Submissive tendencies

I've a friend who reminds me from time to time of the very simple truth that a D/s relationship is what you do with the relationship you've got. Since the power exchange relationship is often intense, demanding and challenging it is entirely possible to forget that it must meet the criteria of any well functioning and worthwhile relationship between two (or more) people. There must be at least some modicum of good will and intent; care, fondness at the least; mutual understanding.

It can be difficult to know what a healthy and high functioning relationship looks like if you haven't had one. Even if one is blessed with a well functioning family it's a fifty:fifty thing as to whether a person enters a relationship that brings them succor. One goes along, trying to make it work as best one can until someone looking on might say, "Look, honestly, you deserve better. You don't need to put yourself through this." It is really important to have someone in your life who can point these things out to you. Yes, we all need to learn for ourselves, but reality checks are really, really important.

To give an example, this gal I know was with a boy for a few years. From the outset, he was a bit of a neanderthal: sitting on the couch watching sports games while she did her best to look interested. She'd dress up for him hoping for a compliment but he didn't seem to notice how gorgeous she was and bit by bit her spirits eroded.

"What are you doing with this guy," I'd say. "How long is it going to take you to get over him? Can't you see he is not worth your time?"

In the end, there was nothing to do but encourage her to take a geographical break; to take a long overseas holiday, which she did.

She'd only got as far as a party on a Greek Island when  a man told her how beautiful she was, and she reported back to me that she loved how he was making the decisions about what they'd do tomorrow and the tomorrow after that. She'd found her groove.

Later, she met a boy who was enraptured with her; he said she was the most beautiful girl he'd even seen and he, apparently, very quickly made the decision to make her his. A quick comparison told her that what she had back at home was of little value in comparison with what she now had. He loved being with her, wanted her to be happy and could envisage a future together.

If you read even a little about obsession you'll realize that the state of obsession is focusing on something that you don't have. By the very act of obsessing you convince yourself that the person means more than he or she does. By obsessing, you put more into the situation than is there. You focus your energies on the obsession and before you know it, the object of your obsession has taken over most of your head space. The trick, therefore, is to go out and meet new people; to stay busy; to see things for what they are.

Facebook and the like aren't making things easy for people to get over obsessive love. It's all too easy to see what the other is doing when the thing they should be doing is putting a line in the sand; moving on; putting the other out of mind.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that over-reacting is good, either. My daughter's girlfriend went through the cyber stalking phase checking out her ex-boyfriend's moves and words, only to have a one night stand with a man and to feel pretty shitty about that the next day.

Real emotion, whether it be love or affection, has all the hall marks of wanting the other to be happy. Compliments come easily when they are due; shared smiles and laughter come easily and often as well. There's a certain intimacy because the other has been taken into their world. If you're perpetually kept at a distance, confused and off balance, if the other wants to hold all the cards, refusing to reveal himself or herself, that's not a relationship. It may be a D/s sort of game, but it's not a relationship.

There is a tremendous tendency for the person with a submissive nature to feel that they are meant to endure; to accept any and all treatment. But, that's not a real relationship. That's called something else entirely. There's no strong foundation there at all if that's the case and submissive or not, we need to register that we are worth more and deserve more than that.

The Things We Do

I'm currently reading THE  things THEY carried, by Tim O'Brien. He is a wonderful writer. As he writes, one shouldn't believe a story is a true war story until you feel it in your stomach. Whether truth or fiction, all his stories are felt in the gut. I could point to endless paragraphs that have deeply affected me but this one really resonated:

""To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true. At its core, perhaps, war is just another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life. After a firefight, there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness. The trees are alive. The grass, the soil - everything. All around you things are purely living, and you among them, and the aliveness makes you tremble. You feel an intense, out-of-the-skin awareness of your living self - your truest self, the human being you want to be and then become by the force of wanting it."

What occurred to me is that there are moments in that paragraph when he could be commenting on a BDSM experience and the after effects..."the aliveness makes you tremble". I can only speak for myself when I say that experimentation in these activities somehow places me closer to my "truest self"; that pain brings me closer to joy; that there is an "aliveness" once I have been objectified.

