing range?

My partner has a specific Ed Sheeran tune that plays in his head every time I am about to phone him. He also can sense when someone is attempting to hoodwink him. ‘Circus music’ suddenly starts playing in his head and he knows he needs to either call the person on their BS or end the conversation. I love this.

There is a term for music appearing in this way – it’s referred to as being clairaudient. But instead of giving it a label, I prefer to say it as another way for my soul to share information with me. Or it’s my intuition using music to gain my attention to warn me about something. And before you go down the ‘I’m not intuitive’ rabbit hole – everyone has natural intuitive ability. For me, it’s not a question of whether you have it or not – it’s a question of how open you are to using it.

Back in 2015 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My treatment plan included a bilateral mastectomy. My Mum was driving me to hospital for my surgery at 4:30am that Wednesday morning in July. My Mum is also a Musicophile and listens to mainstream radio stations – unlike ALL of her children. So off we go and what was the first tune to play on her chosen radio station? Meghan Trainor – ‘All About That Bass’. I cracked up. The perfect tune to calm me before having six kilos of breast tissue removed. But wait it gets better… three days later I’m back in Mum’s car. And not a word of a lie, the tune playing as I manoeuvred myself into the passenger seat to head home after surgery – ‘All About That Bass’. I seriously thought I would pop stitches I was laughing so much. But wait it gets even better! I regain composure and we start driving away from the hospital and the very next song was ‘Keep on Movin’ by Five. Now I was laughing so hard I thought I’d pop one of the four drains I had!

Whether or not you are like me and firmly believe this was my soul giving me a pep talk or believe it was simply a coincidence (I personally don’t believe in these), you cannot deny these were the perfect tunes to be playing pre and post bilateral mastectomy. Thank you, Universe! In fact, these tunes were instrumental – pun definitely intended – in me following my intuition and choosing to buck society’s version of normal and ‘stay flat’ post mastectomy – meaning no reconstruction or prosthesis. Ever. My soul was reminding me through the lyrics of these two tunes that I have never conformed to the photoshop version of beauty and resilience is definitely one of my superpowers. Through music, my soul was reminding me, no matter what the universe throws at me I’ve got this and I will keep moving forward – elegantly rebelling as I always do! And what I love most about being clairaudient and my intuition using tunes to grab my attention – it doesn’t take too much cognitive energy to decipher what my soul wants me to know.

Another quick example. I suddenly had a P!nk tune randomly playing in my head a few weeks ago. I had to Google the lyrics to discover it was a P!nk tune as I do not intentionally listen to her music. For no other reason than it’s just not a genre on my playlists. The tune was ‘I’m never gonna not dance again’. It started playing on internal repeat about the same time I received some news which floored me, emotionally. One of those life moments you’re not sure you have the energy to recover from. My soul chose P!nk to remind me how resilient I am and that I will dance again! It really is that obvious for me.

I wonder what your soul is attempting to share with you through the tunes you listen to, or the ones which appear in your head or on a device near you, randomly out of the ether. Do you intentionally take notice or will you now start taking notice?