Dear Sara – Page 10 – LS Harteveld

The Rock Star Yoga Teacher

Published on February 1, 2021February 18, 2021 by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

Bad news first: I went through another round of blowing everything up.
And I do mean everything.

I considered deleting all my websites, all my social media accounts including LinkedIn, and I m talking about both my accounts now.
LS Harteveld as well as everything under my real name.

I could quieten the rage by only quitting writing here, for Lauren Harteveld. It took the edges off and gave me time to think.

But I was so self-destructive.

.
And the irony is that I can still feel that rage inside of me. It’s not gone. It’s just that by giving myself massively complicated topics write about, like an adult pacifier, I can distract myself.
And by now I m so caught up in them, that I am already thinking of the future.

Is there really no way to make money from my art?
Or have I even tried?

This morning I got a message from a consultant I gave an interview to earlier this month. He was hired by a company where I am a customer, and he was getting back to a few things we had discussed.
One of the things he asked, but that was more of a chitchat thing since it wasn’t relevant to the interview, was;
“How is the yoga by referral coming along?”

A term or job I came up with, when I had heard that he did not have a website or even social media profile.
He was a “referral-only” consultant. Which had an elusive ring to me.

“If I ever start teaching yoga again, I will be a referral-only yoga teacher!”
I had answered.

Although I am usually quick to brush things like that off, because I really do not want to be teaching yoga again, but in this case I had asked the Universe to SHOW ME the means how I was supposed to make money.
Because by now I want to know if I am supposed to be looking for a job, or set up a business or or or, what, right?
I was sure the Universe knew the answers, and I literally asked God to show me before I went to sleep.

Not remembering my dream when I woke up, I assumed I had not received an answer.

But then I opened my email.
The consultant had sent his email with the yoga teacher by-referral, at 6 minutes past midnight: 15 minutes after I had fallen asleep.

How’s that for a speedy delivery.

And there is also the 3-part vision I received, the three sentences, about half a year ago.
They were my three guidelines from God or the Universe, how I was supposed to develop myself.
They were (and like all religious texts they could be interpreted in multiple ways):
1. Get in front of as many people as possible
2. Yoga is my art
3. Album tour. Album tour.

Especially the third one, not being a musician I have no idea what that could mean.
Am I meant to go on a book tour, and are my books my albums?
But I only publish books under this name, LS Harteveld, and I want to be known and get “in front of people” under my real name.
Am I supposed to start publishing books (albums) under my real name too? Or should I be making “yoga albums”?

Even the second clue, “Yoga is my Art”: There have been weeks when I “felt” that. When I had an intuitive understanding that yoga was indeed my art.
And that I would go back to it.

And then there are moments like this when just thinking about picking up the phone and someone wanting a yoga lesson would be enough reason to throw myself off a bridge.
I would not even go through the trouble of deleting my profiles first.

So all in all, the three clues from last year, as well as last night’s yoga teacher by-referral, has not brought the finite vision to which I have a (positive) emotional response.

And then (another clue the universe is working its butt off to get through to me!) I went through a stack of notes, and they were like a “best of” series of insights I had jotted down in the past 6 months or something.

Different paper types, different pens, and also some notes made more sense or spoke to me more than others.
But even with not everything falling into place immediately, one thought shot through my head;
“Oh my God. It’s all there……”

One by one, I had written down all the things, all the pieces of the puzzle. And I instinctively knew the puzzle was complete.
I did not need to look anymore, or wonder if it was going to fit.

This was everything I needed.

So I want to share those notes with you, so that in our coaching call, we can see how they fit together.

note 1: I AM THE KATRINA RUTH OF YOGA!! *)

This is so true.
I don’t even think it’s about me comparing myself to her in terms of being a badass leader. It really is not about me, nor about her.
What I mean is;
If there had been someone in yoga, like Katrina Ruth, I never would have stopped teaching. I never would have stopped practicing. And since there is no Katrina Ruth of teaching yoga, this means I am the Katrina Ruth of yoga.

I can be for yoga what she is for female entrepreneurs:
The positive mirror, the loud older sister who tells you you can fucking do it. The unapologetic bitch who tells you that IT IS time to put your foot down and stake your claim.

So that no one like me, ever has to leave yoga again because we just can’t breathe there.
We could level up, where the air is still clear. Go the extra mile, because as we know; It is never crowded there 😉

note 2: PERFORMANCE ART
To be in a state that makes art inevitable. Steward of this energy. Experience of living.
Big ass wave.
Pond.

(note 2, last two entries, are a mystery)

note 3: EXPRESSIONIST
Putting forward what’s in me, into the world.
Being the guardian of my inner-life.

note 2 and 3 were made during one of our coaching calls, although I can’t see when that was.

note 4: Teach yoga (like being a psychologist who stays faithful to their craft) the way I believe it should be taught.
To people who will drop out of yoga// get turned off, the way it’s currently commercialized/ taught.

note 5: characteristics Historian
Take 25 years off.
High-pressure cooker. (no idea what this means)
We define someone how he makes his money/ instead of by what someone’s interests are.

And finally note 6, which I made just this weekend, and which originated from writing a meaty article on my love life and things I would never again ask of a man, of a lover.
But I noted it down for in our conversation, once I realized that if I reversed it, it fully applied to what people could ask from me, when I thought about it in terms of me offering a “service”, or being a service provider.

So where my conclusion in this article I had written on my love life had been:
“I will never expect of a man (after a date), what I would not expect of Jon Bon Jovi (after the show).”
It now became, applicable to me as a service provider;

“No one can ask of me, what they would not ask of Jon Bon Jovi.”

Meaning: I can deliver a peak performance, but the boundaries and roles are clear.
And of course, then what you do is not service. Not in the way we think of service providers, and in particular not the way we think of yoga teachers.

If you deliver a peak performance where the boundaries are clear;
You’ve put on a frickin’ show.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

*) You can find business coach Katrina Ruth on YouTube, Facebook, and she has the best optins (freebies) and great content in the email sequence you get after.
Current Optin:
Everything You Know About Success is Wrong.
A 4-Part Video Series with Quantum Success Coach Katrina Ruth
(or go straight to her website)

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/

No Longer Hiding, No Longer Dropping Balls, No More!

Published on January 18, 2021January 18, 2021 by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

It was tempting to not write a public blog post, and just like for our last call two weeks ago, to write a private email.
Except: I didn’t really have a good enough reason.
There were no matters that were affecting me, and that needed to stay private.
There was no reason to only email, aside from the fact that I had kind of liked that. It had felt like skipping class, to break my self-imposed rule to always write a blog post preceding our call.
To “earn” your coaching, or to justify spending money on myself.
To first work.

So there was nothing going on, compared to last time.
But the fact that I wanted to not write, was a pattern that I have witnessed the past two weeks or perhaps even longer.
That I don’t feel like writing for my LS Harteveld account, or even hesitate writing my pen friend The Saint/ Nikki;
It is all related.
And in a way it feels like mourning.
For a lot of things: Sexuality, my lover (we still see each other but our affair is over), but most of all that I m not further along the road with my art, and in particular with my books.

In autumn last year I cleared my agenda to publish my books, as LS Harteveld, so that I could start fresh with a new career under my real name in January.
But it didn’t work.
I barely published any books, and yet I lost three months as well as my entire productivity.

Where I used to write one sometimes two posts a day, or create a video and a post, usually under one of my many accounts;
Since autumn it has been terribly quiet.

I started 2021 with even less than I had in September or early October.
Feeling massive disappointment, I had screwed it up.

And I think that’s most of all what I m coming to terms with on a deeper level. That I can’t clear my agenda to create books. It has cost me three months now, but this has been going on since 2018.
We’ve been here before.

It feels like I have been so destructive by throwing all that time away to nothing..

I hope writing it out as bluntly as this, will speed it up. But it feels raw.

The good thing that has ultimately come from it, but no sooner than today which is why I am writing you much later than I usually do, is that I understand that creating and posting (so creating something that gets done) has to come before creating things that have a longer cycle.

For example, under my real name I make reviews from old Bon Jovi concerts for YouTube.
That usually costs me 5 hours, preparation only.

And another example would be publishing the books for Lauren Harteveld/ this account.
That can take anything up to a few days to a few weeks per book.

What I learned is that I am a daily creator first, long cycle creator second..

Combined with other obligations this will mean that the long cycle posts and the publishing of books more often than not will not get done.

Another thing is that for so very long, I have considered, tried, structured, planned to do important things every day.
And on days when I have a lot of time, I do enjoy it to add half an hour of this and half an hour of that.

But Friday, Saturday and Sunday were three days in a row where I had a minimum of two long appointments a day, as well as many people who asked me things and so on;
And all the good habits, and mental peace I had been building during the week, went overboard.

By the time it was Sunday night, I was so extremely frustrated over not having done even one blog post in over 72 hours, nor making any headway with my art.

.
So from now on it’s creation first.
Everything else second.

