Embracing new challenges

Having the nature that I do, travelling alone with my husband is what I most like to do. Time alone with him in Japan was complete bliss for me, because whilst I don't mind making the odd observation - 'that looks like a lovely place to have lunch' - I am perfectly happy to be led about the country. Sincerely, this was pure happiness for me and I didn't need anything - a most spiritual experience!

Tomorrow, I am about to embark on a purely different spiritual experience; one with much more personal challenge, for me anyway. I fly off to a retreat where I find myself, whether I like it or not, immersed in a meditative experience and learning about a much deeper meditative experience than I have known so far. I'm anticipating some moments of wonder and some moments of absolute and terrifying challenge.

Most people, day by day, don't think all that much about what they eat. I do more than most due to food intolerances that came into my life in the past few years. But, I'm not a 'lacto-vegetarian'. At this retreat there will be no wine, no caffeine, no meat or fish, no dairy, no sugar (except honey). I enter the programme relatively prepared. I've cut down on wine, having my last glass with my husband in the city yesterday as a sort of 'goodbye' lunch. I haven't had caffeine in a week and have got through the headache-y, agitated period that goes with that. I don't eat dairy and  with a vegetarian in the household I can live on a vegan diet relatively happily. I keep my sugar consumption very low, since sugary foods tend to lead to consequences for me, but I don't have a pure no sugar diet. (I'm currently eating a piece of gluten free toast covered in jam as a last hoorah to sugar.) I'll pack some ginseng tea (the only non caffeine tea I actually enjoy over the long haul) and a block of 85% dark chocolate so that if push comes to shove, I'll have something to fall back on. Still, it's a change and a challenge.

Unless the single room comes through, and I suspect they are just playing me along, I'll be sleeping in a room with other people.  For someone who needs private time every single day this is going to be perhaps my greatest challenge, acting like I am enjoying their company in my private space.

The programme itself has its special requirements - up for a 7 am first meditation of the day before breakfast. And, it goes on and on from there. I believe that discussions ensue after dinner that last until about 9.50 pm - 9.30 pm officially, but I'm told that people often can't pull themselves away. For a girl that always has an exit plan out of social occasions - 'I really must get home to the dog and feed her' - it's all quite,quite challenging.

Still, I'm excited! There is no doubt about it. When I discovered the world of D/s and submitting to the will of another, I could not have been more excited. Well, look at that, mid way into my life I had discovered the key to Pandora's Box, a host of fun and thrills; something so very much more exciting than parties or cocktail parties or the usual fun of reality as it had been presented to me.

Then, over time, the spiritual side of life called me. It was a brilliant discovery to learn that I had control over my own mind whenever I wanted. I learnt that I could turn a negative thought into a positive thought; that gratitude, positivity and an increase in empathic responses - a recognition that we are all connected regardless of religion, race or gender - made a significant difference to the quality of my life and those who shared my life. I found myself, mostly, able to notice my thoughts and to understand what may have triggered a feeling of rejection or abandonment. I learnt to see feelings as not mine - my soul -  but rather that feelings would come and go. Only the quiet and stillness within me remained constant. My favourite thought right now is this - that when the soul and the mind are at one, then there is happiness and peace. It's so very true.

Of course, it would be absurd to suggest that I have an A+ in all of this new material. I get anxious. I worry. I can stress out.  I can fear. I'm with Brene Brown  and those folks that connect fear to all negative emotions. Addiction is fear. Overeating is fear. Anxiety is fear. I am still a person who fears some of the time. Hence, the meditation retreat. I want to go further on this quest for personal knowledge.

In the D/s side of my life, I discovered that certain strategies enhance my life; free me from the everyday world which can sometimes get me down. It will be interesting to see if any questions are asked at the airport about the nipple tags and the heavy plug that are both important parts of my person and must make the journey with me. Certain things in life became as integral to my day as brushing my teeth or eating a meal - a meditation cushion, yoga stretches, pluggiz. These are permanent changes just as I aim for a calm mindset, for a non-anxious mind to be a permanent change. Coming back a little thinner is a given. Hopefully, I will also be so serene, I'll shine.

