128: How to Thrive as a Solo Woman Without Kids with Lucy Meggeson

You are gonna love my guest today - as a Canadian, to me, she's the quintessential funny, beautiful, British lady.  And she's thriving solo.  No partner, no kids.  But she didn't always feel that way. 

On this episode, Lucy Meggeson, host of Spinsterhood Reimagined, joined me to share her journey from hard done by to happy as a single woman without kids.  But even if you have a partner, stick with me for this one.  Lucy dropped so many golden nuggets of mindset shifts and tools that all of us childless people can benefit from.

You are going to discover Lucy's secrets to being happy even without a partner or a child.  It is entirely possible!

Lucy Meggeson worked in production at BBC Radio 2 for several years before becoming the host and producer of her own podcast, Spinsterhood Reimagined — a podcast that celebrates all things single, childfree and personal growth. She’s a regular on Jo Good’s BBC Radio London show and has been a guest on various other radio and podcasts, including Jeremy Vine’s BBC Radio 2 show and Peter McGraw’s ‘Solo: The Single Person’s Guide to a Remarkable Life’. Lucy is based in London. She lives alone and enjoys a full, peaceful, contented and meaningful life (with a cat named Johnny Depp).

Where to find Lucy:
Instagram: @spinsterhoodreimagined
Website: www.lucymeggeson.com
Membership: Thrive Solo

If you are a childless woman looking to up-level her life in a major way, join the Love Your Beautiful, Unconventional Life Retreat, coming up at the end of February 2025.  Book a Retreat Call with Sheri here if you have questions or want to know more!

Where to find Sheri:
Instagram: @sherijohnsoncoaching
Website: sherijohnson.ca

Transcript

welcome back to the Awakening Worth podcast. I am super excited about my guest today. 

Her name is Lucy Meggeson, and she is also the host of her own podcast, Spinsterhood Reimagined, and if you haven't listened to that before, go over there and listen, because I was on there just last week, and so I'm excited to have Lucy here because I haven't had that many guests who are open and willing to talk about this single life, single and childless, and so I'm really excited to dive into Lucy's experience and also everything that she has learned along the way, which she's going to share a tiny bit of with us today.

So welcome, Lucy.

@5:44 - Lucy

I'm really delighted to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very happy to be here.

@5:49 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

It's great see you again so soon. I know I was thinking the same thing. So I like to really dive into the good stuff fast, so I'm gonna ask

you first to just talk a little bit about your story, how you landed here. I'm going to get into how you got your your business and your membership going, but let's hear a little bit about your personal story first.

@6:13 - Lucy

Yeah, sure. So, gosh, I mean, how far back shall I go? Well, okay, so I'll start by saying that I have always been in, always, I've been single for more than seven years, but throughout the vast majority of my adult life, I've been in many, many long longish term relationships.

I don't think they actually are very long term, my longest boy, my longest relationship was about four years. I felt quite long at the time, but no, so I have had many boyfriends over the years, and I think I always assumed that I would, quote unquote, end up getting married and having kids, not because I was passionately driven by a desire to get married and have kids, but just because.

that is what society dictates that we are supposed to do and that we're going to do. So I never really thought too much about it.

You know, throughout my 20s and my 30s, I had, as I say, various relationships. And actually thinking about the kids thing, I had, although not having kids thing rather, I had never been one of those women who was super broody.

And I remember so clearly friends of mine talking, even when we were at school, talking about how much they wanted kids and how breeder they were up, they were.

And then, you know, going into our sort of, after we left school and going into our 20s, you know, was a conversation that I would hear my friends having, you know, they were certain of my really, really good friends who were just very vocal about the fact that they absolutely want to have kids.

And I always felt slightly outside of those conversations because whilst I assumed that I would have kids down the line, it's certainly wasn't something that was remotely entering my mind in my 20s and my 30s.

it was just something I assumed would happen at some point in the future whereas they seem to talk about broodiness and I remember sort of thinking many times I just don't feel, I just do not understand what this broodiness of which you speak actually is.

I never felt to broody and tell I pretty much exactly hit 40 and I had walked away from several really lovely long-term boyfriends, again long-ish-term boyfriends and there are about three guys in a row who it would have gone down or could have gone down the marriage in baby's route but I walked away because I got to about two or three years in and I would just feel like oh my gosh and I remember going to weddings in my 20s and in my 30s with various boyfriends and rather than sort of sitting there feeling like oh my god when's it gonna be my turn I'm more

else terrified at the prospect of kind of walking down the aisle and so yeah so I sort of walked away from these several lovely lovely guys and then I ended up when I was 39 getting into a relationship with a so lovely guy.

At the time I was working for BBC Radio 2 I worked there for many years music has always been my my first love really my passion in life and still is and don't know what you know Radio 2 but BBC Radio 2 is a very big one of the biggest sort of music stations out there yeah and I met this guy through my job he didn't actually work for Radio 2 but he was is a musician so I met him through that world and anyway at that time for the first time in my life I felt the feeling the very sort of strong and physical

feeling of being greedy. But to cut a very long story short, as I said, this was not a good relationship at all.

In fact, it was partly the reason why I left Radio 2. I was in really, really bad place at the time.

