This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

The only blogpost I have frequently revisited over the years, is December 2022’s 7 Values, 7 Deadly Sins.
Which also means I never actually revisited anything, until recently.

But this week, I was in for a very unhappy surprise:
My values have changed.
Which, in my opinion, is about the worst, fu**ed up thing one can have to face in ones lifetime.
Well, this time it was me, apparently, who came to the conclusion she didn’t have her priorities in order.

The original order of my values was:
1.Love 2. (Sexual and financial) Freedom 3.sex
4. self-expression 5. body 6.fun and adventure 7. status

Initially I just moved Body from number 5 to the top, at number 1;
Because if I fail to take care of my body, nothing else is going to get done anyway.
I also limited “2” to financial freedom, removing the idea of sexual freedom. After all, Sex was already on 3, and to me the idea of financial freedom was intrinsically linked to it being the gateway to sexual freedom.
What other reason could one have?
Except, apparently, a lot, because no one I know say they want to be financially free so they can be sexually free.
But I am not most people.

So that was that, or so I thought.
Just some light moderations.

Until I realized that my top two values were actually not even on the list.

My top value “1” was being offline.
Being offline is not as strict as it sounds, and basically stands for me for not being sucked into scrolling, refreshing my news tab, or checking notifications.
They stand for having autonomy.
Although this autonomy is of course most easily attained by simply staying away from a computer entirely.

But it was clear to me, that tossing time down the drain online was presenting this huge liability spending time on whatever it was my so called “top values” were.

And this is the same underlying line of thought, that brought me to my new number 2, which I will reveal in a minute.

Just a quick reminder that at this point the original number one (Love) had dropped 3 spots.
One,  because Body went first. And then another two places, because I inserted two new priority values.
Having Love drop three places?
That’s a serious shift, in priorities!

The second new priority value I inserted, after being offline (1), was living in a clean house.
Making “Housekeeping” at large, my number two must-do, every day.
And since “being offline” is not actually an activity, but rather a lack thereof, you could say that “Housekeeping” became my Top priority, overnight!
😱

And that from someone who in December 2022 already felt like a softy for the last-minute addition of “Love” at number 1, when I just knew it should say Sex.
And now in 2024 I have *counts fingers* five other values more important than Sex!
😱

Sex is now on number 6, which aside from the kinky alliteration, is a disgrace. In particular for me as a diarist and erotica writer, who has not had sex in over a year.
Which comes as a surprise to no one, since I apparently have at least five better things to do.

New list of Values

1.Being offline
2.Housekeeeping
3.Body
4.Love
5.Financial Freedom
6.Sex
7. Self-Expression
8.Fun& Adventure
9.Status

The new set of 9 Values, and their specific order, are exactly right.
I would die of chaos and stress, for example if I would have fun and adventure (8) before 1-5 have provided me with stability.

So I think the biggest change since December 2022, is that I realize that the fun things;
Sex (6) Self-Expression (7) Fun & Adventure (8) and Status (9)
Are only fun, when 1 to 5 are in place.

But also:
One to five are completely boring!
I may just as well find my casket right away, because as much as I love the peace of living offline;
The serenity of living in a clean house;
The unconditional love I feel for all the animals I take care of, and that I feel for my family and all of my friends and yoga students;
As much as I absolutely adore the hustle of being a creative and am head-over heels in love with marketing, selling and the lifestyle of an independent;

They are STILL not what makes me tick.

It’s like now that I no longer have a lover, and dating and looking for one seems to belong to a lifestyle from an era that is long-gone and I do not feel compelled to redo;
I have lost my reason to live.

I have lost, the reason to get one to five into place. Without “6” there is no reason to, and contrary to my years before I had my lover, I don’t feel like “wasting” time meeting new men.
That time is behind me, and my lover, the man who changed it all, did not come to me through a dating site nor social media.

And without the 6 of Sex, I do not particularly care for 7 “Creative self-expression including writing”, not for 8 “Fun and Adventure” and not for 9 “Status” either.

I have known for long, that in theory, I lost something when I got into my affair all those years ago.
I lost the simple, pure connection to my own body and to my own sexuality.
Resulting among other things, in a loss of enjoying yoga, the way I had enjoyed it for over 15 years at that point.

Instead, my connection to my own body and to my own sexuality, became synonymous to being with him.

So I knew that now that he is no longer in my life, the logical way out was to detox from that dopamine sex-infused rush that had been the affair, and to pick up enjoying my own body.
In peace, not in a close to a decade long, spectacular sexual affair.

But I really, honestly, a few weeks in and I don’t think that is possible.
I have been way to optimistic.

And now with the Values thing, just looking at that top 5 makes me gag, and not in a choke me when you take me from behind, kind of way.
It’s so vanilla, it’s so boring.
And – like I said – that’s while enjoying all the things that are in that top 5!
But it’s just the lack of excitement, that makes the idea (I will get back to this) of actually starting to live according to my top 5, repulsive.

I know so, because this top 5 is how I have actually been living my life for the last five years! My top 5, is not a conceptual idea, of how my life would look if only I would commit to these top 5;
This has been actual my life for years.
The worst years of my life, when I lost everything.

Disclaimer here that I did not live according to value 1, “offline”. But I think we all became a bit unregulated in that area, since the pandemic.
And unfortunately, my life seems far too broken to be fixed with a digital detox.

I discovered a new “simple life” self-help channel on YouTube, very easy going guy. And I saw one of the other videos which I have not watched yet, having something in the title like “It didn’t fix me”.
I can relate to that.
Simplifying my life, by focusing on 1 (offline), 2 (clean house), 3  (Body) and 4 (Love)?
It has not fixed me.

And maybe, in hindsight, I don’t want to be fixed AND I don’t care for a simple lifestyle!
There!

I don’t care if I know that before my lover, I had a life of simple pleasures that I can no longer enjoy, because I have grown accustomed to having Big Sex.
I’ve changed.
I don’t want to go back to a soft, simple life.

So!
My initial plan, the noble idea of internalizing my sexuality and finding pleasure again in the small things, in yoga, in my own body and sexuality
– it needs to go.

And I need to find a way to make number 1 to 5 of my squeaky clean values, rebellious, sexual, dark and unpredictable.

I need to find a way, to turn them into sins.
Preferably deadly ones.
😱

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living