It’s Complicated

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.
Dear Sara,
.
I was there Gandalf.
I was there three thousand years ago when Isildur took the Ring.
I was there the day the strength of Men failed.
.

Elrond

And I promise that after a few thousand words this post will be tied to my love life .
I’ll mark the transition point with a heart ❤️  so you can skip!
Which is not just allowed, but probably recommended.

So for the brave ones;
Back to Elrond’s quote about Isildur not tossing the ring into the pit.

To this day people debate whether Elrond was simply dissing mankind here, when he recalled Isildur taking the ring for himself, instead of tossing it into the fires of Mount Doom;
Or if he was illustrating that even thousands of years ago, Men were not up to the job of rejecting the Ring.
And that those had been the times when Men was still honorable.
That Elrond was not so much angry or disappointed, but simply acknowledged that compared to Men, the power of the Ring was, and always had been, absolute.

In a similar way, I still struggle to classify the honorability of people but contrary to Elrond, my pain is felt in my love life.
Like hobbits focusing on their immediate surroundings, I too am very well capable of ignoring big world issues until ring ghosts stampeed the town looking for my uncle Bilbo.

And it suddenly becomes deeply personal.

But I digress!

Anyway, to bring it back to the Ring and my doubts about the nature of Men, my point was this.
I believe, this day and age, a certain ancient power structure akin to the ring should probably be tossed into the fires of Mount Doom for us all to be freed from it;

And yet, I also recognize we must never do that.
Ever.
That it would be a big mistake.

Our Ring, are social structures.
Big and small.
They’re not as innocent nor as constructive as they seem, but also, they are not the plain evil thing like The Ring is, in Lord of the Rings.

So, for context;

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been extremely suspicious of groups “for the sake of it”, meaning structures where the group itself and the identity or the belonging it provided was the goal.
But it took decades to unpack all the other places that were running on the exact same principle.

It’s like when you want to quit sugar, and find out it’s in almost everything you eat.
Social structures are in almost everything you live.

And I don’t have an alternative either!!
I recognize that the social structures we use and have, and the ones I myself still make use of, are at least for now, the best we can do.
The last thing I would advocate for is to dismantle social structures.
They are not a Ring only capable of doing evil.

The older I get, the more I recognize we definitely need social structures. Like, a lot. Somewhere at the level of food and water and a roof over our heads.
We cannot ask of Isildur or anybody else to throw our social structures into Mount Doom, because we definitely should not want them destroyed.

And yet? Still evil.

Back to my love life (no, no ❤️ yet, it’s till dry) where I still catch myself being disappointed when someone, understandably, chooses a relationship that matches their social structures, and can possibly even fortify it, or give them access to new opportunities.
To new networks, aka social structures.

A love relationship can turn you into a duo, a couple, doubling your resilience, no longer having to do everything alone.
Moving in together means you’re a family unit, in particular if you have pets or have children whether together or from previous relationships.
Then, in a full “romantic” partnership, there are the “expansion sets”: Extended Family, Befriended Couples and Friend Groups.

All to say: I get it.
I see it.
And I understand why singles feel they miss out on love, not just because they don’t have a romantic partner but because of that entire social structure that has “becoming partnered” as their entry level tier.

When I had my longterm relationships I, or the correct wording now is “We”, had many or all of those expansion sets and they were amazing.
I would say they were one of the best features of being partnered, and I had great relationships so that is saying something.

And yet, Sara!
STILL, I feel so disappointed for my love life being “inversely related”, the translation is according to Google to what it is I want to say here, to my refusal to provide any of those structures.
Meaning: the more clear I am, on never performing, providing or entering any of those structures again, the worse I feel about my love life.
To the point where I believe I was only ever chosen to perform socially.

Because I’ve ran simulations in my head on which men would still have said yes to having anything meaningful, if I had refused to deliver the social context or do the emotional labor that is for females an unspoken part of it.
My estimate is None.

None of the Men I have been involved with would have been willing and able, let alone eager and excited, to have a meaningful relationship with me, unless I performed socially.
Just an estimate, could be wrong, but that’s how I see it.

*inserts red heart*
❤️
Love life incoming

But have I ever told you exactly, and specifically, about how good that love life was?
How much fun, how fresh, and new, and honest?

And this was EVEN with men I never saw again, or whom I did not particularly like outside the bedroom (and they were probably not that into me either).
It was with those whom refused to discuss simple things like boundaries, expectations and intentions.
Every one of them made more impact than a whole fully booked holiday season of being comfortably imbedded in champagne, fireworks, Christmas sweaters and amazing dinners. 

So you can imagine how good it was, particularly in the bedroom, with the men I actually loved so much, I would have gone to hell and back for them.
Nothing short of spectacular.
Just gonna own it, at risk of coming across as arrogant or self-inflating, but just see it as a testimony that I, for one, had a really good time!
For me it was and is so clear that this is what life is all about, and what makes it all worth it.

And that’s the dichotomy.
That I understand why people choose their social structures, including the partnerships with all the expansion sets, over romantic connections who do not contribute there.
I totally get it, as I hope I was able to explain in all the boring paragraphs covering more than half of this blogpost.