And because of this relationship, it was very toxic. know, we should never have been together. I should have left a long, long time before I did.

We were in together for about two and a half years, but I should have left after, you know, months, but I stayed for whatever reason.

And then, yes, we, I left my job at 2. We eventually broke up. And I found myself, sort of, in my 40s, single and without kids.

But not in any way feeling bad about it. In fact, I found myself feeling actually really bloody good about it in many, many ways.

And it was so funny because I remember, I remember one evening walking over Richmond Bridge. I, my flat in London where I'm not living now as you know, but where I'm usually living in southwest London is place called Richmond and I remember walking over Richmond Bridge one evening on the phone to one of my best friends and I remember just feeling like really happy.

It was this beautiful afternoon sort of early evening and I remember feeling like gosh, I just, I just feel really great for no other reason than I just do.

You know, it's not because of a bloke, it's not because of a job, it's not because of a baby, it's not because couple of years to 2020 when I had left Radio 2 and subsequently left another career that wasn't right for me, that's another story entirely.

But during lockdown, I found myself for the first time ever in my entire adult life, I found myself with time, like actual time and space to think for the first time in my, yeah, as I say in my entire adult life and

It was so funny because I had never, in a million years, one, ever thought about starting my podcast and two, I'd never thought about working in the single child-free space.

just wasn't something had ever occurred to me. The fact that I was single and childless was kind of neither here nor there.

It was what it was. But I was sitting outside my flat on another beautiful evening for what I just mentioned, but I was sitting outside my flat.

It was July. I think this must been July 2020. And I was reading through some WhatsApp messages from a group of very close girlfriends who I've known for years.

And I remember, and they're all married with kids, and I remember thinking to myself, my gosh, I'm just, I just suddenly felt really sort of smug.

I just felt incredibly lucky to be single and to not have kids. They were sort of lamenting their married lives and their kids and it was locked down and I think it was really hard and in love.

And there was I thinking, my gosh, I actually feel pretty bloody awesome. And then I had a subsequent thought, which was, so why does everybody think that my life is really , because I'm single and I don't have kids?

And I swear to God, it was literally like this divine download from the universe that just appeared in my mind.

I was like, oh my God, I have to start talking about this. I still don't even really know where that came from.

And I walked back into my flat and I just started typing on my laptop. And I was like, oh my God, I've got to write, but literally I've got to write a book about this.

I've got to write a book about being single and not having kids and how great it is because no one is talking about it.

Anyway, the book in that form, the form as it was back then, that's another story, but I then decided a few months later to start a podcast.

And so that's what it did. And I started my podcast, Spin Stew to imagine in February, 2022. So almost, I can't quite believe it, but almost.

used three years ago and off the back of the podcast I have started my membership community for single women which is called Thrive, well single-child free women which is called Thrive Solo and here I am and one thing I will just add before I stop this ramble is that during these years of sort of changing my life and and what I didn't say is that I left another job and I decided I'd basically got to a point in my life where I knew that I wasn't reaching my potential and I'd always felt for many many years that there was so much more for me that I just wasn't fulfilling I wasn't self-actualizing I wasn't fulfilling what I knew I was capable of and I also started on this journey of personal growth and development which continues to this day so I've been doing it for some four or five years now which has quite honestly changed my freaking life because when you change the way that you think you change your life so that is where I find myself

@16:00 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And I want to get your, your take on that because I feel like I was meant for way more than having kids or having a partner or whatever I do have a partner, but, and I didn't always think this way, but I think people get all of us, we get so wrapped up in this, this is my purpose, I'm supposed to have kids.

And even the women who have kids, I still think they were meant for so much more than that. So tell me more about your, what you mean by that, how that really kind of fell into place for you.

@16:44 - Lucy

So, for many, many, many years, I had a feeling inside of me, which was that what I was doing was not enough.

Because, you know, I did, I did the nine to five for many years. it worked in London for years, like literally 20 years.

And I went from job to job, I was kind of searching, know, as I said, I worked for Radio 2 and then I decided to become a detective, which lasted for about 20 seconds because I absolutely hated it, that's a whole other thing.

But the point is that I was always searching for fulfillment, I was searching for something that made me feel like I was doing something that, well, doing something that was fulfilling essentially.

And as I said, going back, you know, throughout my years of what's I left university inside that, you know, went into the world of work, whatever I was doing, I just felt like, and it wasn't that I wasn't happy, it wasn't that it weren't great times and, you know, lots of good things happened all the rest of it.

There was always this underlying feeling within me, basically my intuition, like the a part of me that was saying, Lucy, you are meant for more than this.

This is just, this is not enough. And of course, you know, I thought that getting into the radio station that I wanted to get into, I thought that would be the thing that would bring me the thing that I was looking for.

And then I thought the next job would bring me the thing that I thought I was looking for. And actually, I realized that, can I start that again?

Thank God you've got a notice, hang on. Sorry, person who's editing this, I'm probably just slightly off my phone.

And then when I go back to the bit in lockdown, when I finally had time to actually think about what it was that I wanted for my life, I basically made a very, very clear decision, which was, I am no longer going to suck up a life that I feel I should be living.