And if the publishing of the books of Lauren Harteveld gets done somewhere in the upcoming decade;
That’s soon enough.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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 Story Of Dutch Lockdown Told in Crafting Paper

Published on December 16, 2020December 16, 2020 by LS Harteveld

My “Don’t Know What You Got Until It’s Gone” – crafting pad as sold by German bulk store Action (stationary departments are closed until January 19th, 2021)

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

Dear Sara,

For 21 days, I m test driving 2021.
As opposed to business coach Katrina Ruth, who once baffled the car dealer when he asked if she didn’t want to test drive the car before ordering it, by answering:
“It’s a three-hundred fifty thousand dollar car.
I assume it will drive.”
I am making no such assumptions about next year.

With a year of Covid under our belt, I think we’re all done assuming anything will drive.
We’ve learned even the most obvious things, cannot be taken for granted.

Oh! This brings me, about five paragraphs early to the crafting paper story I wanted to tell you.
So I ve added a photo of my crafting paper pad – let me rephrase: of my favorite crafting paper pad – and I ve also added a German video about a haul at Action, featuring this pad.
You can find it at the bottom of this post.

Thanks to this video, I can not just give you a good viewing of this pad, but I also know the price.
Bulk store Action, who also has stores in the Netherlands with similar prices, sold it for € 1,33
Just to compare:
The last listed price for this pad on Etsy is € 10.

So in 2019 I bought this pad on one of my own Action hauls.
The first time I really started appreciating it was when I used it for my continuously updated and expanding vision board card deck, which I started last summer.
I used them as the back of my cards, and particularly liked the process of selecting the card size frames on every page.
I wanted the paper to be used economically, but I also wanted to keep certain prints (such as one unicorn) whole, and not end up with two backs of the cards both featuring half a unicorn.
I was making a vision board not a puzzle.

Yesterday, on my daily walk – and also the only 2 hours I did not spent news binging to an unprecedented level which has taught me I m not bringing THAT to 2021! –
a friend asked me, which products I would have bought, if I could have had one more go at them before our current lockdown, which will last to January 19th.
I confidently answered:
“Crafting goodies!!”

I think the look on his face was comparable to the look of the Mercedes dealer in Goldcoast Australia.

Since you are an assemblage artist, this is of course preaching to the coir. You understand perfectly well, why the final minutes shopping before lockdown should be spent on buying crafting goodies, but just to make my point, I present to you the mouthwatering, scissors rattling, glue pot waiting,
Crafting For Adults assortment of the Action store.

Action does not have an online store, so for five weeks I will not be able to access these products.
Among which I detected a crafting notebook which I have baptized “man cave” (design #3, on this product page).
Twelve years ago, Nijmegen did not have an Action, but I knew exactly where to find it in Arnhem. Even though, traditionally, the Action is never located in the main shopping areas to save on rent.
But it’s things like crafting pads man cave, that make it a store I will never get tired of visiting, and even travel for!

So when my friend asked the hypothetical question, if the non-essential stores had not been flooding with people the final few hours before lockdown (although my neighborhood Action which opened this summer, has had people waiting in line every day)
then which products would I have hoarded?
The answer was crafting materials.

But the underlying premises was that it were not just crafting materials, but a haul at Action, where you can buy anything you want on impulse, leave it on your shelf for a year, and then start using it for your vision board cards and be blown away by how amazing it is.
My wish had not been to have a go at €10 paper pads which demand immediate use to not feel like you wasted your money.

I need to have a lot of space around my crafting materials, and for them not to be utilitarian purchases.

So this summer was the first time I realized I loved this paper so much, I started looking if I could get more of it.
But the few times I visited Action, they never had my glitter and unicorn crafting pad, and the others were nothing alike.

Ever since then, and totally unaware my time window to visit Action was rapidly closing, the realization had come that even though I would not be able to stock up on my favorite crafting pad:
That I should buy more crafting paper, with a different print.

That I should stop browsing the Action crafting shelves looking for just my own design, and then be disappointed it wasn’t there.
And instead let myself be surprised by whatever it was they did have.
Just like today, when because I m writing you, I visited the Action site and found us this man cave pad.
Spontanously.
It was probably there all along, I just didn’t see it because I was too focused on getting a duplicate of the one I already had.

So, the crafting department of Action and this particular paper pad had been on my mind for months, when yesterday The Netherlands went into a new 5 week lock-down.
And this time it DID close all the non-essential shops.
Stores like Action are only allowed to give access to their essential product aisles*

Being a notorious stationary hoarder has never been more rewarding.

Next to crafting paper, I own:
– a laminating machine, supplemented with ample laminating covers
– a small basket full of stickers
– about 20 rolls of paper to cover books and wrap presents
– a large basket full of gift ribbons, textile ribbons, gift cards
– a large assorment of postcards
– and an assortment of notebooks in various sizes, that probably requires a “We need to talk first” conversation before I let a man into my life who claims to love me, and wants to take things next level

There is a genuine possibility that my love for stationary exceeds my love for sex.

If you would drop me on a deserted island with the stationary and crafting assortment of an average Action store, I would not even miss people, Sara.

I think Dutch government has not realized that what they call “non-essential” is actually more essential to some people than human interaction.
PLUS
If you delete human interaction for five weeks, it will be the next go to for even more people!

After Netflix.
But – and this is the story I really wanted to tell you, before I realized that this story should be all about stationary – I quit Netflix.

I had JUST quit watching Netflix, where I had become a heavy The Black List user, and just like with all addictions it had become progressive and I now needed two episodes a day.
When after one day of “This is not too bad!” I was SUCKED INTO A 24 HOUR HOLE OF NEWS ABOUT THE LOCKDOWN AND PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE ABOUT THE LOCKDOWN

I should probably have reintroduced myself as:
“My name is Lauren Harteveld, and I am an addict.”

Because the first day of quiting Netflix had been so easy, I had not noticed that I was still carrying a hole the size of three seasons of The Black List with me;
And that ANYTHING could have jumped in there!

For me it was binging unapologetically on news about the lockdown.

New ethical low in the history of the Netherlands:
All schools including for little children and daycare, are closed for the upcoming five weeks.
The reason is not because our government have new evidence or suspicions that the children are spreading the virus, but because the parents who come to school to drop their children off are spreading the virus, AND because the parents are going to work at the office and do not work from home, as long as the children are taken care off by school.

So the Dutch children have lost their right to education, as stated by the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959, to serve as human ball and chain to their parents.

I don’t know, maybe it was not just coming down from my Black List addiction that made me go under in a 24 hours binge on the latest news on how our politicians were rationalizing that.

Maybe I really am a little concerned over this.
A little more than not being able to buy crafting paper.

Maybe, when the rights of an entire new generation are violated so brutally, and a right for education is apparently valid until we need you home to shackle your parents:
Maybe that asks for uproar, aggression, and a mother fucking revolution.

But if it doesn’t?
Then the VERY LEAST it requires, is more crafting paper.
And no I do not mean for me.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

* Within 24 hours the rules changed, and now Action and other stores with less than 70% of products essential, have to remain closed during lockdown and are not allowed to open to sell essential products.

At the bottom of this post you can find a video on my design paper. (not my video)

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/

video (German): At 11 minutes 55 you can see my beloved crafting paper

I ve Never Been More Ready In My Life

Published on November 29, 2020November 29, 2020 by LS Harteveld

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

Whether you share a bath or all the orifices in your body; In 2020 it’s all the same

Dear Sara,

It is hard to resist reading what I wrote you last time, to provide context to how good I m feeling.
Am I really doing great?
Did I make optimum use of the past two weeks?
Of have I in fact been plateauing, and am I just on my End Of Lease Yoga Studio Emptied Out All Done – high, that is keeping me from seeing that I did not publish any books the past two weeks?
That I did not see my lover the past two weeks.
And that I m still a reborn virgin considering our last time intimate-intimate was months prior to him breaking up with me, so summer 2019.

Even my erotic pen buddy The Saint, has been less frequent in his correspondence, although certainly not less open or confidential.
But things have been better.

Something I DO remember from my last email to you, was an elaborate review of the masturbation challenge The Saint gave me!
And although that was very relevant to my creativity and productivity outbursts, every time I reread that letter on sexual alchemy, I thought:
“What will people think that I write this to a coach?”
So I do remember feeling self-conscious.

But despite the challenge, all its miraculous insights and the stunning results it brought me, I can confidently (and perhaps reassuringly) state that my sexuality has completely flatlined since then.
So there is absolutely nothing embarrassing to share this week.

Yet my coming to terms with owning my sexuality, and the decision that this is the way way it’s going to be, has become very defined and outspoken.
It feels totally different from last time.

There is such an awareness that because of Covid, and also because my lover will be having an affair with me (he’s married, as he was the past 6 years since we know each other) I ve calculated how this will influence our sex life, should we restart it.

This year, the times we were back to kissing, cuddling, maybe a bit or a lot more than that but still very modest and rounded off it doesn’t really count –
that was spontaneous.
We did not talk this through.
And I realize now that this was both something we still needed, we weren’t ready, had not made up our mind.
But it was also how things have historically always been between us.

To never know if you re going to have sex, or if it will be a normal coffee date that doesn’t even get to go some place private.
It was always up in the air and that was what made our dates fun.
I loved that dynamic of him always having to conquer me, and at the same time also him leaving me frustrated when he didn’t conquer me.
It was addictive.

However, and this is the new 2020 insight, under the current circumstances, if we are in the same domestic space, where we’ll very likely and just naturally will not have kept the 1,5 meter distance;
We ALREADY ARE close contacts!!
As defined by Dutch health services.

