The past two, three days have been hell on the Richter Scale, as I managed to disappoint myself AGAIN, with how little room there is to do the sensible.
To stop writing.
Art.
Yoga.
Thinking.
YouTube.
My business.
Publishing my books
Teaching.
Or to marginalize them to modest blocks of free-time.
And even the logic to take a part-time job, to create more time;
I long for a full-time, going all-in experience.
So despite my best efforts to envision, get passionate, to plan and get real with what one person can do; I dropped into a deep knowing that unfortunately for me, and for everybody still hoping that one day I ll be cured, the truth is this:
Normal ain’t gonna cut it.
It really is, in no uncertain terms, going to be my way or the highway.
And it’s not gonna be the highway.
It just has to be, going to be, and from this day on WILL BE the way it was always meant to be:
Motherfucking everything.
The whole shebang.
There will be no choice between writing or YouTube. Or between a fantastic, exciting job in the real world and a 7-Figure book empire. Build as a side hustle, no less.
There is just no way to cut this short, nor to plan for this, nor will it let itself be beaten into some sort “create your dream life – schedule” that would make sense to anybody.
There will be no to-do lists on how to do it all, because I will just be doing it all by the nature of who I am.
The way that my life will work is by doing all the things that people say you cannot do or combine. It is the only way that from a spiritual, intellectual, fun perspective, makes any sense!
And that may be crazy, to the layman’s eyes.
But this morning was the first when I woke up happy, and light. Knowing there will be no more choosing. In the end there was only one thing that was ever going to work.
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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.
“Abramović performed The Artist Is Present, a 736-hour and 30-minute static, silent piece, in which she sat immobile in the museum’s atrium while spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her.” Wikipedia
The signs have been there for a while now. That being a writer would not be enough to keep my hungry artistic heart satisfied. Not even now, when I had freed myself up to write only what I really wanted, without ever having to think about how this would make me into a 7-Figure Rock Star Writer.
And without getting distracted by my YouTube channels for this account (The Bon Jovi my life in songs – series*) and my account under my real name where I created yoga videos for my studio.
No more yoga videos.
No more talks on My life in Bon Jovi songs.
It has never been true love between me and video, and I know exactly why that is:
The main reason I did YouTube was because I thought I needed to do that to have a successful yoga studio, or be successful as a writer.
I needed to share my energy, show my face, and give people a chance to get to know me, and interact with me.
If I had been convinced success came from other things than public exposure I would never have been on YouTube to begin with.
And since success never came that way, and I hit my however-how-many-times low, of not wanting to do video anymore, it was done.
Out with YouTube.
If I can detach from the idea of having to make money from writing or yoga, the first thing that goes out are all the activities I made myself do because I thought I needed them.
And it wasn’t that I didn’t like doing them.
Once I was doing them I was usually okay, and I also liked the result.
It was tempting to keep YouTube up, just as it was tempting to keep fantasizing how I was going to become a success after all.
But in the end it wasn’t true love, YouTube and me. It was a fling, not a satisfying relationship. Like an ex you can’t stop seeing.
I quit, so that I could concentrate on my true art.
But then it happened.
And this I did not foresee: The Art itself, changed.
Writing these blogs, creating yoga programs, my art?
No more. The pull, the inspiration, suddenly came from slightly different or entirely new directions.
After visiting a theater, I started toying with the idea of practicing yoga as performance art.
Which reminded me that this was not new:
For years and years, I ve cherished a medium-sized Marina Abramovic obsession. Her older work because of its play with fear of death, and surrender. And her latest work because she makes concepts like meditation and mindfulness, compelling.
I wanted to explore how this could change and perhaps even revolutionize how I taught and practiced yoga.
So that was one side of the Influenced By spectrum:
Theater and performance art.
And then there was the second track.
Because despite quitting my Bon Jovi YouTube series*, I was still looking forward to the concert in June. Maybe you could even say that, although there were multiple reasons of why I quit the channel, one of the underlying reasons was that it was not contributing to a good experience of the concert.
Making the My Life in Bon Jovi Songs – videos was taking time away from what I really wanted: To study the songs they would most likely play.
To go inside the songs, and inside myself as well, so that the concert was already an integral part of me, before I even went.
I feel that is the way to get the maximum out of anything, just like a holiday:
To get into the history of the place, its museums, its unique seasonal things to do perhaps.
So that you know where to start when you’re there.
For example if I look forward to seeing a movie, I ll watch reviews and even spoiler reviews beforehand. And I never regretted it.
I love studying where I am going, not because I want it to pan out according to an exact plan, but because being familiar with the structure or different elements, makes it easier to understand the nuances and appreciate the details.
So I had the intention of dedicating many, many hours to preparing for the Bon Jovi concert.
And in this light, the playlist I had created for the My Life in Bon Jovi series, and studying them and making videos about them, was a huge distraction of what I had set out to do.
And I quit.
With YouTube out of the way, I picked up preparations for the Bon jovi concert. And its impact was way bigger than I expected!
Wow!
Just listening to Jon Bongiovi sing is altering my current use of English, and the way I think, in English. To New Jersey American.
My “own” accent has always been tested as Australian.
I believe both in the way I pronounce certain words, as my grammar. Although that’s not to say, English native speakers cannot find plenty wrong with it.
But I did this language test once, which estimated both your native language as well as where you learned your English.
It said my native language was Dutch, and that my English was tied to Australian. Which makes sense because I am Dutch, and I used to live in Australia, although just briefly.
But I also used to have an Australian friend, who lived here for a few years.
That’s when Australian-ish as my default English probably sank in deeper.
And the last couple of years, I would find it hard to believe my English has not copied many more Australian traits, because I ve been watching Australian born Katrina Ruth videos each and every day.
I have paid programs, but also listen to her free live streams and I m subscribed to her YouTube.
That I was getting so very much out of her online video presence, was one of the prime motivators to stick with YouTube.
I felt a slacker for not sharing my message and my energy on video. And Katrina Ruth also has a blog! That’s her 362 days a year thing!
So she’s an example that being a writer is no excuse not to do video.
But, however, she does do something that I no longer do: She coaches people.
And she has an online business.
I have decided a few weeks ago I don’t want to offer any services, other than selling books, online/ outside of The Netherlands.
And for the Dutch market I ll create yoga programs, and do in-person or telephone coaching, but it’s not an online business.
Katrina Ruth has been my main source of inspiration for my business and she will keep on being that. Yet I didn’t feel she had a big part to play in this new, unknown path that I was setting my first steps on.
She didn’t match with the theater/ Marina Abramovic vibe, I wanted to infuse my yoga practice with. And she also had no overlap with the Bon Jovi music I was studying or the concert I was preparing for.
But you could see her influence in my patience to sit this out:
The void of not knowing where it is going.
Where my art is going.
Or my life.
And knowing that it is important to not stay busy, or commit to shadow-work, a term she invented to describe doing things that may look like real work to the outside world:
But you know you re hiding.
