Main character energy...

When invisibility becomes a positive...

I’ve said it many times before, but it bears repeating that I’m inspired every week by writers on Substack. Invariably, I’ll read either a note or an article and my mind takes a wander along a particular path which leads me to write about my thoughts. In writing about these thoughts, I usually arrive at some sort of coherent narrative….until the next time. I learn so much about myself and my ever changing life in this way and I’m grateful for the inspiration.

In her article ‘Ego is not a dirty word’ (7th July) Maraya Rae Rodostianos writes ‘Ego is what forms in us when we are small and porous and entirely at the mercy of the people around us. When we are children we cannot survive alone; we are dependent on love, approval and belonging from others….when the environment around us feels even a little bit unsafe, we adapt; those adaptations performed often enough become habitual patterns…and slowly, without any conscious thought on our part, this constructed personality becomes who we know ourselves to be. Ego = this is me’.

For most of my life, I believed I needed to ‘earn’ pretty much everything; I needed to earn love, belonging and acceptance by trying to please everyone, I needed to earn good health and optimum fitness by training hard, I needed to earn having a dessert at dinner by missing lunch, I needed to earn having a piece of cake in my packed lunch by walking 15 miles, I needed to earn rest by making sure all my ‘jobs’ were done….you get the picture.

I believed myself to be a Type A personality, a perfectionist, someone with endless reserves of strength, stamina, determination and resilience; it’s only recently I’ve come to understand so many of these characteristics are adaptations, egoic constructions that served me very well for a very long time. The question now is, do I have use for these adaptations any longer?

The positives of living a very busy life, where achievement is the main goal is that there’s no time for reflection or questioning; filling every moment with work or different tasks lends structure and purpose to life and that can feel very satisfying. In the past, I do remember the feeling of having completed my ‘to do list’ only to realise it was, in fact a never ending to do list and there didn’t seem to be a way to stop being constantly busy and occupied.

Kieran MacRae writes (Things I secretly hate about slow living) ‘when you overwork, you have routine, structure, goals and a clear idea of what you should be doing at any moment…working...and I hate how much easier that is than figuring out how to manage your own time in a meaningful way’. Challenging my beliefs about purpose, the need to earn, the need to do everything perfectly left me staring into a black hole with no clear idea of where to go and who to be and that’s pretty scary. Smashing my egoic structure to pieces in my 60s wasn’t ever going to be helpful, but I certainly wanted to soften it around the edges and take a look at where I wanted to make changes in my life.

Like many people, a big part of my ‘self’ was based around my career. As a fitness instructor, Pilates teacher and Further Education college lecturer, I spent decades with students listening to my every word; being the centre of attention, the fount of quite a lot of knowledge was what I needed at that time. I loved my career and the attention it gave me, not because I’m some kind of narcissist, but because I loved helping people to improve their health and to feel good about themselves. Being completely honest, the feeling of being needed also fed into my beliefs of needing to earn love and acceptance and I now understand how my choice of career helped me to thrive with a shaky sense of self. I was adapting without being conscious of it at all.

I’ve often read how women in particular, feel they become invisible in midlife and how difficult this can be to accept. This feeling of invisibility might be in relation to their changing appearance, children leaving home and becoming independent, marriages becoming stale…the list goes on, but after years of feeling the need to earn and maintain (other people’s) attention, I find myself being drawn to the positives of invisibility.

Pelle Martens writes (Nobody Is Just a Person Anymore) ‘I think we’ve turned self improvement into self rejection; there is always another version of yourself waiting to be built, smarter, faster, more successful, more impressive. The message is that you’re never enough; the message is that you’re a project and projects are never finished’.

For a long time, I preferred the comforting safety of busyness and routine to the discomfort of change, even when change was exactly what I needed.

At this point in my life, I don’t want to give advice, to be useful, to be needed, to feel I need to earn anything; I don’t need a purpose, a routine, a structure, a role, a project. I don’t want to be productive, to achieve, to attain, to be visible, to be admired, to inspire. I don’t want to hold court, to work the room, to be the centre of attention.

Softening my ego means letting go of the comfort of routine, certainty and the safety of busyness and learning to trust myself as I navigate a different ‘main character energy’ in my life now. Google describes main character energy as ‘someone who lives their life as if they are the protagonist of their own story’. It also describes several pitfalls including ‘performative living’ where people curate their lives to portray a positive picture to others, rather than focusing on their own inner development.

Letting go of parts of my ego (or at least allowing them to soften) isn’t comfortable; the feeling of being in midair and not knowing where I’ll land feels very uncomfortable and uncertain, but beyond the discomfort is an opportunity to discover a true sense of self based upon what I want and need now. Focusing inwards rather than outwards is where we find who we truly are.

The main character energy I’m moving towards is not performative or reliant on anyone else’s opinions; it’s neither self centred nor dismissive of others, but aligned with a desire to connect, to love, to share and to receive. My purpose in life is to stay curious, to be open hearted, to be open to change and whilst I don’t want to be totally invisible, I’m very happy to blend into the background and take my budding main character energy (quietly) with me.

With love,

Karen x