Still learning

In my last post I made mention of how we have a tendency to think of our lives in story form. After all, a year begins with a sense of hope as to how things will go, there is a middle to the year, but it is not until the year is over that we can assess how things have actually gone and whether the year (the story) was a success or otherwise.

I had in my mind a thought to share my kinky notebook with you in this post and in so doing, to explore all the ways I feel I have grown over the past year. It didn’t work out so well. There is so much detail in that notebook of mine and it was getting ridiculously complicated. I hope you can take me at my word that I have definitely made lots of progress with my submissive state and as well, how I function as a complete human being.

It seems more prudent to write here in my last post of 2010 what I have yet to fully grasp in terms of being a submissive woman. This gives me a focus going into 2011 so that hopefully sometime next year I can report my issue is fully licked.

The biggest issue for me is that I have trouble getting into trouble. I find it damaging to my sense of self as a “good girl”. If I am in trouble, says my complex mind, then I am not perfect and hence I must be bad (and a huge disappointment and deserving of banishment).

This is a long, ongoing saga. I remember Rich (the man who helped me accept my submissive nature a few years ago) saying to me after I had or hadn’t done something or other, that I was a bad girl. I remember how I felt and there was nothing at all erotic about it. I felt awful.

We explored my feelings and I remember telling him that my mother used the word “bad” and still does. “Bad dog!” she will say. I remember asking her not to refer to my oldest son in that way. “You’re a bad boy!” I never get upset with my mother but at the time he was a confused two year old child and his mother was sitting in a hospital with tubes coming out of her. I was upset that I couldn’t care for my son and baby and she was upset that I was ill. She defended herself and I just went into my shell. I have always hated the thought of calling someone “bad” and I didn’t want to ever feel that I was bad. Rich tended to use the word “naughty” after that.

It is the absolute truth that I always wanted to be a good child and I was thought of as a good child. I was the good girl at school and at home and if I had revolutionary thoughts or idea or plans, I kept them to myself and quietly went about achieving my goals in a non-demanding and non-confrontational way.

I loathe being in trouble with my husband and one of my incredibly big breakthroughs is that I am able to say very easily now that “I am sorry”. It was hard to accept the blame for things; to accept my share of wrongdoing; to acknowledge that my lack of control, for example, was responsible for the argument we had.

I’ve always been relatively quick to apologize if you allow me a few minutes, hours or at most a day, depending on the circumstances. I want very much to put an end to the unpleasantness. But, in the heat of the moment, that could be very hard for me to do. On that score, the progress is truly significant.

The issue that remains is that I find myself wanting to avoid unpleasantness altogether. It has seemed to me that if I could just be strong enough to self soothe I could withstand almost any circumstance without sharing it or asking for support or forgiveness (or whatever I needed to share). If I withheld information and purported to be perfectly all right then unpleasantness would be avoided. I wouldn’t be in trouble in any way and I would not have disappointed in any way. I would not be thought of or called “bad”.

Of course, there is a price to pay for such a stand. The connection between the top and bottom is weaker, there is a sense of being a fraud and there is some resentment too that I was allowed to get away with this in the first place. The thinking goes, ‘if he paid a bit more attention, it would be patently obvious that I am not as good as I state. Nobody is that good, for Pete’s sake. Nobody is so self sufficient, least of all a submissive such as me!’

I am encouraged to “let go”. I have said in the past, “but if I let go, if I just naturally say what is on my mind, or if I tell you everything, I’ll be in trouble.” (or words to that effect) The response was quite simply, “Then, be in trouble and take the correction. Dolls learn from correction, don’t they?!”

Dolls do learn from correction, it is true. Yet the issue remains that to be transparent is to reveal myself as the flawed person that I am. I’m not nearly as strong as I’d like to be either but the thinking goes, ‘at least I can learn to be strong and stand on my own two feet, whereas to be so vulnerable, so liable to being hurt and to being rejected and thought of as a disappointment is just too painful’.

The way I tried to reconcile this problem in my mind is to be very mindful of the way that I communicate and I have found this strategy goes a long way. If I want to tell my husband something, or ask for something, or if I want peace to reign but still want to voice an opinion, I do it with a great deal of tact, with diplomacy, at an appropriate time and completely aware that it must sound and seem polite to his ears. If he chides me it takes rather a long time for me to find the courage to try again to be honest with him about my feelings, my needs or thoughts.

Be assured, over the year my life and my relationships are vastly improved. I am very happy. But, I cannot deny that I do withhold certain thoughts and feelings out of a sense that this brings peace and stability. I continue to doubt the thinking that asks the submissive to reveal all to her dominant, to get in trouble, to accept the correction, learn and drive on. I accept it in theory. However, to be considered less than perfect and to risk the abandonment or derision of the dominant is something I continue to find very difficult to do. I know this is not a good thing and somehow rectifying this flawed thinking in my mind is a high priority goal for 2011.

2010 has been a very fruitful and happy year for me. I’m an incredibly lucky girl and I know it. I have a husband I adore and who adores me. I have wonderful friends who support me, inspire me and sustain me. I have a terrific family and I have the opportunity to grow, to learn and to write. Who could ask for more?

May 2011 be a very happy, successful and loving one for you all.Happy New Year!