Happy New Year! My 2021 review.
Wow, pretty crazy that we’re at the end of 2021 already.
What the fuck happened to 2021… and 2020 for that matter too.
Hahaha that’s how it feels..
And at the same time, this year has been massive for me in terms of personal and professional growth.
PERSONALLY…I went through A LOT!
True story, my partner and I nearly “broke up” (we’re married so saying break up sounds so childish, but what’s the right word? Separate? Okay, we almost separated.).
We worked hard to move through some intense marriage issues and came out the other end even stronger, more deeply bonded than before. We’ve also had some of our best sex best ever.
Long-term relationships/marriage isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s fucking hard work at times.
Boy have I daydreamed about running away to my happy place (Australia!) and fantasized about being single!! (knowing very well that won’t solve anything, it’s just my flight response and avoidance strategies.)
I'm happy I'm here now though - still married and still living together in Sweden. 😍 (although I wouldn't mind living in Australia at some point again, WITH my husband and son!)
This year I’ve also done heaps of therapy and different types of coaching to support me through what I would say has been my most intense personal growth and identity crisis in my life.
After the birth of my son I experienced post partum depression and burnout and I ignored and denied it for a long time… until I couldn't ignore or deny any longer.
I wish I had dealt with it sooner, maybe if I would, there would have been less collateral damage. But, woulda, coulda, shoulda. If you're experiencing mental health issues, I lovingly encourage you to seek help right away!
It’s been rough, to say the least. But also beautiful in some fucked up way. But most of all, inevitable and necessary.
Side story:
When I lived in Melbourne more than a decade ago I worked at this café on Gertrude Street in Fitzroy and in the alleyway out the back, where I used to stand and smoke rollies, there was a graffiti painted on a metal door framed by the red brick that said:
Change is inevitable, except from this machine.
That sentence always did my head in and has stuck with me ever since.
Anyways, back to my 2021 review. Keep reading if you want to. I’ll just keep being a little self-indulgent here, thinking that you find this interesting. I’ve grown heaps as a mother… really EMBRACING the responsibility of being a mother. I made a conscious choice to get pregnant and have a child, but I think I hadn’t really, on a very deep level, accepted that I was one and the responsibility that comes with it.
There’s been this internal conflict inside around being a mother and saying farewell to my independence. I think this also was exacerbated by me living very much like a “free spirit” who very much valued impulsivity and freedom until I became a mother.
Hence the identity crisis.
So it’s been a humbling journey of really inquiring within myself, with myself:
Who am I?
Who do I want?
What can I control and what is beyond my control?
What does it mean to be a wife and mother?
What makes me happy?
What is a priority and what can wait til later?
How can I allow myself to slow down and enjoy the spaciousness in my life?
What matters to me?
Apart from doing therapy and coaching, reading and learning about Stoicism has definitely helped me during this process. It's a beautiful simple yet potent life philosophy.
So heading into 2022, I'm desiring to continue to slow down and cultivate more presence, figure out who I want to be and work towards solidifying that identity, make more space for enjoying being a home maker and mother and to develop my spirituality, faith and spiritual practice.
This pandemic has forced a lot of us to very still and turn our gaze inwards. I desire to continue doing that, but in a more voluntary spirit!
PROFESSIONALLY, it’s also been a wild ride.
2021 has been a very expansive year for my business! HOORAY!!
I started my business and IG account in 2018 and the first 2 years I spent consciously building it in a slow and gradual process where I focused on attracting and expanding my audience and working with 1:1 clients.
In December 2020/January 2021, I launched my very first online course, PLEASURE TREATS. It was an immediate success, over 100 women joined.
Since that first launch of PLEASURE TREATS, we’ve launched it two more times in 2021 and now a total of almost 300 women have enrolled in the course.
I’m so so proud of PLEASURE TREATS, it’s super affordable yet jampacked with life-changing content.
To help me create, sell and deliver the course, I hired my first team member – the amazing and one and only Samantha DiDonato.
I love-bomb Sam weekly, pouring my love and appreciation onto her… because this year she’s helped me rebrand and up-level my entire business, with her incredible design skills we have created such a visually beautiful experience of my business.
Sam redid my entire website, she’s done all sales pages for my courses, all the marketing material and she’s also my biggest cheerleader. I know you’re reading this Sam – I love you!
2021 was also the year when I launched the world’s most beautiful newsletter – the one you're reading and enjoying every week. Not signed up yet? Subscribe here!
Another thing that I’m so proud of creating and sharing with you (for free!) in 2021 was Ecstatic Pleasure. This was a monthly dance party I ran for 5 months to help us feel connected and have fun during an ongoing and isolating pandemic.
Thank you to everyone who joined the party. I had a blast, I hope you did too. I also hope I’ll have the space, time and energy to do more live free events soon again.
During 2021 my coaching practice has continued to expand and grow, which has been so exciting. I have sex and birth coaching clients in so many different countries; Sweden, Germany, UK, USA, Austria, Canada, Denmark, to name a few.
