Category: what do Rock Stars need to hear today?

also, not your responsibility | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

also, not your responsibility

Noah built the ark before the rain.
He was warned by God about the impending flood.

Imagine!
How many other emergencies and people he must have walled off to do so.

—

I don’t consider myself a particularly good friend. Or, without sounding self-critizising because it is a conscious choice and not a personal flaw;
I know I’m not what most people look for in a friendship.
Let’s put it like that.

Because my friendship does not include in-between communication nor any emotional labor or support unless you are specifically asking for it.
But if you ask for it?
Then I clear my schedule and we’re actually going to SOLVE the problem.
Not the emotions or feelings, but we’re going to setup whatever is required for you to tackle this.

“But” to me friendship means you make an effort to show up in good spirits, to ask for consent if you have to or want to change plans or have a proposal.
Friendship is giving each other a lot of space, and to choose your topics of conversation with care.
Whether you’re laughing together or going for depth, it’s the quality that matters.

So obviously I gave this a lot of thought, and yes, it came with sacrifices but I didn’t realize until recently that it was not so much my friendship style where I was being perhaps overly picky and fussy;
It is everything.

That concentrating on the goals you want to achieve, or like I do in my case on creating ample time to write and be creative in other ways, means you have to know precisely what is going to be on your plate.
And what isn’t.

For many people being available for their loved ones to offer ongoing support and connection, or to respond happily when an invitation comes to hang out NOW immediately, is not a problem at all.
But the spice of life.

So no judgement.

But choose.

What is so important to you, that it’s allowed to take over your life?

The very thing you’re actually here for.

.
~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

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But no additional or promotional emails are sent – just the blog, sec.

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you can reverse a decision | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today (we’re back!)

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you can reverse a decision
and for reasons no one needs to know

you don’t even need to apologize
—

It was to be expected that I’d cut too deep.
Even today, as I am still in this seemingly never-ending process of culling my remaining blogs, series, and YouTube channels, I am surprised that these processes can apparently go together;

Both cutting deeper.
As well as being able to say:

“I need What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today back.”

One of the lessons I am learning is that you can base a decision on pretty dense criteria, which definitely try to defy the productivity cultus;
And still get it wrong.

My criterium was:
“Where am I making something high-risk with an unknown outcome, that challenges me and makes me think Oh God I can’t do this?”

And now a couple of weeks later, I’m like:
“I miss What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today.
And I’m going to pick it up, make way simpler Canva pictures and crunch it into one Instagram length post.”

So I seized back the one series from the recycle bin that had always come easy to me, and will turn them into a spoon-fed snack-size.
The series has always come so easy to me, it has felt like cheating;
And now I was going to make it even easier.

It reminds me about the men I fall in love with. And although I like to see myself as someone who likes a wide variety of men, this is not true at all.
They are always men whom I would classify as:
Very easy to fall in love with.
Only to then go in denial for months.
It’s like I am immediately ashamed, to fall for such a man.

And this is a confession that has “so much to unpack”, but the reason I respond by drawing back immediately is because deep down I feel it means I am shallow.

When EVEN if that is true? I’m a full-grown adult.
It’s safe to assume I’m way past the point I would be able to correct on “shallow”.

So is an Instagram-length post called What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today, shallow?

Maybe!

But I’m gonna commit to them, stand by them;
And give them my heart.

.
~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

Subscribe to receive
What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today
in your Inbox.

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Catacombe is email-list free!!

Yes – you can subscribe to receive new blogposts;
But no additional or promotional emails are sent – just the blog, sec.

Instagram – Twitter – Rock Star Writer Facebook – Facebook Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver – LinkedIn

embody | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today | sixth of the “Lost Posts” series | 2025 04 15 + 2023 06 30 (OG)

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

embody

As a performer, your body is part of your message of freedom.
The most tangible, visible, direct and urgent, part of your art.

Embody it.

original posted on my social media
30 June 2023
—

Retrieved, blogged, and story added at 15 April 2025

I have ended my career as a yoga teacher, and told almost no one.
The first few days I was still convinced I would trade live classes and a local (side-) business, for taking online to YouTube:
– what I have to say about yoga
– what I have to contribute
– and what I have thought for many years would be mine to newly develop as well as to preserve or document for future generations.

I was convinced I’d continue online because I can make videos during daytime, not work evenings. And three hours spent making a video would be there for the ages, whereas the three hours it takes to teach one live class is temporary.

And it did make sense, because I have both been trained by the best, as well had a career that has span over two decades;
But No.

I will never make yoga videos again either.
It’s gone, it’s done.

I do know I will one day pick up teaching, but only locally!
Teaching those live classes was right for me. Creating a legacy or contributing something to the craft or industry itself, is just not my calling.
So despite those first few days, where I thought I may end my classes, but that I was committing to creating an online legacy, I ended up really retiring my profession as a yoga teacher as a whole.

Now don’t get me wrong, the biggest reason for doing so was definitely a very practical one, cutting this chord was indeed inevitable.
I am a writer first and foremost.
Not because I want to, not because I think it’s fancy or practical. Brutally honest truth;
Being a writer, or artist in general, is incredibly lonely and isolating.
No one in their right mind would choose it, but when you are, you are.
And you deal with it.

However, this means that together with the way I make my money, I already have two professions:
The Pro-one, and the writer one.
I can’t have teaching yoga there as a fifth wheel on the wagon.