Dutch regulations do not distinguish, in terms of contagion and danger, between being in the same room doing the dishes together, or doing a 12 hour marathon of which body part fits where and a rerun of the ones you liked.

To Dutch Health Services those are all “close contacts”.

So a hairdresser and a lover have the same status, when it comes to catching or spreading Covid.

Now, I wonder, do you see what I see?

Because in my opinion this means that, contrary to all the years we were together, this is a time to shake up our routine, and have a basic understanding that if we see each other;
We’re going to have sex.

I understand what we’ve been doing this year;
It was messy.
It was not the best choice.
And considering the risks we took even breathing the same air, the discussion and my thoughts on how to manage having an affair/ a sex life/ a lover, with Covid going round, were almost surreal because if you’re already in the same domestic space you may as well get going with it,
but okay.

When you know better you do better, right?

So now that I see this, now that I realize that I don’t have to overthink how far I want to go, and if I only want him as a normal friend, or just as someone to kiss and cuddle with, or (if he would like that) if I want to have sex;
Now I feel so thrilled!

It’s not that there will ever be an obligation or entitlement, from him to me or from me to him.
Of course every sexual move will be deeply felt by both, and very consensual.
So this is not about bypassing that.
But any principal choices are completely irrelevant!

Due to Covid, lovers or people who want affairs, have a binary choice.
No more complicated stuff.

Here’s the binary 2020 choice on anything from friendships, sex and relationships:

option ( 0 ) You’re friends, you meet for walks in the open air.
Technically this is still a “close contact” according to the Dutch health services, but I think it is so obvious that this is a far safer situation than any indoor appointment or date

option ( 1 ) You’re lovers who have sex.

ANY and ALL arrangements that are no ( 0 ), automatically round of to ( 1 )!

Isn’t that absolutely thrilling?!
It’s like a game, where I knew how to play it, and then the rules changed.
And my initial response was phobic, was confused, was defeated.

But now that I understand what this new situation actually means, and that it has made a complex multilayered decision extremely easy, it has become exciting.

It has the excitement of having sex with an entirely new man, except now it is the excitement of having sex in a totally new world.

This time in my life, where sex is a binary choice, will never happen again.

And I can’t wait for it to start!

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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 Sexual Alchemist

Published on November 15, 2020November 15, 2020 by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

I found myself just not being okay with adding a picture of the real alchemist of the series The Witcher;
Which was “Giltine” played by the actor Julian Rhind-Tutt, who I know as Mr.Pimms from the first Lara Croft movie.

But Giltine played by the actor Julian Rhind-Tutt was the real alchemist, not Yennefer whose picture I used.

Giltine was the one who transformed all young witches into what they wanted to become.
In that respect, Yennefer was only the subject of the alchemy.
In exchange for her womb she went from having a dislocated spine and jaw, to being breathtakingly beautiful.

.
So if I really wanted to write about being an alchemist, I would have to illustrate this piece with Giltine, Julian Rhind-Tutt.

But I couldn’t do it, Googled Yennefer’s transformation instead, and then the memories came back.
Of who she really is.

Not just the most powerful mage from The Witcher series, but also the most sexual one.
Even when she was just starting out in magical school, she was sexually active, and very sexually independent.

.
She could really enjoy the physical benefits of it, and if my memory serves me correctly, she has two other lovers later on, one of them being The Witcher himself.

.
So although she had been transformed by a male alchemist, her being so rooted in her sexuality as well as being so powerful, does give me permission to use her photo.

.
And in fact, this aspect of her reminds me to start this story at the beginning, when I just like Yennefer felt disformed, out of shape, lonely, and yet I picked up this offer from the man I am corresponding with.
A man I call The Saint.
And he proposed a challenge where I would masturbate daily.
That is the short version, in reality it was a very detailed and well-thought through plan, that the average sex coach could have charged for.

Just like Yennefer said Yes to the beautiful man who wanted to be her first lover, without questioning it, I said Yes to The Saint without questioning it.
And the reason we did, is because we knew that regardless of the intentions of the other we had more to win than they did.
And more to lose if we didn’t.
We knew we would get something out of it, that went beyond what they were doing.

I took up the masturbation challenge, and went from a meager once a week, which is dangerously low for me – to killer orgasms on repeat.
It took a couple of days of muscling my way through it, but by then I had upleveled my orgasms to a strength that I have not experienced since I stopped the pill in my early thirties.
It was absolutely unbelievable.

And my creativity, in terms of writing, also shot through the roof as soon as I had said “Yes, I ll do it”.

.
So those were already two big benefits, which I could tie directly to saying yes to the masturbation challenge from my anonymous letter writer.

Finding the photo of Yennefer and remembering how sexual she is, reminded me that a lot had happened before the moment that gave me insight in my identity as sexual alchemist.
That although the short-cut story:
“Oh I saw my ex and then this-and-this happened, lol, sexual alchemist right, duh?!”
would have made a good story in and of itself, provided it had been penned down in a less Beavis and Butthead way, that was not the whole story.

There was a reason meeting each other had been so great, and the reason was there had been sexual alchemy going on for days before he contacted me.

I committed to the challenge one week ago, on a Saturday night.
And next to my daily masturbation plan, which I had gotten from my anonymous friend, I picked up writing for this blog again.

I also did something else:

I decided this would be the week I would get over my lover, and start identifying as a single again.
Purge all that needed to be purged.

It had been 11 months since he had broken up with me. Last summer we tried to have sex again, but I paid for that with headaches and there were also other things I could just feel not being right about the whole thing.
Which had to do with something I have not written about, but I will, since I now know how essential it was.

He broke up with me in December after having been my lover for 5 years.
The reason for the breakup was something that was going on in his life, which required him to focus.
You could also say that guilt over having a mistress was simply becoming too straining, considering other circumstances.

But in the years prior to that, something else had happened and either I have not written anything about it, or it has been very minimal.
There have been opportunities for us to see each other for a longer period of time, one on one, without anybody mingling into our affairs or without any difficulties for him accounting for his time.
And he didn’t take it.
There has even been an opportunity for him to allow for a mistress, and privacy with regard to his sexual whereabouts, and again;
He didn’t take it.

So when he broke up with me in December 2019, or at least told me we could no longer have sex, he had already been sidelining our affair on numerous occasions, without me knowing.
Weeks or months afterwards, I could reconstruct that there had been giant opportunities for us to be together, or for him to create more space for us, and that he had not used it.

I was only allowed into his life, if seeing me could be contained.

And I didn’t write about it, because it was entirely irrelevant at the time.
He never told me, it were things I found out afterwards.
And I didn’t write about it after the break-up because then it was even more obsolete.
Even this summer, when despite Covid we were there together, and our bodies wanted each other more than anything, I didn’t write about it either, because by then I had almost forgotten about it really.

And the Covid stress and the migraines that followed all my indoor interaction, were already plenty to deal with.

Except now I see that Covid’s stress headaches didn’t have anything to do with me no longer wanting to be his lover this summer.
It was because he had not created more space for me, for us, all those times he had gotten the proverbial hall card, or the conference with the free days to wander around, or the chance to create space within his marriage.

Just like Yennefer who had been raised being told she was worth nothing, I too had started to believe, not so much that I was worth nothing, but that I meant nothing to him.

And yet this week, just like Yennefer, I rose.
To a place where I no longer depended on the love of others, and in my case that meant a place where for the first time since the breakup I fully identified as a single.
I could feel the power flow back into my hands, my fingers; As if something that had been shut off was coming back to life.

It was a week where I became so aware of all the power I had lost when I had started identifying as “a mistress”.
Not only became it the week I was over my lover, it also became the week where I felt my strength returning.
And I knew that even if we would start sleeping with each other, I would never call myself his mistress, or a mistress, again.

And then the unexpected happened.
And yes, I did pay for this by dropping off the wagon of blogging and writing.
I paid for it with headaches but they were far less intense than I expected, and after a day I was fine.

I saw him again.
This week.
In my radiant self-proclaimed so-over-you week.

He asked to see me, and the way he did it immediately had me worried.
I could just feel something was up. Something bad. But – like I always do – I “got over it” before I went.
I trained myself to be completely okay with whatever it was he was going to say.
I sensed it had something to do with another break-up, like a hard Brexit type of thing, where our affair had originally ended friendly.
Maybe he would sell the condo, or maybe there was another mistress.
I had really prepped myself to the point where I was able to take anything he wanted to say, in a neutral but supportive fashion.

But that was not at all what it was about.
It was the exact opposite.
The urgency and the seriousness had been because he wanted to know what was up with me.

Because all the cafes are closed, we met at his place. He made me coffee, and contrary to last time, no alcohol was involved at any point.
And he wanted to know everything.
Why I had not wanted to have sex this summer.
What I did want.
How he could help me.
And when we had had the whole “Covid just sucks” headache story, it all came out.

For the first time I told him how much it had hurt that every time there had been an opportunity to give me more, and he had given me nothing.
I didn’t even cry or anything, we had a good laugh. And that was because I really was okay with him making his choices.
And then, when I thought we were definitely done talking about it, he asked:
“Was there anything else last summer, that hurt you?”
And there was…

And I m not even going to repeat it here. In fact, I couldn’t even repeat what he had said. I had not remembered the words, just how they made me feel, and what I thought their general gist must have been.
I added: “I’m sorry, I don’t remember the exact words. That must be frustrating especially because I took them so badly.”
And he instructed me to immediately call him out if he ever said something like that again. Without hesitation, without sugar-coating, just blurt out: “Hey! That’s hurtful!”