That you re not speaking your mind, not doing the real thing, writing the book, creating the movement, the revolution, or whatever it is you were put on this earth for to do.
Shadow work is dangerous and evil, because it allows you to fool the entire world and even yourself, that you re on track, when in fact you re throwing away your life away for things that don’t matter.
I didn’t see Katrina Ruth’s wisdom directly influencing whatever art, yoga or even the Bon Jovi concert would turn out to be.
But the fact that I was waiting this new art form to develop and to show itself, was definitely her influence.
And then it happened.
I listened to the latest short videos that were added to her Katrina Ruth channel, and this one turned up: Get Serious About Your Intent To Live Purposefully…Or You’ll End Up With A Dry Vagina!
photo 2 Bye bye monk. Hello Sexy!
In it, she clearly states, and this was probably the biggest Aha moment of 2019, that having that daily release of doing your work as a creator and letting out what needs to come out, is not only crucial to your entire physical well-being (which she had been hammering home for years), and that driven women have a strong sex drive (on her agenda of Points To Be Made since 2018 or earlier), no she was extremely specific this time stating that:
“When you’re a driven badass woman, and you’re in alignment and you’re pressing fully play? You should be wet all the time.”
WHY DOESNT ANYBODY ELSE SAY THESE THINGS?!
WHY DID I MISS THIS? Why did I, just five days ago, write a blog post about working a day job, and also reserving three hours a day for my yoga, my writing and publishing my books, describing my new lifestyle in the title literally as: Preparing for life as a monk Without red flags waving?
Without alarms ringing?
Without an ominous voice barking:
“Hello! Earth to Lauren! Thou art wasting thou life!!”
And not in the Art capital A that you would want to “waste” it on.
That I actually assumed, that the answer to getting a daytime job so that I had artistic and creative freedom, meant micromanaging my creativity?
That is ridiculous.
It s the dry vagina version of creativity! I wouldn’t even call it creativity. It really is a monk’s life.
And I am anything but.
I ve said on more than one occasion, that if I can’t have sex anymore, I will either die or stop writing and probably both.
And I don’t mean that I need a lot of sex, but I need this:
I need intrigue.
Mystery.
Feeling sexual.
Shaving, waxing, taking care of my body AS IF, I m going to have sex all the time. Keeping everything down there in great condition, and yes.
I have wondered, so very often!, until I just stopped caring, and as of today I will just count my blessing:
Why am I wet so often?
I even know that I ve thought I must secretly be lusting then, after the person I am with, making some perhaps questionable conclusions and decisions in my love life. That was a long time ago but still – that I thought a guy who I rationally didn’t find that attractive, was causing my physical reaction?
Eh. No.
This is how I am if I feel happy, and creative and ALIVE.
Katrina Ruth was so right!
And now I see what was missing in all my recent plans. From the monk lifestyle to the acetic Marina Abramovic inspired yoga to the “studying” of the songs of Bon Jovi:
Sex.
Juiciness.
Mystery.
The forbidden fruit, the unexpected, the great story that has yet to be written. The art that is forever changing and unpredictable and violent and perhaps destructive in unexpected and all consuming ways.
What was missing from my yoga, my work, and being a Bon Jovi fan, was Life. And for a whole week, I risked losing it for my vagina as well.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
*) About YouTube
I m not final on my thoughts about terminating my work for YouTube. My reason for doing it, is that I’m going for a normal job, which means that I don’t have to have a YouTube channel because I no longer need to be successful with my books.
Nor sell online coaching. These are all off the table, and writing/art can just be whatever it wants to be. Another reason, tied to this, and I do mention this in my final video, is that when I have a daytime job, I don’t want this intimate information about me floating around in such an accessible way. I ve always been extremely open, and am rarely misunderstood by those munching through a meaty blog post. Yet the sex-thing, especially when expressed verbally, makes it feel cheap and too accessible when shared on video. Too vulnerable even.
And in particular if I don’t offer a service or program that’s tied to it. Because I m no longer selling international coaching services or programs, I feel I need to be more careful speaking about these things. Over time, it has been a continuous mostly internal conversation on whether or not to make my teachings on sex and relationships more accessible through video, or not. Right now, with a normal job pending, I have decided to stick to my plan to remove all content, but I ve decided to keep the channel on, along with a few older, neutral videos. The my life in Bon Jovi Songs series, contains many of my signature ideas on sex and relationships, as well as pillars of my personal history. It will stay up until June 13.
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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.
I just reposted yesterday’s blog to social media, and was tempted to quote one of the sex-related sentences about this week’s much needed encounter with Mr.Big.
Although Mr.Big is a “want”, not a need.
That is the biggest difference between my love life and a normal relationship: I don’t want a lover to be a need.
Nor do I myself, want to be a need.
I want to be a want.
A luxury so luscious, only a true hedonist will allow themselves to have it.
Yesterday’s blog post, which plunged from the very neutral title “I forgot how to breathe” right down into the arms of my lover and the heart of our encounter, took a whole evening to write.
And few read it.
Tempting, to repost it using one of it’s click-baity sexual confessions.
But I didn’t.
With a real job just around the corner, daily writing has become something that needs to be scheduled in, and its time-block needs to be defended.
I used to be a yoga teacher and writing was something I could do every day and all day. As long I showed up for my night time classes.
With real workweeks pending, I have an hour every morning to write this post. And it is an hour I would rather have spent socializing my new cats, especially since they will be alone the rest of the day.
Yet I am dedicating that A.M. hour to writing.
That’s how big a Need writing is!
I will take it from the pockets of my furry friends, which is saying something because I would do anything for them.
That ONE hour every morning, needs to be spent wisely, oh so wisely.
Posting yesterday’s post with a click-baity title, is disruptive.
It does not contribute to today’s productivity.
It does not make that stolen hour behind the computer, more meaningful. Anything but.
So part of preparing for life as an employee, with little time to write, is that I will no longer be promoting these blogs with click-bait titles or quoting from the juicy sections.
But there is more.
Limiting writing to one hour, and no longer promoting my work, is just the morning routine.
The real challenge comes what to do, and what not-to-do, after I get home.
A little while ago I realized that as a teen I barely had any social life, outside school. And even less on weekdays.
I got up at 6.30, left the house 7.15; Cycled to school which started at 8.15
home around 4 P.M., a little nap until dinner.
And then doing schoolwork behind my desk until 10 P.M. , shower and be in bed at 10.30 P.M.
Every. Damn. Day.
And here I am, here we are, as adults. And this goes in particular for the ones without children, because parents with children don’t have much choice in what they want to do at night. Here we are thinking we have time for a social life.
Or to do sports four times a week.
That the evenings are there to make up for what we missed out on, during the day.
But anticipating my own new work life, I m like: Nooooo…..
Maybe one night a weeks tops, you could go see a movie, attend a social event, or in my case see my lover, as long as I m home around ten.