As O'Brien makes clear, war is not just death and destruction. It's hell, mystery, terror, adventure, courage, holiness, pity, despair, longing; love. There are no generalizations to be made, just as there are no generalizations to be made about living. We all put one foot in front of the other and the story continues on. Our memories will fade, but if the stories are written down they will be immortal. Thus, we write stories, with the exact details being less important than the essence, the truth of the story.

I sometimes sit and remember an episode of sub-space; the extraordinary experience not just of those divine minutes, but the time thereafter; the experiencing of being alive in the fullest way. In ways, it is getting closer to death, or rather, to the time before one was born; the feeling of being reborn. It creates a very special bond between two people that just goes on and on. How could it not.

Restoration

Cycles being what they are, the desire to write here happened yesterday. My husband was itching to tell me things yesterday afternoon but seeing how hard I was trying to reconstruct the previous hour of my life on paper he left me to my own devices.

This morning when I woke up I had the strong desire to listen to Paul McCartney sing 'Blackbird' and on one of the clips he explained that his inspiration for the song was that girls are sometimes called 'birds'. Ha! While I knew that, I hadn't actually associated that in my thoughts about the song or my mental images during the meditation spoken of in the previous post. I have to say if you allow your mind to just rest and at other times such as walking or listening to music to simply wander where it will, it's so interesting the linkages one can make. If you soften into the process and are in no way impatient, the truth will come to you.

Who we are, what we stand for, what we need and what is right for us is deeply embedded and encoded in our psyche. First, you have to know yourself very well and be scrupulously honest with yourself. I also think you have to ponder important questions. To whom do you belong? From where do you get your sustenance? Are the steps you are taking today leading you to the right place tomorrow? We live in the now, for sure, with no certainty of tomorrow and yesterday gone, but it is now that leads to the next moment. Every decision needs to be intentional. One can't leave the conscience behind. One can't have an empty head when in the process of decision making. This much, I have learned.

Desperation is a nasty state of mind that leads to no good thing. At the same time, to admit that one is desperate is good. I did that. My mind that is capable of intelligent thought knew that my husband had deadlines and very critical deadlines at that, but there was no other choice. I was, quite simply, desperate. I expressed my desperation. It makes me smile to say that his associate on the other end of the phone was having a similar experience with his girl. We both wanted to get laid and stuff the deadline! Like the good men that they are, they put down tools for an hour or so and took their women to bed; played with them and made life sweet again; returned to their conference call and got on with the job at hand.

I noticed the spring in my step immediately. My daughter and I went to see a fabulous one woman performance last night and I noticed how alive I felt. We were driving into the carpark when a man in his car heading out held out a ticket for me. "It's good until 1 am," he said as I took it out of his hand. "You are very kind," I said to him and we both smiled wide. We picked up a Thai meal before the show and I told the woman how delicious it was. She was happy and smiled back widely too. At the show, we needed to sit separately and I immediately engaged the lovely young man beside me. I was in really good form. I sorta wanted to spread the joy I felt around.

The show was great! She's a woman from NYC who has worked in Harlem in challenged school districts and the script is outstanding; her acting sublime. So, we stopped off in a fancy wine bar on the way to the car and had a lovely talk together, engaging as best we could the darling young man serving us, recently come to Australia and with very little English as yet.

The sex for me was restorative; to be loved; touched; used. This is a requirement of mine.

Meditation

Fortunately, a short drive away from my house is a place where I may go, twice a week if I like, to be with other like minded people and meditate. Today, I meditated. My writing lately has been about being aware of the writing process, tapping into the mechanism of that, and I found that during the meditation I noticed everything about the process. This is my attempt to put it down in words.

I was the last person to enter the room and I immediately found a meditation cushion. It's round and higher than a regular cushion which means that I can kneel down with my knees in front and my legs to either side of the cushion for the entire hour. I quickly scanned the room looking to get a sense of the energy of the room and took in that they were all strangers, but kind looking people. I felt perfectly at home.