And we had the best afternoon in years.

We stayed together for hours.

But what was the absolute best, was that I finally saw that what I create with my partners, with the real ones, is something that never dies.

And I say “I create”, but it is always a “we create”.

Every man in my life with whom I ever fell in love, is still in my heart.
They can all call me, or walk through the door, and they will always be welcome.
And with way more than half of them I would still have sex, I am still in love with them.

Most people, my lovers included, long for normal relationships. Structures that come with a certain set of agreements and predictable interactions that provide safety and stability.
But relationships can fail.

I said:
“I think we will always be in each other’s lives. And some of those times we will see each other, and have sex.
And other times when we won’t.”

An alchemist is someone who creates something higher, more noble, and more desirable, from materials that are readily available.
So what they can make out of life, with the same materials as the layman, is by definition of a higher quality.

But more importantly, and this is what I learned from my lover who was a changed man;

That an alchemist’s true magic, is always created with other seers.

Giltine transformed Yennefer, like he had done with all other young witches.
But unlike the other girls, she manipulated him into it because she had no legal right to be transformed.
And she refused sedation, she wanted to be present and in the moment, when it happened.
And by that, by her will of being there and her presence throughout the surgical procedure, she became more than all the others.
More than Giltine, Yennefer had changed herself.

To me the anonymous writer, The Saint, gave me a challenge. Which he had written out, in exactly the right tone of voice, and precisely the right mixture of dominant presence, playfulness and backing off leaving the ultimate choice up to me.
But I was the one who decided I would get over my lover this week.
And I was the one who used my creative fire and wrote every day.
More than The Saint, or the challenge he gave me, I transformed myself.

I was there with my lover, for the first time since 2015 no longer seeing myself as a mistress.
My lover has become a new man, but I cannot take credit for that any more than Giltine should take credit for Yennefer.
Or any more than The Saint will take credit for my transformation.

In the end we are all responsible for ourselves, but in this lies an extremely heavy responsibility towards others.
Because if we don’t change, if we stick with the ground materials and the ground emotions of jealousy, doubt and pain;
So will others.

Yet if we elevate, transmute, rise, and become the immortal alchemist versions of ourselves, who transform everyday elements like relationships, like sexuality, like masturbation and like affairs, into the realm of the eternal;
So can others.

True alchemy is started by the alchemist, by the sorcerer, by the mage, by the anonymous writer or by the woman who was once your mistress and who has found back her strength.
You may say we need these special people in our lives for magic.

And at the same time they are of no importance;
Because all alchemy comes from within.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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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The Saint

Published on November 2, 2020November 2, 2020 by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

photo used as illustration. Dutch actor Daan Schuurmans played a character based on The Saint, in the Dutch series “Heer en Meester”.

All I can say is:
I was never there to judge his looks.
But if I had been there to ensure my letters went to an attractive man, I would not have been disappointed.
My response would have consisted of praising everything that was holy on this earth. With a few swear words.
That is how stunningly beautiful he was.

The reason I tracked down who he was, was because I was feeling extremely vulnerable;
I needed something to be able to continue our conversation.
The way I took the edge off was by allowing myself to know with whom I was dealing with and if everything he had told me, with regard to his identity, in particular his gender, had been true.
I didn’t even need to know if things he may have kept from me, or things he may have said as self-protection or to lower expectations were true;
He didn’t owe me the truth.
The only thing I needed to know, was if the little he had revealed with regard to his identity, was true.

And that’s when I found out that it was not just true, but that he was so exceptionally beautiful I could see why someone would choose to hide behind a Twitter account.

The reason I was able to find out who he was, is because he asked to take the conversation to email. Maybe others have access to the Twitter account, I don’t know.
Only his first email had his full name, then it disappeared. And because of that I initially ignored it because he obviously had not wanted me to see it.
It still took until my crisis of faith, before I allowed myself to give it a serious search.

.
It hasn’t changed what we have, except that it has provided me with just that tiny nudge of security, that allows me to offer him full freedom, because I know he’s a real person.
Let’s say 99% certain, but I ll take the risk of the 1% of me not being right or even being conned.
And although I didn’t dig any deeper, because as soon as I saw who he was, I backed off; Seeing his identity did the trick.
I was no longer worried for my own safety, or about my vulnerability.
Instead he became someone whom I would protect.
Just like I ve always protected my lover….

.
You could call this my affair 2.0, because I ve learned from my years with Mr.Big.
And I ve gotten even better at making a connection into something beautiful and I’ve also grown more appreciative of what it is these two men, Mr.Big and the man I will call The Saint because his formal ways remind me of a Dutch series that was based on The Saint, can bring that is so rare and so very much needed:
They bring me inspiration.

.
They also rock my world, frustrate me with their unavailability, and the fear that one word from me, or one thought from them, can make the bubble pop and end it all.
They re forces that both derail me, yet also ground me, when once again I learn I can plant my feet just as readily on the decks of a ship in a stormy sea.

And of course my ego takes pride in knowing other women would not have been able to do that, and would have fled the ship.
Of course.
But this game of growing stronger is not the primary reason these men are so valuable to me.
It is because they make me work.

Whether it is because of the instability they provide, and me solving that by rooting deeper into my art?
Or because of the more likely scenario that when sex is involved, my whole life starts shifting, all my art is affected but in the most positive way imaginable?
I m like Picasso where the different periods of my work can be attributed to different men.

This is such a man.

So what can I say, Sara?
Life is sweet. Life is very darn sweet. And uncertain, and maddening, and frustrating, and abundant, rich. And I cannot avoid the thought that somehow behind all the coincidence and all the unlikely events chained together;
There is a divine order of things.

That things are happening, to me and to my art, that could not have happened any other way.

So in many ways this email is no different from the last one I sent you;

I still have the plan to publish all my books in 2020 –
with the addition that I am now already familiar with the publisher’s software, and my first book has a test copy ordered. And I m going to speed it up to having all my books ready (test copies ordered) in November.

I still plan on going all in with my art/yoga under my real name, as of January 2021;
With the addition that I have ended my lease of the yoga studio.
I made that decision after I realized that I want to be “out there”, connecting over yoga, over art, over rock music; And that current complications with regard to the (unused) yoga space and the politics around proper heating, are not contributing to getting my work out there.
Besides, the house I sent you, the home I will have when I make millions, has three livings tied together, something in Europe only hotels or mansions have. Maybe in America there are more houses where they have multiple family rooms, but here it is very rare.
The only way to not drown in that space of my million dollar condo is to dedicate the center living to being a yoga space, where I can do my own practice and teach friends in this yoga studio in my own home.
I no longer need an external yoga space.

What also has not changed is that I still have phobias as a response to being socially active and I sleep poorly. The night has become my least favorite part of the day. There was a week, around the time I met The Saint, when I slept like a baby.
But it was short lived.
I wake up multiple times a night, have nightmares and headaches seem to be lurking just around the corner.

.
I still can’t envision a future with Covid, where I no longer let my sex life be influenced by it. I m counting on it to leave.
But realistically speaking I know I have to man up and solve this.
I have to claim back my true sexuality, which simply isn’t the safe boyfriend girlfriend monogamy thing, unless my boyfriend would be not-monogamous and takes care of my inner baby-koala before he drifts away into the night off to new adventures.

.
I need to use this time to accept my sexuality requires me to let go of the need to be certain.
That if I want my sex life back I cannot afford a desire to not be infected with Covid and have to live with the embarrassment of having to tell all your contacts.

.
I feel I ll one day rip the band-aid.
But for now, every long day among people, or every social event longer than a few hours, comes with the risk of the migraines returning.

So nothing has changed, but I feel I have held the course for two weeks.

And considering the world we’re living in;
That’s one hell of an accomplishment.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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 Queen of Stinson Beach

Published on October 18, 2020October 19, 2020 by LS Harteveld

Basic Instinct: on the road from Stinson to San Francisco

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

Dear Sara,

First of all;
This post could have, and probably should have, had the title:
“10 Steps That Made Me A 7-Figure Rock Star.”
If you see which previously used addition to that title I left out, I m giving you extra bonus points.
As if you needed any, after responding to my ten minute story about being obsessed with the not-known-by-anyone town of Stinson on our last call, with:
“I know Stinson – ”
And giving me your personal memories of it!

But in my enthusiasm to turn this into a game with extra points, I’m getting ahead of myself!

So, back to where we left off during our last call;
I’ve since replaced the cover photo of my Twitter and Facebook, to the Stinson shoreline. A photo tied to the movie Basic Instinct, and one I will never be allowed to use as the cover for my book
C.
Stories about cinema, Covid and Catherine Tramell

In my last email I was talking about “C.” as just being my 2020 (Covid) diary. But shortly before our call, or on the call, I realized the “C.” – which already stood for Catherine Tramell and Covid – could also stand for “Cinema”.

Immediately giving the book a wider perspective from a diary of this Covid year, to a collection of stories about Covid and about Catherine Tramell, such as these letters to you and all the other posts I ve written about Catherine Tramell and Basic Instinct in the past.