And make that a Wednesday or a Thursday, don’t do this at the beginning of your week.
For me, a 46 year old former entrepreneur returning to being a regular employee, this is NEW.
The realization how very little you can do, if you work full-time in a job. And how that makes total sense, if you compare it to the monk life many of us (not all!) had as a teenager.
Nights are not for partying.
My entire life is going to change so drastically.
From being a yoga teacher having the entire day to myself, for dates with Mr.Big, for writing, and so on;
To leaving the house at A.M. and returning around dinner.
And then the evening is dedicated to doing yoga for an hour, publishing my books for an hour, and then to bed 10 P.M. in order to get up at 5 A.M to write.
A monk’s life, that’s what it is.
I recently read an interesting blog about creating a sex positive life.
One day was for writing smut, another for masturbation, and so on.
Maybe that’s a way to make something interesting from my evenings, I don’t know. Squeeze in a daily 30 minutes to do something sex-positive.
Because it seems like despite acknowledging that after 15+ years of being an entrepreneur, I choose the stability of a normal job and income so that I can focus on creating my art and publishing my books:
I still can’t see myself settling for living this monk style life!
I just don’t see it happening.
But then what, right?
The first job I saw, or could see myself having, which I encountered this week, was so much fun, and so cool. And I do expect I would be able to work from home largely, and be flexible in my hours in case I would go for a daytime date.
So that makes it easier to see myself working, without having to go full-on monk style.
But in general working a normal job is far from what I m used to, and I still have no idea if I can do that.
My peers have spent the past 20 years living that way, and I ve always given them props for that.
But can I really do it?
I m not sure.
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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.
What happened between me and Mr.Big this week, almost got lost in pre-employment stress of Oh My God I Can’t Share This
I think I tried everything.
To stop diary writing.
To stop writing all together.
To write whenever the mood strikes and let writing take until the post was ready. Which usually meant it hijacked my day and kept me behind my computer for 6 hours minimum.
I tried writing for 30 minutes.
Which including editing, and finding a photo always turned into one hour.
Which turned into two.
Which turned into however long it took, and brought me back to:
Stop writing all together.
And the diary writing, the personal life: Oh, the things I ve tried and decided, to feel better!
In order to preserve the good, to enhance it, to create a whole world out of the times I saw my lover Mr.Big.
And then the moments of doubt and anxiety for feeling like oversharing. As if I would not lose him every time, if only I could conform to secrecy instead of writing about our time together.
As if my loneliness was a punishment for writing.
And then the coaching and teaching yoga!
From offering it, to not offering it, to offering it only under my real name (and not this one).
I have a draft of a yoga program (a two hours blog post +) and my coaching program for the Dutch market is still up, as well. Neither one I will be posting or selling anymore.
Because everything changed last Monday.
And then today it changed even more.
Last Monday the decision to stop making my living as an independent and get a normal job became final. And I immediately stopped my yoga channel under my real name.
There was no point in making yoga videos as promo material, and it simply wasn’t a part of my purpose work.
For the first day, it was just that.
But then yesterday night I went to a social event, and I received this powerful vision on my new life as a writer. And I was literally counting out the hours I would have for my purpose work, at the start and finish of every work day.
I had not drawn any major conclusions from that – because there was time to write and do yoga next to a job.
But then this morning I started a blog post, yet didn’t finish it.
And I also recorded the same My Life in Bon Jovi songs video four times.
Until it hit me what was wrong:
I felt vulnerable sharing my personal life, and in particular on YouTube.
I had no idea if I would be able to apply for jobs, or do my work, if I set the bar so high in my personal life (being a secret mistress) that I had to write about it, in order to stay standing.
Maybe, taking a job meant I had to stop doing that.
Maybe I needed to become normal in my private, and sexual life, so that I didn’t need to write about it.
But then this is who i am.
I know this.
And I know that especially if I have a job, I need to stay in touch with my inner world. To sit behind my computer and “breathe”.
To let whatever comes out, come out, typing away on the key board.
So after the fourth take for my YouTube, I decided to quit YouTube entirely, and focus on my writing.
My real purpose work.
To stop wasting time (over-) sharing myself in YouTube videos, when it would already be hard enough to do my writing AM before work, or at night time.
So I made that final YouTube video, my farewell, and thought I had “solved” it.
Until the stomach ache, the doubt, and the anxiety that I would go down the rabbit hole of my inner world every morning, AND THEN – face the world.
Would I even be able to do this?
Was it really just as simple as deleting YouTube, to focus on my purpose work, writing?
Then why was I feeling so, so bad?
Why did I title this blog post:
I forgot how to breathe?
And then during the typing of this blog post, something that my coach Sara has said to me months ago, popped back to mind.
The job is there to support the creativity!
Not the other way around.
I repeat: NOT the other way around.
Months and months ago, when my insights in wanting a job were far from the firm decision that it is now – Sara already pointed out not to fall into the trap of compromising my art, in order to fit into a job.
And here I was, feeling shaken after my “big” YouTube fall out at the thought of still having to share myself on this blog..
I felt daunted, by the idea of doing the only thing I love without question. Without payment, without recognition, and with a message that just oozes from my pores on a daily fucking basis;
To write.
Getting personal.
Going DEEP.
I genuinely thought that in light of getting a job I was forgetting how to “breathe”, how to write. Afraid that I would not be able to do it because at 8.30 I would see people.
Colleagues.
But no, Sara was right.
Aside from the sheer impossibility that I would forget or could skip, something that comes as natural as breathing – I DO only have room in my life for a job that still allows me to do the art.
This post was me writing myself into a solution.
Remembering Sara’s message is soothing, and I will keep it in mind. Somewhere in the front.
But I also want to share here, right at the bottom of this blog post, hidden almost, what happened between Mr.Big and me, when we made love.
The story I tried to tell in this morning’s draft post and four times over in the video that I did not post, and deleted all versions of it: The story how we got back together.
It had been two months since we’d last seen each other. And it had been one of those times where I had been uncertain if he’d even want me back.
Or if he’d just let our affair die out..
I knew this was part of the agreement, part of what we had. That I put up with the periods of silence, but it seemed as if this had become a new normal.
As I remembered it, in our first year, it never happened.
In our second year it may have happened twice.
In our third it became frequent and ever since the final 18 months all I remember is dropping into that zone of not knowing, every time again and again, after seeing him.
And every time I promised myself I wouldn’t buy into my stories of drama.
I would sit it out.
I would trust.
And yet every time I had to break word with myself, and worry. Worry so much that it would be over.. Until we saw each other again, and I was happy.
Most people understand that this pattern leads to a better, more exciting sex life. Something we did have in the first two years. Very much.
I never fantasize about sex with other men, because Mr.Big is tied to my deepest darkest fantasies, in a way that I m beginning to think no man will ever be.
