Ep #345: What If I Just Want to Be Single? An Interview with Thrive Solo Author Lucy Meggeson

Welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast, Episode 345: What If I Just Want to Be Single? An Interview with Thrive Solo Author, Lucy Meggeson.

Welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast, the only podcast that offers a proven process to help you work through your grief, to grow, evolve, and create a future you can truly look forward to. Here’s your host, Master Certified life coach, grief expert, widow, and mom, Krista St-Germain.

Hey there, welcome to another episode of the podcast. I’ve got a good interview for you today. I decided I wanted to do this one for New Year’s because I’m hoping that for those of you who are really contemplating, what if I want to do life solo? Do I have to be in a relationship? What if I want to challenge that narrative, but maybe I don’t feel supported in doing that?

I want to offer that this year can be different for you. And to that end, I have brought you Lucy Meggeson. I actually did an interview on Lucy’s podcast and that’s how I met her. Loved her so much that I wanted to invite her to come and speak with me here on The Widowed Mom Podcast. So, Lucy Meggeson is the host and producer of Thrive Solo, which is a podcast that celebrates all things single and personal growth and development. And she runs a global online membership also called Thrive Solo for women who want to make the most of their lives regardless of their relationship status. And I think that can be us as widows.

Her first book called Shiny Happy Singles, or if you buy it in North America, it’s called Thrive Solo also, is out and it’s a counter narrative to the stigma that surrounds single life in a world that’s built for couples, which we all can relate to, right? So the book reveals the freedoms and opportunities of solo life, and Lucy draws on her own experiences, the latest research as well as the stories of other happily single women who also don’t have kids. Now, I want you to disregard the kidless part of Lucy’s work. Most of you are listening and you do have kids. It’s not relevant, right? But the conclusion that Lucy’s work draws is relevant, which is that being single is just as joyful and meaningful and fulfilling as being in a partnership.

And above all, Lucy believes that the most important relationship is the one we have with ourselves. And how many times have you heard me say that? And she’s passionate about helping single women shift their mindsets around being single so that they can enjoy their wild and precious lives right now. So I hope you enjoy my interview with Lucy and if so, go check out her podcast also called Thrive Solo. Let’s get into it.

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Krista: All right, Lucy, welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast.

Lucy: I’m glad you are here. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you for having me. It’s lovely to see you again.

Krista: Well, yeah, and we had such a good conversation on your podcast and I will link to that interview in the show notes so if people want to listen to our conversation on your podcast, they can. But yeah, it was such a delight and I thought, okay, she has a message that my listeners would benefit so much from hearing. So I’m really glad that you came on to the podcast. Okay, let me have you start and tell us the story of Lucy or maybe not the whole story, but who are you? How did you come to do the work that you do, all of that?

Lucy: So, yes, to cut a long story short. So my name is Lucy Meggeson. I have a podcast called Thrive Solo that celebrates all things solo. And I have a book called Shiny Happy Singles in the UK. It’s called Thrive Solo in North America. And I also have a membership for single women too, also called Thrive Solo. So that’s kind of the brand name. You get, you get the message.

Krista: I like it.

Lucy: And I never in a million years intended to make a career out of being single. And I should sort of say up front is that I have had many, many boyfriends over the years, but I’ve at this point been single for just over eight years now. And it came about completely randomly. I was having a bit of a sort of a life moment where I was going, what the hell am I doing with my life? I wasn’t happy in my kind of work life. And I sort of threw a grenade and kind of blew up my life and left the 9-to-5 and decided to essentially take back control of my life because I’d been feeling for a long, long time that there was more for me and that I just had much more potential to be fulfilled that I wasn’t fulfilling. I felt like as so many of us women do, I felt like I’ve been playing small for years.

And there was this person, the soul part of me inside that was screaming, and funny enough, I used to work for a long time at BBC Radio 2 and I used to sort of secretly think I want to be behind the microphone, not working for the people behind the microphone. It just didn’t occur to me that I would ever be a presenter. I mean how ridiculous, what a ridiculous thing to think, who am I to think that I could possibly do something like that?