And finally C, standing for cinema, would include stories inspired by movies I saw.
I think I have up to twenty posts, all “Metas” to movies in one way or another.
Out of the top of my head, I remember writing many of them about Star Wars The Last Jedi, a few on the movie Mother, but also on Words of Love, the documentary on Leonard Cohen and Bohemian Rhapsody, which I saw 15 times total.

Turning “C.” from a diary into a collection of stories, was actually so freeing that it has made me determined to do all books like that.
Leave the idea of publishing my blog posts in the diary format, but curate them around certain topics.
If, in the end, I find that I also have a diary I want to publish, for instance my 1994-1995 project, I can still do that.
But the idea of first focusing on smaller complete series, such as “The Mistress Speaks”, or collection of stories around a topic, makes the task at hand so much lighter.

I m still committed to publishing all my new books in the remainder of 2020.
Despite….

The headaches!
..
As I m typing this, Saturday afternoon, I ve only just recovered from headaches.
And according to this new 10 Step schedule I should be taking it easy, and do my yoga and journaling before I dive into the writing.
But I’m just way too excited to not immediately jump into it!

And I mean- what if the headache returns, and I have not written you before our call?
So although I believe there is purpose and point in following the 10 steps, in the right order;
Let’s not overestimate my ability to follow them.

The reason I didn’t title this post “10 Steps that made me a 7-Figure Rock Star”, is because it would be way too self-helpy, click baity and then the post being too wordy to satisfy the hungry visitor.
Best to give it a neutral title;
Stinson Beach.

The two other titles I considered before settling for “Stinson Beach” were:
“The little fellas with the knitting pins who stick them in my head, are back”
But I didn’t want to acknowledge my headaches, to the extend that I was now either suffering from them OR writing about them!
Don’t want to encourage those little fellas.

And the other title I considered was; “Straight Outta Stinson”.
Which I REALLY liked, but since I never watched the documentary Straight Outta Compton, nor ever listened to NWA, I found that title too was too click baity too and not be delivering content for someone coming in from that angle.

I just looked it up and in 2010 Stinson Beach had a population of 632.
It’s a quiet town and the only things ominous about it are the always present fog over the sea, and the great white sharks who have gotten the town into “The Red Triangle”;
And area with a high number of shark attacks.
Stinson is as far from LA rap music and culture as you could possibly get.

So the title became plain and simple;
Stinson Beach.

The small town that you knew from personal experience, and that I had turned into my newest special interest. Me; A woman from The Netherlands, who has never been to California or even in the entire West of the US ever!

Because of the headaches I have not written anything, since my last letter to you. And I ve also not watched movies, nor listened to music.
I have been doing a training from Katrina Ruth “Identity”, plus doing her longer free training videos on YouTube, which she uploaded from 2016 tot the beginning of this year;
But even they are just too potent!
I have them (taking her training) on my 10 Steps schedule, but they’re in the final lap. They’re for when I feel really strong, and I can let her powerful message fuel me without breaking into bits.
As I have been suffering from lately.

Now just to be clear: I did not get headaches from watching Katrina Ruth, although I am aware it can seem that way.
I got headaches from my request for psychological help backfiring, a situation about which I probably should have filed a complaint with healthcare inspection but I didn’t want to invest anymore time in it.
And after this had settled, a doctor who also works at my GP office contacted me with new addresses to getting help.
Something I declined but it did result in more stress.

And we also had another Covid related press conference, which was from all the press conferences the most inconsistent one of all.
This time they had an entire schedule which they called a “Covid road map” which turned out to be neither a road map (it did not get you to where you wanted to go) nor was it a consistent schedule with regard to which measures would au-to-ma-ti-cally (I presumed!) follow a certain level of having Covid in our communities.

Also;
The road map was regional.
Yet it was presented on the day we had national measures being taken.
National measures which were not even on the road map.

In case you’re wondering “Isn’t The Netherlands too small for a regional road map?”
Yes.
It’s bollocks.
This road map will never be used because as soon as there is any trouble, national measures will be taken.

However in theory you could use a regional road map for national Covid measures if you would said f.e. ;
“We’re setting the entire country on level 3. This means that all measures for level 3 will now be applicable for the whole nation.”

I really thought – and I can only say I was so naive here;
I thought that – and I had actually already printed it, because I was convinced it could not mean anything else!
I was convinced I would ONLY need this new road map from now on.
Level 3?
* looks at the road map *
* sees column with measures level 3*
Got it!

When in reality, we got national measures, with a name (“partial lockdown”) that was not referring to a certain level nor name used on the card.
And the new set of measures were not found in one column but either not mentioned on the map, or scattered throughout like confetti.

A cluster fuck Sara, that’s what it was.

.
JUST when I thought I could finally let out a sigh of relief, that they had bettered their ways and had something which would free us from constantly having to tune in to all the changes.

Yet no one seemed to mention, seemed to care, and an entire parliamentary debate went by without someone roasting it.

.
I hate roasts done for fun. But for this ill-equipped road map plan I think a proper roast was the only appropriate response.

Oh!
And one of the things they will very soon find out, is that if they indeed intend to use our emergency Covid legislation in order to make non-medical mouth masks mandatory?
Dutch legal experts will have them raw.
.
Because this law states that citizens can be forced to wear;
“Personal protection”
Covering your mouth with “something”? Is not personal protection!
A condom, is personal protection.
A real medical mask, is personal protection.
Non-medical masks offer at best some protection for other people, and they appear courteous.

The emergency Covid legislation should have stated that the government can make people comply with symbolic measures, that might be ineffective or even counter effective “but that most people get a safe feeling from”.
In that case, they would be able to get the mandatory mouth masks through in 10 minutes.
But based on personal protection?
They’ll have them raw, Sara.

.
And although I’m all pro-etiquette and don’t mind wearing a face mask at all, I look forward to the legal massacre this mouth mask legislation is going to be.

I give Dutch politicians heading for mandatory mouth masks, the survival chance of a surfer with an open wound on his leg, peddling his board in The Red Triangle of Stinson Beach.
I read they pulled one out who needed 600 stitches.

So after my Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday being lost to seeing my personal chances of getting the correct psychological help evaporate (after my medical data were leaked – It was a minefield!) and lost them to getting worked up about the inconsistency of Dutch Covid regulation;
My Thursday had a high pulling myself up by the bootstraps level!

I called it my day of Rebirth, and I was determined to never let myself be pulled into the shark infested waters of getting psychological help.

Nor was I ever going to invest in understanding which contradictory, bullocks plan our government was selling this time.
Not even when it seemed like a good and sound plan, because the disappointment that it was yet another road map to absolutely nowhere, made it all the more painful.

And it worked.
Thursday was A Milestone Day!
By the time it had finished I felt really good, and I had made some really big improvements to my house.
Most notably I now have a cosy yoga corner in the warmest room of the house, my study.
Now that it’s winter the living is always a bit colder, and sometimes the cats want the balcony door open, so this is much better.

.
And then Friday came.

.
Now, throughout the entire week I had been taking Katrina Ruth training, and on most days it was the only thing I felt really confident over.
In the midst of all the craziness, focusing on personal development and what I want for my art and my life, were the moments I felt Life mattered and that it was more than being played by medical professionals and our government.

But even Thursday, I could already sense studying Katrina Ruth was starting to take up too much time in the morning – often up to two hours for one 45 minute video.
And that it didn’t result in me writing, nor publishing my books – which was going to be my main goal for 2020.
Thursday was my “regroup” day, so to speak.
I could count that as being “lost”, to needing recovery time for all the anger and frustration I had felt at the beginning of the week.

….
But Friday was the first day I could have done something “real”.

Maybe that is why on Friday I noticed it more, how intense studying Katrina Ruth was. And when I developed a headache and ultimately had to go to bed to recover, I knew I needed more of a plan to my life than “refrain from news” and “don’t talk to doctors”.

Which is when I developed the 10 Steps that are going to make me a 7-Figure Rock Star – period!
LOL
The missing word was “writer”.
But you knew that right?

I used to see myself, or maybe “seeing myself” was not the right word, but the closest definition of myself and what it is I do, is “Writer”.
Hence:
7 Figure Rock Star Writer.

But from taking all the Katrina Ruth training – and I don’t even remember when it clicked exactly – but from studying with her, I knew I had to ditch the “writer” part.
For many reasons.
(oh, and I cried, it was an emotional moment when in my head, I crossed out ~~writer~~, and became a Rock Star)

..
The first reason I crossed out writer is because when Covid is over, I want to spend as little time writing or behind my desk as possible.
I’ve made jokes I do not want to spend even one night in my own bed!
lol
Wouldn’t that be something.
Either way, being known as “a writer” is setting myself up for doing something I no longer want to do.

..
Secondly because I feel yoga is such an integral part of who I am.
I don’t feel I am a yoga teacher in the traditional sense, anymore. But months ago, I already had a calling. Just like Joan of Arc that kind of level:
“Yoga is my art”

..
Since then I still have no idea how this would be possible, but I know this is true.
Yoga, not writing, is my art.
But Rock Star Yoga Teacher also didn’t had the right ring to it, but neither did Rock Star Writer, since there was too much yoga “in me”.