Even if I m in love – I m beginning to doubt my ability to enjoy being with another body than Mr.Big’s. If another man’s attention, focus, and love making skills will ever be able to satisfy me.
Is it ever fair, to make love to someone else, as long as I m in love with Mr.Big?
The older I get, the more I m leaning towards:
“No, that is not fair. Your body and mind only respond to Mr.Big.”
So most people understand that this pattern, where I have to keep the faith for months on end sometimes – influences our longing and our sexual desire.
But what they don’t understand, and maybe that’s also because I have not verbalized this explicitly – is that if the test has been this heavy, the time period this long, and if I have missed him so much and have been on the point of believing he will never return?
You don’t just hop back into having sex.
You are not crazy with lust for each other, and my body seems to carry all the mental scars of feeling lonely and rejected.
Of feeling abandoned.
My mind can survive, and I know I need a terrible amount of stress and strain, in order to even feel something, sexually.
Rationally, I understand I m better off having this problem, than having the same man sitting next to me on the couch for nights in the row.
But the body cannot be reasoned with.
And Mr.Big understands that. That despite me accepting that I don’t see him as often as I would like, that he needs to start from scratch with me, physically.
He excels at comforting me, making me feel safe.
He asks me, what I need to relax.
If I want to hug, we hug.
If I need to cry, I cry.
If I want to spoon naked in bed together, we do so.
And he will do all of those things without initiating more. He will never press for anything, not even the remotely sexual: All he wants for me is to feel good.
And if that means we won’t have sex, we don’t have sex.
As uncompromising as he is, not attending to my needs in the weeks and sometimes months in between, that’s how devoted and patient he is, when I m there with him.
He can give in two hours, what I would get from a normal man in two weeks.
So this week’s reunion was not a sexual, pushing-the-boundaries-of-civil, adventure where we could tick things off our bucket list.
It was sensitive, emotional and deeply satisfying both on an emotional as well as on a physical level, because I came multiple times.
My orgasms just came effortlessly.
And he had one but just like always, he waited until he could feel I was fully satisfied, and it was in a perfect melt-together moment of union.
Those were all things I tried to share in the video, which ultimately led me to the decision to cancel my entire channel.
Those were the things I didn’t want to write about, because the thought of sharing myself like this, suddenly scared me, in the light of my future career.
But writing this blog post has brought me so many insights.
That Sara was right – the job will be there for me, to support me creating art.
And also, and unfortunately for everybody perhaps, my sexual relationships but even more so my internal world, will always be this complicated.
YES, I will always need writing to balance them out.
NO I can’t stop, because I cannot live in this dark, and often very lonely mind, without releasing into this blog.
And there was a third thing I started realizing as I was writing this blog.
That this is sacred.
This is when the magic comes through.
A leaving of the world, into another. And with my time with Mr.Big being so limited, and my suffering so deep, this writing is therapy.
Writing this blog is a daily one, or a two, or a six hour release.
And it’s a bare necessity.
Just like breathing.
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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.
God, that was just in time.
I honestly thought I would have to write about an entrepreneur who got all worked up about people needing to put their talents to use to serve others.
And then me getting all worked up about that.
There is a Dutch saying: “Acting from trying to do good, will lead to the ending of the world.”
But I was going to rant about the man’s limited (and dare I say protestant?!) take on Life, without quoting proverbs that do not hold up in translation.
Okay, I just deleted an entire paragraph of hostilities.
I was led astray by the devil, trying to tempt me talking about climate change and the number of children you can have and raise in a Western country, times their ecological footprint, and still claim your Life is in service of the planet.
But NO!
Go away you devil!
I will do MY THING!
What I came here to do on this earth.
Which is to provide clarity and a deeper understanding of sex and relationships.
So when this morning I saw a discussion about the acceptance of polyamorous women, on social media, I bettered my devious ways and jumped behind my computer for this, my purpose work.
Because work needs to be done!
Clarity needs to be given!
And I am not exaggerating when I say that this post has the potential to wipe all of society’s lack of appreciation for the polyamorous people from the table.
In a swift two-thousand word go.
Because why is it, that in 2019, we STILL treat polyamorous people as something that requires an explanation?
Getting in a 100K debt, requires an explanation.
Three divorces, requires an explanation.
Loving or having sex with multiple people, however?
Requires none!
No explanation to yourself, not to your partner, not to society.
And you can be as open or as secretive about it as you want.
Just like loving multiple people at once is something that is part of your own unique sexual makeup, so is your desire to talk about it, or to be open about it.
This is not how it works:
Person is honest about sex -> good person.
Person tells lies about sex -> bad person.
Providing we’re talking about two consenting adults, this is how it does work:
Person has sex or does not have sex, and may or may not be honest about that -> good person.
The flaw, the misconception, that is the basis of all misunderstanding and under-appreciation of polyamorous people, is the idea that they’re cheating.
Breaking the rules.
That having multiple partners, is something we’d ALL want!
That when given the chance, when we’re unleashed, we’d all be running around having sex with everybody.
And that monogamy is an agreement between two people, who suppress their sexual urges, and in exchange do not have to “suffer” the loose behavior of spouse or partner.
These are not one, but two wrong perceptions of reality!
The first, that we’d all run around having sex with everybody when given the chance.
And the second, that we are hurt when our loved ones are having sex with other people.
Both are so untrue it makes my eyes hurt.
It’s almost as untrue as the entrepreneur’s dogma that you have to use your talents in service of other people, or whatever it is you re doing is immoral.
It is the simplicity of thinking that is hurtful here.
NOT the act of the doers, in neither of the two cases:
It’s not the doers, the people who use their talents merely to please themselves, who are wrong.
Nor the doers, the people who “run around having sex with everybody”, who are wrong.
So if I despise this simplicity of thinking about polyamory, then what?
Starting with the myth that underneath our Christian upbringing we are all supposedly sexual omnivores:
Two points I want to make.
First off: Sex is NOT easy.
It is not something you “run around doing”. People need to actually want to have sex with you.
Just look at the whole Incel debacle to understand that wanting sex and getting it, are two different things.
To be an attractive sexual partner, requires impeccable social skills (and having fun using them!), and a capacity to focus, give attention, make the other feel loved.
Be TUNED IN!!!!
And connected.
All skills that are highly sought after, and complex. Running around thinking with your dick or pussy, is not going to cover it, period.
Sexual relationships are upon our most complicated forms of human interaction, and they deserve to be credited as such.
The second thing that you need to have, and this is inborn I think, before you can enjoy having polyamorous relationships, is that you actually need to enjoy sharing yourself with multiple people.
I know because I am a mono myself, and I don’t want to share myself with more people.
In times of sexual scarcity, whether within my own relationship, or because I m single, I ll give it my best shot and try and be less picky.
And if I am ever in love with more than one man, and they both want me, I m not going to force that into becoming a mono-thing.
But that’s effort!
It (having multiple partners) would be a huge strain, not something that comes natural, and that I just wish the world would allow me to have.