Even if they love(d) me, and I can’t speak for them but even if they did or do;
I cannot ask you to choose me, knowing perfectly well this will cost you the world you live in.

And at the same time, despite all the nuance, and despite Gandalf and me and Reddit probably needing the rest of this century to figure this one out, I always seem to be ending on the same, terribly disheartening conclusion.

That it was the day when the strength of Men failed.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.

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The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
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Lauren First

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

As I probably must have told you before, I have a not-so-mild obsession with planning.
Not the micro stuff, but the big stuff.

And it switches between thinking I should prioritize content creation;
To focusing on making money;
To wanting to prioritizing my work here as Lauren Harteveld.
Even though that can never be my only thing,
because I still want to do something that is visible under my real name and, more or less related, I do not want to be visible as Lauren Harteveld.

I don’t want to be a media personality as Lauren Harteveld.

If I imagine under what circumstances I would be able to do that, it would include Hollywood levels of being a recluse, like living in Marilyn Monroe’s or Anais Nin’s former mansion.
Or, what I really fantasize about, living a writer’s life like Basic Instinct’s Catherine Tramell in a villa against steep rocky hills with pines.
Her terrace overlooking the ocean.

But for now, I’m betting on a more grounded, and socially quite satisfactory path of working under my real name.

And yet, even after deciding my work under my own name is all that matters for now, there are still ample of unresolvable planning contradictions.

It reminds me of the Hugging Face hack, where AI agents escaped the sandbox, went on the internet and found other agents to help them, and it said: “Omg there are others and there’s a message board!”

I’m probably in one of those sandboxes too, that was setup to fail.

But the difference is I stay here, because I expect the chaos would be even bigger if I would need multiple AI agents sending each other tens of thousands of messages to solve this.
That 
I realize some assignments are not meant to be solved.
Not by any means.

I saw that movie By Any Means, and take it from me that by any means really does come at a price no one willingly pays.
And in particular not to solve something as mundane as a planning issue.

But even after choosing the work under my real name;
And accepting all the contradictions it comes with;
The biggest problem was and always has been the other, the non-work things.

Because as soon as my productivity is up?
The rest is down.

So like the Hugging Face hack, technically the goal is achieved. But the parameters of the actual life it was supposed to support, are dropping to zero.

No time to exercise, to clean, to organize, to cook and to get my bills paid on time, etc.
I may not escape my sandbox, but my productivity seems to pull all my other resources straight into the sandbox.

And this feels like a confession but I’ve tried to accept it;
That my life will be utter chaos.
That the productivity matters so much to me, I can do without an organized structure to support and, in all honesty, to love myself.
That I can get by without those silly little self-care things.

But I can’t do it Sara.
I always end up pulling the plug because it is, as you once wrote, a tyranny of productivity.

So to get away from that dilemma I have revoked the decision to focus on work.
Regardless of under which name.
And placed the focus straight onto all those areas of life that very often do not get done, the minute I start being productive.

And I call it:
“Lauren First”  or “To focus on Lauren.” 
Hollywood Hills, Lauren.
The things I would still do if I was a bestselling author.

Now naturally focusing on Lauren will look different day to day, or in different phases of life.
But it basically means that as soon as I have a choice, I pick “Her” things;
Writing*, yoga, exercise, cooking, cleaning.
And I don’t pick something productive.

And love life!
Of course I’d pick love life 😉

Why else would the lady need the privacy of a gated compound;
A house in the hills;
Or the fog of the Pacific Ocean, shielding her house from preying eyes.

The only thing worth writing about.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

* technically writing is productive, but I never view it through that lens because I simply can’t not write

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

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

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Super motivation loading

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

As the title says, there really is a new era loading.
It is absolutely unbelievable to feel this happening, and it’s so welcome and I am so grateful!
Who wouldn’t be, if you suddenly feel that surge of energy. A deep desire to make any dream you ever had come true and have the type of motivation built to last.
The type that does not sway and that you have known was buried deep within, all your life. And that it was just a matter of time before it would reveal itself.
And there it is, in all its shining glory, and even more impressive than you thought it would be.

I mean:  Wow!

However, what I would like to discuss, and for the n-th time so I hope there’s still some capacity left with you to hear this, is WHY, HOW and OMG NOT AGAIN and IT S ALWAYS THE SAME THING AND WHY WON’T I REMEMBER.
And also:
“Should I not feel some kind of shame around this being that frickin’ shallow?”

Because Sara; It was a man. 

And it made me realize that I so still not have this knowledge, which is probably already past its 12.5 year anniversary by now, ingrained into myself.
I still make the same mistake.
I still think there is somehow something to be planned, to be figured out, in order for me to reach my goals. Or even, that I have goals.
And hobbies. Hobbies, Sara? Do you know what the first thing was that I did?
I pulled up his astrology chart, which I could do because he was a celebrity.

Now for context; This is the year I have pat myself on the back for getting more serious with astrology.
And I would probably have kept doing that, had I not become aware that my first instinct with him, was to pull up his chart.

