Calm

 There's the obvious ebb and flow of the four seasons that make up a year, maybe the ebb and flow of an academic year. There's the ebb and flow of the work week and the weekend, depending on your work schedule, and, of course, the ebb and flow of the daytime hours and the nighttime hours. 

Unless we pay attention, we take these changes for granted, unless you've trained yourself to notice, perhaps, that time of day when you make yourself a cup of coffee, or when you notice the sun start to be lower in the sky, or when it is getting dark, and you turn on a salt lamp.

 It's like someone actually making a note on a piece of paper to remember something, except this time, it's a mental note such as 'we are moving towards evening'. I think of it as being in sync with the Universe.

In a similar way, you might notice the ebb and flow of your energy levels; when you feel energized to complete tasks and when you need to rest. You might notice that having sat for a long period, you have a desperate desire to move your body. We aren't exactly dictating these things but rather we are noticing what is going on with us.

I noticed this morning, consciously noted, that my brain was different. I don't mean that something changed overnight, as I am sure it did not. I have half consciously noted a difference for a few weeks, perhaps, a rapidly rising difference that seems to be developing into a trait; that is, not a state, but a trait.

Various psychologists and spiritual leaders will talk about practicing states until they become traits. The example I like best is Ian Gawler who likes to say when asked how long one should meditate: Meditate until you no longer need to meditate.  That is to say, we can practice in the qualities of a state until it simply is a trait; part of us; a permanent change, so to speak.

For years I was aware I found my situation at home frustrating. I would attempt discussion about something only to find myself being closed down; I would hear an automatic rejection of what I was saying simply because I was saying it. It wasn't about everything, but it was often about something that my husband felt could be construed as his domain, a man's domain.

I came to feel that discussion was potentially dangerous and would make me feel worse rather than better. Discussion became something I avoided if I thought this would happen.

I think what happened to change the situation was the clearing out of his trauma, or a lot of it because once that happened, we had a chance to effect change.

Still, change was not going to happen without the trait of calm in me. I knew this down to my bones. I could lay it all out, but the reasons why don't really matter. 

I am aware I still experience frustration. For one thing, it had become part of my default network, a bit akin to breathing. I in no way experience only the feel-good emotions.

And yet, now I experience an emotion such as frustration as something in the background, not the foreground. This is the same as experiencing thoughts and emotions in meditation as in the background, not the foreground. Let's say, you see the balloon filled with frustration, but you can't keep hold of the string and it just floats away.

That's awfully strange, I think to myself, how come the balloon just blew away?

My husband is calmer. This helps me to be calm, for sure, but he is far from always calm, and I am nearly always calm now. 

I ponder, is this what they call 'Acceptance'? I think of a variety of people with a variety of personality differences, some wonderful and some not, and no matter who I think about, I think, 'this is what it is'. It's this mind-blowing trait wherein I feel so calm nearly all the time that I find myself thinking of the story of Eckhart Tolle where a former housemate said it was like living with someone in flotation gear.

To be clear, I am not just hanging around meditating. I move from mental to physical tasks and back again with relative ease, profoundly aware of what I have control over and what is completely outside of my control. It's all good. This is fine.

I go through periods where I am sometimes ravenously sexually hungry and then find it moves to something else eventually.  I have come to accept that what floats my boat is something over which I appear to have no control, until I do. I've learned a lot, and my mind discriminates well now. I understand these little nods to my natural persuasions; the biology of it. It is what it is.

There's a man on the streets of NYC who asks people of a certain age what it's like to be 52, or 66 or 79? They come up with amazing answers on the spot all of which relate to feeling more themselves now.

That's part of it, for sure. But I think it truly is this phenomenon of which Rick Hanson, Californian psychologist, talks; that when we practice certain desired states for long enough, they transform into traits. The brain changes, wires fire; transform.

Oddly, oh so oddly, boundaries are suddenly something that make so much sense. One still aims to please people but it's not the preoccupation it was before. One just feels so comfortable in this set of clothes; this skin.