So these two aspects already indicate that we’re not all polyamorous people underneath the Christian veneer.
Being successful as a polyamorist requires both the talent to manage these encounters or relationships, as well as an ability or preference to enjoy them.
Sex is NOT easy.
The other aspect or reason polyamorous people are called out to defend themselves, is that it is assumed they are “takers”.
They have to defend themselves because they are taking from “us” (the monogamous people), and they are hurting us.
If they are honest about it, and wave around the Polyamorous flag, then we can forgive them.
Maybe.
If they waved it soon enough, before we fell in love!
But if people do not come out as desiring or having multiple partners, then hunting season is open.
When the truth is, as stated before, they are just being themselves.
They cannot change who they are.
Like I said: It requires both skill and a preference for multiple partners to even be good at this whole multiple-partner game.
It’s not like you accidentally land your dick in somebody. On repeat.
Just ask any Incel.
But more importantly -and this is HUGE!!! – they’re doing us monos a favor.
Just imagine having two people, both monogamist pending asexual – like me.
Having a relationship.
Who s going to take care of the levels of sexual energy there?
The excitement?
The NOT knowing the other completely that makes sex so exciting and new?
No one, that’s who.
Put two monos together, and unless they both come with the predisposition of getting highly turned on at the romantic thought of their partner only sharing themselves with them?
Sex is going to die out. Sex is going to die out in any classical, monogamous, long-term relationship, the moment your eyes do not light up at the thought of your partner being exclusive to you.
Which – by the way!!!- is something that you are also allowed to ask for if you yourself are not monogamous!
If you’re a polyamorist, but you get highly turned on by your partner being yours? Go for it.
Ask it.
Having a monogamous partner is not a reward for keeping it in your pants.
It’s a personal, sexual preference.
But I m drifting off.
I was talking about the pitfalls of monogamous relationships.
So the ONLY monogamous relationship that is ever going to work is this:
Both partners get turned on at the idea of sharing themselves only with that one partner. Like I get aroused sharing myself only with 1 man.
But also: Both partners get turned on at the idea of their partner only sharing themselves with them. Like Christian Grey in 50 Shades of Grey being aroused at the idea that Anastacia is his, and his alone.
If BOTH partners have these double monogamy preferences?
A long-term relationship can work brilliantly, and be sexually interesting for life.
But.
In ALL other cases?
The batteries dying out is coded into the DNA of the relationship. Because SOMEBODY has to recharge the batteries.
SOMEBODY has to make sure there is sexual energy to share.
And if you’re both at home making lazy ass agreements “hu hu, we’re going to be faithful because we’re married and Christian and GOOD PEOPLE!”
Fine!
But no one is going to recharge anything and your sexual spark is going to die out, while you re staring it in the face.
Totally unnecessary I might add.
You did it all yourself.
Because you demonized the polyamorous people.
The partners who would have taken responsibility for their sexual battery being charged, often without you knowing how they keep it in such mint condition.
They can be very discreet you know.
And then all you have to do, is appreciate them for it.
Trust your openly or dormant polyamorous partner and say the exact same thing I said, last time I saw my lover:
“You know what I love so much about you? That I have no idea what you’ve been up to.”
And I ve shared my fantasies with him.
That I would love to take care of him, after he has been with someone else.
If it’s someone he feels less familiar with than with me, anyway. (otherwise, these things would not be my task)
It’s a fantasy that has not come into fruition.
But it’s this:
That he comes home in the middle of the night.
So very tired, but satisfied. Hungry. Maybe slightly drunk.
And he’s had sex.
And I am allowed to take care of him.
Bathe him, feed him, put him to bed assuring him he is so special to me So deeply loved. And what I don’t say is that although he may feel really bad right now, kind of shaken, he has recharged our sex life.
Our batteries.
That this will profit us both, bring pleasure to us both, in this mono-poly relationship.
A unique agreement, in which we both only do things for our own pleasure.
But the Universe just works it all out in a way, that as we do that, we also take care of the other.
I of him.
And he of me.
Maybe that’s what I would tell that entrepreneur:
It’s impossible to know how you can be of service to others.
So don’t try to serve others.
Use your talents for your own pleasure instead.
Do the thing you CAN do, and that you’re gifted for.
Foreseeing how everything will fit together is a divine talent.
Not a human one.
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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“When you learn to trust yourself implicitly, you no longer need to prove something through your art.
You simply allow it to come out, to be as it is.”
– John Daido Loori (The Zen of Creativity)
Yesterday I had the joy to be reminded of the way normal people do things.
About the best practice in the industry of coaching, entrepreneurship, and even art to an extend.
Or maybe NOT art!
Maybe that is the whole thing – these sensible ways of doing things, only come into play once you STOP seeing what you re doing as art!
But as a business instead.
As something that can be learned, done correctly, and then the results will come.
I m not going to look down on people who can “build” a business (business? Life!) this way. And especially not on those who can combine it with their creative endeavors or spiritual, intangible talents.
Good for you.
I am incapable of doing that. And in the words of Vincent van Gogh in the movie At Eternity’s Gate:
“Believe me, I tried.”
If I mastered an inauthentic way to make me millions?
I would not hesitate to use it.
But the problem is:
I do not master such a skill.
And these attempts to earn far less than millions even, have cost me money, time and energy, AND have kept me from doing it my own way.
A way which may not have brought me anything, in a worldly sense, but at least it would not have been completely wasted on doing something that wasn’t me.
A term that really spoke to me, was “Renaissance Business”:
It’s for people who pursue multiple interests, and especially the ones who have them simultaneously. In my case it’s writing, thinking, yoga. It’s tempting to add entrepreneurship, but I see that more as an expression of the other three.
Technically even the writing is an expression of the thinking.
I m a Thinker and an Expressionist.
But let’s get not too abstract, and call my skills writing, thinking, yoga.
So a renaissance business, is based on a desire to apply all of your talents. It’s not based on market research, not on a niche, and not on connecting with your target audience.
In a renaissance business you’re not going to moderate your talents, sensor them, turn them inside out and tie a bow to them;
Until they start making you money.
It would be both undesirable as well as next to impossible. Either because you’re offering your talents separately, for example consultancy and photography. In which case you d have to do market research on two markets, and communicate to two entirely separated (and made-up!) audiences.
Which is practically impossible, not to mention excruciating and awful.
OR
If you re offering a new product that combines your skills, for example consultancy through photography, it’s impossible to be considerate of what your target audience wants to see, and what problem you will be solving for them, because your service is unique.
So even though the term renaissance business, refers to people having multiple talents, it makes it clear that authenticity, and authenticity alone, is the fastest, the purest, the no-fail road to making any business work;
Because it is the ONLY business you ll never regret having.
An expression of your true self.
In the conversation I was having yesterday, it became clear to me (and I was very happy with this knowledge!) that I behave in exactly the opposite way, when it comes to what I ll do for an employer.
