Emotions

There's Irish blood and Welsh blood running through my veins and I credit it for my sense of humor and as well, for those days when I feel a bit brooding. It's definitely not unhappiness that I experience but rather I know that it's going to be a rather quiet sort of day; where I take a little time to be by myself and to just let my emotions settle into their rightful place, before I can offer my self to the world.

As I sit here, trying to do my very final piece of work in one academic subject (with mixed feelings about that too) my mind is wandering over numerous works of literature ranging from Soul Mountain to Angela's Ashes to Brooklyn and To Kill a Mockingbird. There's no requirement that I compare these novels but it does occur to me that within these novels there are plenty of examples of contained emotions.

I think my mind has focused in on this thought because I feel like my emotions are now contained. It seems to be what people want of me. I'm highly functional. I'm pleasant to be around. I'm upbeat and chirpy. I don't complain. I am polite and I give people what they want. I ask little of anyone. I have trained myself not to have expectations. I recognize that I can't control anyone. Although I recognize I may be able to influence them positively, I do no more than that.

If I am sad, or if I have a worry, I take myself away to deal with that emotion. I may meditate a while or do some little thing that I know will have a positive effect on that emotion. I may walk with the dogs, or listen to uplifting music to heal my troubled or restless thoughts.

I can't remember the last time I took a concern to another human being and asked for help; well not help exactly, but just worked on the basis that they'd listen to me. I might mention a little trouble to a female friend but always on the basis that I knew what I was doing. I had it under control; no big deal.

If I'm really desperate to be heard, one human being to another, I mention my concern to my mother but I have to be desperate. She's an old lady now really and my worries become her worries so it isn't fair for her to think that life for me is anything but one jolly big party.

I've come to recognize lately that we all need to be heard. We need to hear other people talk about their emotions, positive and negative. I think I come off as not having any worries because people bring their concerns to me but don't seem to think that I have any of my own. Which is true really, in a fashion. The children are all in good order and I am happy within myself. I have been remarkably happy lately.

Except, that I am troubled about this restraining of my emotions. It doesn't seem healthy. It doesn't seem to occur to my husband, for example, to wonder if there is anything happening below the surface. Can she really be so settled, so happy, so strong, resourceful and resilient all the time? Is that really her?

In the past few days I've been so missing my Dad. Prone to high emotion himself he was someone I could talk to and rely upon. The last time we talked was on the phone. By then, he was in a hospice and I rang him, desperately needing to hear his voice. He was in his own fantasy land. He was staying in a very nice hotel and the girls there were looking after him very well. I played along. Eventually, he told me he needed to go. One of the girls was there needing to do something. I told him I loved him and I said goodbye. I held onto the phone. I just knew I would never hear his voice again and I couldn't put down the receiver.

Then I heard his voice again, fainter this time.

"That was my daughter calling from America."

He had known it was me. Knowing that meant so much to me.

It is desperately sad for a daughter to lose her father, No-one ever loves you the way your Dad loves you. No one ever really wants to listens to your troubles ever again. It has been my experience that it pays to be stoic; to be strong; eternally happy around even those that love me.

At the completion of her novel Lee Harper writes,

"His (Atticus) hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, rucking it around me."

"Most people are (real nice), Scout, when you finally see them."

He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."

When I think of my Dad I think of the flowers he would bring me when I was very ill in hospital. I think of him breaking into tears at the hospital to see me so unwell and I think of how quietly and calmly he went about calling the doctor when I told him the next morning after flying out to see my parents that I needed to go straight to the hospital because my condition had returned.

I remember him telling me, when he found me crying about a boy, that he was no good anyway and there were plenty of fish in the sea, and I remember him telling me one day that he wanted to buy me a dress and going and choosing a dress with him. Mostly, I remember that he was there for me and that he loved me very deeply.

There are days when I wonder how I came to be the age I am and how it came to be that I needed to be so strong that my tears are not for anyone else to see.

Resilience

I think one of the issues that I return to over and over again in my writing is this notion that a woman (or man) can have a submissive nature, however that doesn't mean that she doesn't need to be strong. There is just overwhelming evidence, in my opinion, that a woman will need, at least once in her life to go through a situation where she will have to dig deep to find inner resources to pull her through.

Rich (an Internet friend) once said to me that the Dominant is really an illusion; that it is really just magic. A man can't necessarily protect a woman in every situation. He's right. Life throws up issues and no matter what one's nature, they have to be dealt with.

I've made no secret that I haven't always been as strong as I am now. I know what it is to experience post-natal depression and a depression a year or more ago now had me seeking out psychological expertise; something that I never expected to happen. Frankly, that took all my courage, but in my case there was an alarm bell that dinged within me; that told me that I couldn't cope any more on my own.