And anyway, I ended up just packing in the 9-to-5 with no idea, literally no idea what I was going to do. This was actually around COVID, just as we hit COVID. So it was kind of an even worse time to suddenly quit your job. But I ended up getting a part-time job as a barista. And even though it was COVID, we were serving coffee through the window, with masks on. I also started cleaning my sister’s house. This was like in my 40s. I became my sister’s cleaner, but the crazy thing was I felt freer and happier than I had done in years. Even though I didn’t want to be a barista for the rest of my life, I certainly didn’t want to be my sister’s cleaner for the rest of my life. I felt like I’d taken back the reins of my life and I was kind of sitting in the driving seat, thinking, okay, I feel like I’m in control rather than working for somebody else’s dream.

And at the same time, I started to really questions about life and what am I doing here? What do I want? Who do I want to be? And I started going down a path of personal growth and development and spirituality and all of that. Because I started to see the world so differently, because I started to really understand the power of my mind, the power of our thoughts, and how essentially, we have so much more agency over our lives than we perhaps realize. It was almost like something inside of me just unlocked.

My creativity unlocked, and I was suddenly out of that kind of fight or flight mode that so many of us are in when we’re in the corporate world. My body reset, and I was back in my parasympathetic nervous system more than my sympathetic nervous system. And I think when that happens, suddenly we’re kind of available for ideas and creativity that I hadn’t been for a long time because I just wasn’t in the right mindset.

And I was sitting outside my flat one beautiful July day, reading through some messages from a group of really good friends of mine on WhatsApp. And they were sort of moaning on about their husbands and this and that and the other, and married life with kids and all of that. And as I read through these messages, I just was thinking to myself, gosh, I actually feel pretty damn good about my single life. At that point, I’d been single for several years. And I was just kind of living my life and feeling really good about it. And in that moment, I had this crazy divine download, I can only describe it as that sort of came out of nowhere. It’s like the universe sent me this thought of, you need to start talking about single life. You need to start talking about it.

And I had this moment where I thought, why does the world look at my life as a single woman and think that I’m sad or lonely or miserable or desperate or a loser or what, a crazy cat lady or whatever it is. It just felt really unjust. And in that moment, I literally got up, walked back into my flat and started writing, just writing about my experience of single life and saying, basically saying, it gets to be great. Why does everyone think it’s so terrible? Because actually, I think it’s pretty awesome and there are many benefits and advantages and opportunities and freedoms that come with being single.

And off the back of that a couple of months later I just again out of nowhere I thought, do you know what? I think I’m going to start a podcast. And so I did and here I am. So that’s what I mean when I say it wasn’t an intentional decision to be like, right, I’m going to make a career out of being single. It just happened very randomly. But it feels very aligned and it really feels like this message is what I’m here for, what I’ve been put here to do.

Krista: That’s such a good feeling when you just realize, yeah, I am doing what I think I’m here to do.

Lucy: Totally. It’s amazing. It feels like I’m living in alignment for the first time in my life. And it’s amazing. It is amazing.

Krista: And that’s totally why I wanted you to come and talk, is because I see that opportunity for other women too. And a lot of my listeners probably are in a place where they might not be considering thriving solo as an option. They are used to being in a partnered relationship. They probably have a lot of socialization around that being superior. And I love the idea of opening up possibilities. Not because one is better or worse than another, but because, like you said, we have agency. We deserve to be able to choose.

Lucy: It’s interesting, you said not that one is better or than the other. And I couldn’t agree more. And I’ve always said that on the podcast, in the book, in my messaging in general, because it really is true that neither path is better or worse. They are just different and they both have different trade-offs. They both have different joys. They both have different sorrows. They both have different sacrifices. So yeah, I couldn’t agree more.

Krista: Yeah. I like the concept of 50-50. One of my teachers used to teach that a lot, which is kind of to say, no matter what you choose, you’re still going to be human. You’re still going to have the ups and the downs and the highs and the lows and there’s going to be things you like and there’s going to be things you don’t. So you can kind of stop worrying about whether the grass is greener over there or here and just pick what you want because this is what you want to try next. And then cause life is just life isn’t it? Yeah, and it’s not going to be a magic pill that says, okay, now I don’t experience pain anymore. Yeah. So since you use the word thrive so much, what is your definition of thriving solo?