Thirdly, and this is the thing we had a lot of fun with in our last call, was that I feel that since Jon Bon Jovi has basically stepped down from the stage, and sees himself more as a writer, a singer songwriter, a recording artist, and only as a touring musician/ performer last;
I feel there’s a Rock Star vacancy.

There’s no one guarding the stage.

He didn’t leave the stage in so many words, but if he is vocal about seeing himself as a writer, and applauded by critics for having delivered such a timely, and relevant singer/songwriter album?
That stage is free.

I know because I was a writer for fourteen years, and that is not the stage.
I feel 2020, with him becoming a writer and me publishing all my books before the end of the year so that I am free to perform and take the stage;
There is an energy of roles being reversed, or switched.

Because that was the second “calling” I got:
I know I am a performer.
The whole list of incomprehensible “calls” is:
1. Get in front of as many people as possible
2. Yoga is my art
3. Album, tour. Album, tour.

This is ALL I have to go by.
And I understand some of them a little bit, and none of them fully.

Three incomprehensible clues about a life that I do not know yet.

And writing not being a visible part of it, as being either 1, nor 2, nor 3.

Writing is “not on the map”.

* silence *

* hears penny drop *

That’s when I suddenly knew what my plan was going to be!

First of all, I was going to drop the title “writer”.
I no longer feel that emotion, but I know I got emotional when I saw I was ready to go next level, and to no longer “be” a writer.
And it was my real name.
This is my pseudonym blog, but my future as a non-writing Rock Star is under my real name.

And the second insight, which was not emotional at all, was that I was going to write out a road map to become a 7-Figure Rock Star.
My new identity, without “writer”.

And after being so angry over all the mistakes our government had made in drawing up their Covid road map, I knew exactly what a GOOD road map looked like!

* fast forward one day *

It’s Sunday night now.
The day I would have finished this blog post, and the moment I would have shared my 10 step system.

So here we are, one day after I logged off because I had been writing for 5 hours straight.
And feeling like a totally new person.

Yesterday, I was so happy I finally knew how to regulate my emotions.
By limiting my time online.
By not writing before I had done my journaling.
By not studying Kat before I had done everything else.

And by putting sex and men at number 10 – yes, they were at ten on my list!

And yet by the time I went to bed?
I had broken ALL the rules.
Written you.
Not done yoga.
Binged on Kat.
And met a man.

And yet I did not have a headache, and I felt better than I had in weeks!

I couldn’t sleep, I was definitely overstimulated. Because I had met someone online, who I know NOTHING about. Technically I don’t even know if it is a “he”.
And yet….
I do.

It’s a “he”.
A him.
I don’t know his age, but I know a few of his friends (maybe that’s why I know he’s male too) and they are way younger than I am.
So that’s why I think he’s younger.

..
It’s so strange because this is the first time I meet someone in a “setting” that is mysterious;
We know very little about each other.
Just a common interest, or experience, that connects us.
But like I said, there seems to be something else…

..
And meeting this man changed EVERYTHING.

..
The entire 10 step plan that was going to ensure that I didn’t get all stressed out by men and stress, pretty much received its death verdict, when this man, in one of our first moments of conversations, made a bold move;
At EXACTLY the right time, Sara!

It bore the markings of a chess player, knowing exactly what he did.
Deliberately moving the horse towards the Queen.
..

Would The Queen move to the back of the board, to the sides,
or would she move towards him?
Every move would tell him something about her.

I now know the title of this blog post:
Not “Stinson Beach”.
It will be “The Queen of Stinson Beach”.

And I’m betting my Bon Jovi collection, he’ll “get” that.

Was it a coincidence?
That on the Saturday night I wrote for 5 hours straight, determined to finish this post today and describe my list with 10 points;
That EXACTLY on that night, things picked up between a stranger and me?
Someone I have never met before?

But someone who does, what no one before, during or after my lover had been able to do.

Play...

Have I ever told you why I knew that in 1992, Sharon Stone knew the essence of the movie Basic Instinct, where all the other people insisted on having a simplistic view of “her” character being a killer?

.
The interviewer asked her what the movie was about and she answered:

“It is a love story.”

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Update on Monday morning

I feel absolutely horrific, which I find both disheartening and totally fascinating at the same time.
My “body”, or mind since physically nothing is wrong with me, has responded to my emotional bender, as if I had a real life (sexual) encounter!

So for today, my 10 step plan, seems like a good idea after all!

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/

Luv Can. How one new Bon Jovi record just saved me, 2020, and my entire legacy

Published on October 4, 2020October 4, 2020 by LS Harteveld

The track Luv Can was pulled from Bon Jovi’s album 2020,
and only released as a bonus track in Japan.

I have no doubts I will have turned into Catherine Tramell, by the time this is over.

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

Dear Sara,

They say it is darkest before the dawn, so September will be that;
My dark before the dawn.
The big breakthrough.
The moment you know that despite Twenty Twenty suffering from covidus interruptus, taking seven months down;
“On the dawn of the eighth month, look West!”
To New Jersey.

On October 2nd, almost 7 months to the day after the first Covid regulations in The Netherlands, Bon Jovi released their album 2020.
Yet I find myself listening to the version they had planned for March, more than to the finite album they released which included songs about the pandemic and Black Lives Matter.
But then again, I’ve always had a neck for returning to the past at will, far more than a willingness to deal with the present.

But in its own miraculous way, which I m not even sure if I can join the dots to paint a picture how it all fit together, the release of the album and the promotion for the release, did what so far nothing else could:
It saved my year.
It saved me.
And it brought me back to the now.

To start with the last part: Summer 2019 I started a performance project where I wrote from 1994.
Although there were many ups and down, and I proved to be rather bad at living in the past, I was persistent and reset my project time and time again.
This blog has been “curated by Suzanne” for months now, and I also signed my blogs (with the exception of the occasional story Lauren wrote from 1995, as it now was) as:
Suzanne/Lauren
I didn’t write in 2020 as or under the name LS Harteveld.
And for good reason.

Lauren/ LS Harteveld stands for daring work, and includes not so much free sex, but exciting sex.
Finding enticing things to write about.
In Covid times, which I anonymously referred to as “C.” the first couple of months, there is not much boundaries to push, when even a handshake is criminal.
It’s just not my world.

When Covid came, I was even more determined to bury myself in the 90s, and not pay attention in the now.
But I had not foreseen that with social distancing and the impossibility for sex in 2020, I didn’t have much to do and to discover as 23 year old me in 1995.
Since those rules or limitations cannot be bypassed.
I did adjust the story, and gave Lauren95 a relapse to her aids/hiv phobia, which would explain for her not having a sex life in my book, but it didn’t quite sit well.

I had not set up this entire project, to live in celibacy in a lonely 1995.
It’s a bit like going skiing and then there is no snow;
Even if you do manage to have a fun holiday, it’s not why you came.
The project had failed.

I am now back in the now, current day.
This site will no longer be curated by Suzanne, it will “just” be Lauren. And everything I wrote the past half year, struggling with my identity, Covid, and the failure of my time travel project, will be turned into a diary/ book called:
C.
My diary of 2020.

C. will be one of the many books I have decided to publish, very fast.
Like I said: I have lost this year, there’s no two ways about it.
But it is not too late;
I’m going to make 2020 the year I publish all my unpublished work.

And I have a very good reason to do so: I can make the date on the first page 2020, or 2021. The first being far more badass and epic!
I have no idea how many books I could theoretically create, but I am going to “squeeze”, or cut, until there are “only” ten.
I love that number.
In 2017, I published 10 as well.

It was because of the Bon Jovi album being called 2020, and how it changed from the initial version that was going to be released in March, to a new version in October, that made me super reflective on this year.
I think that’s what brought out my determination to make 2020 work after all.

Another trigger to get my act together was that from the little promotional interviews that I actually read, I got that Jon Bon Jovi currently prioritizes song writing, then recording, and only after that touring.
And I thought:
“Dang! If even the best performers are no longer performing, it’s time to step up my game!”

The way I see it, this public performance would not be as LS Harteveld.
The past couple of years it has been really clear to me that LS Harteveld is a writing-only account. That my work here (under pseudonym) is so deeply personal, I really don’t see myself talking about its content.

But under my real name, I was not really “in touch” with what I came here to do. With what I wanted to be.
I didn’t have those vulnerable books there, and yet I still felt unsure.
But now that I see even Jon Bon Jovi being so serious and weighed down by the reality of day to day life and the Covid crisis, I feel there is a story that needs to be told.
That everything I have been studying and developing with regard to raising you energy, your excitement, your power if you will;
Is especially relevant, in a society bouncing back from Covid.

My bookkeeper once told me a story that in the Netherlands we have three types developmental work: social work where you bring people from a subpar level to a standard level where they have food, housing, education and so on.
You have work in order to keep them at that level, for example health services or sponsoring exercise and dieting. Everything that prevents people from dropping back to subpar level.
And then you have work where you elevate people from the standard level to a higher level of self-actualization.
In my opinion Bon Jovi used to inspire the whole range of them; He would take Tommy and Gina by the hand at the lowest level, but he would motivate them to go all the way up!
Probably by releasing a new album at exactly the time they were starting to slide down a bit, and Bam! There was the new album!
And up they went.