So with earning money and writing, my workweek is already overbooked.
It’s a very simple equation.

That is all true. It is all very simple!
However!
What definitely did not help, was the complicated relationship society has with our physicality.
In particular with sexuality.
And even more specifically, female sexuality.

Which has been the case for thousands of years, and is deeply embedded in patriarchic structures.
But the online space and our use of social media has taken the objectification of female bodies to the extreme.

Now more than ever, we view ourselves from how others will view us.
We are performing.

Social media accounts where you are encouraged to accept and enjoy your body instead of performing, are rare.
And this indoctrination has been going on non-stop since 2015-ish.

It seems we owe people our beauty, and our looking nice, yet we are also still not entitled to our own sexual agency.

Female sexual repression is obvious, but naturally men are also sexually repressed.
Everybody is, and this is nothing new because this has always been the case.

By the time we’re in our mid-30’s, or hit 40, we’ve completely alienated from the whole Under The Belt Section.
And this will hold until midlife, where you have a chance to blow the lit off!

A good midlife crisis can do the trick of unleashing your repressed sexuality and all the other forces you have successfully suppressed for decades.
Or that society made you suppress before you were allowed to be a “part” of society.

In order to “belong” we have to de-sexualize ourselves or be openly monogamous. 

So this was already problematic, and whether or not social media had become as dominant as it obviously has, I would have figured it out one way or another.
There would have come a day where I would have figured out it is absolutely pointless to be known as a yoga teacher, and be seen as someone who has things to say about our physical well-being, when at the same time you have to play by the rules of being a sex-less human being.
We can’t talk about health when at the same time allowing for people to be cut off from their most visceral energy source.
Which is done by culture, and it is not our individual choice.
It is the price we have all paid, to belong.

Maybe the reason I have told almost no one I quit teaching yoga, is because I feel I am now FINALLY teaching it.
After two decades, I finally have the lesson for you in its unfiltered form, which will transform your physical and mental health more than anyone doing anything on the yoga mat has ever accomplished.

Want to know what it is?

Here is my yoga for you:

You are physically free.
Including sexual sovereignty.

.

~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

.
Subscribe to receive
What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today
in your Inbox.

.
ABOUT THE LOST POST SERIES

I have been consistently posting “What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today” for a while now.
Starting June 2023, they found their final form as blogposts here on the Catacombe blog, pretty quickly.

But I’ve always been aware there were singular posts/ borderline poetry, still on social media, floating somewhere down my timeline.

Some at the beginning when I did not know what this series would be.
Some around the time in October/November 2023, when I lost access to this site.
And then a few in between.

And in addition to that there are the ones I did post on the blog, but whose stories revolve around things I no longer offer.
I will retrieve those too;
And give them a new story, that has the timeless quality they deserve.

 

Catacombe is email-list free!!

Yes – you can subscribe to receive new blogposts;
But no additional or promotional emails are sent – just the blog, sec.

Catacombe’s other series “Rock Star Take On”
also goes out on ->
https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewRockStarChannel.


Instagram – Twitter – Rock Star Writer Facebook – Facebook Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver – LinkedIn

NEW founded in MAY 2024: SUBSTACK

your art does not share power | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today 2025 04 01

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

your art does not share power

As soon as you picked up that brush, or once you were lured into the depths of your own mind
– captivated, like Alice in Wonderland – 
you were gifted the power that goes with it.

Which can be wielded in any and all areas, and used for ruthless pursuit of any goal.

Yet it never changed hands.

—

I made a decision yesterday. And although the consequences will ripple into all areas of my life, and echo for decades to come, the origins were quite abstract, really.

It was the realization that you cannot un-artist yourself.
Once you’re in, there is no way back.
You can label yourself differently, run away from it, and you’re welcome to try stop creating art! 
Can it be done?
Yes it can! 
But that is not counting the destruction you will bring upon yourself and others. The self-hate, the aggression, and perhaps even depression.
I don’t know how the mind works, but to me (a layman) I’m guessing Art will be too extrovert to let you quietly be consumed by your own thoughts.
I think there will be a little bit more of a spectacle, once you try to stop creating  art.

But I can understand why you would try though. To stop it.
Because who doesn’t have better more productive things to do?

Who would not choose a life in service, a life of meaning, a life of productivity, a scheduled life that would lead to predictable, meandering days and a little touch of contained adventure, just enough to excite you within convenient time windows?

We all would, of course we would.

Point is, you looked.
Went through the looking glass.
Down the rabbit hole.
Into the fire.
And you not just liked it;

You knew everything that was not this, was a lie.

And you know what?
That’s because it is.

Once you have exposed yourself to this level of reality, you have been one with The Force. In Star Wars terms. You’ve seen God. You were blessed with power and purpose, but also cursed because you cannot go back anymore.
It is done, it was done.
No more normal for you.

You have to let this demon, this Force, or God itself come OUT of you, and let it unfold, unravel, unleash what it clearly wants to bring through your hands.

And do we have to worry about its divine versus diabolical origins?
Probably!
But first off, whatever it was you encountered on the other side, it captivated you. It won your heart. You’re head over heels in love with her, him, them, Art, and you loved the idea of being in its presence every day.
You were unbothered by worldly acclaim, nor thought how to monetize it. All you wanted, in that moment of creative flow, was to be consumed by it.

