Welcome Flows to this weeks’Flow Feature! Again we would like to welcome all the new readers who have joined us throughout the week thanks to the wonderful support from fan clubs around the world! And of course, welcome back to our regular readers, your continued interest and support is so wonderful.

This weeks Flow Feature is on fourteen year old Cierra R. from Ontario. Cierra has never told her story, but decided to share with our project, for which we are very grateful and honoured. 

Cierra was always considered by the rest of her classmates to be different and a loner throughout Elementary School. She was seen as a tough ‘tomboy’, always playing basketball with the boys and “ready to kick someone’s a**”.

When Cierra began Middle School she decided that from then on no one would treat her badly or hurt her again. At times Cierra admits that she took this a little too far, at times taking her emotions out on her friends and calling them names. At this age she felt the overwhelming need to seek out everything life had to offer and find every opportunity that the world could give her. Unfortunately this proved to be difficult for Cierra, and she often found it difficult to find ways to express herself, which she attributed to the fact that she had always felt different to everyone else. 

It was on a day in 2010 that Cierra found her purpose and inspiration. Having grown up listening to rap, oldies and the occasional rock song she had never been exposed to anything like Florence + The
Machine. On the day her life changed, she was sitting on YouTube listening to the likes of Beyoncé and Adele. Then, by chance, she found the link to the Florence + The Machine music video for Dog Days Are Over. Like us all, she fell in love with the first listen. For Cierra, this song represented everything that
she had been craving, everything that she had been searching for. Not long after she discovered Kiss With A Fist and Drumming Song. She had found something that expressed everything she felt and finally had something to be excited and happy about. She needed Lungs, and quick. Not long after getting her hands on the album she delved headfirst into the world of Florence + The Machine and their fans.

Thanks to her daily dose of faith in the form of the debut Florence + The Machine album, Cierra was able to open herself up to life and find everything she needed. The world around her became clear and she was finally able to communicate better with people and sit down and have conversations with them. Cierra had finally found herself. She was no longer a loner, no longer sad all the time and stopped ‘moping around’. 

Thank you to Cierra for sharing your story! And again, thank you to all the support we have received from the Flow community throughout the past weeks. We hope you enjoyed this weeks Flow Feature! Don’t forget to send YOUR story in to [email protected], or alternatively use the new ‘Contact Us’ feature on our website. Have a wonderful week!


Inspiring Flows
XxX

Welcome Flows to this weeks’Flow Feature! Firstly we would like to say a big thank you to the Florence + The Machine fan clubs around the world who have given us their support throughout the week. Our numbers have jumped right up and we’ve already had more submissions to our page! Many thanks for the support, and a big welcome to all of our new readers!

This weeks’ Flow Feature is on Kyle Wilson. Before discovering Florence + The Machine Kyle never had a particular band or singer that her enjoyed enough to listen to all the time. His music interests mostly
consisted of chart domineering stars such as Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. Since discovering Florence + The Machine and the Flow community, Kyle has been delighted to finally have a band that he can devote himself to and appreciate in new ways. 

The first ever Florence + The Machine song he ever heard was Heavy in Your Arms, which he found in the soundtrack to the Twilight Saga: Eclipse (don’t hold it against him anti-Twilight Flows XxX). He loved this
beautiful song from the first listen and continued listening to the song whenever and wherever he could. 

Kyle then discovered the incredible ‘You’ve Got The Love’ in 2010 through the T.V. series‘The X Factor’ through a live cover by a contestant leaving the show who performed it as a final farewell song. After
hearing the song Kyle leapt straight onto YouTube to search for this new treasure. 

Shortly after this, Kyle had the pleasure of viewing a live stream concert at the Austin City Limits Festival. Being a live stream Kyle sadly did not have the opportunity to live his dream of receiving a kiss from Isabella. 

Now that Kyle has found Florence + The Machine and entered the Flow community (recently having started up a new and already popular fan page), he has found that he has been much happier and been able to keep away the dark thoughts that frequently lurk in his mind. Kyle has often struggled to overcome self-harm and suicidal thoughts, which have often been worsened by his overactive imagination. Florence + The Machine and their music have been extremely important in fighting off the thoughts an images that have plagued his mind. 

Kyle is completely in love with the combination of her, Flo and Tom because of the beautiful sounds that they are able to create. Most of all, however, Kyle is in love with Isabella because of her beautiful personality (who can blame him?). 