I have been working in various jobs for years and decades. and I know so strongly now it's like my soul got to the point where it was literally it stopped whispering and started screaming at me like get the hell out of what you were doing you need to do something else and so I made this decision in lockdown which was I'm taking back control of my life I am gonna start from now living my life on my terms which basically means not going into an office to work for somebody else's dream it means following my dreams and doing something that is for me not in a selfish way but just I didn't want to do that you know nine to five sort of I just I wanted out of the matrix if you like if I can put it like that yep and it really and the thing is I personally think that a lot of us have this feeling inside because we are not designed human beings are not designed to go

school, go to university, get a job in the corporate world and work 95 for the rest of our lives.

We're not actually designed to do that. And the way that I felt for so many years was that I was living, but I didn't feel like I was actually alive.

And we've all had those moments where you feel alive, where you feel full of excitement and promise and just, you know, excitement for the future.

That is how we should, well, that's actually how we should all be feeling, but so many of us aren't because we've been conditioned to think that we have to go down this particular road and do these particular things.

And when it comes to having or not having kids, I mean, I was never one of those women that felt being a mother was my purpose.

But I really, truly think that, you know, and this is from knowing my own friends who have kids. Their kids are not their purpose.

Their kids are, you know, they adore their kids. is but but they're not everything. Do you know what I mean?

They are not, you know, they have jobs and they have things that they want to do and they they they have someone that they want to be and I think that sometimes we can think that this one thing, you know, having a baby is going to bring us everything that we need in life and it just doesn't work like that.

Life just simply doesn't work like that and apart from anything else, when we are sort of searching for something outside of ourselves, when we're waiting for this or that, you know, I'll be here at that classic, I'll be happy when, which I've fallen into that trap for my whole life and many of us do.

But what I've realized in this journey is that actually we have to find that happiness. We have to the void that we're trying to that the void that we're trying to fill, actually only we can fill that void.

And one other thing that I just want to bring up about sort of you know what I was saying just now about feeling like what I was doing wasn't enough and needing more.

think part of the problem, certainly for me many many years, was that I did not believe that I was worthy of more.

I did not believe that I was capable of more and I didn't believe that what I truly wanted, which is a big life.

Not I'm not talking about in any flashy way, but what I, I'm so sorry, hang on a minute. Okay.

What was I saying? Oh God.

@22:42 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Sorry. You didn't feel worthy, capable.

@22:45 - Lucy

Yeah. Thank you. And I think I didn't feel, I didn't feel, I didn't feel as if I was the kind of person who could have the

and of life that I had always wanted. I just didn't feel like you know I was like it just doesn't happen for people like me and I think what so many of us do is that we hold ourselves back because partly because we're conditioned to believe that actually and especially women let's face it you know it's like we hold ourselves back we we play small and I think this is a real problem again especially with women we we play small and actually we should be you know we should be shooting for the moon even if it feels realistic we should be following our dreams but for some crazy reason we feel like it's crazy to follow our dreams but actually I feel like it's crazy to not follow our dreams because we're growing here once but what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life as Mariola says I love that quote so much so yeah there's so much oh my gosh there's so much that I wanted to say about what you just

that.

@24:00 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I mean, first of all, I can so relate. I mean, I was in a corporate job, working nine to five, working more than nine to five.

And like, everything in my body was screaming at me to do like to follow, just to follow your intuition, just do what lights you up.

And I kept looking for this thing. Like, it was like I was searching for this thing. When finally, all I did was I said, what actually does me up?

what do I enjoy? And I think I said this on your podcast. Like, it was, I just liked fitness and health magazines.

And so I went and took one course that was on nutrition. And then eventually the universe, like it showed me out like it, I got let go for my job.

And I was like, what am I going to do? Well, I'm, have this nutrition diploma like why wouldn't I do this?

This is what the universe is telling me to do. And so I so relate to this like feeling all my life, all my adult life that there was something more for me that this just isn't what I was put on earth to do was you know do this resources work that is pretty thankless work and all really all that meaningful and there's more and I think I agree so many women go through life just kind of on autopilot without really dreaming first of all like even allowing themselves to dream and then oh when you said like I'm not the kind of person who gets to live those dreams or I don't coach and I don't know what to call her she does so many

things for me like energy healing and all the things she said to me just recently why don't you get to why don't all your dreams get to come true for you and I was like well I'm the kind of person who tries like I try to do that but I'm not the person who actually gets what I dream of of having doing feeling and she was like what did you hear what you just said like why not why doesn't why can't we all live the life of our dreams why do we just assume that that's not allowed we're not worthy of it it's not possible we're not capable yeah where's that come from exactly well I mean we just are so are subconscious minds are so full of limiting beliefs that tell us yes we can't do this or you know well that would never happen for me I'm not the kind of person who that could happen for I mean

@27:00 - Lucy

I give an example in my own life, when I worked at Radio 2, I worked in production and I would be up in the studios and various bands would come in and record and basically every single time I was up in those studios I would think to myself, you know, a lot of people would look at this job and think, wow, you know, sort of a great job at Radio 2, it's such a cool place to work and actually what I was thinking was going back to the year this isn't enough for me, all I was thinking was I want to be behind the microphone.