If you could convey even 1% of that magnificent feeling, to other people, would you not say that is divinity in itself?
To lighten the burden of our humanness by sharing what you are obviously here to create, I’d say that’s worth the risk of having been an instrument of the devil.

But if you want to be sure, you could add a prayer. An intention. Something like:

“I bless my art to be for the highest good.
May it bring happiness and peace.”

I once heard a sermon, related to this.
A story in the bible.
And I am nor a religious person, nor do I know if it translates to English, but in Dutch I have heard it say that the word talent, meant money.
And to waste your talents, was a sin. Meaning: To waste money, but also to waste what you were given.

Now, just to be clear here! This message is not for everyone! If creating  art is something you can also not do?
And without becoming an intolerable human being?
Then you are ALSO blessed!
Because then you actually have a choice how you want to spend your life! 
Oh the envy you will get from us, trust me on this.
If writer’s block came in a bottle, I’d pay good money for it!

But if your creative genie has come out of the bottle, then there really is no way to put it back in. Your TALENTS, cannot be put back to wherever it was you caught them. Or they you.

They’re here, your talents.
And they still serve the master from behind the veil.

A little friendly advice?
I suggest you use them.

And as often, as thoroughly, as intensely, as symbiotically, as deeply, and as creatively as you possibly know how.
And then some.
All day, every day, in whatever shape or form you see fit.

Because these are not gifts you want to be called out for, having denied or wasted them.

.
~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

.
Subscribe to receive
What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today
in your Inbox.

Catacombe is email-list free!!

Yes – you can subscribe to receive new blogposts;
But no additional or promotional emails are sent – just the blog, sec.

Catacombe’s other series “Rock Star Take On”
also goes out on ->
https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewRockStarChannel.


Instagram – Twitter – Rock Star Writer Facebook – Facebook Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver – LinkedIn

NEW founded in MAY 2024: SUBSTACK

there is only one you | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today | fifth of the “Lost Posts” series | 2025 03 25 + 2023 06 29 (OG)

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

there is only one you

And this person, this soul, this being beyond what the human mind can understand, holds within them;
the entire universe

original posted on my social media
29 June 2023
—

Retrieved, blogged, and story added at 25 March 2025

I’ve been known to hold an opinion or two about smart phone use, the way we use it as a pacifier, melting our brain and every bit of consciousness in the process.
But there is one thing access to the entire world in the palm of our hand has undeniable brought us;
A larger way of thinking.
A bigger way, of being.

For millennia we were not just protected by the intimacy of small local communities, we were also bound by its small-mindedness.
It was a belonging that came at the price of handing over your individuality, and taking on the uniform that was prescribed for your role somewhere in the margins.
Unless you were born into, or managed to acquire, the privilege of a powerful role which came with more freedom in all areas, including the right to express who you were.

We no longer live in these small communities, basically because we’d rather be intimately connected to strangers on the internet than to connect with our own neighbors or neighborhood.
And it would be very strange to call that an improvement in any way.
And yet;
In at least one major way, it undoubtedly is.

Because with the accelerated communication on our phones, and the boundless and delusional realms of the internet we now recklessly tread on a daily basis
– not acknowledging that the whole internet thing is like the dead marshes where thousands of souls who went there before us never came back and will spend the rest of their days lingering in the dark –
also came the advantage of having our world broken open.
Its boundaries dissolved.
The old rules washed away and everything starting anew.

The internet, which was originally hailed as the great equalizer because now everybody would have a voice, did free us from the toxicity, the repression and the passive (or less passive) aggression that used to tag along unchecked, piggybacking unto group structures.
But no more.

With our smartphones, it was like the hourglass was turned, and the structures of power were flipped with it.
Now the one who found their way around the digital world the first, were the winners.
And the real world became a trinket, where everything was so slow it could no longer hold our attention.

Our attention span shrank to the length of a TikTok clip, even for the ones who didn’t even have TikTok.
We think 30 seconds is a normal length for something to have.

But in the grand scope of things, 30 seconds equals zero.
And yet!
Here we are; Big!

Because we may have micro attention spans, but we have acquired a tremendous sense of size and possibilities.
A tremendous sense of Self!

Now I know that all sounds very egotistical but it has been a magnificent antidote against patriarchical structures, which I don’t think we would have gotten around to, if not like this.

Any culture repressing women and marginalizing minorities, and gatekeeping resources needs us isolated and not talking to each other about our shared experiences.
It needs to think it is us.

What the internet has brought us, is a sense of what “systemic” repression is. And that it dissolves with people being informed, and heard, and seen, and empowered.
And how do we do that?
We do it with the much cursed phone, we hold in our hand.

Our smartphone is a curse, in many ways.
But we must never forget, that it is also the thing that has dismantled structures of repression and authority, that would have been allowed to continue for eons more, had they not been so effectively dismantled by the light of the information age.

Like vampires in the light, they have burned and crumbled away.

The smart phone is a threat to our consciousness, yes. And we do risk drowning in the marshes and becoming someone who lives online and no longer has any awareness in the real world.
No longer able to think for themselves.

But it is good to remember that until very recently, we were not able to think for ourselves either.
Whether you were male or female, you were a hostage of patriarchy.
A set of hidden mechanisms of family roles, schools and employment structures, kept you in place.