Kyle is forever grateful to Florence + The Machine for all that they have done for him. Thanks to the band and their music, Kyle is now able to be himself, and able to be proud of who he is. One day Kyle hopes to
grab all the members and throw them a big thank you party for all that he has been able to achieve in his life since finding their music. 

Thank you to Kyle for sharing your inspiring story! And again, thank you to all the support we have received from the Flow community throughout the week. We hope you enjoyed this weeks Flow Feature! Don’t forget
to send YOUR story in to [email protected], or alternatively use the new ‘Contact Us’ feature on our website. Have a wonderful week!

Inspiring Flows XxX


 

Welcome to all readers, regular and new, and we hope you enjoy this weeks Flow Feature on Britney Lees! This week is a great example of how other fan bases around the world have led people to our beautiful Flow Family.

For Britney, her journey into the world of Florence + The Machine began in July 2011 when her mother forced her to start reading the Harry Potter series. Britney immediately fell in love with the world of Harry Potter and became obsessed to the point that her entire life revolved around the series. It was in February 2012 that Britney’s obsession ventured out to include the beautiful Emma Watson. Britney’s room was covered wall to wall with pictures of Emma, and she would spend all day, every day, watching and re-watching her interviews and speaking about her. At school Britney became known as ‘The Emma Watson Fan’. Sound familiar Flows? 

It was on the 15th of April 2012 that Emma Watson tweeted about the Florence + The Machine performance at Coachella, saying that “As far as I'm concerned I turned 22 when @flo_tweet sang "What the Water Gave Me" at Coachella x”. Straight after reading this tweet, Britney hit YouTube to search for the performance and, as expected of anyone who hears Flo’s beautiful voice and the incredible music produced by the Machine, she fell in love. It took her about two weeks, but she couldn’t resist any longer and ended up searching for more Florence + The Machine songs.

It wasn’t until her birthday in July that Britney finally received both Florence + The Machine albums as gifts. Her best friend Rachel gave her the beautiful ‘Lungs’, and her father presenting her with our latest treat ‘Ceremonials’. She spent that entire night sitting with both albums playing them all through. Once she
had her hands on both complete albums, things started to change in Britney’s life. As Britney says, from then on is history, and she delved right into the heart of the magical world of Florence + The Machine. It was just recently that her mother managed to claim tickets to see Florence + The Machine at the O2. 

Britney, just as every Flow in the world, has experienced many changes in her life since discovering Florence + The Machine. Here at Inspiring Flows we share Britney’s belief that music is a strong form of therapy. Britney experienced this first hand during the last 6-12 months. Before she discovered Florence + The Machine she was having an extremely difficult time dealing with suicidal thoughts and resorting to self-harm. Since she first heard Florence’s voice, and discovered the world of Florence + The Machine and the community of Flows, something has changed in her attitudes towards life. Florence Welch and the band helped her see that there is, and will always be, a light at the end of the tunnel. Everything has changed in her life for the better, and although she still struggles every day to overcome her past challenges and desires to self-harm, she has hope for the future and goals to work towards. Her own mother has
already noticed the immense changes in Britney’s life in the last months, and is so proud that the spark is back in her daughter’s eyes and the smile back on her face. Now that she has found her happiness and developed her confidence, Britney has begun learning to play the guitar, which she was inspired to try after discovering the incredible talent of Rob Ackroyd. 

We sincerely hope that Britney can continue on her path to overcoming her difficulties with self-harm, and that she can reach the goals she has set in her recovery, which she developed thanks to the inspiration that Florence and the band have given her. We also hope that she has an amazing time seeing Florence + The Machine live at the O2! As any Flow will tell you, it will be a life changing experience that you will never, ever forget. 

We hope you enjoyed this weeks Flow Feature! We would lie to mention a big thank you to the talented J.K Rowling and beautiful Emma Watson, without whom Britney would never have discovered out world or our Flow community. It is always incredible to see the different ways through which we discovered Florence, and we love how for many of us, it was through other fan bases.

A massive thank you to Britney Lees for being so brave and sharing her inspiring story. We would absolutely love to hear from every single Flow out there, no matter who you are and what you have been inspired to do. Email us today at [email protected]

Inspiring Flows XxX
 

This weeks Flow Feature is very special. This week it is on K.W., a future writer whose words were so beautiful that we saw no need to change them:

“Hi there, I'm K.W. and this how Florence and the Machine inspired me.

