You are the one you’re waiting for.
Bronagh Gallagher is an Irish singer and actress from Derry, Northern Ireland. She started acting as a teenager and her big break came when she starred as Bernie in the hit film, The Commitments. Her first album Precious Soul was released in 2004, and she has appeared on stage, television and in such films as Thunderpants, You, Me & Marley, Divorcing Jack, Pulp Fiction, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Last Chance Harvey, and Sherlock Holmes. Her nomadic lifestyle has her living primarily in Ireland, London and Los Angeles.
the interview
At a friend’s birthday party, right before meeting her, I immediately recognized Bronagh as “that cool girl from The Commitments.” She is hysterically funny and beautifully Irish. We spoke a lot about the subject of epiphanies and my project before Bronagh agreed to an interview; she wanted to first make sure she grasped the breadth of what I was hoping to do by asking people to share their most transformational moment. That’s the kind of person and artist she is. You can watch and read her epiphany below and I wrote about what her epiphany meant to me years later here.
the epiphany
“You’re the one you’re waiting for.
Let your spirit catch up with you and reveal the answers you need.”
-Bronagh Gallagher
I am an actress and a musician but had really been focused on my music career for three years while living in my hometown in Ireland, but wanted to go back to acting. My agent of thirteen years had retired so I had a new agent who said I needed to come to London to work. I had to leave Ireland, and that was really tough, leaving my family and friends. I did it, though, rented out my house and went to London.
But I was very resistant to the change. I didn’t want to go. I wanted things to go the way I wanted them to go, and they just weren’t. For one of the first times in my life, I wasn’t working. And I’m not used to sitting about waiting. I’ve always been very busy and was constantly focused on what’s next, what’s next, what’s next.
It was a very tough time. I also had just gone through a heartbreaking breakup, and an injury that I had from falling down stairs when I was twenty-one was really affecting me. I was in a great deal of pain – I mean, I was thirty-three years old, and couldn’t even bend down to tie my shoes, and it hurt to walk. I think the stress of me not working and not wanting to be there was causing it, but I was having a lot of pain, spasms, and nerve trauma.
One day I was walking along the street, in pain and really, you know, miserable, and my agent called me. I answered and we spoke about what was going on and then he said to me, “Let’s get this boat back in the water. You just get ready. Be ready because it will all turn around. We’ll get this boat back in the water. Don’t you worry.” He was basically saying he believed in me and loved me and everything was going to be okay. It was so emotional for me because in that moment, I realized I didn’t believe in myself at all but someone else did. I knew I had to change my attitude of sorrow, I needed to be the one to “get this boat back in the water.” I had people who loved, supported and believed in me, but I needed to do that for myself to change things around.
Strangely enough, I had stopped to talk to him on the street and was in front of a Bikram yoga studio that I had noticed before. I’d heard Bikram yoga had helped people that have had accidents or injuries. When we hung up, I looked at it, and just marched in and bought myself a month’s class. For two hours every day for one month, I went to yoga. I also read the book, The Alchemist and changed my diet. My entire life shifted.
I had never done yoga, but I got my head around it, and it got my head and body together. I realized this is something I have to do now the rest of my life. It’s is a life’s work. That’s why yoga’s call the practice of yoga. It’s not something that you actually achieve in one class or a few classes. It’s a practice every day. If you’re somebody like me who has a hugely active mind, you learn to still the mind. It’s a huge thing. You have moments of unity, moments of great peace.
I found my self-belief and self respect again, and I work every day at keeping fear at bay. I’m not saying I’m just an absolute raving happy person all the time now, but there is so much to appreciate. I focus on what I have, rather than what’s lacking like I used to. My health, my family, our elders and friends, incredible people that I’ve had the honor and pleasure of knowing and learning from them—even the wonderful music and nature that’s surrounding us—the beauty and the brilliance of it all, that’s what I look at now. It’s all a gift.
I realized we are entirely responsible for ourselves—what happens in your relationship with yourself, partners, friends, parents, family, animals, work—everything. We’ve such a huge responsibility in life to be good to ourselves, and to be good to the people around us. It’s not always easy, but you’ve got to do it. No one else can make us happy or do the work for us. That’s classic stuff, but it’s true.
You are the one that will bring you the answer. You are the one that will love yourself and will be good to yourself, or give you all the answers that you need. That’s what life’s journey is—to feel at one with yourself. And that’s a lot of hard work sometimes.
There is a great story I heard recently about a particular Amazonian tribe. This tribe will walk for eight hours a day, and then they stop and stay stationary and very still for a couple of hours. They stop to let their spirit catch up with them.
I love that. The idea of that is so important. Sometimes in life you just have to stand still. If you’re searching constantly to the exterior for the answer, it won’t be there. Sometimes it’s just about standing still and letting the answer reveal itself to you. It’s okay to stand still. Doesn’t mean you’re not there with your intention of what you want to do. But it’s in these moments of static life that I believe the real work is done. You can pretend you’re doing it, but the real work—the growing up, the acceptance of who and what you are and what you want to do, and the acceptance of others—is in those static moments. You are the one you’re waiting on. Stop. Let your spirit catch up with you. It will reveal the answers you need.
Human beings, we are the epiphany. We are the miracle. You are the one you are waiting on. Nobody else. So get that boat in the water!