Your mind, your awareness, your sense of Self, of who you are as an individual?
All acquired only very recently!

Don’t let it be taken away so quickly.
Fight for it. 

.
~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

 

ABOUT THE LOST POST SERIES

 

I have been consistently posting “What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today” for a while now.
Starting June 2023, they found their final form as blogposts here on the Catacombe blog, pretty quickly.

But I’ve always been aware there were singular posts/ borderline poetry, still on social media, floating somewhere down my timeline.

Some at the beginning when I did not know what this series would be.
Some around the time in October/November 2023, when I lost access to this site.
And then a few in between.

And additionally to that, there are the ones I did post on the blog, but whose stories revolve around things I no longer offer.
I will retrieve those too;
And give them a new story, that has the timeless quality they deserve.

.
Subscribe to receive
What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today
in your Inbox.

 

Catacombe is email-list free!!

Yes – you can subscribe to receive new blogposts;
But no additional or promotional emails are sent – just the blog, sec.

Catacombe’s other series “Rock Star Take On”
also goes out on ->
https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewRockStarChannel.


Instagram – Twitter – Rock Star Writer Facebook – Facebook Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver – LinkedIn

NEW founded in MAY 2024: SUBSTACK

a day of big things | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today 2025 03 14

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

a day of big things

Think of it as covert January first.
Or like rising in the early hours of a winter morning, opening the windows to let the cold air refresh the room;
Finding the world covered in snow.

Everything you do will leave a trace.

—

When this morning I went checking on the amphibian crossover, I half expected there to be animals in the buckets, despite temperatures lingering around freezing point the last couple of days.
No toad in their right mind would wake-up under these conditions.

But I thought maybe the moon had awoken them, right?
Surely nature would respond to this powerful astrological threshold!
But no. The buckets were empty and my team buddy and me were done with our shift in 15 minutes.

The moment I arrived, the sun was already rising, and the moon was gone. But on the other side of the world, the lunar eclipse which in The Netherlands had only been partially, in the final hours before the dawn;
It was in full swing.

I was aware of the moment, even without being able to see it.
But the frosty morning and the sun rising had a magic of its own.
And maybe the peacefully hibernating frogs, were also aware of the remarkable astronomical events.

Because there were a few.

Mercury turns retrogade today.
We have a full moon in Virgo, called a Blood Moon because it turns red during the eclipse.

And this lunar eclipse happens with the moon conjunct the South Node, which has shifted to Virgo recently, where it will be for another 17 months.

And then on the other side of the galaxy we have the Sun and an invisible Saturn, the planet of karma.
Saturn has disappeared behind the Sun. 
On the 29th of March, Saturn will reappear, and together with Venus which has also disappeared behind the Sun by then.

Reborn as morning stars, Saturn (and Venus) will initiate a new cycle to our lives.
But right now?
Saturn is gone.
This event is called the death of Saturn, and seen as our karma being burned away.

And today (March 14) the Sun is sextiling Uranus, which means it empowers it.
And the moon is tri-ing Uranus, which is also a beneficial conjunction.
Uranus is the planet associated with the sign of Aquarius, and is generally seen as bringing forth beneficial energy, but it’s full of surprises!

This strong Uranus placing will probably cause some disruption or two.
But exciting ones!

I see today as the moment when everything you could not shed or leave behind, is being stripped. Taken, by the Universe.
Shackles you could not unlock, suddenly broken.
It is done.

You are free.

That is why I started my analogy with the idea of finding the world still in silence, and in darkness. But covered in snow.
You are born anew.
All the difficult work that had you caught up for years;
Released overnight.

All you now need to do is to treat this day as the fresh start which it is.

Weighing every word before it leaves your lips.
Considering every thought before following that trail any further.
And treat your words like magic spells.

If they were, would you still speak them?

Just for today, imagine they are.
This clean slate painted with everything you speak and think.

So yes, there is an astrological and astronomical significance to this day.

But more than that;
You must have felt it. For weeks….
Like an energetic shift, slowly pushing out, making way.
A door opening and an immense plane of possibilities, rippling from under your feet and as far as the eye can see.

This is where your future starts.

It is here.

~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

.
Subscribe to receive
What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today
in your Inbox.

Offers for Rock Stars Dec ’24 – Dec ’34
→ https://catacombenijmegen.com/current-offer/

Catacombe is email-list free!!

Yes – you can subscribe to receive new blogposts;
But no additional or promotional emails are sent – just the blog, sec.

Catacombe’s other series “Rock Star Take On”
also goes out on ->
https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewRockStarChannel.


Instagram – Twitter – Rock Star Writer Facebook – Facebook Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver – LinkedIn

NEW founded in MAY 2024: SUBSTACK

and where exactly did you have in mind? | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today 2025 02 26

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

and where exactly did you have in mind?

Because it’s not about wanting the thing, the person, the career, the money.

But where is it supposed to land?

—

A very long time ago, because it was 2019 and we all know that was an era which feels closer to the 60s than to our current day reality, that’s how much has changed, I got into an argument about inclusion at the workplace.

My provocative stance was that anyone not a cis male, had no benefit from any numbers game or intention from a company to hire more inclusively.
Because a workforce was a reflection of how much the culture there can absorb.