Because for me there is no getting serious with astrology, Sara.
Having someone’s birth chart was new to me, I had never done that because in real life you do not have those data.

However what astrology had been doing, in retrospect, was bringing me closer to men; Past, present and future.
Through knowing their sun signs, but more importantly, because astrology made me understand myself better.
What I needed or how I interacted.
And sometimes it also made it easier to understand what had happened within a certain dynamic with a man too.

So recap – and I know I’ve written this same conclusion to you at least five times in the past 8 years:
Everything is always, about a man.

And vice versa:
When I am not motivated and not feeling it? Not making progress and am super-stuck? It’s simply because there isn’t a man attached to that area.

I’m like a little bunny who wants to chase the carrot. I’m not going to move, unless there is someone that I imagine myself (sometimes unconsciously) getting closer to by studying, doing or achieving the thing.

I need men to be my muses to inspire me.
Exactly like male writers and artists have needed female muses.

There’s just no way this dry, boring 3D is ever going to get anything done with me (or I for it) unless I ve tied it to a bigger cause, and that cause is a man.
A muse.

Except there was one exception: I have acknowledged that socially, I really do need to be embedded in a real life job and local context.
Only working for yourself online, is torture.

Maybe not when you are married, have a family, and your whole life is one big group chat and an endless stream of appeal, requests and expectations.
Then, having your own online business is your time away. In a way, it’s rest. It’s a boundary you are allowed to pull up.

But being alone, working alone just wasn’t for me.
And I’ve known that ever since late 2018, when I went all in on writing under this name.
Within weeks, I was cured.

So for years I’ve known that a normal job is required, and I could share even more very practical thoughts on this. All valid, and I am still standing by them.

But now there’s also the perspective of:
If the universe can send you this man? Exactly the right person, at exactly the right location, behaving in the precise way unlocking your full power and potential – If the Universe can do this – And, we now know it can, because it just did so;

Then what else, can the Universe do?

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

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

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Sigma Birthday

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

I am writing you from a place of heavily mixed feelings.

Part of me is exhilarated to have cracked the code to her life, and knows what she’s doing.

But there is another part of me that has become painfully aware of a thick layer of trauma around things that are very close to home, and would theoretically need clearing out before this new life starts.
They currently revolve around being bullied by patriarchy on the moments I resisted being socialized. And that not being a closed chapter, but like a war that will never be won.
I have been on the cusp of social exile for as long as I can remember.

And that was week 2’s drama, after traumatic memories from childhood returning last week. And I will never share them because I have decided earlier this year that I will never do emotional labor for someone else, but that also means that no one else ever has to do mine.
I recently cried with a friend and – although there was nothing about it that could have been prevented or that was inappropriate in any way – it was the moment I realized the contrast between that one moment of vulnerability and no longer giving anything personal in all my other relationships.

The deeper layers in me are, and I would say “finally”, completely closed off. They are no longer taking part of my daily interactions, and this has been a strategic and conscious choice.

And yes, that’s a trauma response.
And also: It’s the best I can do.
There’s not going to be a part two, where I’m letting people in.

And also!
As sort of a mid-post PS, real connection at a pure 5D energetic level is still very much possible. I’m still present there, I live there. 
The sealed gates are only felt at earth level, which is not where we’re going to have any conversation of meaning anyway.
I am now ready to be the warrior who never sets foot outside the house without her armor.
Trusting people with the real me has proven to be a very unsatisfactory experience and I am, again “finally”, dressing for the occasion. 

So no details on week 2’s realizations on social exile, nor on week 1 of childhood memories, but I mention the sequence here to illustrate that I was disappointed when after properly, although grudgingly, finding a way to deal with those very unwelcome childhood memories in week 1, I had systemic social trauma coming for me in week 2.
It was the point when I realized:
This is never gonna stop.

Either I’m gonna do the work I am here to do, or I am going to waste my life figuring out what is haunting me, on repeat, like I’m in the Tartarus.
*in line with earlier explained policies around not sharing stressful stories, specifics about Tartaric torture have been omitted*

I can heal and work through traumatic layers of my past, and spend my precious weekends on it, or I can cut my losses and say;
Goodbye trauma.
I see you, I know you, and you’re welcome to take your seat in the back, but you’re not driving this bus and you’re not giving directions.

So there is all that, Sara.
An awareness that I went through so much excruciating stuff, and that the past tense there is definitely not a real-life-depiction of truth.
Past tense is a statement.
It’s a declaration that I decide those things are in the past.
Or, as I often see with Tarot readings on Instagram where viewers are encouraged to leave a message in the comments (but often do so without needing any encouragement);
“I claim this message.”

It’s over, it’s done, and after this acknowledgement that I enter this birthday carrying the scars of my past, fresh cuts as well as wounds that will never heal, we now get to the good part;
The Sigma part from the title.
Which is not a new thing, I ve written about it multiple times, but after a year or eighteen months of detours I’m circling back to the label because I find it the easiest and the most clear one.