I either want to be one of the musicians because I was a musician myself, I had a music scholarship at school and I was in a band and blah blah blah or I wanted to be presenting the shows.

I didn't want to be the one on the other side of the glass, I wanted to be the person talking the microphone but at the time, and I remember thinking this, so clearly I remember thinking many times when I was at Radio 2 and I was there for several years, remember thinking, God I want

love to present. You know, it was always like, I always felt that I would love to be a presenter.

I don't think I ever even vocalised it to anyone, not one person I don't think over so many years, because I did not think it was a realistic goal for me.

I subconsciously thought, well, how ridiculous because clearly you're never going to get to be, you're never going to be a presenter.

And it was so interesting how then I ended up starting this podcast, but it wasn't like intentional, but very much I feel like I was guided to start my podcast.

And then would you believe it? Of course, I love it. I love presenting my French. I love presenting my podcast.

I interesting how we hold ourselves back. And ultimately, we, you know, this is a very annoying expression. Oh, you're getting in your own way, but we do.

We get in our own way, because we just assume that we cannot have the things that we want, so we don't go for them.

And also, I think that quite a lot of us, again, women, particularly, we sort of stomp down our dreams.

Well, you know, I don't care what anyone says, we all have a dream, you know, if, because if you say to someone, what are your dreams?

If someone's like, oh, I don't really know, I don't really have any dreams. If you actually felt it in a slightly different way and said, if there were no, you know, if there were no barriers, like, if you had all the money in the world, and people are like, Oh, well, if I had all of my in the world, then I would do this or that or the other.

So we do have dreams, just that we squashed them, because we assume that they could never come true. But why the hell not?

They can. They absolutely can. I truly believe that we can we can do whatever we want to do as long as we believe that we are capable of doing it.

If we don't believe we're capable, then we're not going to do it. But if we do, you know, it's like, if you think you can, or you think you can't.

We're right.

@30:01 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, and I think we quashed them before they've even formed in our head. Like, we're not even willing to go a tiny bit bigger than where we're at.

Like, it is so deeply ingrained that this is what we do. These are the expectations, just living in the Matrix, as you said, and don't even allow ourselves to come up with the dream until you really start, like you said, asking the question in different way.

Like, let's remove some of the limitations. let's say you did have all the money in the world, then what we would do?

Well, then you remove that limitation and then suddenly people open up and go, oh, well, then, oh, well, then I would do this and I would do that.

yeah, we put those, let me patience in place before we even get to the dream?

@31:02 - Lucy

Yeah, totally. We really, truly do and you know, this is something I feel so incredibly passionate about because I know it through experience.

I never believed in myself and it's taken a lot of work to cultivate that belief in myself and don't go wrong.

doubt myself every frickin day, but I just now do not allow that doubt to hold me back in the way that it used to.

know, it always helped me back for years playing smaller than I than I was capable of and than I wanted.

And actually, you know, going back to like so many of us, we, we, you know, if you asked every single person listening to this podcast, do you think that every single person listening to this podcast is doing the job that they love is doing it?

Like, and we'll just take, you know, everyone on this planet, how many people are actually doing a job that they genuinely love or doing something with their lives that they genuinely.

genuinely love. We have normalised doing something with our lives. We don't love. We've normalised that as if it's totally normal to be sucking up a job that we don't give a toss about.

We've made it to be something that is well that's what you just do. Well no it doesn't have to be what you just do and actually I truly think that anyone who's listening to this thinking oh well you know it's all right for you because it's like well actually no it wasn't all right for me it was it was a lot of work and I had to I became my sister's cleaner I got a part-time job and a coffee shop in order to be able to follow the things that I wanted to do but actually what it takes and if people are listening thinking well I just don't know where to start well the best place to start is to literally follow your curiosity just follow your curiosity follow something that interests you

We don't you know we look at say say we have a dream of I don't know whatever it is like writing a book or or coming or whatever it is we tend to look at the whole and so we feel overwhelmed when actually if only we would just break it down into tiny tiny weeny little baby steps that can be done at the same time full-time job by the way if only we could just break it down work out where our curiosity is taking us and just start following that because I really think that when you start to follow those intuitive images that things start opening up you know it's like if you if you start just making those little tiny but bold courageous moves then it's incredible what starts to magnetize itself towards you you know because you are coming into alignment with who you truly are oh yes you're speaking my language that I feel like this is so so in line with what I I have learned

@34:00 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

and to myself, and that's how I got to where I am as well. I also love doing my podcast, and as soon as I got the fears out of the way, I, that was like just a sort of an intuitive nudge.

They're not always, then they're not always not, they're not always that big, like starting a podcast seems like a big thing.

But sometimes it's just, you know, for me, it doing. I like reading fitness magazines. like reading health magazines. I liked food.

I just took a correspondence course. It wasn't huge. Maybe it's just going and picking up another magazine. just follow those nudges are like just little micro nudges.

It doesn't have to be, you know, we think this, like, purposes this big thing we have to find when it's like you said, it's just do what feels aligned.

Yeah, exactly. In the moment. Yeah. Okay, we've gone in a place where I never expected to go. Let's bring this back to you to being single.