And I feel this new Bon Jovi – the record was already socially conscious before it was 2020, or before Covid – is concentrating on the lowest ranks.
To the one who need it most, that’s for sure.
But the higher ranks, how you go from good to great?
I will never be Jon Bon Jovi, and no doubt my message will speak to entirely different audience, but it was that part where I saw this sudden vacancy, that inspired me to like I said step up my game and get serious.
This will be under my real name.

So by publishing all my LS Harteveld work in 2020, and after this pseudo-retirement of my pseudonym and becoming very minimalist with my writing here (my first thought: only when I m having sex again!), I will have freed up my schedule and my attention to go all-in under my real name, as a speaker about all those things.
And as a yoga teacher who speaks about all those things.
As someone who can be an example of how you can free your mind in a way that you can go from good to great.

I have used a picture of Catherine Tramell for this blog.
She, the fictional character from Basic Instinct (1992) is still for me the most important role model in becoming a writer.
“She” also wrote under a pen-name, Catherine Woolf.

The only thing I have not established yet, is “feeling” that identity, or any other identity, under my real name.
Maybe because I don’t see myself as a writer there.

The real me, that I look forward to exploring and expanding as of January, is still fairly neutral.

And suffering a bit, under Covid and the stress of where will it all go.
The responsibility of making her life matter.

I think the Me under my real name is trying, but heartbroken.
She appears stable and strong, but she herself knows how brittle it is.
How much pain there is underneath.

Just like Jon Bon Jovi.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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 Rise of Catherine Tramell

Published on September 20, 2020October 4, 2020 by LS Harteveld

video: One of my favorite scenes from Basic instinct.
It shows how much Catherine and Nick are at ease with each other.

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

This post contains spoilers for Basic Instinct (1992)
You can watch the movie on Netflix.

Dear Sara,

.
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.
The flesh is weaker than the conscious mind.
Where flesh stands for still following the news day after day, despite making daily resolutions to stop following the news entirely.

.
And where flesh stands for writing an entire blogpost – twice!- about my real thoughts on Covid.

But before I get to the tricky part, of writing about Covid without creating things I delete, I want to first get back to the part where I changed my mind.
After my last letter to you.
My intention was to stop living so hermit-like, and go out more.
Take more risks.

I was so sick of staying within my (social) boundaries, and could not stand the thought of living in fear of well “people” I think.
Not fear of the virus, just to be clear.

.
I knew this “daring” new lifestyle would probably cost me my productivity. That I would be so out of whack every time I had seen a friend who had a cold, or had been in a car with someone who then got tested the week after and so on;
And yet, it was worth it.
Then fuck being productive.
Or so I thought.

.
But reality was a lot more stubborn than just a rational decision to stop being such a pussy, and rock that social life.
Time and time again I was caught off-guard, and I think I now know why;
Because you know what, Sara?
Most people SAY they live according to Covid regulations.
AND THEN THEY DON’T.

So this is what the world looks like to me Sara:
FIRST , “they”, society, science, all the scared people, all the dutiful entrepreneurs and organisations, all the healthcare professionals who had to deal with so much death and so on-
They tell me Covid is a real threat and that therefor there are these rules in place.
THEN, “they”, society, science, all the scared people, all the dutiful entrepreneurs and organisations, all the healthcare professionals who had to deal with so much death and so on –
do not obey their own rules.
AND!
The other half of society, alternative news channels, and people who are less scared, the entrepreneurs and organisations who are less dutiful and everyone else who did not have to deal with all the deaths and sick people, also don’t obey them because they don’t believe it’s a real threat.

.
In other words:
I m living in a world where from the people who have not stayed indoors for 6 months;
No one obeys the rules.
Half of them despite endorsing them.

.
They go out coughing, share hand towels, equipment, food, elevators, cars.
They do not keep a 1,5 meter distance, or meet indoors without having any reason to believe the place has some kind of premium ventilation technique.

And yet at the same time, with half of them, it is NOT because they do not endorse the rules;
But it is because unlike me, they never had to internalize what hygiene is, because they were never aids phobic.
.

My estimate is that unless you’re a surgeon, you’re not going to understand surface and air contamination.
Because if you did, you would immediately see that the preventative measures may be more than a drop in the ocean;
But they’re far from safe or sterile circumstances that will prevent you from getting anything.

And that is IF you obey the rules.
Which like I said: I have (hardly) seen anyone doing, not consistently at least.

So here I was, for the past 6 months, in a world where half of the population endorse the rules and don’t diligently follow them, and the other half who do not endorse the rules and also don’t follow them.
And yet I have been feeling like the villain for concluding that apparently the rules only have the function of giving the impression that “something is being done”.
They should make people FEEL safe, when even if the rules would be executed perfectly, they are far from safe.
As the surgeon and the woman recovering from an aids phobia would have been able to tell you.

Yet this whole “playing by the rules” act has been my MO for the past 6 months, and I was like: “Whatever. I’ll sit this one out, and I ll cope.”
But at the back of my head, still, there was this voice that it wasn’t about following the rules;
It was about not catching or spreading Covid.
Which if it is as contagious as they say it is, means you cannot do anything where you touch the same surface as someone else, nor go indoors anywhere.
A situation that was only facilitated during the lock down, although our stores stayed open.
For the past 6 months I have not been stressed out by the rules, but by knowing that the rules are not enough to keep it from spreading.
As long as the supermarket, the plane or the movie theater are not clean enough to have an open heart surgery, you can still catch Covid there.
That’s how I see it.

In the first months I felt angry, but eventually it died out.

And I became apathetic.
I was checking the news sites (sinning) but basically all I did was checking if there were any signs of land.
If there was hope.
And the reason it was so bad for my mental health was because I realized this would stay until at least mid 2021 if not longer.

.
I ve deleted another four paragraphs of medical information;
Suffice to say, I have not been able to combine my Covid related stress with giving myself nor my cats the right medical attention.

And it was something that was recently added onto that “I ll sit this one out” pile of delayed medical attention for my entire household (me and the kitties), combined with the six month emotional roller coaster of reading dreadful Covid related news, and being freaked out by many social interactions, that sparked a new thought;
“What if it never goes away?”

.
What if the conditions that are causing so much anxiety in my social life, and that have made me decide to avoid medical care, are permanent?
What if social distancing stays indefinitely?
What if Covid testing is here to stay, like Chlamydia?
What if a cure for Covid doesn’t come until 2034 just like the one for aids/hiv didn’t come until 1994;
And there will never be a workable vaccine but only something like Prep, for those at risk of getting Covid?

.
Then what?

And everything fell into place.

It was the breakthrough I had been looking for.

Of course I wasn’t going to watch the news anymore, now that I realized that it may very well stay like this for the upcoming decade and a half.
Just like gay men in the 80s, we might be in for a very long haul.
.

For the first time in months, I immediately knew what to do.

I sent an email to my dentist and the VET, both explaining my issues with the current situation as well as asking or suggesting ways how we could pick up treatment (safely) for myself (dentist) and the cats (VET).
For now I will keep my ban on the GP and specialists, but I’ve more or less always had that.
Dental care and the VET are really the only forms of health care that are “aligned” for me.

It’s not that it’s going to be easy, or immediately solved or anything.
But I felt very empowered to pick those ones up, instead of postponing it to some unforeseen future.

And finally The Vision came, of who I am becoming.
And this was also something that had been dangling in and out of focus, for a very long time. It was as if I just couldn’t fully grasp it.
Or was afraid to leap.
Until now.

In the 1992 movie Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone plays Catherine Tramell.
And although right off the bat, I was totally into her, she also seems to be perpetually growing on me.

Catherine Tramell is not just the type of woman who I think I truly am, and the only writer I have ever really felt connected to;
She also embodies the “role” I feel I currently have, in society.

She’s the one who everybody believes to be evil, when she’s really not evil at all.
Just strong, misunderstood, and refusing to explain herself.

Identifying with her is my ticket “out of here”.
Where “here” is after six months of playing by the rules and missing out on all the fun. And health care.

Basic Instinct, as I see it now, contains an alternative story or theme, that was recognized by at least one other person at the time!
By Sharon Stone herself.
.
On the special edition dvd, she speaks favorably about her character Catherine Tramell, and the story of Basic Instinct.
Yet last week I heard her talking about her background research for Catherine Tramell (in interviews for Netflix series Ratched) and it was almost as if she looked back at Catherine Tramell as really having committed the murders.
As really being a serial killer.

I thought:
“She’s lost “her”! Even Sharon Stone no longer remembers who Catherine Tramell really was.”

Maybe I misunderstood the interview she gave last week or the interview on the 1992 recording.
But Sharon Stone seemed to no longer support a more favorable version, which she offered in that interview from the early 90s.
That Basic Instinct was a love story.

..
And this is how I see that story:

Catherine Tramell and Nick Curran, were both fascinated by playing mental games.
I am reading the book for the first time, and Catherine is explained like this;

“Writing teaches you how to lie,” she said crisply.
Oh, Jeez, thought Gus, all the ice was thin around this woman.
Every word she uttered was loaded with some double meaning.

But what was too much for Gus, was exactly right for Nick Curran;

He was looking forward to see how much she could be pushed
–and how she would push back.

Nick and Catherine played together because no one else understood the game.