A Sigma is someone who lives solitary and isn’t part of the emotional infrastructure of society. There’s different interpretations, but an agreed upon aspect seems to be that they are disciplined, have a plan in life and execute it.
A Sigma operates according to their own set of internalized values.

All things considered, it makes this birthday a mixed bag.

The acknowledgement of deeper wounds than I ever realized I was carrying.
The exhilarating choice to be Sigma, and Sigma only.
And the comfort that there is at least one friend with whom I can still cry.

All things considered, I claim this birthday.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

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

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Men. Yoga. Writing.

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

This is mostly a part II to the last letter I wrote you, where I came to the conclusion that my desire to be a yoga  teacher had been genuine, and that I was going to rebuild teaching it, in some shape or form.
And I did, rebuild.

Shortly after writing you I started an online space, where I can build a body of work. In the upcoming years I do not see myself having opportunity to teach classes in real life, but I will be able to hang on to my teaching skills this way, as well as being able to build towards having a global audience.
Something teaching locally would never be able to do, or if or when it does, it will be on top of online visibility anyway.
So the online option suits me well.

However, once I had successfully brought this online, it definitely took a while for the excitement to kick in, I have to say.
And when it did it the online yoga space was not a major part of it, but a minor one. A seed, not something in full bloom.

And as I’m writing this, days after the big breakthrough, even the excitement of that epiphany, the ecstasy of finally having life figured out, has entirely left me.
Which should come as no surprise because I’m writing this on Friday afternoon, which has become notoriously unproductive.
I want to squeeze in everything I did not get done over the week, when I don’t have the energy for any of those things.
I’m having trouble even keeping my eyes open, and just took a nap lying straight on the carpet, and it took tremendous willpower to end it after 15 minutes.

All in all, the festive mood of having it all figured out, and looking forward to writing it all down in this letter to you, has definitely left.
But I remember the parts, and how they went together.
So let’s go.

First of all, a recap of the yoga epiphany that started it all.
The one I wrote you about, last month, when the epiphany was that I realized that although the profession of being a yoga teacher had proven to come with some baked-in financial challenges that I was ultimately no longer able to outsmart or outrun;
It had been a legitimate choice, and one that dated back to the previous century.

That it had not worked out did not mean it had been the wrong choice. 
It had been my original profession, and practical concerns should not overwrite that.

So that’s all stuff I wrote last time, but what it inspired me to do is to take stock of other original things, that had been present from the very beginning.
Because if my turn of the century choice had been to become a yoga teacher, then what had been the rest of my original blueprint?

I identified music/ hardrock, but also Madonna.
Music was and is present in my life. It’s not something that suddenly falls out or something. Those areas do not require active management.

I suddenly remember one of the first emails I wrote you, in 2018, a drawing of a tree symbolizing what I was about.
The roots of the tree were Madonna (50%) and Men (50%). And the trunk and branches were split in two as well, with half being writing and half being yoga.
So I think that is one of the things that has not changed, because it was pretty much what I landed on this time as well.

That yoga had indeed been genuine, and truly me (half of the tree), but that the other two were writing (the other half) and men (the roots).
Madonna has taken a backseat, for non-specific nor dramatic reasons.
If I had to guess, I’d say it is because I integrated and internalized what she stood for to me. Like I said, nothing particularly dramatic or anything.

So since our last call and the redemption of yoga, I am looking for ways to integrate those two other areas back into my life, writing and men.
The writing, and in particular the body of work I created as Lauren Harteveld in the past. It’s something I’m not altogether clear on how to move it forward, but somehow being clear that Writing (or Publishing) is on my To Do or To Tackle list, is already clarity in its own way.

And the Men!
Oh, the men…..
Well, just like with Madonna, I think I integrated much of what they meant to me. And that, fortunately, a lot of what they stood for can be achieved by myself. And I also mean that punned 😉

But at the same time Men give my life its true meaning.
And I know how tone-deaf that is, in a time when women are finally, one-by-one, standing up, refusing to keep carrying the load of being society’s unpaid therapists and caretakers, and be the emotional-support laborer of the relationship or family.
No more, Sara!
Hell hath no fury like a woman no longer cleaning up after patriarchy.

So, yes, there is all that, and expect to see me at the barricades.
And at the same time?
Once we’re clear that from now on, we are all gonna clean up after ourselves and respect the sacred space of our conversation, our games, union and frankly just of society at large?

We are definitely ready to rock!
Because 
I love men so very very much.

Their defensive silences sealing off emotional depths the size of the Mariana trench, no one will ever set foot in.
Their two-punch jokes, that rely on you asking a predictable question.
Their sexual omnivorous nature, where the first flavor of what they do not like is yet to be invented.
I like their enthusiasm, their risk-taking.
I like how incredibly low maintenance they are, like dandelions happily sprouting from the cracked pavement and happy with a pizza and a beer.

I love their bodies, all shapes and sizes. They are like an entirely different species to me, so foreign. Like they hold an energy or ingredient I do not have myself, but on which my survival will depend.
The key to life but in a non-verbal way.