Lucy: I think my definition of thriving solo is living your best possible life right now regardless of your relationship status. It’s not about saying never get into a relationship again, but it’s about not waiting to live and really become the best version of yourself now. Not least because when you do that, that is when the right people, the right opportunities start coming into your life anyway. So really it is about leaning into your singlehood and just embracing it and realizing that there are so many benefits and advantages and underrated benefits that nobody ever talks about. It’s about leaning into all of those and realizing that actually single life gets to be just as fabulous.

And when you’ve been single for eight years like I have, I’m now at a point where I thrive solo so much that honestly the thought of getting into another relationship, I’m not closed off to love. I mean, I’ve been in love many times in my life and I love, but I also love my single life. And I think that is what I want for women. I want them to feel so good about their solo lives that there is no danger that they are going to settle for somebody who is not bringing them enough value. And there is no danger that they’re going to end up with some guy who really doesn’t actually add anything of value to their lives.

Krista: I love that. After Hugo died and before I decided to date again, I didn’t have the language that you’re using for it at the time, but I just remember thinking, I want to get to a place where I really love my life and I could take it or leave it. It’d be nice if I had it, and there would be ups and downs. And also it didn’t feel like a need. It felt, there wasn’t any clinginess around it because I genuinely believed I’m okay. I’m good.

Lucy: Totally. Exactly. You said it so well. It’s take it or leave it. It doesn’t make any difference. Like I’m good at home single, I’m good if I’m with someone. It doesn’t make any difference. And actually to add to the question of what does it mean to thrive solo, I also think what it means is to cultivate a really fabulous relationship with yourself and to understand that it doesn’t matter whether you’re in a relationship, whether you have kids or anything else, the most important relationship you will ever have is the one that you have with yourself. And so often we neglect that for the sake of a relationship or children or whatever else.

I mean, of course we want to make these sacrifices to a certain extent. But the truth is, and the listeners to this podcast know better than anyone, nothing is guaranteed. And actually we need to make sure that we are strong by ourselves because we all know that life can deliver knocks when we’re least expecting it. And I just encourage women to work on that relationship that they have with themselves so that they know that they will always be okay because they’re strong within themselves. Because ultimately, life is an inside job. It’s all about what is going on inside of you, not about a relationship or what’s going on outside of you. Ultimately, it’s about what is going on inside of you.

Krista: Yeah, I could not agree with you more. In fact, so much so, in my main coaching program, and I kind of want to know your approach in a minute, but in my main coaching program, an entire month out of six months, relationship with self. I’m so fully on board with what you just said. So tangibly, strategically, for people who are listening and saying, okay, yeah, that sounds great. How do I actually do that though? What are some of the first steps that you recommend to people who really do want to improve their relationship with themselves?

Lucy: The very first thing I would say is you have to start by cultivating an awareness of your thoughts. So many of us are sleepwalking through life. We are on auto the whole time. And there are thoughts coming and going in and out of our minds all day, every day, but we are not aware of those thoughts. As humans, when we’re not in control of our thoughts, our thoughts are going to go to the negative. They’re going to go to what’s wrong rather than what’s right. So before any transformation, I believe, before any transformation is possible, any change to yourself, to your life, you have to start by becoming aware of what is going on in your brain. You have to be vigilant. It sounds awful, but you do have to be vigilant moment to moment. Now this is a practice and it’s something that takes time, it takes energy, it takes effort, but it’s so damn worth it. And when you start paying attention to your thoughts, what that means is that you can then notice those thoughts that are really not serving you. The ones that are going around on repeat like, but if I’m single everyone’s going to think I’m a loser. The thought patterns that we have on repeat all the freaking time.

When we start to bring awareness to those thoughts, we can start to choose different thoughts. We can catch that first thought that comes into our mind, but we can then choose to not engage with it. We can choose to not identify with it, and we can choose to shift our focus onto something else. And this sounds so silly, but put reminders in your phone every hour of every goddamn day, 24/7, 365. I’ve had reminders in my phone literally every hour. And they can be anything from where are your thoughts at? How are you feeling right now? What are you focusing on right now?

And I also use an app called I Am. Basically, I get positive affirmations as well throughout the day. So I’m not kidding you. Every 45 minutes to an hour from about 6:00 a.m. to about 9:00 p.m. my phone is flicking things up at me that are either positive affirmations or getting me to check in with my thoughts. So that is the first thing I would say to start doing. And it really is such a big one because until you bring awareness to your thoughts, you can’t change them. You can’t change your life.

