The first week after our call I was actually doing great;
My last mail to you concluded I should get back on my Sexual Odyssey, the call itself revealed what makes me tick  professionally and I vowed to move forward in full integrity to who I was.
And then;
Nothing.

I thought I was just dealing with one week of not being very productive, when yesterday I almost signed up for a line a work that would have taken over all my time, my identity.
It was like a less-dramatic version of signing up to the foreign legion, and I was THIS close! 
The appeal was so very big to sign up to doing this training leading to a new professional identity and a good salary, relieving me of the assignment to make money as a writer.

The irregular working hours, and inflexible holiday periods would make it a day job just to recover from work. My time to have friendships or connections to family let alone my time for creative endeavors would effectively drop to zero.
But the payoff would be, I could never return to teaching yoga, I would be able to take all my YouTube channels down, all my blogs, and all my books, and I would never have to deal with being a creative person ever again.

The payoff would be I would be a success to worldly standards, and everybody would understand writing had just been a fluke, sparked by not having a quite-right-for-me career in yoga.
The new line of work would also be self-explanatory that someone who did this would be thoroughly unhappy being a yoga teacher, I would never have to explain that again. Also a big perk.

And today I’m recovering from that one-day episode, and I feel a combination of guilt of betraying myself, and a not-so-certain it was a good idea to save myself.
If I should not have just get it over with, and throw myself on a path that is both productive and of service, in a traditional way.

Because I’m at my wits end.

I can open my phone and read my own mission statements, but it feels like betrayal.
All the topics I have decided on to become an expert at, and all the ones I m already an expert at, it’s just a matter of stepping into it publicly;
I only want to run away.

All the videos that need to be curated, all the books that need to be created from all the columns and articles (I don’t even have a Dutch book yet under my own name!);
It all chokes me just thinking about all the work I have to do to monetize what I created.
And this in turn paralyzes me to create anything new because I know that it will only weigh me down one day having to go over it and polish it properly and do something with it. More writing means more work for future-me.

I haven’t written, nor done yoga, nor wrote Nikki, nor worked on my book in three weeks.
I haven’t touched my Inbox for LS Harteveld in three months.
And I want to burn my yoga books and get rid of all other yoga material so that I never even consider teaching it again.
I want to terminate all my Dutch blogs and all my blogs (but one) under my real name, and I want to cancel all “her” YouTube channels.

I want to free myself of all the diplomas and work experiences  I have acquired for the last three decades. 

And be free.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/