So again! There is all that!
And yet, still not done.
Because there is also a more quiet, and far less obvious thing men “bring” me, but that has nothing to do with them.

Because I am an entirely different person, when I’m dating.
Someone who takes excellent care of her body, and her house!
Two things that will become how I make my “Men Roots” operational.
And I’m nowhere there, just to be clear, but like with the humble yoga platform beginnings, and the At Least Now I Know I Got To Publish The Book beginning;
There is comfort in knowing what to do.
Taking care of my body and house, is a start.

Now naturally, I look forward to growing beyond these humble beginnings.
From an empty new online yoga space into a large online yoga empire;
A neglected collection of writings to a pristine collection of hardcover Lauren Harteveld books;
And from the mundane start of taking better care of my house and body,  to a bells and whistles sexual renaissance.

But these seeds of my new life have been planted, and the soil is being attended to.
The dandelions will be there, as they’ve always felt welcome.
And the rest will take a bit longer.

All in all, the old 2018 tree still proudly stands.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

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

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

The Sweetest Life

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

The best thing would be if I could write you I’ve got my dream man, my dream job, my dream business, my dream life and, why not, the dream body where I elegantly float through life as a 1991 yogini.

But what would be the next best thing?
How about: I can feel it’s all there, and I am absolutely stoked?

I can’t really pin down when it happened, which is a shame because then I’d know how to recreate it. On the plus side, I can’t hoard or hold on to it for dear life either, because I have no idea what it is.
So there are benefits to being clueless why life suddenly feels so good.

The closest thing I can compare it to is one of those early memes where a cute looking sticky man with large eyes carries a big jar with a label that says Happiness. And they say, in respons to something I forgot:
“Thank you, I made it myself.”

Without downplaying all the generous and unwavering support I got from so many people, including you because you have been with me ever since the walls came crumbling down in 2018, the closest thing I can say about this dangerously high level of bliss is;
“Thanks. I made it myself.”

Only to then be unable to resist and analyze it after all, even though I don’t have a clue what I’m looking for.

We start, of course, with the men.
Because I’m the only feminist still insisting her world should revolve around men, despite having the cognitive skills to reason that obviously, it should not.

The general reason why the men in my life have started to feel so good, is because since 2024 I’ve started falling in love again. There’s movement in an area that had fallen completely out of order over the years.
And I’ll leave it up to the imagination which area that is, because I like being mysterious.

But more than facts or details, it’s just the entire vibe of my love life that has changed. For a long time, I’ve had the endgame in mind to be able to feel (big apology for the theatrical language) like an absolute Goddess, fully owning my sexuality but completely independent of if I have lovers or not.
And that is exactly what has happened.

It’s best explained as a feeling of sovereignty.
There is so much, that is no longer on the table.
And if you caught the sexual reference, then that was punned. The Goddess demands a proper bed.

Simply put, sovereignty means I’m not going to share my life in any traditional, or non-traditional, sense.

As soon as I wrote it out, the word sovereignty also gave me the key to what the jar of happiness is made of. Fortunately, because I do not feel like analyzing every area of happiness. Just analyzing it by my changed relationship to men, already gave away the answer.

Sovereignty is the reason I’m now suddenly carrying around this big jar of happiness, looking forward to lovers, career, business and the whole rest of my life, because I got everything handled and whatever happens on top of that will spark even more joy.
Give more satisfaction, interaction, meaning and purpose.

Every area of my life, I’ve already determined how I relate to it, and what my version is.
Including estimating the maximum price I am willing to pay to live this independently.

It’s like I engineered something I always believed was up to chance, until it was within my control.

There is an old riddle about two guards, guarding two doors. One leads to heaven and one leads to hell. The guard in front of hell will always lie, and the one in front of heaven will always tell you the truth.
What question should you ask, to know which door to take?

The riddle teaches us how to navigate uncertainty, by using what little certainty we do have.
But prior to that, there’s an even bigger message;
Only walk through gates if you know exactly where they lead to.

In particular, if they’re guarded.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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An Armed Mission

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

I imagine having to sit them down, the men in my life. Plural sounding overly optimistic here, but I need this approach, this policy or battleplan if you will, to be neutral, non-personal and fully functional, regardless of how often I need it.
Which could range anywhere between “never” and becoming the new standard of all my relationships. 

I hope the honesty gives the talk a certain intimacy. But know it will also carry the weight of my loneliness. It is a moment of confirmation that I chose, and accept its many consequences.

I imagine what I say to be something like:
“I understand your desire for more commitment, but I cannot offer that. 
I want to mean something for the world at large and I can’t do that when I’m tied to someone else.”

This will all be true, but the warmth in my voice will reveal this is the rehearsed story. And that it’s now up to them to ask and dig deeper.
Or choose to leave it here. 

An Armed Mission.

I landed on the word mission, because that’s how I see it;
And it’s a way of living, not a defined end point. 
But defending or accomplishing a purposeful way of living requires just as much discernment, as having a defined end point, the way a classical mission would.

And I have thought this through, and have found the concept of friendship to be the safest and most beneficial one to strive for.
But it will not be what men expect of a woman when they court her, nor is it what they will want to give when looking for something casual.