I'm so grateful for all my wonderful clients and truly love working with every single one of them!
2021 was also the first year since I started my business that I actually had earned enough to take 3,5 weeks PAID summer holiday. That felt like a massive win.
(And for context, in Sweden 4 weeks of paid holiday per year is standard and guaranteed a full-time employee by law).
Just before going on summer holiday, I had enrolled in a 6-month business 1:1 coaching container. So I came back from my holiday and dove into that.
With the help of my amazing business coach, I identified a desire to create and launch an intimate mastermind program, SHAMELESS.
I've been dreaming about this for years, I first had the idea for this mastermind in 2018 when I was in Mexico teaching a retreat with Layla Martin.
But I was doubting myself and had some limiting beliefs around it all. So my business coach helped me move through that BS and say YES to myself and to creating this for women all around the world.
So yea, I said yes, HELL YES. And I did it.
BOOM! That too was an immediate success.
SHAMELESS sold out and the women in the program are having an epic time. We’re about halfway through and I sent out mid-program feedback from this week.
The responses I’ve received so far and overwhelmingly positive and celebratory of this program. Everyone answered “FUCK YES” to question if they could go back in time and rejoin the program again.
I’m so grateful.
I’m so proud of these brave women that signed up.
And proud of myself for having created such an incredible program.
SHAMELESS will run again next year, if you’re keen to join the next round, def sign up on the waitlist here.
But all this success has also come with A LOT of internal turmoil. I thought that once the money starts coming in steadily and I'm reaching new levels of success, everything will feel easy.
HAHA. Nope.
“Mo Money, Mo Problems!” (remember that good old Notorious B.I.G song?)
It kinda gets harder in a way.
Because now you’re responsible for so much more team (I hired a second team member to help me with admin, scheduling, client management etc – she’s utterly fantastic too!!), clients, money and expectations.
More visibility, larger reach.
For example, I was featured in two big Swedish newspaper articles where I shared about my journey from pre-orgasmic to multi-orgasmic and they posted the links to the articles on their Fb pages.
The posts had 300 comments - and you can imagine the comments - lots of jokes, ridicule, belittling… but also some kind and supportive comments!!! That's a lot to process!
I also had to process a lot of self-doubt and limiting beliefs that were part of that glass ceiling that kept me at the previous level. That stuff was some deep shit.
But as my coach said many times, I’m not afraid of the deep shit. So I processed the shit out of that shit… and kept going.
Another big business event that happened during 2021, was that I experienced my first copyright infringement. It came to my attention that another online sex coach had copied my course PLEASURE TREATS and had packaged it as her own and was selling it.
The experience was quite intense, as you can imagine. I had to educate myself on and purchase legal content to protect my business in new ways, reach out to her and have a really challenging confrontation.
I learned through this process, that I can be really fucking fierce when I have to protect what’s mine.
We solved the situation in a really graceful and mature way and I’m so grateful that she showed up, apologized and did the right thing. Good people can make bad mistakes. And that’s okay.
I forgive others easily, I’m working on forgiving myself more easily too.
Also, that experience was kinda cool in a way, because it just showed me how amazing my work is. So amazing that other people in the industry copy it. It's the ultimate compliment!
But please don't copy my work if you like, please just share the compliment with me instead! 😂
And lastly, 2021 was the year when I opened my Facebook group Pleasure Rebels and that group now has over 1100 members!!
Every week I go live in that group and I really love connecting with you and serving you in that intimate way.
You're most welcome join Pleasure Rebels here.
So, 2021 has provided massive personal and professional growth and expansion. It hasn’t been easy or pretty all the time, but hey, that’s life.
And I’m here for it…
Also, I'm older, stronger, wiser, more confident and competent than last year.
I'm a better and more present wife and mother, than last year.
I'm a more experienced CEO than the year before.
I’m growing a powerful team.
I’m expanding my brand with many exciting collaborations happening behind the scenes.
I’m so…
Ready for the next level of growth (and accompanying deep shit to process once I get there).
Delighted to continue expanding in this gentle and sustainable way.
Eager to create more wonderful programs and courses so I can continue to serve you and support you to sexually thrive!
So what do I have in store for you in 2022? Fantastic things!!
I'm launching my very own podcast. YAY!!
I'm creating a new mastermind program for all my sluts out there who want to turn their sluttiness up a notch! YAY!!
I'm creating an in-depth online pleasure course for everyone who craves wonderful, extensive pleasure positive and practical sex ed. YAY!!
So stick around, you don't wanna miss this all this epicness!!!
Lastly, I want to remind you that…
I’m…
Still on a mission.
Still so passionate about this work.
Still just a very regular person with a very unglamorous life.
And I’m still so grateful that you’re here.
From the bottom of my 🌸 and 💖, thank you!!
Let’s continue making the best of this weird thing called life, our strange existence on a floating rock in an infinitely huge universe.
Happy New Year! 🎉
Love,
Erika
PS: I have the most amazing course/content plans for 2022 so stick around!!!