The world is a scary place for a twenty year old. You begin to feel ropes coursing over your body as it seems like everyone is pulling at you-professors, lovers, everyone each with the perfect vision of your life after college. Or maybe that was just me. I'm a college student and the future is twisting my ankles slowly
and slowly until they snap under the weight of others GRE scores and plans after college. I am majoring in English or as other's call it "basket weaving." Oh and I under no circumstances want to be a teacher, as that word trickles down the lips of each person I meet. I am not built for that for I am built to be a
literary saviour- a writer. The hero for the girls and boys have only libraries instead of movie theatres in small towns or crumbling cities.

Perhaps my writing will save you some day.

So you are probably wondering where Florence and The Machine comes in. That's easy. In a collegiate world of people who read ironically, watch TV ironically, and write ironically, music is the only thing that keeps me from abandoning ship. Florence and The Machine woke me up on a Sunday morning about a year ago with" Shake it Out".

I was a nineteen year old college sophomore with a pension for being other's pillars and I had been working myself to stay in college, the regrets of freshman year embracing me like a drunken lover. So there I was on a Sunday morning, alone in my dorm room with nothing but my TV on silent in the background. I had been sitting in bed watching the sun rise and the train making my windows shake. It was around 10:00 when VH1 played a video by Florence and The Machine and a black -clad Florence Welch began to tango with masked man while attending a Spiritualism Party. To this day, I don't know why, but I cried. I quickly found Ceremonials online and my inner Whirling Dervish came out, and I spun and spun until the mounds of homework, the essays, the big bad world became nothing but a blur as I finally lost myself. I lost myself to the power, to the spirit, to the true beauty of Florence and the Machine.

For the first time in my short life, I lost myself to a force of nature, not a frat party, not to others opinions on how my life, my world show work. It was just me in a white floral nightgown, a grey carpet, and Ceremonials I could slip into this creation, this vision, this inspiration, and it showed a fundamental
truth about myself: if there is beauty inside you then you are complete. But if there is love inside you then you are complete. I lived behind a guarded heart and let others opinions be the sculptor of my future. But Florence and the Machine makes sure that I remember in my darkest moments and when my spirit is
crumbling into ash that I am a being of beautiful creation. Music has such tremendous power to rock the foundations of our world and FATM did more than that. It dug up my earth and re-rooted me. It is because of Florence and The Machine that I will make the world mine and had the courage to submit to the Floetry Contest with a piece for What the Water Gave Me.

My greatest wish besides meeting FTM is to honour them in my first book. I know that they must get this a lot, but thank you Florence and The Machine. There's a tiny smart-ass girl in Georgia with a unique name that will craft her own future because of you.

Perhaps my writing will save you one day.

Love always,
K.W.”

We hope you enjoyed this week’s special Flow Feature. Send us your story today [email protected]. We want to hear everything about you and how Florence + The Machine, or even the individual band members inspired you, as much detail as you want to give. 

This weeks Flow Feature is on Al Pagliaro!!

He first discovered Florence + The Machine in 2009 when the song Kiss With A Fist appeared in the film Jennifer’s Body. From the second he heard her voice he was overwhelmed and had to find more of her music. When he did, a lot of it really hit home for Al. At the time he was still struggling to get over a bad relationship and his self-destructive tendencies. On top of all of this he was also dealing with his bipolar disorder.

Al found that he was able to escape into another world by blasting Lungs, and it made him feel that he wasn’t alone. The music made him feel as if somebody else had been hurt as bad as he had, which made him feel that he could get through his hardships and inspired him to live.

He blasts Florence + The Machine all the time, whenever he feels down, and whenever he’s happy. When he feels like going back to his old self-destructive tendencies, or when he misses his ex, he just has to think of lyrics from Florence + The Machine songs that comfort him. 

‘No more calling like a crow, for a boy, for a body in the garden. No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love...” 
 
‘Oh poor Atlas, the worlds a beast of a burden..”

“I start rushing towards the starlight. I wish that I could just be brave...”

He ended up spreading her music around like wildfire, encouraging everyone to listen to her incredible music. From when they were analysing the lyrics of British artists in an English Literature class, to
talking all about her to friends, to other teachers, and even just anyone on the street.

For Al, Florence + The Machine has shown him everything life has to offer, and inspired him to live his life. Florence’s lyrics have helped him move on from the past even when he thought that he never could. 

Florence + The Machine even inspired Al to get a massive tattoo of the Lungs album artwork across his chest. Al has been happier and much more confident since Florence herself saw this tattoo, and has decided that he will definitely be playing Never Let Me Go at his wedding and his funeral. 

Thank you Al for sharing your incredible story. We hope you all enjoyed this weeks Flow Feature. Don't forget to send us your story to [email protected]!!