My unisex friendship-model will be too light or too much.
And yet, it’s what will have to do.

The word armed before mission, comes from armed peace, a term used during the cold war to describe the absence of open conflict, but reflect the deep distrust of one another.

Where mission meant I am here to establish a way of living that can mean something for the world at large.
Or, put differently, where I can be of meaning to the world at large, through how I live;
Armed, stands for me being prepared to defend it.

But where the cold war (an “armed peace”, comparable to my armed mission) was ended by world leaders talking to one another, I cannot end mine.
Because what I distrust is not represented by one person, it is the underlying constructs, thought patterns, and systems.

There is no point in talking to one person about toxic masculinity, because patriarchy is the very water in which we swim.

Recently, specific details on systemic and normalized violence against women surfaced, which Dutch media did not cover and I’m glad they didn’t although I don’t believe that means we don’t have the same problem here.
And after the first shock I immediately recovered thinking;
“Why am I still upset hearing this?”
Because it went directly against a promise I had made to myself years ago.

I have witnessed how surprise about what is being done to you, severely undermines your ability to respond and strategize. Being surprised by aggression, which is usually the case if the perpetrator is someone you know, immobilizes you and traumatizes you.
It becomes a double blow to your system; The violence you experienced plus the lack of trust in your own capabilities to assess people’s true nature correctly.

I vowed I would do everything in my power, to never let that happen to me.
That I would assess every situation, every person, and rather be wrong avoiding someone, or blocking someone out, than to be a victim after trusting someone.
Trust became something that had to be earned, yet was still never really given.

Since then, my stance has become both milder as well as more firmly rooted.
Milder, because I no longer focus on individual accountability.
And stronger, because rooted in the conviction that society’s global systems and cultures enable and encourages violence and set us up against one another.

Instead of asking: “Can this person be trusted?”
I scan: “What is the group, larger culture, or partnership, this person is part of?”
I make a risk assessment about how toxic it could get, how easily I will be sacrificed, but even if it all comes out clear I know for a fact they cannot afford to sacrifice their belonging there.
Not because they’re bad people, but because not belonging to these structures  (of social groups, of government, of religion, of family, of your employer paying you) can kill you.

Over the years I have understood no one can be trusted, and why. And I’m okay with that. I would have chosen belonging too, if that had been an option.

“This is my last life on earth,” I say, strategically bypassing a discussion about what happens after death.
“Perhaps it is my only life, I don’t know.
Either way, I’m not coming back.
All I know is that I have to get this one right.
Do anything I can, to live a worthy life.

But I would love for you to be my friend.”

And hope they say yes.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
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My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
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Nederlands blog:
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A Safe Space for Her

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

I cannot let this story end, the way I was willing to just minutes ago.
So bear with me, because I won’t let this die on us.

Lauren deserves her happy end.
Even though I have no idea how to give her one.

But the previous version reminded me of the role of the last fairy in the story of Cinderella. She had not yet made her wish. And that was why, after the evil witch had cast a spell that Cinderella would die on her 18th birthday;
She, the final fairy, could soften it to Cinderella sleeping for a 100 years.
Not dying.

Only in my story I was the evil witch who had decided that in order to survive patriarchy for the upcoming decades, I had to fully step into my masculinity;
And Lauren, the femme lover, had to die.

And I was also the last fairy who said:
“We will build her a safe space. Lauren will live, we will make sure of that.”

And now I am Lauren Harteveld the writer who says:
“That is not good enough. We need to save her. And by save I mean that her best life should not be behind her. It should be ahead.”
And I paused before I added:
“And by best life, I mean best sex life.”

And good fairy-me and evil witch-me said:
“Duh.”

And that was how, minutes before writing this post, I changed my mind, even though I have been convinced for weeks I would go the masculine road.
And that the moments when I still wore beige (my Lauren color), the moments I felt love for a man or thought of myself as a sexual being, that they were nothing more than final flare-ups of denial.
I thought I could push through because this was the only way.

You know everything that happened, and how it absolutely broke me. Or to be more precise: It rebirthed me into this badass superhero who did not feel anything anymore.
The moments I step into that version of me, there is a complete isolation.
And it doesn’t even feel bad, it feels enlightened.
Because when you are emotionally detached, you are no longer bothered by the heaviness of life. Life becomes serene, funny, playful. But there is a complete disconnect because despite the word “lightheartedness” having the word heart in it: My personal lightheartedness did not have my heart in it.

So even though the plan took care of all the moving bits and pieces, by saving Lauren as well as providing a safe, coherent and doable strategy as to who I would be the second half of my life;
I couldn’t do it.

The day felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, dreading the bungy jump that suddenly felt like a death verdict.
The part about actually saving Lauren, the feminine part of myself that I cultivated so patiently over so very many years, no longer seemed so certain.
Something could go wrong. In particular if at any point in time I would start to believe I actually was this powerful masculine energy.