I would also say you’ve got to look at your beliefs because your thoughts are coming from your subconscious beliefs. Our beliefs are running the show. But again, to change a belief, maybe that is life is meaningless without a boyfriend or without a husband. In order to change a belief, we have to first bring our awareness to it, and then we have to do the goddamn work to change it and to replace it with a belief that is going to serve us. This can be done through things like affirmations, meditation. It really is a question of repetition. You know, all of these things, it’s repetition. You have to bring that awareness and then repeat a thought that is actually going to serve you over and over again so that you gradually start rewiring your brain. I’m sure many of your listeners have heard of neuroplasticity. We can change our brains right up until the day we die.

And then the other thing that I just want to add that I think is of the utmost importance that I literally bang on about on my podcast is to take a look at what it is that you are consuming in the form of people, news, TV, podcasts, books, radio. What we consume is having such a massive impact on our lives. It cannot be understated. And again, it’s something that I talk ad nauseam about because I know how much I have changed the way that I feel about life and myself and the world because I’m so careful about what I allow into my brain. And that does mean other people, by the way. So if you are hanging out with a friend who is insistent that the only way to be happy is you got to have a husband, that is going to impact the way that you think and the way that you feel. Whereas if you start following loads of really cool single women online who are rocking their lives, that is going to impact the way you think and you feel. It really is so simple. But it’s just a question of being religious about these things. But yeah, the content we consume is everything.

And I suggest that people find expanders. So for example, let’s say you are single, and let’s say you don’t know whether you want to be in a relationship, or you’re not ready to be in a relationship, but you want to at least enjoy your, your single life. Find expanders. That’s not my term, it’s Lacey, I think it’s Lacey Phillips of, she has a podcast called To Be Magnetic. Actually somebody else, Marion Power, who’s the most brilliant author, she’s British, I absolutely love her. I’ve had her on the podcast. She said to me the other day, she described expanders as human signposts. So these are people who are an example of where you want to get to. So they’re just a little bit further down the road than you are. But they provide proof of what is possible for you.

Krista: I love the I Am app. I also use it as well.

Lucy: Do you?

Krista: I do. Totally. I love the practical suggestion of, because essentially what you’re saying is put reminders on your phones so that you kind of interrupt the autopilot or at least bring awareness to what you’re actually thinking so that you can start to objectify it so that you can get some leverage over it. I guarantee you that people who have listened to my podcast who are listening to you are like, oh no wonder she likes her, because there’s so much overlap in our approaches, which is really fun. It is so important. It’s so life-changing. It’s not just important, but the other thing I’m really glad you said, because I forget this and it was really good for me to hear is I think of how we’re socialized and the messages that are kind of put upon us, but sometimes I forget how much we can do to control the messages that we put ourselves in front of. And so I love the idea of, okay, am I following any women who I would label as thriving solo on social media? Or am I following people who just tell me the same party line of here’s how to date again when maybe that’s not the only thing I might want to be exposed to? So I love that. What are we following? Can we put show less of this? Unfollow.

Lucy: Totally. What is so fascinating that we don’t think about enough. It’s like what you are consuming is literally impacting the lens through which you are looking at the world. So if you are consuming awful news on some crappy channel, it’s influence. It’s just influence. And it’s like you are, sounds awfully to use the word brainwashed, but you’re kind of being brainwashed by the content that you are consuming. But the thing is you can brainwash yourself in a really positive way. That’s how I like to describe it. I like to say to people you’ve got to brainwash yourself, but in the best possible way. And it does mean immersing yourself in stuff that is actually good for your soul. It’s nourishing. It’s like, I mean, like you say, if you are spending an hour and a half every evening doom scrolling through social media, watching reels of happy families and husbands and wives, guess what? You’re going to feel like shit. So don’t do that.

It’s like I think sometimes and again, it’s the awareness because if you’re not consciously thinking about that, then you’re just you’re not thinking about it. So you’re not going, why am I doing this? When you bring that awareness, you’re like, hang on a minute. What the hell am I doing? Why am I following all of these people who are essentially making me feel bad? So it’s like you got to follow people and find people who lift you up, who are an example of how you want to feel and how you want to be. It really can’t be understated.