Moving away from loneliness

Loneliness is a concept I am often mulling over, in one shape or another. I'm currently read Olivia Laing's The Lonely City and am reminded that loneliness is an experience that we all share at certain moments, and not necessarily when we are alone. Sex is important to us because it can, for those moments, bridge the divide between us. Laing writes, 'That's the dream of sex, isn't it? That you will be liberated from the prison of the body by the body itself, at long last desired, its strange tongue understood.'

Her comment made me put the book down and stare into the abyss. Perhaps this is what had happened to me. It's not enough for me to be in close touch to my husband, side by side in bed, or him stroking me softly, or even making love to me in a tender way. Bit by bit, without feeling some force, I can start to feel my psyche break down. This break down of psyche oozes out; a change in tone; a comment lacking complete respect. He picks me up on it. He makes it clear, a very stern rebuke, that I have gone too far. And, when I am being chided in this way for feeling alone in my body, even though he doesn't know that, I can't apologize, which only makes the matter far, far worse.

On Saturday morning, I broke down. I mean I really felt that I was losing my mind. I certainly didn't look myself. 'I feel mad' I said to him, and I meant that I felt that my brain had lost its power to function in a normal way. 'I hate to see you this way,' he said to me, and we made up, but the energy remained fairly low until late in the afternoon, he took me into the bedroom, tore off my clothes except for my socks and walking shoes (I was in walking clothes) which I rather liked. He spanked me, hard, such that I couldn't catch my breath. I can't remember everything but he kept talking to me, roughly, had me on my fours, fucked me from behind...and I found myself waiting for some alteration of mood...didn't know which way it would go...until he finally released me...and I realized I had been healed, much as a person with a chronic mental health condition is immediately freed of distress by shock therapy. Evidently, my body needs  to feel force for my mind to be relaxed and at peace; no longer lonely. It is what it is.

On Monday, I watched the second Presidential debate and noticed that I was feeling sick. There was something about the spectacle of Trump acting in such undignified ways that upset me right down to my stomach. It signalled the end of civility in some way, that he could act in this way and that millions of people living in the West could think that's okay. And then, right away, I had to leave for an appointment with my son and he told me something that was a shock, a situation that required my instant input. It's rectified now but for 24 hours the two of us were troubled by it. The world, my world, it felt, can change in an instant.

And then a friend called, someone who has been living overseas and now returned, was looking for a chat, and it occurred to me in the midst of that conversation in which I was fully involved, that I felt desperately lonely. This woman who I have known for 50+ years knows so very little of me. Such 'friendships' are lonely places really.

I remember saying to my husband in the midst of my despair on Saturday morning, 'Do you think a gay person or a kinky person asks for this? Do you think we put in an order and request to be different?' I am different, different to the people around me. But, then we all are, as a matter of fact. We are all on our own islands and the business of living is to find the bridge over to another person; to relate, to connect, to love completely and to accept unconditionally. It is, perhaps, why the Donald made me ill. Such politics as his can only separate us further and it's the reason why, ultimately, he has been rejected. We very much want to find those bridges to others and away from the loneliness of our own bodies and minds.

Loving, differently

Since I have had my nipples pierced it has occurred to me that my cravings for a sense of containment and of belonging relate to a physical need. If I have enough physical sensations I am automatically satisfied and satiated. That is, I can't establish adequate satisfying feelings from any particular thought alone. A positive thought begets more positive thoughts. I can manifest the thought that I do, in fact, belong, and that's a good thought. However, there is no positive thought that means that I can overcome a lack of physical sensation. The physicality is confirmation of the ownership that I feel on my skin or in my body.

But, even the above statements are 'thoughts' or 'ideas' that require some logic or explanation that goes beyond, intellectualizes, an innate and natural sense of things to which most women of a submissive mindset would relate. It's not unheard of for some very submissively inclined women to reject spankings, pain/pleasure applied to the skin, but so many of them, as far as I can tell, love/hate the physical force of a spanking, given simply because they exist or because it is a form of correction, or both.

