Learning to Hum Again | The Founder Edit

My dog hardly ever barks.

Three times a year, maybe. That’s it. Bing Bing will look at you, wag at you, sit on your feet. But that sound almost never comes out.

I used to think it was just her personality.

Then I realised: I don’t sing anymore either.

I started vocal lessons at 13 and didn’t stop until I was 29. First with a church worship leader, then at a music school, and even with a classical soprano at university in the US.

When I came home, I signed as a recording artist. It’s also how I met the investor who backs SushiVid today. Funny how the threads run.

Later, while working in Singapore, I took up composing too.

Sixteen years. One whole circle.

And I never found what I truly wanted. Pop wasn’t me. I didn’t want to dance while I sang. If I’m honest, I wasn’t much of a performer. I loved the sound. I didn’t love the stage.

Then came ten years of startup life, and I didn’t make any music at all. I bought a digital piano somewhere in there. It mostly kept the room company.

Two years ago, I started doing breathwork with a teacher called Savy Ho. Her sessions usually end with her singing. No words, just vowels, rising and falling. I thought it was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.

At one session, she told me my throat chakra was stuck.

So I told her about a dream I keep having.

I’m in trouble, and I’ve been told there’s one word I need to shout: Jesus. Every single time, it won’t come out. I open my mouth and nothing. The dream always stops right there, and I wake up in a cold sweat.

Help never came, because I couldn’t say the word.

I didn’t think much more about it. Until I looked properly at Bing Bing.

Like so many things in my life, she is exactly like me. I have asthma; so does she. I get recurring UTIs; so does she. I have thick bladder walls; she has bladder crystals.

I stopped singing. She barely barks.

Maybe her throat chakra is stuck too.

Since then I’ve been working with singing bowls, and getting certified as a healer. But nothing really moved me until a concert by Master Santa Ratna.

This time there was a voice in the sound. Someone was humming.

And something in me said: this. Not the stage. Not pop. Just sound that starts somewhere inside and goes somewhere quiet.

Here’s the part I find hardest to write.

I’m a Christian. In a vision, I once saw myself as a worship leader. That was the picture: me, leading people in song.

And there’s always a fear sitting underneath all this. Breathwork, sound healing, singing bowls: in my mind, they’re tied up with Buddhism. So I keep asking myself, how did I get from Hillsong to Master Santa Ratna?

It’s why I’ve hesitated to buy singing bowls of my own. The last time I brought it up, a friend asked me a simple question: to what end? First the yoga. Then the vipassana. Now a full set of bowls.

That question stayed with me. Have I ever given my tithe that much? Did I truly give Jesus the same chance? Or is that tied up in the money I give the church, as if the cheque were the whole of it?

I don’t have a neat answer yet.

But I notice the first person who ever taught me to sing was a church worship leader. And I notice the word that gets stuck in my throat, every time, in that dream.

Maybe this isn’t a detour away from that vision. Maybe finding my voice again is part of the way back to it.

The honest problem is time. A new jewellery brand. SushiVid, and the SaaS model we’re building next. A list of other things I want to start.

Some days it feels like life simply doesn’t give me enough time for anything.

But I wrote, only two weeks ago, that the time was never the thing running out. My heart was.

So maybe this doesn’t need a business case, or a free afternoon I’ll never find. Maybe it starts with five minutes, a singing bowl, and one hum. Not to perform. Just to let something out.

I’ll be honest: I don’t know where this leads. I don’t know if it’s part of the plan. But it’s something I’m genuinely considering, and I’d rather walk towards it with open hands than pretend I’m not curious.

Who knows where it leads? Maybe somewhere more beautiful than I can picture from here.

For now, I’m giving myself permission to make sound again. Five minutes at a time. One hum at a time.

And maybe one day, Bing Bing will bark back. I’d like to be singing when she does.