And again, life is about the lens through which we are looking at it. Like, I’ve said many times, you can have two people who’ve had, let’s say they are identical twins who’ve had the exact same upbringing, same education, same whatever, living in the same place. Those two people can see the same situation wildly differently depending on how they are perceiving it, depending on the lens through which they’re looking. And it’s the same with, there are plenty of happily single women out there. There are also plenty of unhappily single women out there. The difference isn’t the relationship status, it’s the way they are thinking about it. It’s how they are looking at it. The key to life is realizing how your mindset and what is going on in your brain all comes back to the relationship you have with yourself, because actually when you start doing this work and you start realizing the behaviors that are not serving you, but all feeds into that as you start doing this work, you start to care much more about, hang on a minute, I don’t want to be hanging out with that person who always makes me feel depressed. Maybe you have a friend who is incredibly negative and just moans and complains. And when you get home, you just feel utterly drained. It’s just bringing awareness to all of those things. It just has such a huge impact on how you feel about yourself.

Krista: So I’m imagining the woman who’s listening who is feeling some pressure, maybe from her friends, maybe from her family, maybe she’s just absorbed it from wherever we absorb stuff, but pressure to date again, pressure to find another partner, and maybe she’s feeling a little judged or a little misunderstood because she’s not really sure that’s what she wants. What would you say to someone who is in that place?

Lucy: It’s so incredibly hard, especially if you have family and friends who have expectations. I always say to people, when you start owning your life, people stop questioning it. It’s when you allow that kind of shame to show that I think people ask more questions. If you walk into a room and you are really owning your single life and people can see that you are happy, then apart from anything else, it’s going to be easier to brush off questions like that. But one thing I would say is that the only way the narrative around single women, because it is mainly single women, let’s face it, men don’t have the same stigma, the only way that it is going to change is if we start calling people out.

And I know that can be really tricky, but what I would suggest is, it might sound really silly, but I would suggest having some responses up your sleeve. I always think a brilliant way of dealing with these kind of intrusive questions and the sort of expectation and all the rest of it is to answer a question with a question. So you know, let’s say somebody goes, why are you still single? You could perhaps answer back by saying, I’d really love to know why that’s important to you.

So it’s like if you’re going to a party or a wedding and you know that you’re going to get those inevitable questions, those sort of intrusive questions that people feel like they somehow are entitled to ask single people. Yet, if it was flipped around and we ask married people, well, are you still married? Like what the hell? Exactly. So I think that is one way of helping to just have a little bit more control over that pressure that you feel. But also, I would say going back to the consumption thing, you have to look at who you’re spending your time with, and you have to ask yourself, do I need to limit the time that I’m spending with certain people whilst I build myself up? And I’m just going to follow some people on social media or I’m going to try and actually meet some other single women.

You know, I sometimes talk about how sometimes we can sit in victim mode and we don’t want to take responsibility for our own lives. But at the end of the day, and I know this can be quite triggering, we have to take responsibility for ourselves and for our own lives. It’s like nobody’s coming to save us. So you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do that is right for you. So if you are struggling with that pressure and that expectation, can you minimize a little bit the time that you spend with certain people and try and maximize the time that you spend with people who are going to make you feel good about being single and who are going to make you feel excited about it? Because when you genuinely start feeling excited about it, you can then go back to those people with all these expectations and radiate like, yeah, but I’m doing this now. I’ve started this course.

One thing I talk about a lot is that I think in many cases, and I’m sure some people are going to disagree with me here, but I really feel this quite strongly. I think in many cases, we attribute being single, or rather we attribute the problems that we have in our life to being single. And I would argue that being single isn’t the problem. And actually what we need as single women to be focusing on, rather than how to un-single ourselves, is actually to go, do I have direction in my life? Because I think so often, we think we need or we want a relationship. And actually it’s not even about the relationship. Doesn’t mean you can’t want a relationship anyway, but I think sometimes when we feel like, oh, you know, maybe we’re sitting at home feeling a bit down one evening, we automatically think, well, it must be because I’m single that I’m feeling like this. In my experience, it’s much more about do I have something driving me in my life? Do I have direction? Do I have something that lights me up? A project, a passion, a goal, a dream?