Focusing on introducing different employees would only result in them being spat out by “the system” immediately, or result into very unhappy newly introduced employees.
Because they would not be accepted, and be confronted with not being a cis  white male every day.

My firm stance was that an inclusive workforce is a result of a very hard to achieve culture change, and cannot and should not be forced from the outside in by just adding a new type of co-worker.

They disagreed with me, and thought I was letting companies off too lightly. That my opinion, although they understood it was coming from a good heart, but that it was unhelpful, in this matter.
And ever since I have wondered if I am in all actuality a cis white horrible female….

But come different era 2025 and I think No!
I mean yes of course, I could still be a horrible cis white female. After all villains are seldom accurate in their assessment of themselves.
But I do still stand by what I said in 2019.

I think it is dangerously simplistic to think the solution to getting a more diverse inclusive society lies in forcing culturally diverse people into reluctant, 50s-time capsule, male dominated environments.
As if we can flood them into submission.

Because if those environments were welcoming to people of diverse backgrounds?
They’d have them!
Marginalized people are not like an extinct species, where you would have to manually reintroduce them.

We all know very well where we are loved, and where we are not.
It is our number 1 survival skill.

In other words, instead of focusing on the new people coming in, or setting quota for how high (or typically, how low) a percentage needs to be non-male or non-caucasian;
The focus needs to be on the people already there.
Or, in a bit more abstract way, on the culture currently existing within the company.

Because they are the reason the workforce is white and male;
You’re looking for ghosts, if you think focusing on new imaginary employees will change anything.

And this all reminds me of someone whom I think must have fallen from grace one way or another, I don’t really keep up, but he had a domineering way of treating people that was controversial even back in the day.
So I think somewhere along the way, he fell (figuratively) and will not be as popular now anymore.

But that person is Dr.Phil.
From whom I did pick up a few quotes that I use probably more frequently than I should.

One of them was when he asked an abusive partner or parent:
“How much fun do you think it is living with you?”
In an attempt to open their eyes that it was of course, absolutely horrendous.

The abusive partner or parent, similarly to the cis-male workforce from the earlier example, was lacking in skills that are absolutely vital in navigating and building healthy relationships!
You cannot solve that by giving therapy to the abused partner, anymore than you can make a workforce more inclusive by targeting the new employees.

And this is just us talking about people, currently.
But if that’s your thing you can even imagine money, good fortune, creative spirits, and God themselves, having a consciousness that gets to choose!
What do you think they will choose?
Are you offering a place where they will feel at home?
A place where they are taken care of, and do not have to bring something to you, or prove their use or validate their existence?

The things you say you want, and the people that you think should be in your life but that have been absent from it, as if you’re an all male environment being forced by HR to diversify.

Ask yourself;
Where is the culture of YOU, behaving toxically toward them?
In word, in thought, in deed, in a house overflowing with clutter that would feel welcome to no one….
Are you preparing for the arrival of those events you say you want?

The bible says to dig your ditches, even when there is no rain (abundance, good fortune) in sight!
Are you digging your ditches? 

If the doorbell rang now, and it was the person or the delivery you have been wishing for;
Would they be welcomed with a big smile, an open heart, and ample space and time to accommodate and attend to them ?

Are you ready, not just in any, but in every way?

~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

.
Subscribe to receive
What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today
in your Inbox.

Offers for Rock Stars Dec ’24 – Dec ’34
→ https://catacombenijmegen.com/current-offer/

Catacombe is email-list free!!

Yes – you can subscribe to receive new blogposts;
But no additional or promotional emails are sent – just the blog, sec.

Catacombe’s other series “Rock Star Take On”
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who else is on f- speed dial? | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today 2025 02 11

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

who else is on f- speed dial?

Proverbially speaking, since neither speed dial nor calling are a thing anymore.
Worst of all, in the majority of cases the “who” has become an It.

What app or website has the
– for-a-fact way too big –
honor of your daily and undivided attention?

—

Last summer I took the step of raising the bar in my friendships. Because even though I have never shied away from breaking up with friends, and regardless of how messy it got – in fact preventing the messiness of it, was my prime motive for opening the conversation when there was no drama – I had still not achieved a 100% alignment.

I only sent it to the friends who are not professionally tied to me, nor connected through family bonds.
So the letter did not go to all friends, but only to the ones who had the freedom to end our friendship, without there being any consequence or awkward situations arising in real life.

So I wrote this letter but since I was unable to formulate the higher principles – which I knew for a fact were the root cause of our seemingly irrelevant differences – I narrowed my desires down to pure execution.
Although there was obviously some exposition on why I wrote the letter, at its core were the specifics, of what I would be needing moving forward.
Or not moving forward, if they chose that.

In sexual and romantic relationships there is a new culture and custom on the rise, of being transparent in asking consent and managing expectations beforehand. Not after boundaries have been crossed and people have slept with each other where one thought it was exclusive and the other was going to gaslight their way out of any meaningful connection with “texts” that turned emoji-only in a cold heart-beat.

This new practice of two people rooting their romance in communication,  and clearing up any grey areas where misunderstandings can create unsafety, originates from higher risk relationship styles such as polyamory, BDSM and D/s.
The final abbreviation stands for dominant submissive play, as hinted at in the movie Babygirl.

The new practice, where there is so much more thought put into the interaction and with way more communication than ever before, can also be found in the medical world and is described with two terms:
Embodied Consent
and
Informed Consent.

