This much I know: Kim Sheehan, Soprano

For me, walking on stage means stepping out into a place where I feel very comfortable.

I absolutely love it. I love the lights, the feeling of intensity that comes from the audience and being part of what everyone else around me on stage is doing.

I started singing when I was nine. I went for piano lessons and then they found out I had a voice.

As a child, I was outgoing on the outside but shy inside. I didn’t seek attention. I didn’t like speaking out. As soon as I found out I could sing, that became my medium for self expression.

After school I went to DCU to study languages but I was distraught once I realised music was my calling, so I switched to a music degree in DIT.

The decision came easily. Then I took up a scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London. That’s where I met my husband Tom Hodge. He’s become a very successful composer.

I’m a romantic. There is a pull out there that pulls each of us in one direction — you need to listen to it and follow it.

I’m moderately disciplined. I try to stick to a routine that allows for some flexibility.

My biggest challenge has been learning to deal with the incessant travel to gigs — the packing, the planes, the hotel rooms. I repeat only one mantra — it’s not about the arrival, it’s about how you get there. That helps to calm me down if I feel out of control and things get delayed.

I grew up with this whole sing song thing at home and I used to love joining in. But when you are on stage and singing all the time, that changes. Now, I don’t sing at family gatherings. I never know what to sing, opera is so loud and big for those occasions. This is one of my foibles.

I believe more in re-incarnation than in a simple afterlife.

I grew up in Crosshaven, by the sea. Dad was a painter and then an electrician and mum was a secretary, and then she brought us all up. I have five brothers and one sister. I’m number six.

At present, home is my apartment in London, but we’ve just bought a plot of land in Myrtleville in Cork and are building our own house.

The best piece of advice I ever got was from my mum. She told me that you have to be accountable for your talent and follow your heart and dreams, because you will be answerable for whether or not you used your talents.

I love anything physical — I’ve done a lot of dancing and I run.

I’m a morning person. I get up early and do my meditation and yoga to clear my head and get ready for the day. I meditate again in the evening.

I follow an Astanga yoga practice — it is really good for the mind for clarity and strength and feels wonderful for the body. It is like way of living life and a whole philosophy in itself. When I worry that it is beginning to eat into my time, my teacher, who is amazing, reminds me to simply get on that mat.

I hate being late.

My idea of misery would be working for a big company with the sole aim of making money. I’d do anything else — sit all day at a computer, clean toilets — as long as it was ethical.

So far I’ve learnt that life is short and fleeting, so there is no point getting stressed out by everything.

Kim Sheehan appears in Der Vampyr in the Everyman from June 21 — 27.