I sometimes wonder if, in fact, everything does have a reason and everything does have a rhyme because the inner strength that is now being called upon wouldn't be there to call upon if I hadn't been trained psychologically to cope. The condition that my husband is experiencing has no easy answers and I anticipate that we are going to be going through a low period for quite some time. There's no official name as yet, that I have been told, but I feel confident in saying that it is within the range of chronic fatigue. He's slowed right down and in the main, we're dealing with only the very basics of life; very few actual goals at this stage of the game.

I think we all understand things when we are ready to understand things and you can't necessarily push a person along. I think part of this relates to the brain protecting the psyche. The brain advises the psyche what it is best not to know.

Make no mistake. This is a physical condition. However, I see a pattern. I see that my husband rotates from high functionality (sometimes bordering on mania; a 'high' where he has supreme confidence and positive thoughts that can leave me worrying that he is not seeing things clearly) to periods of time where he doesn't seem at all himself; isn't particularly productive and seems uncertain. Sometimes, there are periods in between where he seems to be coasting; life seems completely under control and he seems neither high nor low. Without a doubt, those 'coasting' times have been the happiest for me. If one thinks of life as a canvass, then this is the background of our lives together; his state of  mind; moods; functionality. Much of the colour that will be painted onto the canvass is determined by that.

What I tried to do was to paint the colors of a power exchange onto the canvass and this provides abundant color and interest; gave the canvass some order and allowed me to let go of worldly concerns in tall order. The exploration of a power exchange opened my mind to spirituality, to getting control of my own emotions; giving me all sorts of skills like tolerance, patience, understanding, control of myself; relinquishing control; feeling happy. It has been wonderful for me, and him.

Yet, I know deep within myself that what we are experiencing is a breakdown of the psyche; the brain and the body have talked to the psyche and insisted that he slow down; that he take a break from the anxiety and a restless state of mind and just recover. Recovery is going to take time because he has abused the body and the brain and they aren't at all happy about it. They have closed down on him and demanded he rest.

Unlike my situation where I asked to go to see a psychologist when I knew I needed help, this is not an option in this particular case and it never will be. My husband rejects all notions that his condition relates to the psyche/brain and considers this a completely physical manifestation. What value could a psychologist be to a physical condition? Perhaps he is right. What is certain is that he will only ever do what he believes is right. I must (and do, with reluctance) accept that.

It helps a lot for him to talk; to talk to me. We spend quite a bit of time in coffee shops. He takes his medical material to read and I take my course work to read and when he wants to talk I put down my reading and listen.

I read that in these cases sometimes the significant other (that would be me) needs to also take a break from life; to simply take time off from his or her life to deal with the recuperation. Certainly, I am struggling with my course workload now  and I won't take on this amount of work again. One subject at a time for me from now on. If I can just get through the next 7 weeks...

This just happens to have befallen us at a time when I have a full household. Not only do three children live at home but there is often my daughter's boyfriend living here and when he is here, the television is usually on. I am writing in the blissful state of the early morning and all I hear is my nails tapping.

However, this is a rarity. I live, these days, amongst noise; amongst the need to provide copious amounts of food; copious amounts of clean laundry. They are blissfully ignorant of my dilemma; of my having the sense at times that I am slowly going mad. I occasionally talk to my eldest son but not too much.. He travels the world constantly and when he comes over, it is such a lovely rare treat that we just hang out and chat. He talks to his Dad quietly and gives him his full attention. He knows things aren't quite right but they no doubt seem under control  from the outside looking in. We're still here. I'm still cooking big family meals. The house still looks orderly and the kids are happily living out their lives.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm still a submissive woman and always have been. He's still a dominant male. But, people have issues and when that happens no body or brain stops to ask - well, are you dominant? Then, you are excused from anxiety; excused from having to take care of your body; excused from any and all conditions. None of us is excused.

I've located a place to meditate twice a week. The people sounded so sweet when I inquired asking me to contact them if there was anything else they could do. I just pay a few dollars to come and join their group when it suits me and that sounds just fine. I'm strong and I'll get by, make no mistake about that, but a little bit of help goes a long way.

What feels best

I am often told that I am "strong". People will say to me "you are a strong woman". I suppose that I have heard it enough now that I have chosen to believe it.

