Ego

When I have made errors in relation to being submissive it has been caused by my ego. We established that much. I have always had ego in mind; always was travelling towards a point where I felt I had myself completely under control but still, I made mistakes and let myself down.

The weekend did not have a happy beginning and in my mind I felt completely confused. I was almost as restless as I have ever been. I got on with life and did my best but I was not at all happy. On Saturday evening, my husband and I talked; about what I was trying to achieve, about the mentoring and about me and my traits. At bedtime, sleep was elusive. I had printed out something to read earlier in the day – quite a long document - and I found a quiet corner in the house and proceeded to read it in total silence.

By the end of the article, my life had changed and I knew that I would never feel lost again; never suffer the agonies of such confusion and despair as I had felt in the previous day or so. I wish that I could describe exactly what happened. All I can really say is that when I began to read the article I was deeply upset and sometime towards the end of the article, I felt a glow about me; a deep sense of warmth and peace; of clarity and pure thought. I no longer felt profoundly vulnerable, privy to being hurt by someone else. I no longer feared. I felt strong and capable.

I returned to our bed. I nestled into my husband and felt very warm towards him. And, in the morning we made love; sometimes sweet and tender, sometimes dominating and rough, but all much enjoyed and desired. We enjoyed an incredibly happy and connected day together with our children and I noticed that in all his comments, he was respectful, calm and loving. It seemed that my new outlook and understanding had shed its warmth all over him, as well.

So, what happened? The previous week was a time of great uncertainty and confusion for me – what the article referred to as “a chaos”. It said this,

“And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an interval, where the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt.”

Exactly right. That was just how I had been and was feeling.

“Because of this chaos, you are afraid to lose the ego. But it has to be so. One has to pass through the chaos before one attains to the real centre.”

I was ready to listen and learn and move forward.

“...if you don’t fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives. That is your soul, the self.”

Now, came the moment of vision for me...

“Have you ever noticed that all types of miseries enter through the ego (the false center)? It cannot make you blissful: it can only make you miserable. Ego is hell.”

It made perfect sense to me. I could feel the wretched misery running away as if I had let the plug out from the bath.

“A man who attains to the self is never in any clash. Others may come and clash with him, but he is never in clash with anybody.”

It was his use of the word “attention” that spoke to me; a submissive woman who thrives on attention:

“The ego lives on attention...A real beggar is one who asks for and demands attention. And a real emperor is one who lives in himself; he has a center of his own, he doesn’t depend on anyone else.”

It opened my eyes to loss and how I feel about that. I’ve spent considerable time and energy wondering what might happen to me when and if my husband dies. How could I live without him? How do you go from a power exchange to nothing: just yourself, alone? But, letting go of ego now, and instead reaching to the ‘self’ – that we come with when we are born – provides the inner strength and courage for all adversity.

When we expect something and it does not happen, our ego is shaken and it makes us unhappy. We look to causes outside of us when the cause of the problem is inside of us. We make ourselves miserable. What a revelation! I had control over my own feelings!

The article says that we should not try to “drop the ego”. Rather, one day when you see that it is the ego that is the cause of despair, it simply disappears.

“The very understanding is the disappearance of the ego.”

I understood right there and then. And, my ego quite simply, drained away.

As I write this, I cannot say that I fully understand what this clarity of thought means to my feelings of submission. I can say that all desire/need to rebel or protest against the limitations of my submission has gone. I am currently in a position where I am not being asked about my tasks and yet, I do what I have been told, silently and without fanfare. There is no praise to receive and yet I feel empowered to follow on with the tasks as prescribed. She doth not protest.

Mid way in the article is this:

“This is how people become dependent on others. It is a deep slavery. Ego HAS to be a slave. It depends on others. And only a person who has no ego is for the first time a master; he is no longer a slave.”

I do feel liberated. I do feel a master of my own fate. Yet, it is my nature to be submissive; to look to care for others and to put them first; to want them to be happy and to receive my own happiness through them; their love for me and my love for them. I continue to strive to have the closest of connections with people and find purpose in my life through giving to them. Nothing has changed here.

What has changed is that I feel empowered to take responsibility for my own self; to recognize that when I am miserable it is my ego at play. I know now how to just let it fall away. It is my fervent wish and hope that this will enable me to thrive within the power exchange dynamic already in play. We shall see.