I'm slightly terrified to write this. Will it change tomorrow? Have I jinxed it by writing these words here? I don't think so. I have worked hard at this for a good decade. It's a sense of peace well-earned and I pat myself on the back.

The Four Questions

 I have circled back several times to the work of Byron Katie. It's such a simple remedy she offers for the thoughts in our heads that often hold us back from experiencing satisfaction with our lives. Although I could see the value in it, my instincts told me to go to other places - more or less, to felt states. It seemed the right place for me since I was acutely aware that I wasn't in touch with my feelings. I printed out a few years ago a list of feelings, trying to get in touch with those states, to identify and be willing to feel them all. I credit yoga and particularly yin yoga with the great results achieved.

To explain, a few times in a typical day I ask myself the question, 'How are you feeling?'. I feel into my body for the answer and accept whatever comes up. For example, my mother is currently in palliative care. She almost passed away last week, but rallied again, and now she is offered her medication but doesn't necessarily take it, and she is offered food but doesn't necessarily eat it. She is made comfortable and left to sleep whenever she wants to. I sit beside her, and sometimes she wakes and we chat, or after a time I quietly leave her be. 

So, I ask myself 'how are you feeling about all this?' I feel that she would say, if she had the mental capacity to sum up her life on what will be her deathbed, 'I have had a great life, filled with love and fun; with dogs and plants and grandchildren. I regret nothing.' So, yes, I feel sad at saying a silent goodbye to her, but I also feel that there is so little life left, I hope that she can soon let go.

I feel some regret for her that even though she is suffering advanced dementia, she knows things. She knows my brother is gone and won't be back. She mumbles about how she can't understand that he is so far away. I feel sorry I can't change this situation for her. I feel aware of my limitations to make life sweet for those I love. I'm aware that she has been inclined to be self-centered and my brother finds that tough. I am aware that I prefer not to focus on the flaws and instead look to see the strengths. She's been remarkably strong, resilient and kind. She's a whole person. She will die as she lived, with an abundance of strengths and weaknesses. She's human.

In this waiting pattern, the never-ending journeys up and down the highway, the understanding I have that I must begin to think ahead to a funeral service, I call on patience and sit in that space of being in between - alive and noting moments of life more intensely. My mother is dying, her dog almost died at the same moment she did last week, and there is a poignancy to the details of a day. Is it the last time I bring in the dog to visit my mother? Is it the last time we exchange a smile? 

I feel particularly dismayed about the Bondi shootings, a place I have gone with my grandson, my son, my husband. How quickly life is expunged with a knife wielding person in the crowd. Our sense of safety as Australians is currently shattered. I acknowledge the sadness. The trick is to acknowledge it all, in order to allow it to move into something else.

This whole journal, at its core, has been about expressing a part of me that is not fully expressed, and can't be fully expressed in my life.  I have experienced a lot of emotions around this - frustration, sadness, anger, disappointment; maybe even some relief that I am being saved from myself. That's a thought that has sat there for decades. I know that if left to my own devices I would slide down the slippery slope of submission, further than it may be healthy to go. I strongly believe that we have a variety of selves inside us. So, there's the part that wants to glide, to not think, and there's the part that loves to think, to research, to ponder, to discuss, and to learn. It just could be that that part needs more expression, not less. I am open to inquiry, to the mystery; the unknown. 

Okay, so here's the thought on which to do The Work as devised by Byron Katie.

'My life is not complete because I cannot wholly express my submissive side.'

Q. 1 Is it true. 

Yes, I believe that to be true.

Q.2 Can you absolutely know it's true?

No. I can't absolutely know it's true. I may not like wholly expressing my submission. Maybe it would be giving up too much of other parts of myself. Maybe I can find completion in some other way. Maybe my life is already complete.

Q. 3 How do you react - what happens - when you believe that thought?

I feel self-pity. I feel stymied. I feel frustrated that I can't get cooperation. I feel closed down and sad.