So it sounds to me like, I don't, it sounds to me like you kind of came into your 40s single and feeling good about it.

So when do you think, like, I think for a lot of my listeners who are single and or don't have kids, they're kind of in the thick of this like brief or this is never going to happen for me.

And this is, they're not where you are. So when do you think that transition happened for you, first of all, that's my first question.

@35:52 - Lucy

I mean, I can, I can just say this, pinpoint accuracy. actually, I didn't come into my she's feeling particularly great.

was with the guy who I subsequently left, I was in an awkward shift, and actually I was kind of dreading turning, but I did that classic thing when I before I turned 40, I like, oh my god, I'm turning 40, or as ironically, I'm about to turn 49 actually on January the 1st, so I'm only a year off of 50, and ironically, I'm actually really excited about being 50, because I feel like my life is just getting started, and I feel excited about the future, whereas when I was 40, I wasn't there yet, and I can tell you, going back to the pinpoint accuracy, things changed when I changed the way that I thought about things.

When I decided to change my life, when I decided that I'd had enough of not feeling great, I'd had enough of just feeling average, and just feeling like, nah, you know, I'd had enough of dreading Monday morning every Sunday night, and just kind of living better, going back to what I said earlier, living, but

not really feeling alive and I made the decision and and I literally started reading books. It actually started because when I quit my job at the beginning of lockdown became my sister's cleaner, a barista in a coffee shop and you know and then subsequently started podcasting blah blah blah blah.

I actually my first entrepreneurial endeavor was becoming an Amazon seller, don't ever do it. Because literally I remember I remember so clearly sitting in my flat in London and like googling you know how all I almost think I like googled how to change your life or like it was like I was that desperate I was that desperate to feel better and to just yeah change my life.

So I anyway I signed up for this online Amazon course and I was with a load of there was a load of people doing this course and basically to cut a very long story sure what we used

have zoom sessions every at five o'clock every weekday actually this was during again this was June lockdown and there was this lovely guy who used to take some of these zoom calls and he would talk all about mindset and how incredibly important that is when you're doing anything like you know entrepreneurial anything in life for that matter and you know I had for years had quotes up in the the same quotes that I have around me right now say like I've got one here I can look at it now it's like can and I will watch me never never never give up you know or you know what you think you become all of these quotes so I sort of sort of thought about these things these kind of concepts that we've all heard of but I didn't really delve into what they actually meant until I was doing this course and this guy sort of started talking about mindset and blah blah blah and you know it coincided with me wanting to change my life and I just literally started reading

books. And I started listening to podcasts and I started doing all the things. I started, I mean, sounds so kind of an app, but I essentially started down a sort of a spiritual path.

And I always refer to it as in terms of I had a spiritual awakening. And that doesn't really need to do with religion, but it's just, all that means to me is that I just started to become more conscious of how things actually work.

And don't go wrong, I'm not saying I know it all far from it. I continue to learn every single day.

But it started to dawn on me with all of these people, you know, these hugely successful bright people who I was kind of reading their books and listening to their podcasts, all rivers were leading to the same ocean, which was you have to, you have to select the thoughts that you think you have to, you have to sort out your mindset, because until you sort out the way that you think about it,

about your life, your life is not going to change and for whatever reason during that time, the penny just dropped for me and I just went all in and I did the freaking work.

I did the work. I really, really did and that is how I got to a place where, you know, even if a guy came along now, you know, I'm not closed off to a relationship.

I'm not necessarily, I don't necessarily think anything be single for the rest of my life. I have literally no idea but the point is it doesn't matter either way because I'm good inside of myself and this is what I would want any women out there listening who desperately wanted to have kids but haven't for whatever reason.

We have the power to change the way that we think about our situation and change the way I love talking about victimhood and I feel like I can talk about victimhood without

you know, sounding like a because I because that was me. I was all like, oh but I'm not happy because this because of that because of that because of that.

It was never like actually Lucy. Maybe it's maybe the common denominator is you. And I think when we sit in victimhood and for example, I think I did a mini-thode about this actually on the pop car.

I sort of talked about that. You know, when I was in my 40s, I could sit here and go, oh my god, I'm 48.

I'm single. I'm jealous. I'm currently living at my mother's. I've rented my flat out in London because I'm trying to build my own business.

If I wanted, I could frame my life and make myself feel absolutely . If I wanted, if I chose to.

And 10 years ago, that's exactly what I, that is exactly what I would have done. That I would have sat in victimhood and looked at all of the terror

things and all of the negative things about my life and just sat in that victim mentality unable to help myself and been massively triggered if anyone had dared to tell me that it was my fault perhaps or it was something to do with the way that I was thinking or the way that I was being.

@42:16 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And then there's us just before we started recording talking about oh my gosh like how amazing is it that you can work from wherever and how you know anywhere in the world and do all these wonderful things because of the way you set up your life it's just two different ways of looking at it.

@42:35 - Lucy

Completely 100% so I just I suppose you know all I have to say that I just want the listeners to know how when it comes to finding your happy if you are not there yet it is 95% the way that you are thinking about your situation and that isn't today.