I think it is true that I am a survivor and more than that, someone who can turn around a difficult situation and make it right. I sometimes have an image of quite literally twisting my head around until it looks at a problem or a situation from a new perspective. I guess you could say that I believe that if you only make the effort to look at a situation with a fresh perspective, the solution is in there somewhere. If all else fails, well then I simply "choose" to be happy. Being sad can be so boring for me and I simply say something to myself along the lines, "Look, it is not that bad. It is actually fine. You are okay." The positive thought just kick starts me and off I go.

I loathe the thought of being a "victim" and I just don't allow myself those sort of indulgences too often or for too long. You are only a victim if you believe you are a victim and I believe that I have the capacity to rise above that sort of thinking. We all do.

I am incredibly proud of my third child. I don't refer to him often because he is a private person and I feel I should respect that, even here in my very private space. But, I will say that I am extremely proud of him. I applaud his ability to see any set back as just that: a setback. He has had his failures but he has never wallowed in them; always immediately planned to resolve the situation; always gets right back on his bike. I don't know where he got his resilience but if we all had what he has, we'd be in very good shape indeed.

But, having said all that, at the heart of the matter is the fact that I am a very gentle and soft person. When I am hurt or feeling low, I feel it down to my toes. In line with my nature, asking for anything is very, very difficult and that includes support, comfort or consolation. It is the Achilles heel of strength unfortunately: the inability to ask for anything at all; to simply soldier on.

Commonsense tells me that one cannot improve a skill unless one practices it and so it must surely go that  I need practice in asking. I understand this as a rational thought and yet it remains an extraordinarily hard thing for me to do. My thinking goes like this: "If he wanted to talk to me, or if he wanted to spend time with me, or if he wanted to use me, then he would. And, if he doesn't do that thing I want, then that tells me he doesn't want to do it, and if he doesn't want to do it, then that's it.  I don't want him to feel obliged to do it. I'll just sit here in the dark and wait."

Reality bites, too. My reality is making me to do more myself; to rely more on my own nouse and to practise independence and competence. It is the opposite of asking: it is saying, just get on with it!

Recognizing my own competence in more areas is not a bad thing. I enjoy expressing my competence on one level. Yet, deep within me I am aware that what I really want is to feel comfort and support: to express my needs and deepest desires; to be the dum dum dolli much more often than I can. Oh dear, but I want that state - what a hole in my heart there can be at times as I crave for that state of  mind!

Once a doll, always a doll. Create the doll and she lives forever. She needs to express herself and so no matter how strong I am, I am also in need; in need of dominant energy. I cannot ask for that but I can remain hopeful that it will come my way. And, when it does, I can feel so much better than able, so much better than competent, so much better than strong. I can feel completely alive.

Joplin

My eldest son travels constantly and to the far reaches of the Earth - Africa, Mexico, New Guinea - he goes wherever the work takes him. I have learned not to worry about him. He is a particularly sensible and mature young man and anyway, the thought of losing him is too unbearable to contemplate and so I just switch off from any thoughts of danger. He has told me of the odd scrape after the fact but he bears the burden alone whilst in the thick of things.

At short notice he was recently sent back to the United States. For the first time ever he shared with me that he wasn't happy about it. He was to be in the heart of the tornado area. My heart skipped a beat but there was nothing I could do about it and I did my best to switch off.

We have kept in contact by email and so has his house mate via Face book. The room mate contacted me on FB last night to say that my son meet a girl in Kansas City over the weekend and we had a fun conversation about that. His room mate loves to annoy him by talking to me. This morning there was an email from my son telling me that I was "banned" from speaking with the young man. It was all light and frivolous and fun. He was on his way back to the hotel in Joplin and would be in touch soon.

This morning the phone rang and my son spoke to his father. He said that a tornado had hit the town where he was living but he and his travelling companion were all right. They had been in Kansas City but were on their way back to the hotel.

As the day progressed he called again several times. The town had been flattened. They (he and his travelling companion) had walked the streets and were overwhelmed by the devastation. It was only that they had decided to play another round of tennis in Kansas City or else they may well have been downtown Joplin looking for a meal when the tornado hit.

Tonight, I give thanks for the life of my son and my prayers to the city of Joplin who have lost a number of their sons and daughters. My heart is most certainly with you in your darkest hour.

Let there be light

I enjoyed very much reading Haron's excellent post about guilty feelings with regard to embracing one's kinky nature. Long ago I stopped feeling guilty about my kink but I well remember such feelings of guilt. I remember wondering if I should perhaps just return to the way I was; not entirely satisfied with life but at least not having to deal with the guilt. Happily, I pursued understanding myself for all that I am and am delighted to say that guilt about being perverted no longer exists.