Embodied consent means that just someone giving their spoken consent is not enough, they also have to embody that they are okay with the suggested path or procedure.
With the concept of Embodied consent, ignoring a patient’s (or a partner’s) body language becomes just as big a deal as ignoring a No.

Informed Consent means that the other person has access to all information necessary in order to foresee the consequences of their choice.
Leaving out complications that 10% of patients will suffer after an operation is a violation of Informed Consent.
Not saying you will not want anything to do with them after you’ve had sex with them, is a violation of Informed Consent.
You forced your will by deliberately holding back information.

As is probably already obvious from the above paragraphs, I have given this topic of consent and deliberate interactions an incredible amount of thought.
And I have come out a Believer.

I believe that this carefully created safe space, the one most of us have only heard of, and that traditionally belongs in the riskiest of professional as well as sexual liaisons?
That this is not just the standard we should all aspire to;
But require.
And at the most basic and visceral level.

The great thing about this whole concept of consent, is that it is extremely actionable.

Just like with my friends, where I suspected difficulties in communication were expressions of more abstract things, like conflicting interests and different values, things I would not be able to address or word properly;
Consent brings the conversation to execution level.
Similarly, the letter to my friends also kept it simple.

In a way too long letter, I covered three areas.
How we got here.
What I could no longer offer, and why.
And I told them what our friendship would be like, if they chose to continue.

Although I understandably lost friends, it was overal far less dramatic than it would have been if I had kept it going to the point of collapse.
Collapse of me, them, and the friendship.
But the icing on the cake was that I got so many super cool letters from people whom I had not expected to hear from in such detail.
And several friendships have even gotten deeper and better since then.

So this is all half a year ago, and I considered it a private matter and “just” one of the many areas where 2024 was an important year.
Until today….
Because boy!
Talk about sweating the small stuff!!!!

My whole consent-boundaries-safe-space thing for friendships and for ALL other real life relationships as well?
That is nothing, compared to the time I spend online.

And the contrast between me attending to my most intimate relationships when at the same time holding the door open for the whole world to march in with their dirty feet, becomes even starker if I give you one of the key elements I said I could no longer deliver in friendships.

WhatsApp conversation.

Anyone who chose to be in a friendship with me, had to understand WhatsApp was going to be limited to a tool to set a date or schedule a telephone call.
That’s it.
Staying in touch through WhatsApp would no longer be on the menu, it was going to be calling or dating-only.

There was also another option if you needed help, so I definitely explained how I could be there for you in good times as well as the bad.
But I was aware that I took something off the menu, which was casual connection, that a lot of people valued and even needed.

So like I said, this all was months ago, and my friendships have never been better, and I didn’t think much of it.
Until today.

Because why on earth am I so demanding in my friendships when at the same time I still check news and social media every day, and binge on YouTube videos every time I can use some entertainment?

Even the word “casual” would be labeling my online behavior too positively.
I do have boundaries, in terms of the times when I am online (f.e. I do not sleep with my phone in the room) but otherwise the behavior itself, is not intentional at all.

I have supercool playlists with interesting videos, one even with the name “My TV channel”.
Meanwhile I just let myself be seduced by the YouTube algorithm. YouTube decides what’s on, not me.

With Social Media I am a little better for sure. And there really are people with whom I just love seeing their daily content, and I love knowing what they’re up to!
I’m genuinely so grateful they let me/ us into their lives!

Until today, where I thought:
“Wait a minute!”

How can anyone showing up online be more important than my true friends? If I continue my current behavior, then what I apparently basically wrote summer 2024, was:
“You cannot message me in between dates, but if you post to Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or make a YouTube video (which is my favorite, hint!) then I will show up and be invested in you.”

Holy Christ……
I cannot believe it took me 6 months to figure this one out.

So invitation to you, Rock Star!
Where are you annoyed by group chats or people texting you, when at the same time you ALSO have notifications on from half a dozen apps?
Constantly refreshing pages so that you get to see a news headline within minutes after it has been added?

You sense something is overwhelming you when it’s people you know.
But at the same time you’re letting the world in, unchecked.

You’re saying to your friends/ family/ co-workers/ peers/ pets but also to your children and partner:
“I need you to respect my boundaries.
But here’s a gazillion people who have my undivided attention.”

The people you share your life, street, or city with, should always have a higher status than anyone and certainly than anything, you find online.
Cutting corners here (I know!) because a lot of great causes and activism are also depending on your willingness to show up online.
But you get me – 
We must be mindful and intentional.

But think of it like this:
In the Netherlands, whether officially or just by custom I don’t know, you don’t have to answer work emails after office hours.

Similarly, regardless of where you live;
You don’t have to engage with the world in your free time.

YES!
You can dedicate a certain moment every day to stay updated and participate.

But the world should not be on fucking speed dial.

Instead use your engagement, your curiosity, talents and focus to think about how to create a wonderful, exciting, alluring, maybe even sexual, safe space for all those intimate, close by, soul-aligned people you have in your life.

Starting with the most important person;
You.

.
~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

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But no additional or promotional emails are sent – just the blog, sec.

Catacombe’s other series “Rock Star Take On”
also goes out on ->
https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewRockStarChannel.


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NEW founded in MAY 2024: SUBSTACK

(what if?) that is the actual work | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today 2025 01 28

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

(what if?) that is the actual work

Promoting, cleaning shit up, creating your look and getting ready every day.