Undermining anyone who's going through grief. I've been through grief grief myself when it comes to not having a baby because even though You know, I said that I I was never particularly driven by that But I did stop to feel very very brilliant before she's in fact I still to this day feel pretty and I still have my moments to this day where I get that kind of like oh Diaphragm my stomach when I'm my my brothers just had this baby and I went to visit it He lives in the head and I went to visit the baby and there was a part of me.

There was a part of me that was like Oh my god, you know, but I think we have to realize that we can live in this duality.

can be you can be Still have waves of grief about not having had a baby or being single or whatever it is But that doesn't mean that the rest of your life has to be because of it And the rest of your life does not have to be defined by that story But if we continue to tell ourselves the story that you know, whatever it is Oh my god, my life is over because I can't have kids and therefore my life is over So I'm gonna be miserable if we continue to tell our

story that is going to play out in our lives. So we have to change, literally have to change the record we have to, we have to create a new story, we have to tell the story of what we want rather than just repeat the story of what we don't want.

@44:15 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Oh, it's so true. I'm so 100% on board with that. So something that I did really want to get to and I think what you just said was so powerful and there's still something that I think this that fuels that maybe fuels the victimhood and also can keep you feeling like you're not deserving or not not worthy of that life that you do want or the life that you can't that is possible to create.

And it's something that I hear my own single clients talk about. And that is shame that is around this like it's an

extra layer on top of not being able to have children, you weren't chosen. And I know I felt that way when, because I was single well into my 30s, my husband and I got married when I was 40.

And we, like, I think he balked at the commitment right until I was 39 and a half. So, and I felt that way.

I mean, I felt like nobody is choosing me. There's something wrong with me. There, you know, I, I had a client who just talked about like, I'm just not, I don't, I think there's a skill I'm missing, like a dating skill or a relationship skill or there's something I'm not good at.

There's something I'm not being up on. There's something wrong with me. So, can you talk about that piece?

@45:49 - Lucy

Oh my gosh, this is just, okay, number one, let's just, let's just be serious about this for a second.

Let's just, or rather, let's not be serious about but this kind of joke about this for a minute, although this isn't a joke, but any fuckwit can get into a relationship.

If you look at relationships, anyone can get into a relate or as in anyone, every type of person, lunatics, narcissists, selfish people, idiots, every kind of person gets into a relationship.

This idea that we haven't been chosen, it's so toxic and I mean, I'm not going to lie, this is truly, truly hard and I have, you know, I have struggled with this myself and I wouldn't say that I am completely void of any shame or void of any, you know, residual feeling of like, oh God, you know, I feel a little bit less than and I feel a little bit embarrassed and, you know, what to the people I was at school with think of the fact that I'm still single and don't have kids and blah blah blah.

But you know what? You cannot change what other people think. You cannot now. You cannot change what other people are going to think.

The only thing that you can change is you. The only thing that we have actual control over in our lives is how we think and the actions that we take.

That is it. So we've got to, that's number one. Well, that's number two. Number one is realize that any old we can get into a relationship.

So stop telling yourself there's something wrong with you because there are plenty of people in relationships who have plenty wrong with them.

So that is just a narrative that we've got to go.

@47:35 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And I would also... Sorry.

@47:39 - Lucy

Go ahead. No, no, You almost have to just make a decision to let these things go. And actually one thing before I to say this, I think one of the main things that I would say to any, any single woman who you're listening, or you know, as well as we don't have kids is that what you need is to find examples of people.

who are living the kind of life that you are. You need to find, there's a girl called Lacey Philipte who has a podcast called To Be Magnetic and she talks about expanders and it's one of the things that I feel so strongly about because it bloody works.

When we find examples, for example, find examples of women, single women who are rocking their lives, older single women who are rocking their lives, women without kids who are rocking their lives.

When you start to look for people like that, it is going to start to seep into yourself conscious that actually there isn't anything wrong with you.

This part of the reason I have my membership, that exact reason because by literally surrounding yourself with other women in the same situation as you, it really helps to setting off that, you know, a bit of that shame.

But there is no doubt about it. There's no quick fix to that and it is incredibly hard. again, we have to realize that the only thing that we

changes, not the opinions and the thoughts of other people that we can never change, it's how we choose to perceive it, how we choose to deal with it, how we choose to think about it.

@49:10 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, the thing I was going to add to that was just that, I don't know if I thought all of those thoughts was that there was something wrong with me, like there's a reason I felt a lot of shame around this not being chosen.

And yet, if I think back, there were all kinds of men who wanted to take me out on dates, and I didn't want to go with them.

I just didn't feel a vibe, the chemistry. And so, I was the one who actually said no, but I was never acknowledging that.

So, I could have been in a relationship, it wouldn't have been a good one, but lots of people do that, they get into a relationship, it's not a great relationship, but they stay because they're afraid of what might happen if they leave, what it might mean about them if they leave.

And so, I think probably most. single women out there have had those, those part, it doesn't have to be men, like whatever, they've had those, those people come into their lives who have wanted, have chosen them.

@50:11 - Lucy

And they've said, no, uh, yeah, it's so interesting and infuriating how people just assume that if you're a single woman, it's because you haven't been chosen rather than the other way around.

And actually, that's one thing I have talked about on the podcast from day one to make the point that no, it's not about being not chosen.

