On ego and my massive spiritual awakening...

...while tidying my sock drawer

Photo by Vivek Doshi on Unsplash

Do you sometimes do things because of your ego? I must admit I do.

I want to write something you will like, comment on, re-post, send to your friends. It means what I write means something to you. And of course I’m pleased when something hits home. So that also fuels my ego a little bit.

But my ego also means I am jealous sometimes. I’m jealous of people with loads of subscribers and followers on Substack (the platform I publish this on).

I’m jealous of people who were once magazine editors or long-term lifestyle features writers for newspapers or magazines (or still are) and come here and hey presto! Everyone follows them here. And they get likes and shares and subscribers and people who pay to read their work.

I took a different path to writing. I started my career in advertising, was terrified of it, left, worked as a PA, moved home to my parents, went to Ethiopia, went back to college and became a business journalist at 31, writing for a construction industry magazine.

I went freelance at 38, nearly 9 years ago. I’ve never worked in-house for a glossy mag or a national paper or a Sunday supplement, I am not a ‘name’ in the media world. But I am fortunate to make a good living from my day job - a mixture of ghostwriting, copywriting, consultancy and journalism, and my business background helps with this.

I started writing The Honesty Box nearly four years ago because I wanted to express myself and be brave enough to say how I was feeling about being single without children, and writing felt like a natural way to explore these topics. And I hoped I’d help other people feel seen.

And slowly, steadily, I think I am doing this. Some of you have written comments that you’ve cried after reading one of my posts. I have had emails from people saying thank you. And I love that you are here. Thank you.

So back to my ego. I know I have good ideas. I know I write stuff that touches people. There’s a part of me that is here shouting “Hey! You! I’m over here! I’ve got something to say!” and is frustrated when what I write isn’t more widely read or reposted.

But actually, I think having an ego isn’t always a bad thing. It is what keeps me writing, in a way. Jealousy can spur me on to be better, to learn from the brilliant, bold, clever, funny, touching writing that makes me think differently about life - actually, no, make me want to DO life differently. Like these writers:

What Would A Woman Do To An Unconscious Man If She Thought No-One Would Find Out?

I didn't want a job

So the reason people have lots of subscribers is because they write brilliant stuff, and I think now my ego is allowing me to realise this, have some humility and try to read and learn from them.

There is another side to this. The non-ego part of me wants to write to find out what I’m thinking. To put words down and discover. I don’t have to pitch to an editor and write to a brief. I can simply show up on the page and say what I think, or work it out while I write.

There is a risk that I will have nothing of interest to say to you if you’ve signed up because I often write about not having kids when I always thought I would and how life is for me now. But sometimes I write about dogs or my messy bedroom or MY NIGHT WITH DAVID BECKHAM, which have nothing much to do with anything.

If I write about other random stuff, there is a risk that I will lose you if you’re here for the single/childfree/childless content. So what I write is a combination of what’s going on for me that I hope might be useful in some way to you, and a bit of self-indulgent stuff that explores something else. (Maybe that’s also useful/funny in some way. I hope so.)

So anyway. There’s my ego, and there’s self-indulgence and there’s something else I want to write about today, which is that I think I might be in the middle of a massive spiritual awakening and I’m still processing what’s going on.

Actually, my last post was about not having kids and trying to find meaning in life and that was kind of spiritual, so what I’m feeling is starting to seep out. And I am living this. This is my life. I am, right now, a person sitting quietly in north west London who is working out - or trying to work out - the meaning of life.

Somehow, even things like tidying my sock drawer have meaning - or certainly it now brings me joy that all of the drawers of my eight year-old Ikea Hemnes chest now completely close and that when I open the drawers I will be able to pick out my socks like they are sweeties.

I haven’t written about this new spiritual/meaning of life me fully, because I don’t yet know how to. But I do think this evolution of Lucy has been going on a while without me noticing, simply in the things I’ve been seeking that give me joy (middle-aged clubbing, my life’s soundtrack, how nature heals), and it wasn’t until I did a retreat in Somerset over new year that things started to come together. But I don’t want to write too much about it until I have something real to say.

Anyway, what I will say that today, spirituality meant noticing my ego and then letting go of it a little. While tidying the drawer that houses exercise clothes, walking socks, old t-shirts, belts and bikinis, I was listening to a playlist I’ve recently made. There’s house music on it, gospel tunes, soul music, disco and the odd power ballad. The rain poured outside and I took a break from the socks, and danced, eyes closed.

While I danced, I started thinking about an upcoming weekend away I’m going on with some girlfriends and I decided I wanted to play DJ there. I decided that I wanted to choose the music and for everyone to dance to it.

And then - still dancing with my eyes closed - I thought, well if I choose all the music that’s really about me - and what I want. So then I thought about how I could let go of my ego a bit, and invite everyone to suggest five songs they would like to be on the playlist, and I’ll make it, and we can put it on shuffle and see what comes up for each person, and when it’s ‘their’ song we can celebrate them, and maybe we can even talk about those songs the next day over breakfast and why we all chose them.

So maybe, just maybe, something that started off as ego can become a collaboration from the heart. And that’s got to be good, right?