It’s funny because when deciding what picture to use for this post, I chose Anais Nin before I knew that the photo I used to illustrate the accompanying chapter of Demons and Daemons, as given here below, was a stack of Anais Nin books.

If you’re reading this in a paper version book, there will be no illustrations.
But Anais Nin was a diarist and storyteller with the majority of her writings, the parts she later became famous for, written in the early to mid 20th century, in Paris and New York.
This is broad strokes;
There is so much more to tell about her.

But if I tell you Nin’s picture illustrates this post, – and coincidentally it was also used by the creator of the Life Is A Game and How to Play It video, I shared yesterday. She indicated Nin’s picture was often shown, when looking for the early 20th century Francis Scovel Shinn – then picture before you a black and white photograph of a woman who I can best describe as; French looking.
Anais Nin was petite, elegant, she wore almost exclusively black or dark clothing. Since most photos from that time were black and white, I can’t tell for sure.
Her hair was always beautifully done usually pulled back.
I remember from one of her diaries her daily self-care routine was an hour or more.

A photo of Anais Nin was the photo which was used by the maker of the video as a screenshot for the audio.
And it was/ is also the photo I’m using with this post about The Divine Plan Where Writing Always Comes First.
And if you are reading this online, and scroll below, you will see a photo of Anais Nin’s books, illustrating the Chapter from Daemons and Demons.

To me it feels like coming full circle, now that Writing has finally gotten its rightful place in my life, to come back to the writer that was one of my most important influences.
Anais Nin.
There were three quotes from her which really spoke to me, when I started both my journey to find my sexuality, and love, and my journey or craft as a writer.
Both journeys started in 2006.

The quotes from Anais Nin that inspired me during that time, and still do are;

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say,
but what we are unable to say.”

“We don’t see things as they are,
we see them as we are.”

It’s evening now.
When I started writing this post it was morning, and it’s almost irony because I did not put writing FIRST this morning.
I fiddled with my journals and my planning.
Which was very satisfying, but coming home in the evening and having to pick up a blog about Anais Nin, immediately shows how important the rule was, I created for myself.

Always put writing first.
Even before fiddling with your journals.

I came home to find an unfinished blog post yet my heart was filled with a new insight. Or not so much new, as that I realized it was something I wanted to understand and internalize at a deeper level.
About intuition and male energy.
I have been energetically tied to my lover, all those years we were together and at the same time not together, because I was a secret mistress.
And even that was something I was never certain of.
He could end it by simply no longer contacting me.

Months could go by without seeing each other.
But in those months, I would often have anxiety attacks out of nowhere. And in my mind they must have been linked to him.
I tried to pin them to a fear of being discovered, fear for my physical safety, or as a residue of my aids/hiv phobia;
Ultimately they were all social phobias.
I had those attacks frequently,  in the years we were together. And maybe because they were so frequent I have never been able to tie them to something he was feeling.
But I did see a pattern, with proof, in two other areas.

The first was that I often knew where he was, at a certain time. And later got it confirmed.

But also, and this is the real trap and one I m still susceptible to, I often got sucked into worrying over “real things”.
Money, business, mental health.
When in retrospect it always turned out it was a time when he was turning away from me.
Sometimes I got a story at a much later date, sometimes I only got a hunch;
But those longer periods of time, when I was doing really bad?
Always tied to a proven period of time when he was no longer interested in me.

It were also the times when I would fall in love with someone else, adding even more confusion to the mix.
But I m convinced that would never have happened, if the line had stayed open.

One way of seeing it, is that there is an energetic connection, that is maintained by both of us.
That it’s not so much a drawback of not receiving energy from him, nor a response to no longer being able to give him my love;
It’s the connection falling away, that causes the confusion.

Ever since we officially broken up, I have never felt that confusion anymore. It is as if by ending our affair the line can stay open, and is more steady than before.
But nevertheless, I do not want that kind of dependency.
I remember those bad times vividly, especially the ones in 2018 and 2019 when I had a higher awareness around it.
But I’m a hundred percent sure the episodes have always been there.

And I can’t take another one of those.

It reminds me a bit of a scene from Happy Gilmore where Adam Sandler wants to be selected for the ice hockey team, and when he isn’t chosen he goes to stand in front of those machines that throw out baseballs (I think it was).
He gets hit by them.

[ Text continues below video ]

When a friend asks him what he’s doing, Happy answers:
“Toughening up for next season!”
That’s how I am toughening up for another wave of rejection, but it’s a two part training. With a concrete part, and an intangible or energetic part.

The fairly easy part, in terms of execution, is when I consciously picture an active rejection. Like that he tells me that we can’t see each other as friends anymore, for instance.
Or simply no longer contacts me, and then I hear from others that he divorced his wife and is with someone else.
I deliberately come up with some sort of scenario that hurts.

Then I try to neutralize the sharp pain of jealousy and misery, by thoughts like “It’s okay” “Just be happy for him”  and “Set him free, and you too, will be free”.
This training of toughening up, most commonly has a positive result.
The pain fades away, and I feel: “Yes. If he moves out of my life, this is the way things should be done. It should be in perfect peace and harmony.”

The real problem was the intangible rejection that I could only feel.
Because I didn’t know what was going on, I turned my life upside down, found something to fuss over and get all worked up about, and totally lose control over my life.
It were the darkest of times, and I spent weeks to months in mental turmoil.
THOSE were the times I wanted to avoid, those were the punches I couldn’t take another round of.

And those were the ones I desired to have a deeper, more ingrained knowledge about.

How could I toughen up for those?

I’ll tell you in a second.
I suddenly see, how this morning’s story – which I started telling about Anais Nin and had not even gotten around properly to the Writing Always Comes First part – and tonight’s story how I’m “toughening up for next season” tie together!
Because protection against falling apart is essential, if Writing comes first.

The times when these meltdowns happened, were not so much periods of creative drought, but they had a lot of material that I didn’t post.
So I wrote the entire day, sometimes 7 to 8 hours straight, about all the things that went through my head with regard to The Malfunctioning Topic Of The Year –
and then just couldn’t post it.

I think writing things you don’t post must be part of any blogger’s life, but I remember those periods of mental distress, to be the ones when it happened frequently.

If I m serious about Writing being first, and the quality of the work mattering, it means I have to get control over my feelings and nail this.
Or 2020 will very soon slide down into the abyss, just like the previous two years did.

So this is the emotional rescue plan I worked out for myself;
I m going to find the emotional connections to the other men I am in love with.
See who’s on the other end of the line.
I know of one who has picked up, the other two I do not know.
Maybe there is a way of sending love, without the intimacy of a reciprocal receiver?

Cultivating my connections in the energetic realm, making sure I get more nourishment and feel a bigger sense of belonging than just from my former lover;
That’s how I m toughening up for next season.

And if that doesn’t work, I can always turn to having baseballs fired at me.

Suzanne/ Lauren living.

You just read part 1, my column.
Today’s chapter from Demons and Daemons, was the third time I made a note while extracting my manuscripts from all the sites, trying to create books. 
This is what I wrote:

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About The Book Club

In The Book Club you can find:
– a post
– and one Chapter of my novella Demons and Daemons.

These Book Club posts will form a new book, “A Map Into Unknown”
Covering a journey of three weeks into darkness (Demons and Daemons)
and three weeks, finding my way back to the light.