The difficult conversations.
The fixing of unforeseen problems.
The setting of boundaries when you least expect it.
The nurturing of social structures surrounding whatever it is you do.

= your actual job

—

Years ago there was a meme trend for yoga teachers with “What people think I do” versus “What I actually do”.
I forgot what the specifics were, so I looked it up. What people think I do was actually specific to a person or a group.
So you’d have like “What my parents think I do” or “What my students think I do” or “What the New York Times thinks I do”.
The latter with a picture of inflexible people trying out poses way over their head, because we were in the aftermath of a critical article which, if I am not mistaken, was called “Yoga Wrecks Your Body”.

Yet although the interpretation of what it was the yoga teacher did varied, where the yoga teacher themselves was usually content with meditation sessions where they checked their watch all the time, doing long relaxation pose or a supported child’s pose (and nothing flashy);
At least everyone was on the same page.

Everybody thought a yoga teacher did yoga.

This is of course a very logical thought, because it is our most distinguishing feature.
However!
This does not mean that it (doing or teaching yoga) is what determines our professional success, or even what we are doing most of the worktime.

Mapping out our teaching schedule.
Promotion (creating content and being online).
Doing our own yoga.
Keeping our website updated.
Email correspondence.
Preparing classes.
Travel time.
Having social interactions before or after class.
Cleaning the studio time. *

My estimate is 25% actual teaching hours, 75% tasks as illustrated above.
But yoga teachers are not alone here;
This goes for so many types of work.

If you’re thinking about a career switch, or exploring new directions?
Look at that 75% of the not-doing-your-work, before making a decision!

The 25% of whether or not the real work is ideal, a true match, or if it is work which remotely appeals to you?
Irrelevant.
At least when it comes to making a non-passion based job decision.
You’ll manage, you’ll find a way.
Yet, if you are not the right person to rock that 75%?
Oh, that’s gonna be one hell of a painful work path.

So, nuff said about that scenario.
Because similarly to yoga teachers, we are usually not really thinking about a non-passion-based job right?!
We may have one, and it’s good to know this whole thing about the 75%, but where we wonder if we can do it…… wonder if we can “make” it?
That is our passion, our creativity, our calling, our purpose.
Like the yoga teacher, we already know what it is we want to do.

Work which has come through deeply felt passions, or through an unstoppable need to help out or to contribute.
It – THE Work, OUR Work, the area of interest or the places or people we just love to hang out with, the things we like to DO! – it all comes through us and out of us, and the only choice we have is how to navigate this force.

It’s those areas where we need to be strategic.
And it‘s here, the “75% rule” can help make a choice, or should at least be considered!

So let’s say, hobby scenario, right?
You have a passion, or feel a call to do something and contribute.
Choose a way to limit extra tasks! Instead of settling for the meager 25% spending the time on what you really like doing, try upping it to 50%, or a hundred!

For example, a lot of people do voluntary work because they like the social interaction. But if you do it in an area where you normally don’t reside, you’re not going to build your network in your own neighborhood, and you’re also going to invest hours in travel time.

So “even” when something is a hobby or unpaid, beware that you don’t pick up work that is not the aspect you like about the job.
That’s not your passion-based part.

But one way or another, hobby or leisure time activities usually have a way of sorting themselves out.
Even without knowing this.

However, the most difficult areas are when we work because we are passionate about a certain cause, or because we have a different sort of calling or interest in it, and yet?
Oh, we find ourselves resisting all kinds of little, annoying, administrative hurdles and returning tasks, that we feel we need to “get by” in order to get to the “real work”.

It’s in those moments, that this blogpost is your wakeup call.
Those smaller tasks?
That is the work.
And in many cases, if you’re a professional it’s how you deal with those aspects that make you stand out. They’re usually way, and I mean WAY, more important, than the direct quality of your “real” work.

In 1983 a then unknown Bon Jovi had their first big show. They were the support act for ZZ Top. A stroke of luck! Because their debut album had not even been released, and the night before the two shows they had actually played for 30 people in a club in New Jersey.
Jon had been so nervous for this small gig, he’d lost his voice and it took all he had to go up on stage.

Yet the next day in Madison Square Garden he played it like he owned the place. “I lived there, it’s no problem.”

Jon even had to improvise, because guitarist Richie Sambora’s amplifier had blown up at the first chord of this important show.
The guitarist still remembers: “It was like slow-motion: ‘Ohhh, no!'”
The crowd, whom had been polite at first, was starting to get rowdy, shouting “ZZ Top! ZZ Top!”.
Jon took off his guitar and threw it to Richie.
“It’s all on you, play the guitar!”

They went through a 30 minute set in 17 minutes, but they did it!
(source: The funny story of when Bon Jovi was ZZ Top’s opening act) 

Even then you could see Jon Bon Jovi was more comfortable dealing with that “75%” often overlooked work necessary to perform in front of tens of thousands of people;
Than the skills required to entertain an unexpectedly intimate audience.

Which is in line with the fact that from the get go, he went for becoming a big rock n’ roll band, and did not even consider settling for the security of an income cover bands in New Jersey were close to being guaranteed at the time.
All or nothing.
“There was no Plan B,” he remembers.