Now there are limits to this.
Best described as “the Lighthouse Effect”.
I am a very dominant woman. And this annoys in particular (if not to say exclusively!) the people I don’t give my attention to. Which explains why I get haters just walking the street and minding my own business.
So.
Although I would love to change that for an employer, to fit in and accommodate their vision of where the company is going, which may not include big lighthouses: All I can do is turn off the light.
Which, let’s be honest, isn’t going to do much good.
If I turn off the lights, I m a huge tower doing nothing – which will be even more annoying- but I m also of no use to people looking for the shore, or trying to determine where they are.
I have not suddenly transformed into a handy flashlight.
Instead I ve become completely useless.
Now what I can do, is give the signal that matches with where we are.
“I m not an evil lighthouse,” I said to my friend yesterday. “I m not going to signal we’re on Texel, when I m standing on Vlieland.”
Referring to two Dutch islands next to each other.
But aside from those, let’s say physical limitations, I don’t have any moral obligations or pressing desire to “be myself” when somebody else is paying me to work for them.
It’s almost like I ve completely compartmentalized my approach to making money:
My own business is an expression of the real me, which will not be altered, filtered, or adjusted in order to speak to the people/market/niche.
But at the same time I know it is this business, that will last me a lifetime and that will grow into a sustainable income from people who love my work, and who will buy (or at least tolerate! 😉 ) whatever my renaissance mind comes up with.
In my opinion, one fan of my renaissance business equals the value of an entire year working for an employer. And that’s without them actually buying anything!
Having, building, creating my own business, will always be the ultimate way of taking care of my soul and long-term work satisfaction and income alike.
It’s the ultimate self-care.
But.
When it comes to being of value to a company, or working on a contract: I want to give them what THEY want.
And I can explain why I think that me working my strengths is going to pay off, but ultimately, it’s not my call. It’s not my business, what they want to sell or how they want to sell it.
Once you start working for a boss, because your own business is not making money currently or maybe never, or maybe you don’t even have your own biz:
It’s time to stop doing it your way.
So then? YES! Aim to please!
But in your own biz?
NO!!!
I know there are a lot of people “managing” their own career, and doing their job in a way that develops them and I m like:
Naaaah.
Not for me.
I think what I m really doing, or what became clear to me when we were having this conversation yesterday, and I think we were both surprised – if not appalled! – of how easy it was for me to see myself adapting to my environment;
The reason WHY I think playing by the rules, and doing all the things you’d never do if you were in charge, is a good thing if you’re on a payroll:
Because then you re in line with the authenticity of that company.
You re aligning yourself with their identity, and the way it flows there.
You’re letting what comes naturally within your work environment, come out. All by itself. You re not altering it.
You re being that same instrument of God, of the Universe, and let the message and the vision for that place and time that you are working for, come out!
So it was a very interesting conversation to have, with my friend.
Because at first it’s weird right?
Why would you/ I be so resistant to being a little more client/market friendly when it comes to offering my own services – and then become successful at that, and not even needing a job!
And then at the same time I would completely adjust to however or whatever it is, that the company I work for does.
It doesn’t make sense to be a 100% me in one place, and far less me, somewhere else, and feel good about that.
But now I understand.
And I think it could be helpful for others too: Let what you do be dependent on who you’re serving.
If you re serving you re clients, you do market research.
If you re serving your employer, you tune into that.
And if you serve God, you call it art.
And if you have your own company, you can either choose working for the market, at the expense of expressing yourself and building an authentic business.
Or you can say:
No.
I m serving God.
And all I do is allowing it to come out.
And to be as it is.
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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.
I titled this blog post mental kinks, because I don’t want to disappoint anyone who thinks this post is going to have anything to do valley orgasms, massages, or G-spots.
It doesn’t have anything to do with anything physical.
I would be capable of having a reasonably satisfying sexual relationship without physical proximity.
Maybe I m just indifferent about the physical aspect, until our entire sexual game has already been played mentally.
Sex is a bonus at the end.
Not a starting point, nor a prerequisite.
I discovered this difference when I was writing my Dutch erotica, and to a lesser extend my erotic stories which I published in my diary Big.
They were never straight up sex stories: They all had some level of pain, sadness, or shame involved which in turn highlighted the pleasure and the intimacy.
But what I discovered when I was already over forty, was that my sexual preference didn’t just have to do with emotional depth.
It also contained four mental layers, kinks or preferences. Some of them I had to name myself, because I had never encountered them.
1.I m sapiosexual
A sapiosexual feels attracted to someone’s intellect, rather than their physical appearance. The reason I managed to miss this, was because the men I fell for were attractive, physically.
But in hindsight, I can vouch for all but one, that they were really smart.
The one I m not sure of was very young. There was so much going on between us. He triggered so many insecurities in me, that I was not paying attention to his intellect.
But I guess it’s safe to assume that only a very smart 19 year old can trigger a 36 year old erotica writer.
2.I am submissive
The reason I missed this, and I elaborated on that both in yesterday’s blog post Submission as well as the video I made about this, is because the word submissive is best known from SM relationships.
SM has a few characteristics that are very specific to SM. Such as pain, humiliation, punishment. And I m not into any of that.
But now I can say:
Yes.
Absolutely, submissive to the bone.
If I need to be active, take initiative, need to pull out a box of tricks to make him want me? There’s no way that’s going to work.
Either you want me, and you say “Would you like to go out on a date with me?”.
“Want to come upstairs?”
“Care to take a shower together?”
All specific proposals that I can say No to, and that involve you running the risk of being rejected. That’s the way it’s gotta be.
And you will be rejected at some point, and then only a true dominant knows how to respond gentlemanly.
Can’t miss.
3.I love consent play
It was tempting to place this under I am a submissive – but there is a nuance here. The dominant-submissive relationship means that the dominant takes responsibility for their time together. He is the one who connects to the submissive to see what she needs today. In consent play, they uplevel it, and she/ the submissive gets a chance to play No, when she means Yes. They could do a role play in which he takes advantage of her, but he knows she’s enjoying it, because he’s so tuned in. Or they just fantasize together, about what he’s going to do to her. Whereas in SM the submissive agrees with the dominant, in consent play the submissive gets turned on from playing No.
It also requires a dominant who’s interested in playing on this boundary of her consent.
4. I m a mono-polygamist
Mono refers to that I like choosing one man. In theory I could choose two or three men, if I was in love with all of them and they with me. It’s not a moral choice that I choose one man, excluding others. It’s a preference because I like sharing myself with only one partner. It would be really difficult for me to have multiple relationships. Not impossible. Poly, means that I want “my” man to have sex with other women. This is related to the submissive thing: I need to be a WANT. To feel wanted, a trait all submissives share. And if I m the only one he has sex with, I feel I ve become a need. I m not pro-open relationships, because of the talking that is involved. I think communicating about a relationship is highly overrated, let alone communicating about relationships he has with others. I trust he has them in a way that pleases him. End of story. The only thing I ll do, every now and then, is let out a soft sigh, look into his eyes and say: “What I like so much, is that I never know what you’ve been up to.” And then he pulls me close, with a grin: “I know.”
