Welcome to tonight’s Flow Feature! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day, and survived the Boxing Day retail experience. This Flow Feature is the last in our Christmas ‘mini-series’, and we hope you enjoy it. Tonight we would like to introduce you all to Emma Goffe from Portsmouth, England.

The first Florence + The Machine song that Emma heard was ‘What The Water Gave Me’. She heard it for the first time played by her sister on an MP3 player that she had borrowed from a friend.  From the first listen Emma was pulled in by Florence’s voice, amazed at how beautiful the sound was. From then on, she insisted that her sister play it at every opportunity, as well as the other Florence + The Machine songs on the player. 

A few months passed, and by now Emma knew every Florence + The Machine song there is. She continued to be blown away by Florence’s soaring vocals, astounded that someone could create such a beautiful sound. Emma began investigating this beautiful, goddess of a woman, learning everything there was to know about her. When she chose her subjects for school, she tried to think through Florence’s mind, and find subjects that Florence would choose herself. 

Emma admits that she isn’t very good at school, and is in the lowest set for most subjects. The only subjects in which she performs highly are art and textiles, the subjects that she chose on honour of Florence. Since finding Florence + The Machine, and idolising Florence Welch, Emma has been able to find her niche in life, and discover her previously hidden talents. 

If Florence hadn’t come into her life, Emma doesn’t know where she would be today. Emma is eternally grateful to Florence for helping her on the road she is now on.

Thank you to Emma Goffe for sharing your inspiring story. We hope that you continue to discover your identity and talents with the support you now have.

We hope you enjoyed tonight’s Flow Feature, along with the entire Christmas Flow Feature ‘mini-series’. It has been a pleasure to share these stories with you all, and we hope that they brightened your day, and even gave you any inspiration you needed.

This will also be the last Flow Feature of 2012! By the time next Friday comes around, we will be in a new year. Thank you all for your support this year, and we hope we can continue to do you all proud in 2013. 

Why not take the chance to start the New Year with a bang, and show your support for the Flow community. Send us your story today and you could just be the first Flow Feature of 2013. We can’t wait to hear what incredible and inspiring stories we will read about next year. 

Love to you all,

Inspiring Flows xXx


 

Welcome to part three in our Christmas Fow Feature ‘mini-series’! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day and were able to enjoy it with those dear to you. Tonight’s Flow Feature is on Jamie Sloan from the U.S.A, who thanks to Florence + The Machine was able to find the desire and ability to dance again.

Jamie first heard of Florence + The Machine when she came across the music video for Dog Days Are
Over. At the time Jamie had been held down by a long, deep depression after the loss of her parents. She lost the will to dance, and there was no joy left in her life. Then, one day, the song came across the airwaves and crashed into her life.

Something about the music video took hold of her, as if she were possessed and made her start moving her
body. From that moment on her will to dance spread like a fire until she had found her passion and skill once again. Jamie danced like there was no tomorrow and played the song repeatedly. She played it as loud as she could, so that she could share this beautiful song with the whole world and get as many people as
possible dancing and singing to this incredible track. Ever since that day her life has been fresh and new. She was able to retrieve her ‘groove’and found a reason to dance once again.

Jamie is grateful for everything that Florence + The Machine has done for her in her life. She will never forget what they helped her achieve. 

We hope you enjoyed tonights Flow Feature! Many thanks to Jamie Sloan for sharing your beautiful story. We hope that life continues to give back to you whether it be through Florence + The Machine or not. It’s so inspiring to see what people can overcome through a single track.

This time tomorrow we will be posting the last in our Christmas series. We hope you have enjoyed these
short Flow stories, and that they may inspire you to dance, or to sing, or to share your story in the same way that Jamie did. Send us your story tonight through our email, website or facebook. 

Merry Christmas, and to all a good night…

Inspiring Flows
xXx

Welcome to part two in our Christmas Flow Feature ‘mini-series’! We hope you enjoyed reading about Petko last night, and we hope tonight’s is just as good. Tonight’s Flow Feature is on Sascha van der Meer, who is very special to us as she was the first ever submission to Inspiring Flows. 

Sascha first discovered Florence + The Machine a few years ago while searching through a British ‘Top 40 Albums’ website. While scrolling through the pages, the image of a red haired beauty caught her eye. She had found the cover of Florence + The Machine’s debut album, Lungs. Sascha thought the band name sounded funny, but fascinating and rushed off to investigate. 

The first Florence + The Machine song Sascha heard was ‘Cosmic Love’. Sascha felt like she was being swept up into a world of dreams, and was overwhelmed by a wave of emotion that took over her mind. 

