Into the Groove | Kickstarting my new life!

After not writing for over a week, Lauren comes up, gasping for air.
But with purpose.

This is not the original version of the blogpost Into the Groove. Which was written in draft on my offline laptop on Saturday September 22, with the intention of doing the editing/cleaning up/ posting bit later.
That always takes so much time!
I thought I could get away with simply writing my posts in draft – and post them later, when I had more time.
And not just for LS Harteveld!
For my yoga site too, I wrote an offline blog post on Sunday.
Yet despite being in favor of the idea of writing offline, both blogposts were a fluke and I was so happy I hadn’t posted them.
For different reasons.
But the fact that it happened two days in a row, to two separate blog posts, written in two different languages and for two different blogs?
That convinced me that offline writing was a waste of time.
That it brought out the worse of my writing capabilities.
The reason I was happy I hadn’t used my yogapost, was because it was just SO ugly! The topic, the revelations, simply everything about it.
I went on a holiday, and I was shook to my core thinking about the ugliness of what I had created. Waiting for me on an offline laptop, in order to be transferred and sent out into the world.
Lucky me, I had an opportunity to pull that back.
The only thought that was even more frightening on this holiday, were the thoughts about the other offline blog post I had written!
The one for this blog, LS Harteveld.
It had been in the style I have been using here for the past couple of months, on Project M. Diary like-posts, inspired by my real life and in particular the men in my life.
But I have altered these “truths” significantly!
Which gives problems of its own (more about that later), but that was not the biggest flaw of Saturday’s post.
Because this particular diary post about the two men I am in love with, had been too close to the truth!
If I had not written a draft offline, but instead had gotten 3-4 hours to finish it and post it immediately – in one go, like almost all my posts – that thing would have gone online!
Way too close to revealing the identity/identities of the men I am in love with.
The thought made me sick to my stomach.
Not that revealing something that makes you sick to your stomach, is a reason not to do it!
Not at all.
But it should be purposeful.
For example:
As of today I will only write for this blog, the one you’re reading now.
And cancel all writing for my yoga blog, which has been the worse place to do soul searching and share myself with the world.
My yogablog has been the pinnacle of risk-free writing.
But here?
I can write everything.
Dig deep and expose my soul until its deepest, darkest layers, without everyone from my neighbor to the admin employee from the housing corporation, reading it too.
And I am ready to give all, including the things that make me sick to my stomach. So it’s not that I intend to stay away from the edges, and only write about things that are either in the past, or within my comfort zone.
Far from that.
But the “deleted” post, that was too close to the truth with regard to the identity to the men in my life, didn’t have anything to do with my personal development.
It had to do with unintentionally, revealing identities.
Which brought me to another aspect of my DIARY writing.
After doing this for twelve years I am just done with it.
Not just dealing with the secret mistress/ oh don’t tell anyone, side of keeping a diary.
No.
I m done with ALL of it.
With writing columns about dates or events.
And about friends who may or may not like me writing about it.
I m even done with positioning myself as a secret mistress.
I know that I ve advocated for years that being a secret mistress is a sexual preference and one about which I have so much to tell!
Speaking about mistresshood would make women with the same set of sexual preferences as me, very happy.
Women with a love for secrecy, unavailable men, and who are submissive in bed, definitely submissive …yes!
My story about the sexual nature of a mistress would help them.
But even that is something I don’t want to do anymore.
For the past year or so I ve been convinced that I could increase my impact, if I would clean up my diary-writing-mistress act into something along the lines of:
“Hi! I m the Good Mistress! I m here to help!”
Write guides. Make YouTube videos. Sell coaching.
It would even allow me to ditch the diary writing and regain freedom in my personal life. Have privacy.
I would be a professional from now on. Someone who had been the mistress of someone she referred to as Mr.Big, until summer 2018. And after that I took my private life off the radar and only spoke about it past tense.
And only if it was relevant to SERVE.
Bad.
BAD.
B.A.D.
Idea!
The draft horror post- my potential data leak! – confirmed for me;
Yes!
I WAS done trying to rewrite my personal life, changing enough names and locations, professions, situations, so that that NO ONE (not even the men themselves!) could recognize them.
I was done because by altering so much, keeping a diary had lost its charm.
I couldn’t put enough reality in it to make it satisfying for me.
Because it wasn’t a problem for the reader that the second man I was in love (Christopher) with was “played” by Idris Elba (I used Idris Elba photos with those posts);
but it was a problem for me.
Because that was NOT how he looked.
Nor were Christophers wife and the wife of Mr.Big members of sketchy semi-religious organizations that could harm me.
That was simply a story-line I had setup to describe the risks of repercussions I was exposed to. It was a framework, a story, to cover for any aggression against me if my position as a secret mistress became known. And also the economic losses such as assets, reputation, business.
But the wives of the two men I am in love with are not Scientologists or sectarians, and if they were I wouldn’t know because I never researched them nor do I know them.
So in the end two non-posted blog posts, one butt-ugly for my yoga blog and one way-too-revealing one for LS Harteveld – in combination with a few days off and fresh sea air, gave me tremendous value because they gave me HUGE insights!