Q. 4 Who would you be without that thought?

I would be free of unfulfilled expectation. I would be free of 'shoulds'. I would be open, and open to new possibilities. I would be healed. 

Turn the statement around...

My life is complete even though I cannot fully express my submissive side.

I can fully express my submissive side.

My life is complete because I can wholly express my submissive side.

For Byron Katie, the task is to get to the statement, 'I have everything I need here right now.'

Is it possible that making too much of this part of us - and it is just a part - be that submissive or dominant - is actually hiding from clear view...contentedness??

DD versus D/s

 I happened to see on Instagram a post that said, 'These are the three words that saved my marriage' (and it's not I love you'). I was sufficiently curious and went to the link to discover that the three words were 'You do you.'

There's merit to this approach. Maybe especially in the D/s space there's a strong chance you are partnered with someone the opposite of you in so many ways. So, to be understanding, maybe even celebratory about the differences is a good thing. It doesn't take much thought to realize that if you have a submissive bent and your partner does too, that's not the dynamic you're looking for. 

A certain amount of frustration, to put it mildly, is going to ensue about these differences, however, it has to be said. Great to have an understanding of the other's quirks and areas of paramount difference to your own, but not so great when those differences impact your life adversely.

I was on a hunt for something a bit different to roll around in my mind and came across this DD, or is it CDD, site where there was an enormous emphasis on training a wife to be neat and tidy, competent, responsible, to do the household chores. Men were on there, and the wives too, talking about laundry, or not doing the laundry. There was talk about being lazy and forgetting to charge the mobile phone before one went out with the children.

This was like reading about people so different to me, I really couldn't relate. I have always been the one to do all the laundry, even long before we married. No-one, and I mean no-one could ever call me lazy. I am, nearly all the time, in constant motion, doing things and achieving tasks. Honestly, I am the one trying to motivate anyone who might help me to achieve all these goals I have in my head.

There are little things brought to my attention. My children will say I have kept too much of their art projects, but when I try to throw them out, they have second thoughts. My desk doesn't always look like that of an anal retentive, but it's not bad either. I regularly discard what's not needed. I am somewhere between a houseproud person and a tiny bit messy, depending on the day and the time of day. Put it this way. My husband isn't complaining, unless I try to make steps to work on his study which is absolutely his 'den (of too much stuff)'.

So, these DD sites (well one in particular) was both a massive turn on for me and at the same, somewhat ridiculous, in my mind.

These husbands weren't into spanking as a turn on. Not. At. All. This was about training, discipline; results; outcomes. There was talk about a wife being ready to submit to her husband on a moment's whim, regardless of exhaustion and so on, but there was next to no talk about play, per se. This was business. This was the man taking his responsibility seriously, to guide his wayward wife in the right direction by ensuring she had all the necessary corporal discipline to train her to be the best wife.

I had a very brief exchange sort of lately with the hypnotist wherein he mentioned a self-discipline contract. I had to look this up and indeed it's a thing. You decide on your goal, commit to it in writing, sign it, and give yourself some consequences, if you err. He emphasized that he wasn't prescribing this for me and he definitely didn't want me self-punishing. Honestly, I just mulled the whole thing.

The DD blogs suggest to me at least, that a woman, a wife, needs her husband's guidance to ensure that she is suitably disciplined by him such that she is a good wife; that she is not capable of doing this for herself. They suggest that there is a right way to do things, and this right way is known by him, not her. But with the right guidance, he can teach her, instill a bit of fear of doing the wrong thing basically, and Bob's your Uncle, you've got the wife of your dreams.

There's some implication that women are addle headed, incompetent, lazy, that really irks me. I hope you got that long before I wrote that sentence. And I am not saying that this approach, done in a lighter way, wouldn't work with some women. The harshness written about there worked with the women commenting. They rarely complained in an overwhelming way. They had been 'trained' not to complain. If I get a spanking, the result is I feel softer. I don't complain either. There's a bit of mystery around this.