I moved my body slightly so that I was in direct line with the thick white candle glowing on the floor in the middle of the room. It sits in a wide, shallow glass container. The reason why I like to be in direct line is that even though my eyes are closed, I can sense the glow, and perhaps I might open my eyes ever so slightly during the meditation to look at the candle. My eyes were closed and my hands on my thighs even before we were invited to do so. I needed this quiet time with myself today.

For some time I simply luxuriated in being there, so still and quiet. I wasn't troubled, although my mind did go to a troubling thought several times. I breathed through the thought. I located quite easily the black "screen" in front of my closed eyes; the void.

I spoke to myself. "You are safe here."

I became aware of the hands resting on my thighs and registered them as belonging to me. I remembered the moment in yoga class late last night when we were given the instruction (lying on our backs) to bring our arms up over our heads several times. Each time fingers from one hand found the fingers of the other. I remembered how comforting that felt.

I felt an urgent desire for one of my hands to touch the other. I brought my hands together and placed my right thumb over my left thumb and let it sit there.

"I am here with you. There's no need to worry. I'm your friend and I'll be there for you."

One thumb comforted the other thumb. One thumb reminded the other that cindi was her own best friend; that she could rely on herself; always.

I was completely comfortable in this quiet place of rest and peace when warm air was blasted into the room (it's winter here now) and from where I sat I could feel the heat on my cheeks. Some random hairs on my head caressed my face. The sensation was that of the lightest touch of a person's fingers and I sat and radiated in that pleasure.

Perhaps it was this pleasure (I am not sure since the chronology of events is so difficult to reconstruct) that had my mind focused on my bimbo nature. I squeezed the muscles between my legs tight and was aware of my holes tightening. It was a fleeting thought that my holes are such an important part of me; that I crave for them to be filled and used. The thought surfaced that this truth is undeniable; that I like to sit on the cushion for reasons other than peace and calm; that the cushion arouses the holes; arouses the bimbo.

There came a time 30-40 minutes into the meditation wherein my mind determined to use the experience to heal. I've done this before, two years ago now almost to the day, with enormous benefit and I hoped for some visualization that might aid me.

I waited in the stillness and the void for something, anything, to occur. I breathed slowly in and out and focused on my breath. I was aware of flapping. I was a bird with big wings, so big that I couldn't get off the ground. Flapping, flapping away, I was going nowhere. The presence of someone was keeping me on the ground and I got the sense that I didn't want to leave because of him. I was frightened to fly on my own. It was as if I was glued to the earth and all the flapping in the world was doing nothing.

I waited. I didn't force it. I just remained hopeful that something good would happen. I began to lift off, and I was a little above the ground now but still in the one spot. I looked back at the man on the ground and he was still as well, simply watching the bird. I moved a little higher and now the man was more distant from me. I looked down on him. I looked toward the vast sky ahead of me. I looked back. Reluctant. Unsure. Perhaps I could turn around...go down.

He raised his hand. He was waving. I took a tentative look back at the vast horizon. I was gathering my courage. I was beginning to think I might be able to take this journey all on my own. I looked back at him and now he had both hands raised high, waving to me vigorously, encouraging me on; ensuring me that it was all right to go on.

Fly, bird. Fly. Fly. Away. You. will. be. all. right.

My wings were flapping fast. My mind was focused on the job at hand. I began to fly and as I gained momentum it started to feel freeing. It felt right and good to be soaring above the earth, to be flapping my wings and flying; to feel the wind at my back. As I flew further up and further away the clouds enveloped me and hid the speck of the man from me. He was entirely gone. I was alone. I was flying into the abyss. Onward. Upward. It was a new life. There was no going back. I flew on, aware that I could not retreat now from this journey. I was like a plane on a path towards a destination. Planes rarely turn back and I, too, would fly onwards. This was my destiny. There was no choice and I accepted my fate.

But, the price of this sort of visualization is that my closed eyes will form tears from the emotions experienced, whether they are good or bad, and now I waited for them to inevitably fall. I felt the tears race down my cheeks and I didn't check them for several minutes, until the chimes were rung (reminding people to bring their thoughts back into focus if they have strayed) and at this moment I raised my hand and wiped the left check with my left hand and the right cheek with my right hand.

