R20

I’ve created a few personal sites over the last few years, but none of them ever really felt right. I love to write and this is me finally coming back home to myself and it feels good. Luvicdo came about when I was reading extensively about behavioural treatments in A Clockwork Orange. I was watching all my favourite cult movies, and something centred around that and psychology really floated my boat.

The film, as most of you will know, is a cult classic that explores whether violent and anti-social behaviour can be eliminated with forced exposure, but it is also deeply unsettling. While I appreciated the artistic elements, it was the concept of aversion therapy and the art that interested me most. I never managed to watch the entire film because some parts are simply just too disturbing.

Then came It’s Just Me, a raw and unfiltered dive into modern dating and love. It didn’t take long for me to realise it wasn’t where I wanted to put my energy. The whole thing felt heavy for where I was at the time, too focused on the psychology of relationships. As much as that fascinated me, I’d spent enough of the past few years analysing love, heartbreak, and connection. I wanted to shift toward something that centred on living life solo, not dissecting relationships that should have never materialised or simply were not working.

Then came UNIO, which was born from exploring tantric practices with a very old best friend I’d briefly been involved with. I’m still into all that and practising solo tantric exercises daily, but that experience pushed me even further towards continuing to choose celibacy. I’m 14 months in now, and feeling more connected to myself than ever.

The training I did as a tantric practitioner echoed things I’d been feeling for years about intimacy, that I’m not ready to share myself with someone I don’t have deep trust or a genuinely close friendship with. I had that with him for a long time when we were younger, but people change, and we both definitely have. I wish him well and thank him for helping me join up the dots to get to where I was spiritually. It’s all become clear that my focus needs to be on my own tantric work, my own growth, and the life I’m building independently.

So anyway, there I was with a paid site that I was not using, but I feel now it’s time to start writing again and I’m in a really grounded place to start this blog. I started EMDR about 7 weeks ago, and the change in my mindset has been nothing short of mind-blowing. It feels like 15 million tons of bricks have been lifted from my shoulders, and for the first time in a very long time, I can actually breathe again. I wake up refreshed, I’m smiling and feeling a lot, the good stuff and the bad. It’s not miraculously made everything go away, but I am starting to process it differently. I’ll be discussing my EMDR journey at some point, not so much in detail about why I’m personally doing it, but what it can do for you.

It’s funny, because I even danced around the supermarket the other week to Virtual Insanity, completely unbothered by what anyone was thinking. I was in the moment, I felt good, the tunes were banging in my ears, and I was slipping and sliding around M&S like I was Jay Kay’s Temu clone, haha. You would have thought people would have looked at me gone out, but actually, I got a few smiles. It’s the same when I cycle around Paris down the Seine, I put my favourite tunes on, and I sing LOUD, it’s healing, and I find myself grinning ear to ear, yes, even though I’m on my own, haha.

There’s something about living freely, unshackled by others’ thoughts and opinions. Many people, even grown adults, live in this bubble of coolness and appearance, it’s a prison that I won’t be part of. Joy is more important to me than perceived or even real embarrassment.

I’ve realised so much about projection over the last few years. People often do judge what they fear in themselves, and criticism often says more about the critic. Small acts of freedom build confidence, trust me. Be messy, be daft and forget anyone who judges you, it’s their own fear talking. More importantly, if you find yourself judging others, ask yourself, What is this trying to teach or tell me? When someone is uncomfortable with your freedom, it’s usually because they aren’t free themselves.

It’s so exhausting to play it cool all the time, it’s no fun. The relief when you decide to just be silly is a joy that comes when you stop performing for others. If people have something to say, let them. Taking things personally is so draining, stepping back and realising why people project is so freeing. Most people are just acting out their childhood wounds, trauma, stress, conditioning and insecurities.

Peace arrives when you stop absorbing what isn’t yours to claim or carry. It also arrives when you decide to be more childlike. I’ve been exploring things I used to love as a kid, and the music I’m listening to is even going back to happier times.

So with Random20, instead of forcing a “big idea” or building a brand that I don’t feel connected to, I’m letting the project be what it wants to be simple, honest, and mine. The last few years, my head has been in a state of living in fight or flight, constantly on the go, constantly running away from my own nervous system and mind. I feel like I’m coming out of that slowly now and that’s down to all the hard work I’ve been doing.

Honesty, authenticity and transparency is very important to me and I was using ai to tidy up my own writing on those other sites for a while, that ends today. It felt like I was cheating and I don’t want to be smoothed out a moment longer. I want to stay a bit rough around the edges, because that’s who I am in all the best ways – I promise. If I haven’t got the time or energy to edit my own work, I just won’t.

This site will be 110% me (I will do my best with the grammar, ha). This site will be unfiltered, imperfect, and fully present, a bit of everything tantra, music, photography, modern solo mid-life, travel and Buddhism, which is a new course I’m starting today.

So that’s where I’m at. Random20 is just me, no performance, no pressure, no pretending. If you’re here, welcome. If you stay, even better.

Let’s see where this goes…