.
Catherine was not violent, not in a physical sense. But she did have a fascination for people with a history of violence.
Like Nick.

An incident where he had shot two tourists when he had been undercover, had made Nick Curran emotionally wounded and reckless. He was always drawn to violent situations. As if he longed to be punished for what he had done.
For the mistakes he had made.
Or, as his partner Gus called it, Nick felt so guilty that he “tried to wiggle his way into an ice pick”.

.
So I do not see Catherine Tramell as a killer;
But she was surrounded by them.
She sought their company and seemed to have given them ownership over who they were...

Roxy could accept she had killed her brothers.
Hazel Dobkins could accept she had killed her family.
Nick could accept he killed “those tourists”.

.
And all three did those things, long before they met Catherine.

Her presence, her willingness to look them in the eye and be able to be with them despite or maybe even because of what they had done;
It’s what drew them towards her, as if for one brief moment, they didn’t have to carry that burden alone.

.
But Beth Garner, who studied at Berkley at the same time as Catherine did and who became San Francisco’s police psychologist?
She could not cope.
In all probability; Beth Garner was no killer, until she met Catherine and lost her sanity.

.
Yet Beth Garner was viewed as the “good” one.
In the final scenes of the movie, it is revealed that Beth was the killer, of Johnny Bozz, and of detective Nilsen to whom she gave Nick’s psychiatric file;
She killed Gus, and in all likeliness also their mentor at Berkley and her own husband.

.
But because of one final shot, with an ice pick under Catherine and Nick’s bed, it is also ambiguous if all that was true.

.
To this day director Paul Verhoeven, and now apparently even Sharon Stone herself, claim it was Catherine Tramell, not Beth Garner, who killed Johnny Bozz, Nilsen and Gus.
And then Catherine would also have to be the one who killed the mentor, and Beth’s husband.

In my opinion: She wasn’t.
It really was Beth.

She got into a deep identity crisis from meeting Catherine Tramell and as a response to not being able to really connect with Catherine and feeling inferior to her, Beth “became” the evil she accused Tramell of.
But that was never there.

In 1992, I didn’t know the two story lines, both that Beth did it and that Catherine did it, had both been fully developed.
So naturally, I thought if you would dissect the movie, or if I had paid more attention, I would have seen who had “really” done it.
I left the theater with the ending that Beth Garner had done all the killing, but nevertheless Catherine had an ice pick under the bed.
Which she ultimately did not use, she didn’t kill Nick.

Frustrated, I asked my then boyfriend what that ending meant.
If Beth had done it, why did Catherine have an ice pick and had considered using it on Nick?
I will never forget what my boyfriend said, and especially now that I know the movie is so complicated, I think he gave the best explanation of the movie I have ever heard:
“Maybe she was so used to having the people around her being killed, that when the killer was caught she felt she had to do it herself.”

And that’s why I know, this crisis will never be over.
If the virus is gone (the killer is caught), we will be so used to having it around us, that we’ll either keep it around by our thoughts, refusing to let it go.
Or we’ll create a new enemy thought.
Ten days ago one of the major news sites had three articles on legionnaire’s disease;
Maybe that will be the new enemy if Covid is behind bars.
Maybe that will be the ice pick under our beds we’re tempted to use because we’re so used, and attached, to having death and mayhem around us.

The movie made me see that there is no right or wrong in this crisis.
There are multiple story lines which you can follow, and they’re all complete.

The whodunnit from Covid will, just like Basic Instinct, always be a matter of preference.

Do you want to believe the good doctor Beth Garner was set up by the femme fatale?

Or do you want to believe that the mysterious writer Catherine Tramell just decided to play along?

“I don’t make the rules, Nick. I go with the flow.”

After six months of pretending to be a Beth Garner, I realize I chose the wrong part.
I m changing my position, and picking up the Catherine Tramell part, just like I have done for years.
My three websites, my three blogs of the past ten years, are filled with blogs just like this one. Where I realize there is a part of me that has only been represented by her.
A very big part.

But I think I knew even earlier. I think I chose right there in 1992, who I wanted to become, or perhaps had always been.
Her.

I don’t make the rules, Sara.

I go with the flow.

~Suzanne/ Lauren
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Curious to read what else I wrote about Catherine Tramell?
Most of it was on this site!
Just search on her name in the search box.

And next to that
there are two articles you can find using the search box of my oldest blog,
and I got one hit on my Dutch site.

Books LS Harteveld/ Lauren

Lauren’s books are available at LULU
New books will also be added to Lulu, as sites are being curated.

ABOUT ME

I am Suzanne, the real name of Lauren Harteveld,

Lauren/ LS Harteveld was my second identity under which I wrote about sex, relationships, pop culture, from 2006 to 2020.

Lauren is now in 1995, so she will write offline for us.

Her first year 1994-1995 is available online:

https://laurenharteveld.com/1994-a-performance-art-project/

.
coming soon: new books

1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2020
2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW
3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman
4. Blote Kont- (Dutch)
5. ALL THE THINGS – unpublished work 2010 – 2020

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready is to follow this blog. The subscription button to this blog is on this page, probably on the right.
.
Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Facebook page

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/LSHarteveld

Share Yourself With More People

Published on September 6, 2020September 6, 2020 by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

I feel I lost the last two weeks.
As if there is absolutely nothing worthy of telling.
Despite the title, I definitely did not share myself, but I did have an extremely ugly backlash from this summer where I did try to share myself with more people.

.
It was an accumulation of things, and the short version is I tried to put my love life back together despite of Covid and yet sooner rather than later but more precisely the last two weeks;
It all fell to bits.

As sure as I had been that I WAS NOT going to let Covid rob me of my sex life, after phobic nights, the GP not calling me back, the psychotherapist not responding to my email, cancelling my work because I just felt like a Covid bio-hazard at that time;
And then slowly crawling back up, all the while thinking:
“Please Covid, take my sex life, but LEAVE ME (I may have added “the fuck” here) ALONE!”

.
As impossible as it had seemed to rule out sex, which had been my top priority for 14 years; That’s how unwise, disruptive and drama-filled physical contact had proven to be.
Either I was going to have a sex-life and spend the upcoming year either:
– working like a mad woman to make a “real relationship” work
or
– spend it trembling under a blanket from all the anxiety attacks my sex in Covid times was causing

The third option: Get professional help through a therapist, was no longer included after my attempts had not resulted in anything.
And instead I chose the new previously unthinkable option 3:
– get by without professional help, but cutting the biggest trigger, my sex life, out.

I also had to decide to keep doing things with other people, pick up my work (for third party/ on location), go to theaters and public places.
The fear that had been triggered by this summer’s attempt to regain my sex life, had immobilized me.
It was like a train that had the emergency stop pulled, and needed to be unlocked manually, wheel by wheel.

I made a resolution to do something social or public every day.
It had to be a deliberate choice to prioritize that, and to not give myself the option to back out.

Work wise it’s like I forgot the things I told you last time.
I said my work would be teaching/ writing about yoga, and making Bon Jovi videos and write about Bon Jovi, all under my real name.
I did start teaching a weekly Dutch yoga course! It’s a blog combined with videos. So that feels very satisfactory.
But as a whole, writing as LS Harteveld did more or less hijack my working hours, and now I m two weeks further down the road, and I have to write you again, and I m thinking:
“If only I had remembered to implement what I wrote Sara two weeks ago, and only do the work under my real name during work hours;
I would not have lost those weeks.”

I m often disappointed at how much time I spend straying from the path only to come back exactly where I started.

And this time without the sex.

Okay, so that’s enough dwelling for one night.

.
On the bright side, it does mean that until there is a vaccine, I have all the time in the world to focus on whatever I want. Without the distraction of sex.
I ve already aligned with Andy Warhol, who never had sex.
Lenny Kravitz, who was celibate for many years. I couldn’t find if or how that ended.
And I am starting to see, it has the potential to do something extremely powerful for your art and your position in the world.

It’s an interesting concept that identifying with not having sex, is just as potent as identifying with having it.
Like I did for the past 14 years.

But seeing people in real life, or visiting public places and working and thereby complicating social and Covid related dynamics, are part of this new phase.
To avoid dropping back to my comfort zone, out of Covid fear, I need to keep seeing other people.

I may end up sharing myself with more people, than when I still had sex.

~Suzanne/ Lauren
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

If you’re interested in following my Bon Jovi related content under my real name, you’re invited to follow the following accounts:
– YouTube
– Rock Star Writer (blog)
– Rock Star Writer Facebook
– my personal Twitter under my real name

Books LS Harteveld/ Lauren

Lauren’s books are available at LULU
New books will also be added to Lulu, as sites are being curated.

ABOUT ME

I am Suzanne, the real name of Lauren Harteveld,

Lauren/ LS Harteveld was my second identity under which I wrote about sex, relationships, pop culture, from 2006 to 2020.

Lauren is now in 1995, so she will write offline for us.

Her first year 1994-1995 is available online:

https://laurenharteveld.com/1994-a-performance-art-project/

.
coming soon: new books

Facebook page

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/LSHarteveld

Update on Monday morning

Books LS Harteveld/ Lauren

ABOUT ME

. coming soon: new books

Books LS Harteveld/ Lauren

ABOUT ME

. coming soon: new books

.
coming soon: new books

.
coming soon: new books