It's not just that the event relates to the agreement between the two of you, important as that is. It's that there is something about working one's way through a spanking, the challenge of it, that induces some sort of happy hormone to flood the mind of a submissively inclined person. It's as if the body needs to get out of its comfort zone and feel a little pain. It is as if a submissive's mind and body needs pain to be felt on the skin, not just for the reminder of being alive, but to suck the juice out of life; to feel buoyant and energized.

I have to think that only a natural Dominant really understands this. To the mainstream person, pain is pain and to be avoided. I don't like pain any more than the next person, the stubbing of a toe, or a pain in the gut. Yet, the laying on of pain in a spanking, carefully managed to take me up to my pain tolerance and then a good bit beyond it, is a gift; a rare gift; too rare.

I think this is where non-kinky men with kinky wives may lose their way because to ignore or avoid their woman's craving for receiving pain is to avoid giving them the gift of pain; the gift of effervescence; of feeling at peace within themselves. There's a sizzle in the air between two people, one who wants to give pain, and one who wants/craves to receive it. Whatever challenges lie within the process, there's a sense of accomplishment and 'flying' that can't be got in any other way. I remember once being left with the feeling that I was in love with the whole world after a spanking. I wouldn't trade those feelings and sensations for anything. There's an exchange of energy worth gold to both individuals and the union of those individuals.

I know, I don't just think but I know that I would have been well matched with a man who had a kinky, dominant and sadistic mindset. The proviso is that I would have needed to know that he adored me and would protect me to the ends of this earth. Given that situation, I would have accompanied him through life providing for his demands. I would not have been with a man who wasn't somewhat patient with me, but I feel in my bones that I would have accommodated his requests, feeding me as he would his own desires such that they became my own.

Of course, I am talking about the perfect Dominant; smart, patient, sensible, challenging. Someone who enjoyed the long game; someone strict and sure of himself; someone in whom I could melt and feel safe and assured. Imagine the utter thrill of having a sensual and sexual guide through your life; thinking, planning and scheming for your mutual kinky thrills! It's the stuff of dreams. Well, my dreams, anyway.

Of course, it has long and often been chronicled here that I met my husband, whom I love very much, long before I admitted to myself and to him just how kinky I really was. I can't expect him to lead me into the land of kink when it is not the land of his dreams and thoughts. But, even if the gift of pain is a rare gift, we all get gifts sometimes and often they are well researched.  A man wouldn't buy his woman a diamond ring without gathering some information and the gift of pain is no different. Anyone can perform a spanking once the procedure has been researched, just as one researches the best way to fix a tap or to build a deck. If you want to know how to do anything, the information is there. It is hardly an impossibility for any person. But, there must be intention and commitment; an understanding of the importance of the thing.

It has been proven countless times that I like to feel some force behind the words and/or actions of the Other. I want to be surprised/overcome/not provided with a way out. I want to feel the commitment of the other, their intention; their power in the relationship; their authority. That is all it takes. From there, there are no mistakes. Who is the leader of the pack? Who calls the shots? Who has deemed it the right time to receive pain, to have my nipples pierced, my cunt pierced; a tattoo? Well, the person who loves me the most, of course. Thy will be done. When the love and the commitment are there, I don't see much to stand in the way, just as one moves country for love, or has another child for love, or forgives and forgets for love.

The one disappointment to me in being alive at this time is that I don't think that future generations will have the barriers to get through that women like me have now, and have had in the past. People now confidently explain they are gay or transgender. They cross-dress and state it. They are proud of who they are, and yet, non-kinky people can still struggle so earnestly and profoundly with the notion that their needs and desires are 'weird'. But, to love in a kinky way is still to love;  to love differently.

Of course, we all need to be our authentic selves. I respect that. Still, I live in hope that people born and brought up to be conservative in disposition can come to understand that people like me can be accommodated without breaking any laws of nature. I want to be loved like any woman, just differently.