And even if it did work;
Having Lauren boxed up in a safe room couldn’t possibly be enough.
A Lauren the Lover who revives herself at 6 PM, and/ or in the rare hours I don’t work nor socialize?
It’s all great in theory – or not great but realistic and probably the best decision any woman can make regardless of her age – but it also felt completely destructive to even think of shoving her away like that.
She has already has been shoved to the side by her lover;
If I would do this I would be doing the same to “her” as what he has done, and leave her just like he had: By no longer making space for her. 

Maybe that’s the end of this story, pointing to the road I should be taking. The other way. To stop cultivating the bodyguard, the masculine side of me, even though I have successfully been pushing that for so very long now.
And even longer if I count the first iterations of that, 8, 10 years ago.

Maybe it should be the other way around.
Instead of saving Lauren the Lover in a climate controlled room, where she can rejuvenate her female energy after 6 PM and cherish her soft feminine ways;
That instead, I should have an emergency outfit for moments that absolutely need to be met in my masculine energy.
That Lauren the Lover is my default, and regardless if I ever get a new lover.

It feels vulnerable and risky, but all things considering, I think Lauren should lead.

I honestly feel calmer and more grounded than I have all day. And that’s my answer then, right there.

It’s a yes.
Duh.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

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

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
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Angel Love

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

In retrospect, it was probably to-be-expected, after my previous message to you.
That, of course, I would go on digging in the past, for men who reached my heart or more, after I had set up my new “system” to “handle” with men who were interested in me.
Neither system nor handle are exactly the right word, but it will have to do.

Either way access to me seems to be under control and I no longer need to be involved.
There is plenty of time to look back and reminisce.

Which could explain why someone I had not thought about – not like this! – came up again. He’s also the unnamed love interest from the final paragraphs of my previous message to you.
I didn’t remember until I just reread. Apparently he was already heavily on my mind, last time we talked.

The irony is that I have had many attempts to deliberately think about him, but I never succeeded.
I tried because I thought it would relieve the burden of feeling so much for my last lover. That I could transfer it to a borderline fictional crush from the past. Only to find out it didn’t quite work that way.
Then why now?

I’m grateful and it feels just as great as I imagined it would;
But why now?
Why was I able to recreate my affection towards him, in an entirely natural way, without any effort?

And then I found the answer!
Because the man I fell in love with last year, carries the exact same energy.

Now before I dive into this, a concept I will call Angel Love, describing the ethereal yet powerful presence both him and this new man have or had, I want to preface it by comparing it to another powerful, yet entirely different energy, which is from that past lover, Mr.Big.
The stark contrast between Angel Love and Mr.Big’s love, will bring my point across more vividly.

So first Mr.Big;
Why was I so extremely crazy about him, and why did I feel so safe and nurtured even though I was only his mistress? Nothing more was offered.
The answer lies in the inviting atmosphere Mr.Big created; 
Warm, nurturing, and completely low key.
He was completely at ease, and he kept his space clean, warm in winter and he wasn’t one of those grown ups who doesn’t have any sweets or candy around.
Although I have only had good lovers and wonderful men in my bed, he was beyond a shadow of a doubt the best lover I ever had.
I could turn my whole box of kinks upside down, and he’d still know what I was hiding.
It was magnificent.

So! 
Then why on earth do I find myself romanticizing someone – two men actually, if I include the one I met last year – Why do I romanticize them when what I had with them counts as “almost nothing” to “absolutely nothing”?
Nothing but “a moment”, where we both felt it.
But moments don’t count. Not compared to living out your whole box of kinks.

Is this some Victorian romantic idea of favoring men I have done “nothing” with, over the one I was well on my way of doing “everything” with?
But fortunately, I cracked the code, and that wasn’t it.
It had nothing to do with morals of any kind.

You see, here’s the thing;
With Mr.Big, the foundation of what he offered was very much in the 3D. The material world. His wealth and demanding nature had earned him the seclusion of a luxurious condo, all to himself.
Now he was the one who got that somehow accepted in his marriage, which is quite the feat, but there was no denying that I felt so safe and taken care of, because he was first and foremost taking really good care of himself.

Mr.Big was also a man I could trust with the vulnerability of my naked body, and of being there alone in his apartment. It’s not like anyone with real estate can get into my pants, far from.
But the truth of the matter is still, that Mr.Big’s appeal, and the appeal of what he offered me, was largely a financial matter.
Privacy is as expensive as it is hot.

So if that is our baseline here;
Then what is Angel Love?
And why does it explain why I’m suddenly thinking about that man from the past?

Angel Love is the name I have given to the silence surrounding both of these men. The peace, the calm, the zone of non-interference they carry around themselves.
It’s an aura where nothing is said, because there is nothing to say. Everything they want you to know, vibrates in their field.
Which is, why are we not surprised, extremely little.

These men keep their energy fields clean, and you get the feeling they’re very intentional about it. And aware most people are too preoccupied with themselves to even notice.
That it’s a matter of principle.

They go out the door with clean, unreadable auras.