And also, one of the things I always go on about single life is that one of the most wonderful things about being single is that it does give you that extra time sometimes when you don’t have a husband to, I don’t know, go and to watch a sports game or something at the weekend. Well, okay, well I, the kids are with friends, I can spend my Saturday working on this passion project that I feel really excited about. That, I think, is a really important thing to focus on, that actually might fill the void that you think might need to be filled by a relationship because ultimately I don’t believe that a partner can fill your soul. A partner can bring you happiness, joy, comfort, companionship, all of those things, but you have to fill your soul. So often that void that I think single women can feel, we can mistakenly think it’s a partner when actually what we need is just more drive and more direction in our own lives.

Krista: Yeah, I love pointing out to people because I get this and I feel this. It’s really easy when you didn’t want to lose your spouse and you did, to attribute the happiness or satisfaction that you felt in your life to the relationship. And it’s worth rolling that back and looking at, no, wait a minute. Why is it that some people are married and miserable and maybe I wasn’t? And what was my role in that? What was I actually doing for myself? You know, and how was I being in that relationship that created the level of amazingness that I felt, so that I feel some power about it. And I stop attributing it, not to say that person wasn’t wonderful, they probably were, but also it wasn’t them, right? What was your side of that? Because then you have so many more options when you start to see, oh no, I did that for myself. That was actually me.

Lucy: Because again, life is an inside job. It’s about what’s going on inside of you. It’s not what is going on outside of you. And of course a husband, a wife, children, friends, family, of course they can add value to your lives and of course they can bring you joy. But ultimately, it’s your responsibility to bring yourself joy. None of us should be reliant on somebody else to make us happy.

Krista: Yeah, and if we are, that’s a sign that we’re confused, I think. That’s a sign that we’ve misattributed our experience to, externalizing it. Yeah.

Lucy: Totally.

Krista: So it’s our responsibility. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay, so identity, passion, projects. I’m imagining a listener who’s like, yeah, I would like that. Where do I start? What are some practices that I can use? Because I often find, in widowhood, there’s this kind of stripping of an identity and sometimes multiple identities that can feel very exposing. So you identify as a partner or a wife, maybe you identify as a caretaker. A lot of my listeners are in that interesting spot where they’re maybe about to be empty nesters or they are empty nesters, so their mom identity is changing too. So there’s just this kind of, I thought I knew who I was and what my life is about and now the rug got ripped out from under me and I don’t really feel solid in those identities. And so it seems appealing to say passion project and purpose and, but then when I think about it, I don’t know what to do with that and I find myself overwhelmed by it. So what say you to some practical places to start in that regard?

Lucy: Do you know what I would say to this? It’s literally you have got to follow your curiosity. It is as simple as that. Purpose isn’t necessarily something that you’re like, oh my god, I found my purpose. Many people say, I don’t know what my purpose is. And I will always say to them, do you know what you got to do? You got to freaking test things out. You got to test things out. Life is an experiment. It’s literally a question of saying, what interests me? What excites me? What am I curious about? Like, is it cooking? Is it horseback riding? It doesn’t matter what it is. But literally just start by following what feels good. What makes you smile? What peaks your curiosity and your interest? Start there. That’s all you’ve got to do for now. It’s literally like, you know, that game of hot and cold, it’s like, getting warmer, oh no, cold. Oh yeah, getting warmer, getting warmer, warmer, warmer. It’s literally like that. I think this is slightly going off on a tangent, but when it comes to our career and what we do work-wise, I just think we don’t give enough credit to the fact that there are so many things that any one of us could do with our lives. But we have to experiment because until we try things out, we’re not going to know.

So if anyone’s listening going, I don’t know what my purpose is. I’ve got no idea what I want to do. I would literally suggest start thinking, really write down a list of what do I find interesting? Is it opera? Is it country music? Do I love animals? And also, one thing I will say, speaking of animals, I just going to say like volunteering at an animal shelter or something like that. One of the best ways to feel less lonely and to feel like you have more meaning in your life is to go and volunteer. That is also an idea. But yeah, it’s just it’s really just finding what lights you up and seeing where it leads. I think as humans, we want certainty, but so much of the magic of life is on the other side of uncertainty. We can’t know. So just go down a path if you’ve always wanted to go horse riding in India, just do it and see where it leads. You never know. That is how you find your thing by trying stuff out.