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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.
The reason I chose this picture is because I couldnt find an appropriate one of a dominant man. Not without getting myself into trouble anyways.
Thirty minutes, excluding looking for a picture, but including editing, posting and sharing on social media.
That’s how long I will spend writing a daily blog post and that’s ALL it will ever be.
Until death do us part.
Us, in this case, is me and my imaginary master and lover Writing, with whom I have been for thirteen years.
The final six months had been a monogamous relationship until the six hour blog posts had robbed me of my days, my friends, my Life. My income.
It was no longer sustainable, and I ended what we had.
For good.
Bye bye writing, I love you, but I just can’t.
You’ve become too demanding, and you’ve taken over my life. Which would be cool if you could provide me with food and shelter in return. And we could afford cats.
Then I would forgive you the isolation, and the way you have been straining all of my friendships because of the blogging.
But given the circumstances I just can’t forget what you’re costing me.
I ve lost many friends, and I am looking forward to being normal.
But then something happened.
No: Two!
Two things happened.
Basically within a week after ending things with Writing, I could feel my strengths decreasing. Writing had put me in a place of power, and although I was fine with quitting exercising power through writing, whether it had been unconsciously or not, I had not foreseen the ACTUAL loss of power.
That not being behind my desk doing what I do best, was like Samson cutting off his hair: A very bad idea.
I solved that by starting a video series My Life in Bon Jovi Songs, which is running on my YouTube.
“Being” LS Harteveld (my pen name, and unofficially also my most real name) in front of the camera, and telling the same stories I would normally blog about, I got access to the same energy as when you, Writing, and me, were still together.
And for two weeks I did feel like I had made the right choice. Or “right” was not even the correct word! I had made the ONLY choice I could have made!
Writing six hours a day, is not sustainable if you re not providing for us.
Period.
It was hardly out of free will, more a survival instinct. We had been heading for a life of poverty, even homelessness.
You had left me no choice.
But even after I started making videos, and I reclaimed the version of myself I had been with you, there was this male voice, husky and tempting:
“Was if you lose me?
What if I, Writing, move on to somewhere else? To someone, my Love. And when your fingers hit that keyboard, three months, three years from now, or maybe even three days from now; Nothing comes out.
There will be emptiness, where I once was.
Will you regret it then, not giving your life to me, my Love?”
And I said to writing:
“I want you back. I love you, life without you is driving me crazy.
Today I made a video about submission in relationships, and all I could think of was you. Well, you and Mr.Big my lover, but definitely you too!
And I realized that’s what I had liked about you and me. Us.
That you were demanding and that I could submit.
I will submit to you again, my Lover. I will be with you thirty minutes a day.
And write myself into submission.
That’s how it will be.
My Love.”
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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.
A highly-sensitive narcissist, on the autism spectrum.
That’s how close I got without knowing what I know today:
Which is that I m more of a Mata Hari, than a psychiatric patient.
Although one does not exclude the other, obviously.
Running by the three earlier observations:
1. Highly sensitive
I can see right through people and the dynamics underlying social situations. To me (almost) everybody in the room is naked, and I m the one pretending they’re not, because I know that they don’t know I see this.
And I don’t want to see it, either.
I remember a friend once pulling me out of my bubble, asking me what I thought of a couple with children, I had diligently been avoiding looking at.
She was studying them, and it was obviously far less excruciating for her than for me.
And she called me out, asking what my thoughts were.
“They don’t want to be together. The parents are hiding behind their phones, and they’re annoyed with the children because they’re not playing along with the facade.
They’re projecting everything that’s wrong between them, on the behavior of the children, who are painfully acting out their unconscious feelings.
There is a possibility those are not his children.”
My friend was offended that I was “seeing too much into it”.
I was offended she had pulled me out of my bubble for something she was obviously not ready to hear.
It was one of the few times we had an argument and I never made the mistake again of telling her what I knew.
2. Narcissist
The only professional psychology test I ever got, did show I had narcissistic tendencies, but other than that I have no proof that I am one. I started studying them, because I suspected the men I was dating of having narcissistic tendencies.
And that it was the part about them I liked.
So that was the original reason I came into contact with the disorder. I particularly admire their war tactics: Something I call mirroring.
Narcissists use your own fears against you.
The way they do that is by an abuse now commonly referred to as “gas lighting”. And victims of gas lighting or narcissistic abuse, as it is also called, write entire books on the subject.
I browsed through one, but immediately tossed it aside the moment I saw the deplorable level of counter measures.
How you should say things like:
“As long as you’re shouting at me, I m not talking to you.”
Which I thought was ridiculous.
High-level gas lighting, does not include yelling. It includes YOU yelling!
If you still have to be educated on garden-variety verbal abuse, you won’t even stand a chance when a real narcissist gaslights you.
I have a rule: first one who yells loses.
First one who shows emotions, loses.
Now this is not the way I like to win.
I expect someone to have control over his feelings and be calculated in his responses. So to me, that you have someone facing you, who is verbally abusing you YOU ALREADY WON!
YOU might be the gas lighter of the situation!
I don’t care if an entire book on gas lighting says otherwise, but giving tips on how to deal with someone raising his voice and being verbally aggressive, means you re on a winning streak.
Still identifying as the victim, means you have no idea how this game is played.
It’s thoughts like these, that made me realize that although I think gas lighting is obviously abusive, it’s also a genius way of winning a fight.
In case you wonder how gas lighting works, it’s like this:
What a narcissist does is that he or she makes you aware of something that you deeply desire and want, or something you think you’re entitled to, by not giving it to you.
This could be anything:
Love. Money. Their allegiance. The truth.
Your rage is your frustration that they’re not playing your game.
Yet what it should be, is a moment for you to reflect on how badly it is you want this thing. Because it’s making you vulnerable for manipulation.
The only thing the narcissist has to do, is mirror that attachment back to you.
You can call that abuse, but I call that sheer brilliance.
My appreciation of narcissistic abuse skills, made me realize it was very likely I was one of them myself. 3. on the autism spectrum
My autistic side isn’t not being able to interpret other people’s emotions, since I m obviously very skilled at that.
But it’s in not having the skills to manipulate them. Or perhaps not having an interest in it.
Sometimes, when someone is really intelligent, they depict that in a movie as mathematical formulas popping up over a shot of the real world.
That he or she can see the physics behind what we perceive as reality.
This is the closest way to describe how I see the world too, and what my talents are: I can see the underlying forces that determine the outcome.
But what I can’t do, is influence them.
At some point I can tell exactly what the problem is, but not how to solve it.
And I m left wondering if I (or the other person, if I do it for someone else) wouldn’t have been better off not knowing.