Having said that, I am at peace with a man saying to his wife, a wife that wants a power exchange with her man, 'I don't want you doing things this way, I want you to do them that way.' That way may just be his obsessive compulsive nature showing through, but nonetheless, if a woman wants that dynamic, I think it's perfectly all right to submit to his wants and desires. I say this assuming it is understood that the man and woman are equals (or whatever the make up of the couple), equally capable of running their own lives but don't necessarily want to.

I've been mulling the DD space and the D/s space, thinking about what makes it different and what makes it the same. In D/s and DD the man is expecting, demanding, respect, as in the D/s space, but in DD it feels to me that there is less respect for the woman/wife. In D/s you submit because you want to, because that arouses something deep in your core, your soul. You may have all the degrees, the big career, the prestige, the wealth, not to submit, and yet you do, because it just makes senses to your inner being and to your sexuality. Not once in all the dozens of comments I read by women on that site did even one talk about how aroused it all made her. Maybe she thought it was wrong to admit to it. I simply do not know.

In my own marriage, things were not going well at all at the same time as the hypnotist and I met one another, via his podcast. He assured me he could sort things out. It was sort of hit and miss for a time, but he was right. A lot came right, came back on line, once we both started treating one another respectfully and in a D/s sort of way.

How did that happen? Well, he cleared my husband of a lot of pent up negative emotions. He led me deeper into what we call my slave mentality. He got us having intense sex again. It wasn't DD doctrine but rather making both people responsible for the sexual dynamic. It was very much about me developing boundaries. I didn't see any evidence of the DD wives having boundaries. That's another difference I noted. In one case, a woman wrote in who was clearly being abused, and there was no suggestion for her to start creating boundaries about what she would not tolerate. There was no talk about being two independent people and creating interdependence; none that I could see.

I think too the hypnotist encouraged my husband to give me autonomy, to delegate if you like, tasks to me. This was a log jam for us that needed to be cleared. I am someone who needs to achieve progress. Hold me back and I am going to experience extreme frustration.

I am not here to say that spanking isn't effective, or can be effective, to achieve necessary changes. There's a certain necessary humility in a D/s power exchange that's part of the deal, and a spanking can achieve that humility. I know I feel more myself when I am bossed around, in whatever capacity. If you want to tap into that slave mindset that sits there, like an itch that needs to be scratched, spanking can do it.

But, on this DD website I was reading, it's such a go-to that it seems bordering on something else. I don't know. It just seemed...excessive...brainwashing, and not in a good way.

It's not entirely black and white here. The hypnotist, a long-time player in the M/s space believes passionately that there are far too many 'good guys' and he is not alone. He's not a punisher though, not these days, but rather doesn't reward. He's seen too many broken men to not want to encourage the masculinity of a man and the femininity of a woman.

I argue that submission is a wiring thing. You can bring it out in someone whose submission is latent or unexpressed, but I don't think you can make a woman who has no interest in a power dynamic suddenly become submissive. You can encourage mutual respect, respectful and useful communication models, ways of sorting through conflict. There has to be deep deep trust before you can go further into a marriage structure that encompasses a power exchange.

My fantasy world swims in an intense dynamic and my mind tries it all on; everything. There is a saying: 'Take the best and leave the rest'. I try on intensity; all these harsh spankings for not getting the laundry done, for example, and then I let the thought go. The hypnotist suggested that if I needed to feel the control more, I devise a nonsense rule that made it clear I wanted to feel the power, so to speak. It could be laundry, I guess. It could also be...hmmm...(I've had such trouble figuring something...) not making dinner. THAT would get his attention. I'm not sure I would use it more than once. Maybe not turning down the bed. It's a rule and he would notice if I stopped doing it. I think he'd realize I needed to feel it.

I truly like the idea of containment, of expectations, of feeling into myself in this way, but DD does not sound fun. It doesn't sound fluid, flirty or fun. It doesn't sound like it's loaded with pleasure (a word that I think is a loaded trigger...). By God, though, horses couldn't have dragged me away from reading there for quite a few days.