Krista: I love it. Hot or cold? Do I like it? Do I not? Do I want more? Do I not? Right? Just follow the curiosity. I like it.

Lucy: Exactly.

Krista: Okay, we’re coming up on time. One more thing I really wanted to talk to you about because it’s a struggle for widows is this experience of loneliness. And so if someone out there is struggling with loneliness and maybe associating partnership as the solution to loneliness, what might you offer her?

Lucy: I mean, I think that I believe, because I hear so many people say, well, if you’re single, you must be lonely. And look, I appreciate and I completely understand that your audience are widows and they have lost someone. So it is slightly different, but loneliness in general, it’s a part of the human experience. It’s not reserved for single women, because we all know that people can be pretty damn lonely in relationships and marriages. I’ve been excruciatingly lonely in a really bad relationship. I’ve also been lonely when I’m single. But I’ve also been single for eight years now and I can honestly say that I have not been lonely for years. The reason I say this is because I believe that loneliness is actually a loss or a lack of connection from ourselves than it is to do with physically being alone. But I would say when you’re feeling lonely, ask yourself, what do I need?

Because sometimes just picking up the phone to a friend can be the thing that you need. Sometimes just going down to your local coffee shop and sitting there with a book instead of sitting at home can be what you need. Sometimes going for a walk in nature. Nature is so bloody healing. We are part of nature. Nature makes us feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. And I find nature so healing. I mean, we all know the benefits. I mean, there is so much research on the massively incredible healing effects of nature. So maybe go for a walk by the sea or in a green space. But I think actually, one thing to say is don’t panic. Don’t panic if you’re feeling lonely because sometimes we can feel like, oh god, I feel so lonely and what am I going to do? It’s like the worst thing in the world. But know that it will pass. It will pass because we all feel it.

And I always think about Kristin Neff’s brilliant book, Self-Compassion. And she talks about how, I can’t remember exactly what the way she puts it, but basically she says, whatever it is that any one of us are feeling at any given time, when we remind ourselves that there is always somebody else feeling the exact same thing, it just reminds us that we’re not alone. So those few things, I don’t know whether that helps, but ask yourself what kind of connection do you need and can you get it some other way?

Just and also, actually just to add, I always find when I’m feeling low, not necessarily lonely, but just low in general, do you know what really helps? Move your freaking body. Go for a walk. Get outside and move because just by shifting, like literally moving your body, you are shifting your energy. And often times that alone can make a difference.

Krista: Such good advice. Just simple things that we can do. Yes. Such good advice. So the pop up on my phone regularly is what do I need right now?

Lucy: Oh, right, okay.

Krista: Yeah, that is exactly it. And it’s not even, yes for loneliness, and also just yes for just checking in and reminding myself that I have needs. Because it’s easy to forget that sometimes when I’m so busy in doing mode, I got to kind of come back to what’s going on in the inner world here. Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much for coming and sharing your wisdom with my listeners. So where do they find you?

Lucy: So, I’m on Instagram @ThriveSolowithLucy Meggeson. I’ve just joined TikTok for my sins. I’m @LucyMeggeson. Don’t even ask me why. Because a few people have recommended I get on to I it’s an experiment. Put it that way. Please come and follow me. I don’t know what I’m doing. And of course, you can listen to my podcast, which is called Thrive Solo. And you could buy my book, which is also called Thrive Solo if you’re in North America, but it’s called *Shiny Happy Singles* if you’re in the UK.

Krista: We will link to all of those things in the show notes so people can find them.

Lucy: Thank you so much.

Krista: Truly, let’s keep in touch, Lucy. I mean that.

Lucy: I would absolutely.

Krista: All right. Be well.

Lucy: Thanks for having me.

Krista: Okay. Thanks. Bye.

If you like what you’ve been hearing on this podcast and want to create a future you can truly get excited about even after the loss of your spouse, I invite you to join my Mom Goes On coaching program. It’s small group coaching just for widowed moms like you where I’ll help you figure out what’s holding you back and give you the tools and support you need so you can move forward with confidence.

Please don’t settle for a new normal that’s less than what you deserve. Go to coachingwithkrista.com and click Work With Me for details and next steps. I can’t wait to meet you.