One woman's journey towards becoming her own priority

...In which our protagonist starts a Substack newsletter

Once upon a time there was a girl…

No, that’s ridiculous. Let’s start it with a confession: I’m a Nice Person. Capital N, capital P. I get my energy and joy from helping others. But it’s more than that - I spend my time, all of my time, helping others. Whether it’s with work, with volunteering, with supporting friends and family and peers, all of my time is for other people.

Well, apart from the time spent ruminating. And wallowing. And generally beating myself up and thinking about how terrible a person I am.

And then it all starts again: help others so I don’t have time to think about how terrible I am, as a way to feel worthwhile, then remind myself I’m actually worthless and the cycle goes round and round and round and round and round…

To be honest, calling it “helping others” is a bit misleading. Yes, I definitely love to get stuck in and be supportive and give advice and cheerlead and generally help my peers to get through the quagmire and be their best self, but for the most part I bury myself in work. It’s a habit I learned early on; my first proper job out of university was at a daily newspaper, and I was trained to be switched on 24/7. That has continued, been a theme across the last two decades. Never rest, never stop working.

Something had to give. Something has been boiling up, gurgling, rumbling in the background for years, threatening to erupt at any moment before I got to push it back down and Get On With It.

In 2020, the year of plague, that something was my health, both mental and physical. I had a breakdown - not my first, either - but, somewhat ironically, the forced-pause that the pandemic brought to us gave me the space to realise I had to break the cycle or things would never change. It was up to me, and me alone.

Instead of living for my clients, for my work, for the organisations I help to run, for the support I give to everyone else, I need to live for me. Only once I look after me can I possibly bring the best of me to all of the above. I need to learn to the power of saying no, of stepping down, of being, quite simply, selfish.

And by “selfish” I don’t mean the negative connotations that instantly arise when you see that word. I even had trouble putting that word in the title for this here publication. Is selfish really what I’m going for? Is that the vibe I want? The answer is, yes, in a way, it is. It might be alien to me, but I have to come first. I have to focus on myself. If that’s not selfish, then what is?

So here we are: Welcome to How To Be Self(ish) by me, Lauren McMenemy. I commit, here and now, to sending this (at least) weekly as a way to track my progress towards becoming my own priority. I promise to be horribly, morbidly honest about what’s going on with me while protecting the names of the innocent. This is unfettered, unedited, untamed. I will spew forth onto the digital page whatever is going on for me that week, and I’ll hit send before I have time to brew second thoughts.

Big, hard conversations and decisions are on the way alongside (let’s hope!) big, amazing new things to celebrate and be grateful for. Want to come with me on the journey? Sign up below ⬇️

In the meantime, tell your friends. Maybe?