I feel like I'm moving from a world where I was creating fantasies that weren't real inside - and very often feeling really dissatisfied - to now living in reality for the first time in my life since I was a kid, and learning to appreciate where I am now while actually sitting with that reality.

For me, the more I live, the more I need to write. The more I push myself to really live and really experience things and step outside of my comfort zone, the more the songs are allowed to flow.

I had to take a bit of a break and fast for a while, but then I found myself very, very hungry when I got back to [song-writing].

They wanted to 'radiofy' what I was doing. I was also in a position where I was compromised. I was much younger and maybe it is because I am Irish but there was a guilt factor when the record company pays you a lot of money, you feel obliged.

Sometimes you have to step away from what you love in order to learn how to love it again.

The songs I was writing still had lyrics or sentiments that didn't match what I was feeling. It was old, negative energy coming out of me still, but it needed to all get out so I could trash those songs and put them in the bin. And then I was able to let the new songs out.

My eyes were closed, they're open now