I am where I am because I have chosen to walk away from relationship, but people just assume if you're a woman that you haven't been chosen.

But again, you know, if we want to, we can focus on all of those narratives, or we can focus on the thing that we do have control over, which is how we are going to deal with this moving forward.

Um, and yeah, but I mean, you know, shame is just, there are no no good comes of feeling shame.

And I think that I'm not saying that this is easy as just making a decision to let it go.

But I am saying that it starts with making a decision to try and do things to help you let it go.

Not looking for examples of people who are single and gorgeous and living amazing lives and are really happy and who've quite clearly chosen that life.

And also the other thing to remember and I say this more and more single women is that you know there are millions of single women out there.

More women are single than ever before. More people are living alone than ever before. And let's not forget that one of the happiest subgroups of the population are single childhood women.

And to me, I've said this before as well, it makes complete sense that some of the most sorted happy people on the planet are women.

who are single and don't have kids, women of a certain age myself being one of them, but it makes sense to me.

There are so many benefits that we forget. There are so many benefits of both not having children and being single that we forget about.

underplay all of fabulous things and overplay all of, you know, overplay all of the fabulous things about being relationship and about having kids.

You know, we don't focus on the crappy things about how difficult relationships can be, how many people get divorced, how many people are in relationships who are completely miserable, how many people have kids who's, you know, have a teenager who's taking crack or whatever it may be or has a really difficult child here and their life is overtaken by the fact that they have an incredibly difficult child who's just sort of taken over their entire life.

We don't think about those things in the same way that, you know, with the great things about being single, we also don't think about

those like the fact that you get to have peace in your life, fact and you know again with being so well and not having kids and you get to you get to have emotional stability there is nobody who is affecting the way that you feel day to day you know the freedom of a time the space they're at the headspace there are so many benefits but again we're far too busy sort of singing the praises of the traditional root in life that we forget to sing praises of being single and or not having kids and what I always say and have said since the very beginning of my podcast is that these are just we're talking about two different paths in life one is not better and one is not worse it is not better to be married than it is to be single and childless it's just different because life is just life and whichever path you go down you you know getting married and having a baby is not going to protect you from all the shite that life is going to throw at you it's

@54:00 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

really true.

@54:02 - Lucy

Yeah. you know, ultimately, we've got to get good with ourselves. And I think actually that's partly why single childless women are one of the happiest subgroups because we've got happy with ourselves.

And we've done that personal growth work that married mothers just don't have a time for, you know?

@54:24 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, you know, there was something as you were talking that I wanted to say, you know, talking about singing the praises of the women who are married or have a partner and the women who got to have kids, there's sort of this, I think it's a really toxic thing out there that when we're the ones who didn't get to have that, that there's this sentiment that, well, you don't get to have hard times because your hard times can't possibly be worse than the grief that I feel.

And I've seen this sort of circulating on threads and Instagram, and, you know, you have a child who has Down syndrome, or you have a child who's what you said earlier, like, is addicted to crack.

Well, I, you know, there's this sentiment. Well, I would take that any day over this grief that I feel.

Well, no, you might not, actually. Like, there's, it's not fair to compare what somebody, what is bad for one person and what's bad for you.

And also what's good for one person and what's what you think is good for you. They're, it's, they're not apples to apples comparisons and everybody's experience those things.

@55:42 - Lucy

It's different.

@55:44 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah.

@55:45 - Lucy

Very easy to romanticize.

@55:47 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yes.

@55:49 - Lucy

want it. It's very, very easy to, you know, if you are going through the grief of not having had kids when that's what you wanted, it's very easy to romanticize that that would have been.

a certain way it would have been I would have been happy even if this or even if they you know even if they were addicted to crack and even if they were making my life of freaking misery I would have been ABC or E you know it's so easy to romanticize but but and again that you know comes back to mindset yeah you can do that you can go there if you want that's up to you or you can go actually why don't I just think about what might have been really what might be really good about not having kids why don't I just try and think of those things and just shift my focus from over there because over there is not making me feel good again not under my that the whole I know people obviously have to go through grief until I'm putting that aside because I don't want to trigger anyone by saying that you know grief is unacceptable of course it isn't but that aside we can

We can choose to shift our focus from the thoughts that, you know, the repetitive negative cycle of thinking that is not serving us Onto a cycle of thinking that is gonna serve us.

@57:12 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, I love that I feel like that's a really good place to start cropping things up um Lucy is there anything else that You I have I have single childless women in my audience.

I have women Who are married but don't have kids Is there anything that you really want to tell the women who in either of though in well, there's multiple scenarios we all get here in I don't know multiple different ways Is there anything that you would like to share with them as to how to get to where you're at Yeah, I mean I would just say that Please know that it is possible to live a happy

@58:00 - Lucy

life without kids and or without a partner. You know, whatever may or may not happen in the future, it there is no question in my mind that that is possible.

So if you are one of these people who thinks that you have to have a partner or a baby to feel complete, that is just simply not true.

It's not true for anyone. If we think it's true, we're mistaken because we are already whole and complete without a partner and without a baby.

So that's the first thing, it is more than possible to be, to have to live a happy, fulfilling, meaningful, fun, exciting life without a partner and all kids.

