If someone ever asks me what the key to success is?
To making 7-figures as a writer, even though no Dutch writer has gone past 6, not even the most successful ones.
If someone asks me that, remind me to answer; It’s being prepared to lose all.
Friends.
Family.
Money.
Status.
Being right.
Being the good guy.
Being infallible. 
It’s being able to surrender to the process of becoming this, and accepting the consequences of not knowing what that will be.
Accept whatever happens. Give up control. And more. And more.
It’s like that process when you think you hit rock bottom (or think you skillfully avoided it) and then just around the corner, you fall anyway.
Hard.
That, was New Years Day.
I had gone through – well first of all I had gone without writing!
Which may explain why this is all hitting me so hard. Not that I have ever been able to prove that my life is more stable if I write a blog post first thing AM; But there is some kind of soothing effect in knowing that I least I did write.
I may have entirely screwed up as a human; But I wrote.
Except I didn’t do that.
Both the 31st of December as well as today, I had to do other things first. I would not have been able to concentrate on writing otherwise.
Yesterday, I had a ton of stuff to do and arrange before the shops closed.
And today I had a painful situation that had been the last thing I was thinking about before I finally fell asleep.
And the first thing when I woke up.
It was all very sad, for all parties.
But it also had the potential to do damage if not handled correctly.
So that was the first half of my day before I had that figured out in a way that was good or at least acceptable for everyone, I hope.
And then the rest of the day I worked really hard preparing a photo shoot for tomorrow. Called for an hour with a friend, who had things that were going on in her life;
Another friend cancelled our date and I decided to go to a bar anyway, to treat myself. Called another friend, and she joined me.
So that was my day, broad strokes. Broad strokes, 2 Chardonnay and one glass of champagne later, just when I thought:
“Okay, that went okay! I made it through this day. Home on time. Didn’t drink THAT much – should look good tomorrow!”
BAM!
On the toilet, or even on my way home on my bike;
That deep sense of insecurity.
An almost sickening need to weigh every word I said or thought throughout the entire day. And if I did it in a way so that no one got harmed.
Or will get harmed in the future.
It’s a beginning anxiety attack where you think you made a mistake that will hurt someone. I know I had it on several occasions in 2018.
Anxiety attacks which I usually associated with people finding out about me and Mr.Big.
Thinking I would get murdered.
That’s the violent variation.
In reality, my fear of social exclusion was at least equally strong. Fear of being punished for saying or doing the wrong things or for not saying the correct magic word to fit back in.
To not humiliate myself deeply enough to count as an apology.
That fear of friends turning their back on me, might be even stronger than strangers threatening me.
Or maybe it’s 50-50
Either way: It’s a LOT!
And whenever I had that fear, that anxiety, I always linked it to some kind of threat or risk. Something that happened that day, which I created into this big What if? – story.
Some big drama on the scale of butterfly causes earthquake.
With me being the butterfly.
It was like I punished myself by artificially creating guilt. Being overly responsible, to the point where you think you’re fully to blame for everything.
Just because you did your butterfly thing.
Which is a poor analogy, since I called this Embracing the Dragon.
So how are we going to get from butterflies to dragons?
Either way, I made huge steps in personal growth, in terms of conflict handling, which is my current topic of investigation/ my hobby.
But it is also EXTREMELY!!!!!!! straining.
Holy fucking shit.
There is a reason most people would rather talk about celebrities, soccer, or their yoga course. Because if you start investigating the power structure (conflict of interest) beneath superficial problems, whether from someone else or your own, you enter this roller coaster ride.
And as far as you know you’re riding a test cart, uncertain if the thing is going to hold.
I m beginning to see that the reason my social life has unexpectedly cost me way more energy than I intended to, the last couple of weeks, is because of my interest to understand what’s going on in my friend’s lives.
Their problems within their relationships, or at work for example. And I go through it with them, and I get better and better at seeing what’s going on here.
And I always come up with ways of seeing it, that are beneficial to all parties.
But what I had not seen yet, but I do now – 10 PM on the first of January! – is that it is costing me … God, so much.
It’s like drinking too much alcohol, or some other addiction, where you enjoy the high of in my case, solving the riddle-
but then you crash.
After helping either myself or a friend, analyzing what’s going on, I crash so hard. Like right now, I feel like curling up in bed and just crying, convinced I m a horrible person.
That I ll be stabbed for having an affair.
Or punished for social wrongdoings.
Or that the people who share their life with me turn against me, because they love me BUT.
BUT I m so big. BUT I make mistakes. BUT -fill in anything that happens, when you feed your mind, live on riddles, and take such high emotional and social risks.
When the thrill of wanting to understand everything has infiltrated your social circle.
On my bike, still hoping I could just go to bed early and forget this eerie aftermath-feeling- I said to myself that if I would ever write about this,
I would call it:
Embracing the dragon.
If you want to be unique, and a 7-figure rock star writer in the Netherlands is unique – you are not going to fit in.
People are going to get hurt.
Just from standing next to you when you breathe!
Entire villages might end up in ashes.
You will live alone.
Be feared.
Envied.
Hunted.
And yes; Rich.
But you cannot un-dragon yourself.
You are what you are.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

7-Figure Rock Star Writer

Embracing the dragon is episode 15 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.