Since then, their music has helped Sascha to feel strong and powerful, and helped her to discover who she really is inside. Florence + The Machine inspired Sascha to start singing herself, something she had desperately wanted to do since she was a young girl. Her newfound inspiration and determination led her to where she is today, the lead singer and songwriter in her own band.

Sascha is eternally grateful to Florence + The Machine, who gave her the strength and courage to realise her dreams. 

We hope you enjoyed tonight’s Flow Feature. Our deepest thanks to Sascha van der Meer, you were our very first submission and led us to where we are today.

Here at Inspiring Flows, we hope you have/had a magnificent Christmas Eve and wish you a very merry Christmas. 

Inspiring Flows xXx

Those many months ago, when we first started Inspiring Flows, we received a small number of features that, while just as fascinating and inspiring, were not quite as long as many of our regular Flow Features have been. So, we decided that we would save them for a very special occasion! Tonight we begin the first in our Flow Feature 'mini-series', going right back to one of the first ever Flow Features we were sent. Tonight’s feature is on Petko Kolev from Bulgaria.

Petko first found Florence + The Machine through a T.V. commercial which included the song ‘You’ve Got The Love’, which grabbed a hold of him from the first note that came from Florence’s mighty lungs. Not long after he discovered the song ‘Cosmic Love’, which filled his heart with tremendous love. It was not long after that Florence + The Machine released Ceremonials. Through every track on the album Petko felt like he was soaring through the clouds.

Petko, like all of us immediately fell in love with Florence. He sees her as the “purest and best person in the world”, with the voice of an angel. He hopes that she receives every award and commendation out there, and hopes that her birthday this year was a truly wonderful event. He wishes that Florence and the band have a successful career, and thanks them for all that they have done for him.

This is the start of our Christmas gift to every Flow around the world, to every Flow who has been brave and generous enough to share their stories. Thank you to Petko for your wonderful submission, and we thank you for being part of this special event.

Keep an eye out on our website and various social networks over the next few nights for more of our Christmas series. 

Send us your story today and you may be first in line to be our Flow Feature in the New Year!

Happy holidays!

Inspiring Flows xXx

Welcome to this weeks Flow Feature! This week we accomplished a major milestone, reaching our first 100 followers on twitter. Thank you all for your ongoing support, none of this would be possible without each and every one of you. We hope that we are doing your stories justice through our Flow Features, and we cannot wait to tell even more of your stories as we continue forward. This weeks Flow Feature is on Daniel Ruiz Vanderbilt from Medellín (Colombia), who is an administrator of the successful fan base ‘Florence + The Machine Latinoamerica”.
 
Daniels story began a few years ago when Florence + The Machine was just starting to gain popularity around the world. Daniel was feeling down after a fight with a close friend, and decided that a few Coldplay songs would be the best way to cheer him up. During the search he saw a link for the track ‘Kiss With A Fist’, but at the time thought nothing of it and continued his search.

As the day ended Daniel was feeling more and more upset, and couldn’t see the feelings going away any time soon. It was not long after that day that he got a copy of ‘Top 50: Momsen’s Style Icons”. It was here that the name Florence + The Machine crossed his path again with the track ‘Dog Days Are Over’. Although his English was not very good, he was able to understand the song on a number of levels. From that moment, he had found meaning. He had found not only a favourite artist, but a way to appreciate all forms of art around him.

The song became his addiction, and he listened to it repeatedly to the point that he was able to learn every word, despite the language barrier. 

It was only a short time later that Florence + The Machine appeared in Daniels life yet again. Daniel spent days and days on the ‘MTV' website voting obsessively for Florence in the ‘VMA Awards’. He waited through the whole show just to see her perform live. During the performance Daniel was overwhelmed by emotion, and sat applauding in his room with tears in his eyes, so proud of and inspired by Florence’s incredible performance. Although Lady Gaga won most of the awards throughout the night, Daniel later noticed that Florence had won the award for Best Art Direction for none other than his favourite song, the song that led him to his new life, Dog Days Are Over. 

After this night, Florence + The Machine exploded into the media and onto every radio around. Daniel began hearing more and more of her songs and decided that there was no alternative, he HAD to find a copy of her debut album, Lungs. He looked everywhere, but finding a copy all the way in Columbia proved to be quite the challenge. After a few weeks he finally found a store that has copies in stock and rushed off to collect his prize as soon as possible. 

It was then that he truly found happiness, and fell in love with the band during every single track. Now that he had the album he was able to hear just how talented Florence was, how unique and beautiful her voice was, not to mention the incredible Machine backing her up. 

It was then that Daniel began his search for others who had been affected in the same way by their music. He began searching online, joining Facebook fan clubs left, right and centre, discovered the entire Flow community and became a faithful follower.