And more than that, there are so many advantages and there are so many opportunities that are afforded us because we are those things.

But I would say anyone who's really, really, sort of. stuck in it. mean, I think I would just say start, start reading some books about mindset, start having a listen to the gazillions of podcasts about spirituality and mindset and all of that kind of thing, know, thoughts becoming things, all of those kinds of concepts.

are so many podcasts, there are so many people who talk about these kinds of things, because all I can say is that my life has changed since I have changed the way that I think.

And I'm not saying it's easy, it is not, it is work. It is a, you know, what is required is constant vigilance as to where you're at every day, every hour of every day.

How am I thinking? am I thinking about? having to be? Ultimately, it starts with something. awareness and I know this can be really triggering but I would just suggest to anyone to get really honest with themselves and say, am I sitting in that bit of mentality?

Am I doing that? And at least try and recognize that boy that can be painful and again I freaking know it because I was there badly for a long long time but the thing is until we become aware of the way that we are being we cannot change our lives for the better so the first thing I would say is yeah just look yourself in the mirror and be really honest and just try and become more aware of the way that you are being and ask yourself could I possibly you know is there anything that I could perhaps do anything I could perhaps shift in my way of thinking could maybe make me feel a little bit better yeah I thought and just start

But even if you want some recommendations for some books, feel free to email me anytime.

@1:01:04 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

You'll message me on Instagram. I've already got one of your podcasts written down here, the one that you mentioned earlier.

And yes, so many box. And yeah, like a hundred percent to everything that you just said, it just it starts with that one question.

Is there something I can do about this? Like, that's going to shift you into empowerment. And I think that's the key.

That's the first question. That was the first question I asked. There's got to be something I can do about this.

can't keep living like this. Yeah. Changed everything. And the last thing that I want to add to what you just said was as someone who who who did get married and spent like, you know, the first 20 years of my adult life.

Thinking there's something wrong with me and and. like that victim mentality can sometimes look like my happiness is outside of me.

I have no control over this. happiness is going to come when I meet the person. So it might not be like, Oh, whoa, me.

It might be, well, I have like this is when I'll be happy. That's also a very disempowering kind of mindset, right?

And as someone who did get married, who was waiting, who thought that, Oh, I'm going to be happy when I finally have a partner that did not do it.

It, you know, I was still in the same place where I thought, well, I'm still not. I didn't think this.

I'm looking back. I see that I thought that was going to make me worthy. That was going to make me happy and it didn't.

So that's not the end goal. The end goal is what you're saying, Lucy, which is like, you've got to find that happy, the happiness is within you.

@1:02:55 - Lucy

Yeah, it's so I just. cannot say enough how much I agree and if there's one takeaway for anyone listening it is to just just start exploring the notion that happiness truly does come from within because of course you know a partner and or a baby can bring us a certain amount of happiness of course they can I'm not denying that of course a nice nice new shoes or a beautiful new flak and bring you happiness but true lasting happiness has to start and end with you and I wish I'd known that a long long time ago I truly do but it's so freeing and it's so exciting when you realize that because it just gives you your power back and you have so much more control over how you feel than you think you do and yeah

But we're never, ever, ever going to find what we're looking for in anything external ever.

@1:04:05 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

it's so true. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing all of that. 100% agree with everything that you said.

And so I know after this episode that people are going to want to know where to find you. So Instagram handle.

@1:04:24 - Lucy

Yeah, thanks. Sorry. My Instagram handle is at SpinsToHoodReimagined. And you can email me on Lucy at lucy-megasin.com. That's M-E-G-G-E-S-O-N.

So Lucy at lucy-megasin.com. And of course, the podcast SpinsToReimagined. You can find that wherever you listen to podcast.

@1:04:44 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yes. And then Thrive Solo is your membership.

@1:04:48 - Lucy

Yeah. I have a membership community called Thrive Solo, which is for single-charmpy women. And one thing I'll say about Thrive Solo, and I felt this so passionately when I created it a year ago, a year and a

ago is that whilst it absolutely is a space for people to be able to bring their grievances, their sadnesses, their issues, it is much more about focusing on a fabulous future than it is focusing on, oh I hate being single and I, I'm sad about not having kids, it's a much more, it's an impact, it's a positive space, it's not a toxic positivity space, but it is, if you want to feel better about being single and you want to feel better about not having kids, throw solo could be for you, we do three live calls a month, I'm very, very, very involved, I feel like I kind of, you know, really try and get to know my members, I do, we have a book club, we have a WhatsApp group, and yeah, it's thing about it, is that it just, it's stopped just by being surrounded by a group of other women, we also have, we also have

in-person meetups, by the way, it just automatically starts making you feel like you're less of a weirdo. It just normalises, it just normalises your situation in life, really.

Yeah.

@1:06:13 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

if you're interested in Thrive Solo, you can go to lucymeggeson.com/thrivesolo. Beautiful. I will link those all up in the show notes and I want to thank you again for sharing all of your wisdom and your story.

And yeah, for bringing you to my podcast. So thank you.

@1:06:36 - Lucy

Thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me. I feel like I've rambled on several times. So thank you having me.