It is rather marvellous I must say to read Haron's post having met her so recently and discovering what a delightful and sincere person that she is. Both Haron and Abel surround themselves with the loveliest of people with a similar kink and this morning I found myself thinking that for me, they both represent 'the light'.

The previous statement may make some people reading this giggle for both Haron and Abel can be found role playing most intense (and hot) scenes. If you were to play with them you might find yourself in a old fashioned and sinister reformatory at the turn of the century, punished for the slightest act of disobedience. But, when the scene is over, you may also find yourself down at the pub laughing and enjoying the memories of a great time had by all. I am drawn to that kind of light which is partially an explanation of why I so enjoy their company. There are a lot of laughs to be had and I do so enjoy to laugh!

Yet, the truth is that is my exploration of BDSM in the past couple of years has led me to an exploration of the 'dark side'. I had one of the most amazing nights of my life last night. I had a dream that explored that dark side with a great deal of intensity and clarity. I can't go into it yet. It is too recent to talk about but I distinctly remember my shallow breathing as I held my husband incredibly close.

I remember thinking of him as my light; as my beacon of light in a night of much darkness. I needed much more than for him to hold me tight and protect me from the dark forces. I explored his body with my hands. I kissed him passionately and in his stupor he returned the kiss, took off my pristine new white cotton nightgown from London and fucked me until I begged him to stop. In my heart I knew the dark forces were still out there, but I had been comforted by the light; by the man who was always my beacon of light - a force of good.

I now know exactly why I stray over to the dark side. I am confronted by my own nature to explore that which is the opposite to the light. The clarity of thought in my dream state was illuminating. My mind gravitates to something most would find unacceptable. Lord knows I crave tenderness like any other woman. Yet, the exploration of darkness is a part of my psyche that has risen to the surface and I do not shy away from it.

There have been times in my life when I have needed to walk away; to walk away from situations that I considered dark; to walk back into the light. It was a preservation instinct at work; a respect for myself. I do not have a crystal ball but I wonder if I may now have the strength to embrace the darkness of a soul; to walk towards the darkness unafraid in the hope and faith that within or just beyond the darkness, there lies a special kind of light; a light that is rarely seen by the naked eye; a light that I may experience to illuminate my own state of mind and to take me to places that I somehow feel a need to see and experience.

My journey in the past few years has been built on trust. In one element of the journey there is a form of care, but there is little if anything discernible as tender in the darkness. My question to myself is if I have enough of what I need in reserve to trust that within the darkness, just a little further along the lonely tunnel, lies a special light. Millions would say I was a fool but my instincts, beyond all common sense and the fitness of things is to venture further into the dark forest with faith that what lies within is a transformational and divine light. I may come to my senses and discover that life is really quite wonderful enough living completely in the light. Part of me hopes that I do. Certainly, at the time of writing I have no answer.

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!

Approval

It is a great pleasure to be writing the story about Lucille and her experiences at The Training School. There is not much that I enjoy in life more than sitting at the keyboard immersing myself in the lives of characters I have invented. With your indulgence, I am anticipating the story will evolve over a considerable amount of time.

As I write and think about where I want the story to go; what I want to achieve for Lucille and how Nicholas and his employees might achieve that for her, many issues arise for me. In the past day or two I have reflected on the issue of ‘approval’ for we girls, born with a submissive nature.

As a quiet, reflective sort of young girl, I think I could have done with a lot more attention from my father, or an uncle or a grandfather. I remember that I was very sensitive. I didn’t let anyone know about that sensitivity that I can recall, but I took criticism very much to heart and I savoured a compliment.

I remember my mother telling me about a comment made by my Grade 3 teacher. My report was straight As but she said that I was unlikely to achieve that level going forward. I remember being terribly confused. If she had doubts about me, then I presumed that I should have doubts about myself. It kept me working hard, through school and through university and into the next qualification. I had that monkey on my back and I was trying to prove, I think, that her doubts were wrong.

I met a woman a few years ago who went to the same school as my daughter attended and we spoke of the past Headmistress. Apparently, on a particular school day she said to my acquaintance that she would struggle to achieve her goals. She just would not get the marks she needed. The woman told me that this put a fire under her and she committed her working life to proving to the Headmistress that she was wrong about her. She is now a leading pathologist in this large city and when a surgeon needs an urgent and top notch analysis of tissue, he/she has her on call. We girls can be dogged.