Here’s the decisions I made after “Draft Post Gate I and II”:

1. I will no longer write for my Dutch blog/ yoga blog

The word Dutch is already key here…
I ve honestly considered quitting my English writing!
Quit all LS Harteveld and instead focus entirely on my Dutch work. Be 100% there, revealing ALL, regardless of the consequences!
But it’s simply not possible.
I would ALWAYS need to write in English somewhere.
But the other reason I m not going to write for my Dutch yoga blog anymore is in fact that the consequences are bigger there:
It’s under my real name.
Therefor, people who have no interest in my work, but just happen to Google my name can also read it.
And I don’t like that.
I m pretty open there, but I reserve the best, most honest parts for this site, for this account. Because my mailman doesn’t read it.
And I could continue writing the simple, barely-scratching -the-surface posts for my yoga blog, but I m simply not interested to keep writing pretty bland and generic coaching posts.
Sure! I ve kept them as interesting as possible.
But they will never be GREAT.
No one will ever read a yoga blog post, written to not set off the even most random person who Googles me, and go;
“Wow! That is so full on!”
Which is why I will never write for my Dutch blog again.

2. I will simply sell from here

Yeah… sell. I know that’s probably a dirty word, but in that case, it’s also cool. You don’t have to buy my coaching.
But if you LOVE these blogposts?
LOVE me revealing everything?
You will just come to a point where you will want to work with me!
That’s how it will go, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I haven’t taken the step to international coaching but my private studio for life makeovers is in Nijmegen, and you can read that page right here
So from now on, I will simply make my “yoga” sales call here at the bottom of this English, tell-all blogpost.
And ditch the entire idea that I have to write Dutch, bland, posts in order to sell anything.
My soul mate clients will want to read the real story, and they will not get that if I keep giving some watered down version of myself and of the truth.
Writing here daily, revealing all, is the easiest way to speak to your heart, without the rest of the world, or Nijmegen, listening in.

3. I m quitting the diary thing

I m quitting the diary thing, because I m no longer inspired to write about what happens in real life, and make some cool story out of it.
Especially since I have to alter the truth, when it comes to sex and love, to the extend that I m no longer emotionally involved in it.
I need Idris Elba covering for us!
That’s a sign you’ve strayed way too far from the truth.
And events that don’t have anything to do with sex or love?
I ve written MORE than my share about those things. It already filled me an entire bookstore.
(ps- drop me an email if you’re in The Netherlands and want to buy directly from me! I m going to sell my inventory in October)
Maybe I should say:
I m quitting the diary writing about the outer world,
In favor of writing about my inner world.
Which brings me to quitting the mistress thing;

3. I m quitting the mistress thing

I m quitting because “mistress” is starting to feel like a too tight definition, and a cause I m no longer interested in.
You see – this holiday I was feeling all sorry for myself, that the second man I m in love with is yet another married man. And that if we would hit it off, whether once or in secret, or on an open and more permanent basis;
Everybody would condemn me.
They would ALL treat the entire situation like:
“He was a happily married man, and then she came along, and now it’s all ruined.”
You know what? I m no longer available for that.
I will remove ALL references to me being a mistress, from all my profiles;
When I publish my new book, I will call it diaries or columns.
But never use the word mistress again.
Over the past couple of weeks, in addition to trying to come to terms with being in love with another married man, I also looked for/ considered getting a second lover because I m seeing my lover Mr.Big so little.
And you know what I concluded?
That sex without being crazy in love, means nothing to me.
EVEN if Mr.Big would end things, and I would become single, and therefor have no sex at all?
95% Chance I ll take the no-sex option.
Not the cute guy-great sex.
Not the great guy- fantastic sex.
Not the friend with benefits.
And so on.
I would wait until someone I was in love with wanted to make love to me.
THAT’S IT!
That’s my whole sexuality right there.
Twelve years since I left my longterm relationship in order to find love and get to know myself sexually, and this really is what my entire philosophy on sex is:
When in love, have sex.
When not in love, don’t.
And I m never going to explain, reframe, or apologize for that ever EVER again! Because there’s nothing to apologize for.
And I will curate the work I made during my mistress years.
But none of the posts that have to do with me being a mistress, and explaining or even defending mistresshood, will be included.
I m not going to publish those specific mistress posts in a book, nor create a guide on how to become a mistress or such.
I might even take them down, I don’t know yet.
My work, from now on, will be me writing about my dreams, goals, ideas, wishes, desires. And sure, I ll use stories to spice it up.
But they will only be about things and people and experiences that move me.
I will write about being in love for sure.
And sex.
But no names, no places, no situations, not even fake ones.
It’s all gone.
From now on, it’s just me, and my emotions.
No label.

<3LSH
An unexamined life is not worth living

Mindset Yoga: de echte life makeover (Nijmegen)

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Into the Groove is the twenty-second chapter from Project M.
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tenth anniversary of the book that changed my life!

Summer 2008 I started writing in English.
Dutch American Diary
Just like now, I was in love with two men. And just like now, they were both taken.
And – yes, just like now – I had no idea where life would take me.
This 2008 diary became the only thing that offered stability during a time where I had just left my partner after fourteen years and the two new men were driving me crazy.
A book about starting over in your mid-thirties and reinventing yourself as a lover;
As a woman;
And as a vengeful fury from hell.