Geri Horner looks back on her regrets with "compassion and humour".
The former Spice Girl – who has 10-year-old daughter Bluebell with her former partner Sacha Gervasi and one-month-old son Montague with her husband Christian Horner – tries her best to look positively at the mistakes she has made in the past.
She said: "My mother asked me recently if I regretted anything. Wisdom with hindsight can be obnoxious, yet also useful and humbling. I guess it depends on how philosophical I’m feeling.
"Forgive the cliché but mistakes can be turned into useful lessons. Sometimes they are cringe moments we all want to forget, but we can also develop any awkward experiences into comfortable truths. I think the best way to look back at any regrets is with compassion and humour. One large spoonful of humility can help."
And the 44-year-old singer has reflected on her 90s self through her latest music and feels she has gone "almost full circle" since her Spice Girls days.
She added: "I think I’ve gone almost full circle as an artist. I turned 18 in 1990 so, as a young adult, there was a huge bravado and an unconscious spirit that drove me forward with confidence and abandonment. This became clear in the music I was writing. But, as one gets older, gets more life experience and absorbs outside influences, we get more cautious and sometimes over-think things. On reflection, as I create music in this new phase of my life, I’m very aware that my musical taste has evolved, but I do think I went through a period of trying to hold on to what I knew.
"Now, in the essence of the music I’m making and the lyrics I’m communicating, I’ve really just gone back to where I started. I’m writing songs instinctively about how I feel rather than trying to be in with the in-crowd. I’ve gone back to move forward and feel I’ve woken up with a passion to express myself with honesty and without caution or self-consciousness. That’s freedom."
Geri’s documentary ‘Geri’s 90s: My Drive to Freedom’ will air on BBC Two on Saturday March 11 at 9pm.