Florence + The Machine began changing every aspect of his life. Whenever he felt sad, all he had to do was play a track from his treasured album and he would find overwhelming joy and happiness like he never felt before. No matter what emotions he was feeling, no matter what was going on in his life, Lungs was there to guide him.

A year later we were all eagerly awaiting album #2. When Daniel heard ‘What The Water Gave Me’ for the first time he felt like he had been swept up into an angelic choir. Then a song that affected him even more came out. When he listened to ‘Shake It Out’ he was overwhelmed by a wave of euphoria like nothing he had felt before. He felt as if he were in heaven, in a whole other world.

Ceremonials finally arrived in Columbia on the 3rd of November, and he was the first to go and collect a copy. Once he had his next treasure, he found space to be alone and enter the magical world of Florence + The Machine with all new material. He couldn’t believe just how incredible the album was. At the time it was raining around him, creating an even more beautiful atmosphere to experience Ceremonials.

In the weeks following the release of Ceremonials Daniel became more and more fanatic about his love for the band. If the first two albums had left any doubt in his heart and mind, the recent release of MTV Unplugged  proved Florence + The Machine to be one of the most special and unique artists that he has ever known. 

Living in Columbia it is often hard to find the latest artists around the world, which made it so special that Daniel was able to find Florence + The machine and the community of Flows. Florence + The Machine have had a massive impact on Daniels life. Their music has the ability to make him happy no matter what is going on in the world around him. On top of that, since listening to Florence + The Machine he has been able to practice and improve his English skills. Through the lyrics to their songs, Florence + The machine have opened his eyes to new worlds beyond what he had dreamed. 

Daniel can still hardly believe how beautiful Florence’s voice is, and to this day gets a smile every time he hears it. He believes they perform better on stage where they are able to express their songs in special and different ways. Florence is now a part of his life which he would never live without, and he is proud to call himself a Flombie/Flow. 

The tears that he shed writing his submission were not of sadness, but of happiness and pride that hit him ‘like a bullet in the back’ those years ago, and remain with him to this day…

We hope that you enjoyed this weeks Flow Feature, many thanks to Daniel for sharing his story! We will be running a special series over the Christmas week, more details to come so keep an eye out on our facebook and twitter! We would love to read your story next, send it in via email or through out website!

Inspiring Flows XxX

Welcome again to our regular readers, and to every Flow around the world joining us. This weeks Flow Feature is an interesting one, about Lali Italiano who has shared a beautiful and intriguing memory with us of a time where the mere thought of Florence and her music helped her through a dark night and inspired her to see beyond her life as it was.

It was a night that she will always remember. She was lying in bed and the walls were covered by faces that were watching her, waiting for something. And so began Lali’s experience in the form of a dream or hallucination that went on through the night…

She was quite ill, and her body was hot. She thought she was going to die, plagued by a fever that would not let up. 

Florence’s whispers were like a chorus of ghosts as Lali spoke the words ‘Shake it out, shake it out” into the darkness around her. 

When Florence appeared she looked like a mermaid as suddenly Lali’s room became a sea. Water began to enter Lali’s lungs and Florence’s eyes were reflected in her own. Florence reached into Lali and kissed her heart. 

Then suddenly Florence tried to run and get out of this body, but she was stopped by dogs at the door, Virginia Woolf on the shelf and the ghost of Lali’s grandmother who was flickering in and out between the frames of the dream. Florence could not leave, and now a machine had taken hold of a demon and Lali’s feet.

When these shadows came near to Lali, Florence took a hold of her hair, which was red like the colour of her heart. Lali felt like Alice falling down the hole as Virginia watched the waves, which were taking her mind from consciousness to a world of universal love. 

All night this fever raged and Lali spoke to the ghost of Florence for comfort. The night seemed never ending and Lali’s entire life up until that night was reflected in Florence’s eyes. 
 
Suddenly everything in the room around her fell down. The ghost of Lali’s grandmother and a child singing while playing the harp came over and filled Lali’s body with the entire universe, and Lali felt she could take no more. Her skin turned pale and she felt the end was coming. 

But then it was dawn and Lali’s eyes opened to feel the sun singing, and her third inner eye could see mystical creatures playing in the garden.

After this night Lali has been opened up to a whole other world, and thanks Florence for getting her through the night and to a place where she could see beyond, find these new visions and see the world of magic first hand. 

Thank you to Lali Italiano for sharing this strange but magical night with us. Florence has this mysterious power to take us to and open us up to beautiful worlds that we never could have imagined. It’s wonderful to read about what has grown in the minds of other Flows thanks to Florence + The Machine and their music.

We hope you likes this weeks Flow Feature! Send us your story today and next week it could be inspiring other Flows around the world…


Inspiring Flows XxX