Yesterday I woke up, with the romantic idea that I was no longer going to work myself to death.
Instead I was going to start my day cycling or by doing yoga, before anything else.
Today I nourished a similar delusion that I would quit these daily blogs, in order to focus fully on publishing my books for the upcoming however-long-it-took.
What I found out is that I barely know how to breathe, without writing.
Let alone do yoga, or bury myself in publishing books.
It’s definitely a progressive thing. There have been times when I didn’t write.
But ouch! The withdrawal was nasty!
The loneliness of not writing.
The notebooks that keep filling up with notes that don’t have anywhere to go.
Both internally and externally, the tension just keeps building up.
Of course, eventually I CAN come to new insights, without typing them all out here.
But it requires more time, and a lot of input from friends and family.
Which I m very uncomfortable with, because they have put up with me already needing a lot of extra attention this year for things that I could not write about.
And they paid the price.
The main thing I could not write about, were all the different stages of slimming down, rebranding and ultimately entirely quitting my yoga studio.
You can’t present yourself to the outside world, and at the same time share everything you re not sure about.
So when this morning I knew that in order to get those books out, as soon as possible, it was best to stop writing here, and go all in on the publishing part?
It was just a dream.
That’s not going to happen.
And if it did, it would mean I would have to share everything with my loved ones instead, and this is not an appealing thought.
Because writing yesterday’s blog post I also realized that eleven days ago, when I registered as a company named Lauren Harteveld –
I became my work.
That Lauren didn’t actually rely on her loved ones, the way I had for the past 46 years.
She was far more independent.
And although it was Lauren’s fantasy too, to be able to quit writing just for one or two months, and crunch it with those new books;
We both agreed it was a bad idea.
Writing is necessary for my/ our sanity.
More than taking care of my body.
More than publishing my books.
I would do well to remember that, because I ve gone through this cycle multiple times. Of wanting to quit writing temporarily, or stop prioritizing it since “writing will come out and happen anyway”.
So I had all that!
My little weekend of wanting to be normal, I guess you can put it.
But I also had a HUGE (!!) epiphany over why I am so motivated by this.
Next to the recognition that I am obviously not normal, I now know why I am not normal.
In the movie Fantastic Beasts – The Crimes of Grindelwald, there is a flashback scene to wizarding school where a boy named Newton Scamander, has to face his biggest fear.
The Boggart, a magical entity, will automatically turn itself into your biggest fear.
For Newt?
It’s a desk.
Which makes sense because he will grow up to be a wizard who manages, and regulates dragons and other monsters. And nursing them and taking care of them whenever they need that.
“You’ve never met a monster you didn’t like,” someone says to him.
I have the same thing!
I do loooove my desk (of course I do!) But even more than that, I love internal monsters… Even when they threaten my life.
Thursday I m going to see a doctor because I might have medical conditions which entitle me to funded alternative housing during the renovation.
I’ve already decided I m not going to stay here.
I m definitely going to get an apartment for myself, for those three weeks.
Even if it’s going punch a serious hole in my startup budget.
But I do have limited resources!
And if the temporary housing can be funded, it will save me a lot of money, which I can put into my business.
Preparing for this consultation with the doctor, I started to think about why I had not come sooner. And what to expect, what she’d probably recommend.
It wasn’t like I wasn’t open to ways to improve my health.
But that was when I had the epiphany;
That I like this!
I need the thrill.
To me, living a balanced life is the thing I fear most.
Just like Newt Scamander feared that office desk.
In my love life I ve known this for a long time. Which is why I ve always looked for relationships that challenged me, and that were unstable by default.
Because they were with immature men, or because I didn’t love him, or he not me.
Because they lived on the other side of the ocean, or because he was still married.
But nothing that would ever allow me to lean back and relax.
In quitting writing about my love life, and instead writing about work, I had subconsciously assumed I was moving to calmer waters.
My wild days were behind me.
I was shifting towards normal, after all.
Until I imagined that doctor sitting there, and explaining to me that my blood pressure was way too high, my heart was under stress, and I was extremely close to a burnout.
The only solution was to slow down, and to stop working myself into exhaustion.
To just leave this entire dream of publishing my four new books within a couple of weeks, all the while blogging daily.
And to then up my game becoming a famous speaker on the topics of sex, relationships, and on being a wealthy as fuck writer.
It was just insane.
That’s when I knew it was never the desk, that Newton Scamander feared;
It was the absence of danger.
It was a life that allowed him to lean back and relax.
What Newt and me feared, is feared by few;
Safety.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

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7-Figure Rock Star Writer

Adrenaline Junkie is episode 8 of my project 7-figure rock star writer

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I quit writing (about my love life)

Project M. and in particular its last chapter Like a Prayer is my final diary for an indefinite period of time. 

I ve been writing about my love life, pretty much non-stop, since 2006, the moment I became single. And although it has brought me many things – in particular the opportunity to have relationships that are way out of my league – it has now started to constrict me.
The cage of self-reflection and transparency, that I built to protect myself, has become a prison.
I need to start living, and start experiencing life, without the pen.
Or at least without diary writing/ blogging about my real life.

I m going to use this time to create my four new books

One Dutch book with columns:
Blote Kont
Verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit

One English book with columns:
I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

One English book about Mistresshood:
The Big Mistress

And one diary 2017-2018, called Reboot.
Which will also include my last diary Project M.