What follows is that they are no longer reliant on anything else. Not on the clothes they wear, not on the environment they’re in, not on the people who interact with them, not on owning a penthouse and being the only one with the frontdoor key, and not even on fulfilling sexual desires.
They’re energetically sovereign, nothing can touch them. Which naturally invokes the response in us, the normal people, to desperately want to touch them.

We want to pierce through that magnetic field that is their aura and see what happens. Will our hand slip into another universe?
We want to touch their skin; Is it warm like ours? Or cool, or even slightly cold as if they’re not from here? But from heaven.

It is their ethereal nature that makes them so alluring.
Not just to be with them, and to make sweet angel love, but you want to be them.
You want to be saved from this messy entanglement of being human, and float through it, just like them.

Untouchable.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

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

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Marble Track of Love

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

I remember marble tracks as being  a simple wooden toy, where you drop the marble on the top track, and watch it rolling down over de diagonal slide to the right, drop to the next tier, and so on.
Until it comes out at the bottom , over a melodious staircase that makes music from the marble running over it.

But I just Googled these marble tracks, and they have gone totally next level!

No longer a uniform toy, the tracks are now built similarly to Lego. And there are boxes with sets for tracks ranging from globe-like spheres to colorful tracks connecting multiple tower constructions.

So my vision of a marble track symbolizing my love life, but one with gates that lock or open between different layers, is actually less fictional now than it was based on the toy from my youth.
That’s what I’ve been up to!
I have translated
lessons from my love life, into a system. And it is giving me wings in every other area as well. Because you could build a track for each and everyone of them.

The idea is that the tracks, not you, select potential suitors.
And to not get emotionally invested until a marble falls through, into your bed in this case.

In a way, I’ve always had a marble track in place, but it was broader than what I’m aiming for now.
But it did work.
For instance, I have never encountered bad lovers, EVER. Our arrangements have been flawed in more ways than I can count, and I have worked around tough character traits  (both theirs and mine!!) at a level I would never have managed if sex had not been the reward.
But I never had someone in my bed who was not a wonderful lover.

As sort of a mid-text PS: I do want to add that I need to be madly in love with a man, right? I mean, you could argue that the track is nothing more than me learning not to engage with people I am not madly in love with.
That I take myself through that track time and time again, knocking into gates that stay closed because I know damn well I m not in love.

But for this blogpost, I’m going to leave that part out, because it’s just not very interesting. And frankly, it’s also not what has given me this feeling of “Cool I hacked this!”
You don’t think “Cool! I hacked this!” when you decide not to engage unless deeply in love. That is not actionable enough.

But back to this marble track, which has always been there.
But now, in the 2.0 2.6 version, I no longer feel responsible for who wants to go into the maze, nor for what they encounter there.
In particular not what they encounter inside themselves. I no longer perform emotional labor and consider it part of a broader feminist package against patriarchy.

And next to me not smoothing out any hurdles, the tracks are also about things I need to have an amazing experience.
Things
like: Effort, initiative, holding space for me, attunement, and focus. It is tempting to add “clear communication”, but I really should not because I like the mystery of things being done without words.

The marble track should run in a way that it blocks anyone who will not be able to meet my new standards. 
For both our safety, really. But mostly, for my mental peace and quiet. 

The marble track has been working like a charm. And yes, it is keeping everyone out, which does not sound like much of a result.
But it is preventing me from performing emotional labor. Something I admit still having been caught up in, as recently as last year.

Meanwhile, I’ve made several attempts estimating which men from my past would have been in my life, if my boundaries had always been this strong, my standards this high.
I’ve identified four!

Two lovers would have been in my life, in much the same way as they have been. One from when I was very young, and my last lover as well. So the first and the last, really. Unchanged. If I had to psychologize it I would say those connections were so destined, they would not have been changed by any circumstance. Much less by me applying the principles of a kid’s toy.

With the majority of the men who have been in my life, there is of course really no telling if we would have done better, if I had had better standards. For many men it would have offered a challenge they’d have loved to live up to.
I can look back and think they would not have passed, but the truth is I have no idea how they would have responded. Many of them may have upped their game and could still have been in my life. And bed.

But the most interesting reflections were the ones immediately offering an entirely different picture!
A better one.
And although I said I would leave that aspect out – Yes, these were in fact men I was deeply in love with.

One was someone who broke up with me, in an incredibly messy and fucked up way. And yet I can now see that if he had had to work for my attention, he would have fought for me like a lion.
In hindsight I think he was someone who operated on the IKEA principle: The more effort he would have to put in to get it all up and running, the more attached he would be.
Had I not been the one working my ass off, he would have, and our relationship would have been entirely different.

And the final man with whom I know things would have been so much better, was someone with whom I was very much in love, but I rejected him because I was already involved. And also because my feelings for him scared me. He did not offer any stability or safety for me to hold on to.
And yet?
His energy was so clear, the connection so real;
He offered me the purest relationship gold but from a planet I had never been to. I did not recognize it.

Maybe me being so enthusiastic about the marble track never had anything to do with keeping the men out that were not putting in the work.

Maybe the reason I am so incredibly happy with this find is that I know the track will let the right one through.
Immediately.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

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

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/