Have you ever seen Chris Rock’s Netflix show “Tambourine”? Well, my husband just played the tambourine ten minutes ago. So how come I’m already out of our bedroom and at the computer writing, if he was just making me happy and I can still feel the tingling between my legs? Simple. He didn’t feel in a sexy mood, he explained, trying to apologise because he never took off his clothes. I actually find that hot if the guy stays dressed and I’m completely exposed to fresh air. “So what are you thinking about then?” Work of course, the tasks he still wants to finish. A man always thinks about work. That’s ok.

I held him in my arms for a while and whispered,”You changed me.” And then I got up and got dressed, not able to explain how different I feel.

Let’s go down memory lane for just a second. My first boyfriends tried to actively change and erase the very things they initially liked about me. I guess we’ve all been guilty of doing that at some point.

And now that I have a man who truly loves me the way I am (how lucky am I?!), I’m turning into a monster, he is turning me into a monster;)

What do I mean by that?

Something new is happening to me. I’ll try to describe it but it won’t be easy.

In the past I’ve struggled with feeling too manly, too in control. My femininity was hiding because it didn’t feel safe.

But now I’ve finally found a great balance. My femininity is at my grasp whenever I want and the need to control everything around me is mostly gone.

These last few days have been strange though. Good strange I think.

Since March and the first lockdown I’ve started focusing on finishing my book and towards the publishing date I also started to work heavily on my marketing and loved it. YouTube videos, Instagram posts which took some thought, going through the edit again and again… I became a machine, I was enjoying it, I didn’t want to stop.

My marketing adviser was worried about me burning out. Nope! I was hungry for more, the days were not long enough. In other words — I became my husband. I suddenly understood how he must feel every day. And why there can be weeks without him ever thinking about us having sex. I would complain but my job is to support him and the genius that he is. Even if that means I’m lonely and go unsatisfied at times. Well, there is always junk food to get me through such dry spells if nothing else, LOL.

Then I’ve finally published the book. It was finished. Done. Finito.

The kids went back to school and I had to work for the office a bit and I thought I could use a rest. In the past I would rest on my laurels, treating myself with Tiramisu and other delicious food and of course watching Netflix.

But it didn’t feel right. I was itching to get back to that busyness. Did I become a workaholic? Wasn’t I the one always pointing out how important a balanced life was? Wasn’t I the one always craving a bit more sex and wishing for more time with my partner?

After a couple of days I went back to the desk, back to writing, back to creating. Not in full power just yet, but tinkering away, without much enthusiasm for the moment and yet I felt a quiet determination.

It felt like… The world fell away. It’s like in a movie when the camera zooms into the hero’s head, where he’s alone with his thoughts, alone with himself. Anything happening around him seems far away, as if he was under water. My husband would share things with me, talk to me, the kids would come home laughing. And as much as I was glad that everyone around me was happy, I felt outside of it all, not even wanting to be part of their jokes or their worries.

I felt like a warrior — functional, always at the ready to solve a problem if I was needed, but the focus always remained on my own mission, my own target.

I don’t feel manly as I did in the past, neither am I full of joy or in my feminine.

I also don’t know if this state of mind, this state of being will endure, if this is becoming a permanent change or not.

It’s no mystery though how this change came about.

Dr. Joe Dispenza says, a feeling we maintain (with our thoughts) for a little while, is a reaction. If we keep reacting in a certain way, it becomes a mood. If that certain feeling and behaviour lasts over a year or years, it becomes part of our character. Something like that.

What he was trying to say is that it matters what we keep thinking about. And that we can have new thoughts and change what we are thinking about. And with new thoughts come new feelings.

That’s exactly what I’ve been doing these past four years, thinking about new things, about the things I want to create. The more I thought about writing my book and how, the less I was focused on on my partner or the drama he still had from his previous life. Because guess what? My soul is still craving drama because that’s how I grew up. For me drama is like a drug. In order to get way from that drug, I had to repeatedly and intentionally focus on something else, on myself, on something non-dramatic, something creative.

After two years of thinking about the book and then a bit over a year of writing it, I suppose I’ve developed a new habit of thought and action. And with it a new feeling.

But do I like this new me? Who is this person? Will my husband like this new me? Chances are, he will. He loved the character Tomb Raider when he was younger, so I don’t think he would mind if I turned into something similar. Nor would I, I think.

Something else started happening as I was so super absorbed within myself.

My husband was a bit more focused on me. Not that he’s not loving, but usually I’m a bit more handsy in general. Now he’s the one taking me in his arms like never before, enthusiastic about my presence, spoiling me, playing the Tambourine happily, humming to himself how much he loves his life and loves his wife, LOL. So cute! But WHY all this now? I’m literally doing nothing, not wanting anything, I’m just here. Not overtly happy nor unhappy, floating in my own universe of thought. Completely hands off approach.

Maybe that’s exactly why he is gravitating towards me now, because it might feel to him as if my centre has shifted and pulled away a bit, but without (bad) intention. In short, my attention is not ON him, not one little bit. Which it used to be.

Isn’t this funny? As long as we run after someone, that someone is happy to run away a bit and focus on himself. As soon as you couldn’t care less, that someone gravitates towards you.

Some people make a whole game of chasing and being chased out of it. Which I’ve always hated. No, what is happening here is far more subtle and as I said, it wasn’t intentional. On the contrary. If anything I might have achieved something close to a buddhist state of mind in which I’ve completely let go of all desire — and now desire is suddenly enveloping me as I’ve let go.

Fantastic. And yet strange. I’m not complaining about my recent delightful orgasms and the attention. I do enjoy all of it. I suppose they are a thing of that particular moment, without any desire, but instead just a state of being.

I miss desire. Instead of moving towards discovering Tantra as I wanted to, I seem to be moving away from wanting sex, away from pursuing it. And yet suddenly our time together is becoming more delightful than ever before.

It’s a tad confusing but I like this new…whatever it is.

Hm, question. Can I also let go of all my fears? Have I already? For the moment, yes. They might come back, I’ll keep observing.

My core is shifting. The old Dasha seems to be disappearing. But I’m grateful to that old version. To be honest, the new version isn’t entirely new, it’s an echo of what I felt I could be when I was still a kid, but then life got in the way and I stopped being true to myself. After a while it seemed impossible to ever create the more daring self.

I still have quite a way to go before truly becoming the ‘Daring Dasha’ instead of the Dashing Dasha. But that’s what’s so great about a hero’s journey — it’s full of adventure and obstacles which in a fairy tale is described in two sentences, “And he travelled through scorching deserts, climbed the highest mountains, crossed vast oceans and fought his way through deep forests until he finally reached the castle.”

I suppose that’s why we are so impatient with our own journey — because the movies show us how Rocky manages to train himself back into shape within 10 minutes. Real life is so much longer and more interesting but it scares us to think about the months or years we would have to endure to achieve a change.

And yet it’s those years of our hero’s journey, if we take them on with all our courage, which make for the best memories as we think back, proudly bragging to our kids and friends how difficult we had it.

As they say: “No guts, no glory, dude!”