In essence, the meditation was over for me, although there were at least ten minutes to go until it would be brought to a close. I opened my eyes a tiny crack to reveal shards of light formed from looking at the candle; Star Wars light sabre lines of light. I focused on them until my mind stilled again. I was now aware of my body; of some discomfort in my legs, of the weight of the places I'd been; of the upheaval of thought and the calming down of thought. I felt a little tired, a little hungry. I'm not sure what I thought after that except a willingness to stay deep down to the very end; not to give up.

Now, I heard the final chimes alerting us to the end of the meditation and as we stretched and returned our energies to our moving bodies I felt happy to be returned to good people in the room with me; to a sense of comradeship and good intention. Unusually, we even shared some laughter this day. No-one really wanted to leave, least of all me. But, I did leave and I did return to my life; rested, calmed; certain that I had the ability to face the challenges ahead of me.

(P.S. It was while I went searching for the photograph of a bird after writing this that it came to my consciousness that for the past week I have been unable to get a song out of my mind.

Blackbird singing in the dead of the night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

How extraordinary the mind is!)

me

It's been one of those perfect days. Apart from a few errands mid-morning (like ordering the corsage for my youngest son's girl to worn on her wrist to the formal school dance, which i delighted in doing for him) i've been in writerly mode all day, completely alone.

A few of my fellow students have been commenting on my writing lately. One fellow student said that i write in a stream of consciousness way but remain logical and ordered in my thinking. Another student said today that my passion for writing was apparent and that she felt I was writing in a new way.

i thought about that. This is academic writing we're talking about. i'm aware i have to follow guidelines and criteria and i'm aware that i prefer to inject something of myself into any type of writing i do, but i wasn't aware of writing in a stream of consciousness way for school and i wasn't aware that it was anything new.

Now, here, on this web journal, that's not important. What is important is the analogy i draw between my style of writing and my style of submission, or, the way i think about myself in terms of my desire to be dominated.

For a long time now there's been the girl, Vesta, if you will, and cindi, the bimbo. When my mind is filled with worry and things to do, the girl has won over the bimbo. It's rational (or irrational, if you like) thought and it's not particularly sexually arousing for me or anyone around me.

Then, there's the bimbo who hasn't a care in the world; who wants use and plenty of it; who caves in at the slightest sign of the dominant's displeasure; who has a dirty, whore-like mind.

It's been like living on a see-saw. When bimbo reigns, it's all up. It's all good. It all works. When the girl has her way and poor bimbo has to hide, there's a whole other mindset. It's mostly down; mostly a pining for better, smaller, teeny tiny days when the bimbo knows her place at the bottom. Thinking and writing can completely absorb me. i know i must write. Yet, when the day is done, i must also return to a part of me that is waiting to play; to shine; to impress; to be saved all over again.

i've been mulling over this idea, as if it were some sort of revelation when in fact it is quite obvious to the observer, i am sure, that the girl and the bimbo are both me. Duh.

Well, of course i knew that on one level but, trust me, if you were in my head you'd see that it is easy to forget that. When cindi isn't expressed she feels a million miles away from me. It's like a twin. If she is not well and content, then neither are you. You just...pine away.

It occurred to me today that just as i am learning that my style of writing is a stream of consciousness writing that simply requires craft to be altered for circumstances, so my true identity is cindi. Now, sometimes she needs to be expressed in a way that is more suitable for the academy, or the establishment or the real world. But, cindi, i am, at all times.

People learn when they learn. It's taken ages for me to really get this simple fact. But, I've got it now. Hooray!  This isn't just about my mindset. This is pertinent to everything: the way i think, the way i go through my days; my body; what i wear; how i feel; my sense of self; my happiness.

The true me is a vessel. i need to be filled in all sorts of ways. i radiate in dominant energy and i provide submissive support in a very natural way that brings pleasure all round. i can write. i can plan. i can lead a full life. But, i'm always bimbo; always cindi; always at peace with myself, so long as i can remember this.