A member of my parents’ staff taught me to ride a bike and I remember being very scared, but with his encouragement, his assuring me that I could do it, I did master that bike. And, it felt great! It was a very similar story a few decades later when I learned to ski. I must surely have told that story on the journal. I would never have achieved if not for the one on one, bursting with enthusiasm but rather strict ski instructor who refused to allow me to fail. I think of both men very fondly and it provides me with much evidence that I respond to attention and to a rather stern approach. If he tells me that I can do it, then I can. Lucille is rather like that. She could hide in her shell her whole life if people let her, or, with attention she can shine bright.

Attention, however, is a bit of two edged sword. Attention is a most wondrous thing. It can make you feel that you are walking on air. And as you receive attention, the sort of attention that you have craved your whole life, you find yourself wanting to please. His approval of you basks you in bright, golden light and it is an aphrodisiac; intoxicating and addictive.

But, he does not always approve of you. Sometimes, you are told off, castigated and reprimanded and as incredibly arousing as that can be (this is a very kinky mind talking), it can also be very hurtful. It is a very sad place to be, that doghouse, and I think many submissive girls will climb mountains to be returned to the dominant’s good graces. It can give a girl that push she needs to get on with it and get through her barriers. Or, it can make her retreat – into herself and potentially, away from him.

If she decides to go, it is not because she wishes that. To the contrary, she would adore staying right where she is. But, her sense of self and her sense of identity have been threatened in some way and to protect herself, she feels safest far away.


I have been thinking about this decision; a decision I too have made in the past – to walk away rather than to bear the pain of the disapproval and I offer the reader this thought. A submissive girl puts herself on the line. She offers herself up to the dominant like a tasty and nutritious meal. He can chew on her and savour her and devour her. He can pretty much do whatever he wants with her, to a point.

She will, I believe, do virtually anything he asks of her so long as she feels that he is committed to her. Not necessarily married to her or ‘til death us do part’ committed to her. It may not be a lifelong association, it may not be permanent and it may not be a primary relationship. But, whatever the association, she needs to feel that even when he is disappointed, angry, mad, disapproving or punishing, she is still 'not bad'. Even when he disapproves, he still feels some tenderness towards her. Even when she fails temporarily, she is still fundamentally worth his time and his attention and he remains fond.

When I think back to Michael, who taught me to ride my bike, to the American man who taught me to ski, they transmitted to me a sense that they believed in me. And, I received that message subliminally and that gave me the strength I needed. I felt a sort of fondness. I felt a sort of care. And, that was all I needed to achieve my goals; the goal that they had in fact set for me.

There is no getting around it or over it or under it. A girl has to go through it. She has to find the strength within herself to try – to put herself out there and fly high. And, there is no doubting that men in her life play a very special role. Girls will take the lecture or the disapproval and bounce back up, so long as they feel that they, the very soul and core of them are accepted; never rejected. They need to feel some warmth.

It is an incredibly vulnerable state to be; to recognize the need for approval in oneself. It is not at all an easy place to be and the best advice I can offer the dominant is to dwell on that thought and really consider it. If she struggles, is she perhaps struggling with these feelings that are so very uncomfortable for her? In the hands of the right man armed with knowledge of what makes the submissive woman’s mind tick, there is nothing a submissive woman cannot do.

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.

Precious Vesta

I was having a brief conversation with a friend today when I said something of which he clearly didn’t approve. Instantaneously, he replied, “You are precious, Vesta.” (Well, he used my real name, but you get the idea, no doubt.) I immediately took offense. I’m over it now (almost!) but it set me back, I must say.

It also moved me forward. I sort of, took it in first. I considered it the greatest of disparagements and I was absolutely speechless (or fingerless in this case). I walked out into the garden. It is a day direct from Heaven today and I allowed the mild sun to warm me and the breeze to blow through my hair and onto my tear stained face.

You see, I know he didn’t mean that I was ‘of great worth’. What he meant was that I was showing precious little backbone; ‘excessively delicate’ as the dictionary says. That is what he meant.

And, be damned, he was right! I had got upset about something which is minor in the scheme of things. The sun still shines, the world still spins, my family are all healthy and I am loved. My issue was nothing at all in comparison to the difficulties of so many others. It was upsetting and destabilising, yes, but hardly insurmountable. I have climbed much bigger mountains that this and found rainbows on the other side of the rock, so what was all this fuss about?

Perhaps, I had fallen into the trap of thinking of myself as a submissive woman; needy and well...precious. Well, to hell with that! So, I took myself off for a shower, put on a going out shirt and shirt, did my hair and makeup and I’m ready to stand up like a big girl and be counted; not down for the count at all.I am strong; I am invincible!! Well, with a little help from my “onnir” that is. I never said and never will say that I’m perfect.

So, my friend, I’ve taken your comment on board. I was cross at first, yes. But, know this: it was what got me back on track, too!