This is my autistic side, I think: I m not able to translate my model to behavior that allows you to change the underlying dynamics that are causing the problems.
So 1, 2 and 3 were as close as I got over the years.
And they were able to explain for a lot of the problems I was experiencing in life, and in particular the feeling of disconnectedness.
Disconnectedness can come from all three of these things:
High-sensitivity.
Narcissism.
And autism.
To me, and I know this is not everybody, but to me almost every social interaction is burdened with so many loose ends. I always end up feeling shaken, and it takes an hour or more to process it afterwards.
To let things fall into place.
The biggest mistake I have made in the past is not seeing this as a given, and thinking there was something that could be said or done to make it right.
An email, or an app.
But there isn’t.
Obviously, if things are really serious you should not leave them up in the air. But the eerie feeling after parting, is the residue of human interaction.
It’s taking on the guilt or responsibility for what you might have caused, good or bad, in the other. And processing what the other has touched in you.
If you try to sort that out by a simple text “Hey! Still thinking about you! That was fun.” it only adds to the confusion because you re expecting the other to reward you by sending you a response. And the work of processing it doesn’t get done.
An app or message can even entirely derail it, afterwards!
I used to experience it only after sex, or in the context of dating. That icky feeling after saying goodbye of something just not being quite right.
A desire to know you re still on the same page.
But don’t!
Don’t text!
Instead give it time to pass.
What you can do is start a new project, or focus on your planning for the upcoming week. Take a few hours off and do something fun (alone!).
Anything to bring the focus back to yourself.
So as you can see, I ve always tried to explain myself.
In this post I ve elaborated on labels from psychology, that might apply to me, but I ve used many things.
Astrology, where I let my strong Scorpio ascendant explain my dark sides.
Myers-Briggs, where I was misdiagnosed an extrovert (ENFP), but then rediagnosed an introvert (INFP) and that explained for many things.
I’ve tried on the Enneagram, Gretchen Rubin’s four tendencies test, Energy Profiling by Carol Tuttle and so on.
And every one of these brought me something.
Just like using the terminology of psychology explained for a lot of things.
But what I did not see until yesterday, was something that flawlessly delivers an explanation for 99% of the whole bunch:
My intellect.
My brain is like this superpower that processes everything you throw at it, and then it spits out a model, a formula, an explanation.
I really am the Good Will Hunting of social interaction, where I can see things others can’t.
Not because I m paranormal, highly sensitive, autistic, a Scorpio or a 4 or a 7 Enneagram. But because I m brilliant.
I have no idea if I would qualify for Mensa, and belong to the top 2% based on my IQ. I ve never gotten further than around 125, and that was not even an official test, but me and a friend using library books.
So it’s not that I m going to pretend I “know” I m highly intelligent by any official standard. But if I view things from the perspective, of me being highly intelligent, I m done.
The strongest argument for this, is that my disconnectedness vaporizes the moment I m talking to someone who is traditionally highly intelligent.
And I feel even more at ease, when I am with someone who is equally skilled as I am, in seeing through social situations. So that I can be honest on why I m not attending an event or party and say:
“I m sorry, but there are so many issues going on in your family. I don’t want to be the lightning rod that everybody becomes fixated on.”
And not have to resort to half-truths of me being an introvert and just not liking parties.
So although I have a click with anyone with a high IQ, it’s in particular when they’re really smart socially, that I feel comfortable around them.
They understand my choices to stay away from situations where I have to navigate around everything I see happening without stepping on any toes. And that it’s excruciating. I can’t say I never have issues with intelligent people. There can be conflicts of interest. For example, I am a mistress, a sexual preference that makes it ideal for me to be the secret lover. It also makes me the natural enemy of many married women.
I respect that.
But it’s only when they feel threatened by my intellect when it becomes dangerous.
Because in general intelligent women do not try to protect their men. They’re not that jealous. They’re like: “If he wants to go, he’ll go. There s not much I can do about that.”
So even that antagonist position I m in, is not that much of a problem, as long as they are not intimidated by me. As long as they stand their own ground, we’re fine having a conflict of interest.
And the other way around:
When I m technically on the same side of people who do feel threatened by my mental powers, it doesn’t work. Total disconnect.
Passive aggressive gossiping and sulking from their side, and frustration from mine of “Why are they not getting that I m on their side!”
Because me having brains is enough reason to feel threatened, that’s why.
I feel I am like Mata Hari:
Someone whose intellect and ability to understand complicated political structures was beyond belief. And she even hid behind the same sexual mask as I do.
She was an exotic dancer and I am a mistress.
But in the end her ability to profit from her talents was limited, and she was killed because she had become a double spy who knew too much.
Maybe that’s what I can learn from her:
With a mind like this I should only play on one side.
Mine.
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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Today I was at The Fuzz, and a friend took this picture of me.
We were talking about me kind-of aspiring getting a real job, but then not-really.
Or really not.
Me wasting an hour writing an email for a job as a host/spokes person, then deleting it, and deciding that I just wasn’t ready.
Not for the normal jobs.
You see, the problem is, that I ve just reestablished my yoga business.
My rebooted career as a private yoga teacher, starts tomorrow.
Last week was fully dedicated to recent cat developments; After stay-over cat K, I will have two new permanent feline residents Z and F!
So I haven’t done any of the marketing activities I thought I would do.
But yeah! I AM A YOGA TEACHER AGAIN!!
Then why am I also looking for a job?
Why am I so NOT backing myself on this one?
It disgusted me, it really did. But the photo also illustrated to me, what I had failed to see: That I was overtaxing a side of me, that was actually really small.
See that kitty in the right bottom corner?
That is my monetizable side.
That is the caring, loving, child-like emphatic side. The popular side, also.
The little kitty is what I am under my real name.
Now, see the massive skull, towering over me?
That’s my inner world.
The me under my pen name, Lauren Harteveld. This is far from a mask: this is the real me.
The writer, the thinker, the rebel, the wise. The real me is a mighty ally but an even mightier foe. The one who defies all danger because she knows death and she is not afraid of it.
The only thing that keeps me from it, are my cats, which is why I came dangerously close to death in 2018.
So if there is anything within me, of which I ve got plenty, and that I can monetize without giving away anything I have a scarcity of, it’s her. With my private yoga practice, I m already sharing the little kitty side of me.
The only thing I ve got in spades, is the real me.
The skull.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
My diaries en erotica are available at myBOOK SHOP 25% discount on all prices If you check your cart, you can select your store f.e. Nederland or United States with the flag in the upper right corner.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman 4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
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.
The past two, three days have been hell on the Richter Scale, as I managed to disappoint myself AGAIN, with how little room there is to do the sensible.
I just reposted 
God, that was just in time.
I titled this blog post mental kinks, because I don’t want to disappoint anyone who thinks this post is going to have anything to do valley orgasms, massages, or G-spots.
A highly-sensitive narcissist, on the autism spectrum.
Today I was at 
LS Harteveld 