So whether you are faced with technical problems on your first big break;
Or have stage fright when there are only a few people showing up.
Make sure you’re all geared up for the 75% of the work that people, parents and the New York Times, don’t realize you do.

‘Cause that?
Is your actual work.

 

~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

* I teach yoga in Nijmegen, https://declubyoga.com/

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NEW founded in MAY 2024: SUBSTACK

liberate now | What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today 2025 01 06

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

liberate now

Do not underestimate the level of bondage the world around you is in.
Everything it brings forth toxically tainted.

If you do nothing else this year;
Set the intention to be bigger and louder in 12 months.

And more ferocious.

—

I’ve listened to way too many reviews and analysis of the amazing movie Babygirl, and although I’ve heard many takes on it, from the most misogynist to the most positive as well, I have not heard anyone else bringing a very disturbing fact of this movie to the light.

Maybe because it’s a spoiler?
Or a bit of a spoiler? 
I don’t know, could be!
So spoiler alert then..

Are you still here?

Because here it comes.

Although the ending of Babygirl is open to multiple interpretations – something I will definitely be getting back to in 2025 (on my other blog, world between worlds, link to category babygirl) but I first want to give everyone a chance to go watch it-
so although there is definitely, and fortunately, a lot of interesting wiggle room with regard to Babygirl’s ending;
When interpreted at its most blunt face value?
It is an UNfinished hero’s journey!
What heresy!

Definition of hero’s journey;

“In narratology and comparative mythology, the hero’s quest or hero’s journey, also known as the monomyth,
is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed.”

Wikipedia

An unfinished hero’s journey would for example be, if after having mustered a fellowship of nine, having been stabbed half to death by a Nazgul on Weathertop, crossing the Dead Marshes with your best friend, who you first lost due to your own delusions, after which you were captured by a giant spider who sedated you and hung you up to be consumed later, and then your friend saved you;
*big breath*
And a small creature with two personalities followed you around and then push came to shove and you decided to not throw the ring into the fires of Mount Doom.
As would have been required to save the world.

But instead you hid the ring really well.
Somewhere no one would find it.
Because it saved you the final kilometers up the mountain, and those were really steep and you were kind of tired from all your adventures and besides the mountain was really hot and the little creature looked like it would bite your finger off and you dreaded spending the rest of your life with only nine fingers even though that would have been super symbolic of your fellowship so you just decided to call it a day. Or a journey.

That, is an unfinished hero’s journey.

And when taken in its most simplistic way, the ending of Babygirl is just that.
It has you yelling:
“You gotta be f-ing kidding me!” at the screen.

Until, of course, I realized this was really the highest possible outcome with regard to sexual liberation of women, currently achievable to Hollywood standards.

That Hero’s Journeys can be, and should be, and will be, completed when it’s about a bunch of guys putting their lives on the line to save the world.
However, when it’s about a woman trying to save her sexual identity, we’re gonna just walk a third into the first movie and after the Prancing Pony, we’re just done.

I mean, the wizard wasn’t there as he had promised he would be;
And we’ve seen the cloaked figures on horses that are definitely up to no good and they’ll try to assassinate us tonight, stabbing the decoy figures we will lay in the beds to fool them.

We’re done!
Let this Strider fella just take us hobbits home because we’ve seen enough adventures for three generations!

That, is how Babygirl ended.

Because when it comes to sexual liberation we have got such a long way to go, society and Hollywood being so restricted, we simply cannot have female heros walk their path to the bitter, or the satisfying, or the necessary, but in any way shape or form, the FULL ending.

Again, not using the wiggle room interpretation wise.
This is just going for the most obvious interpretation of it.

And who knows, maybe it was never intended to be a hero’s journey, but simply an art house drama movie. Who is to say.

But what struck me was that when thinking about the movie I had been so ignorant of the limitations a movie like this was faced with.
That I had actually assumed this movie had had full creative freedom.
Of course not.

Babygirl was made tiptoeing Hollywood’s Dead Marshes of misogynie.
The hero’s journey? That was not the protagonist having her sexual liberation!
No, it was writer and director Halina Reijn getting this movie made in the first place.

With Babygirl, Reijn got the ring into Mordor for us.
But it’s up to us to make sure it gets thrown into the pit.

So when I say Liberate Now, I mean;

Do not underestimate your opponent.
Do not think for a minute you’ll be allowed to break the shackles with whatever or whomever, and just walk your own path.

Know where you’re going.
Stay the course.
And bring a compass to readjust along the way.

And do not lose sight of the mountain of work ahead of you, but at the same time;
Be incredibly grateful for all the digging, smoothing, and the sign posts put up by all who went before.

And unless you’re the protagonist in an erotic 2024 drama movie that was brought to light against the odds;
Walk the path all the way to the end.

And throw that ring and all the other shackles that bind you, into the damn pit. 

..

..

Goodgirl /Hero
(pick one)

.
~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

.
Subscribe to receive
What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today
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Offers for Rock Stars Dec ’24 – Dec ’34
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Catacombe is email-list free!!

Yes – you can subscribe to receive new blogposts;
But no additional or promotional emails are sent – just the blog, sec.

Catacombe’s other series “Rock Star Take On”
also goes out on ->
https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewRockStarChannel.


Instagram – Twitter – Rock Star Writer Facebook – Facebook Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver – LinkedIn

NEW founded in MAY 2024: SUBSTACK