The inner voice

 An issue that has come up for us in our union, and one that my husband wants to resolve is that in the power exchange we are creating, he wants whatever he says to be obeyed. This is the normal expectation in power exchange, of course.

A couple of problems have surfaced around the fact that I have a rather strong intuition, or shall we say, self-direction, around how to handle a matter. I don't necessarily see a matter exactly as he does, or how to resolve the matter in the same way he does. 

We also can have a different sense of timing. I may look to get it resolved as soon as possible whereas he may want to reflect on it some more. 

The truth is I might look to do something when he is out because then I can just do it and it's done. Not all problems require consultation or waiting. I have a lot of patience but sometimes I struggle to be patient and just want to get the thing done and sorted. I think the marriage has on the whole, thrived under the agreement that I am the one that just gets a whole lot of things, outside of business matters, done.

I've noticed today, and he has made darn sure I noticed today that this is a very sore point. If he says to do it his way - let's say, wait some more - and my natural tendency to move on with a remedy overtakes me, he is very cross with me. In fact, more than that, he is determined to nip this assertiveness in me in the bud. If he says wait, I am to wait.

He very naturally likes control, generally, but particularly now, of me. Duh.

I was driving in the car earlier today and felt upset about a correction around these matters, at the same time as I thought, 'well, kudos to him, he's drawn a line in the sand. Isn't that what you wanted and asked for?' It's the push/pull of giving up control to another, of living that slave girl mindset which is so arousing to me.

I was with Andre just now, my acupuncturist and he told me that my spleen was not acting perfectly. It could be tiredness from Christmas festivities and planning, of course, he said, but was I going through something at the moment, some sort of rather significant change?

Well, yeah, that could be it; that could account for the lack of energy I have been feeling in the last couple of weeks. You could say giving over your free will to another was a rather significant change.

Don't get me wrong. I love what we are creating, and I am happy he is so engaged with the process. I am just noting there's a strong self-will here within my bones; an inner voice that guides my behaviour and decisions and it isn't going to be easy to quiet that voice entirely. Watch this space.

Power exchange

 Life is so different now. It has entered a very sexual, very orgasmic period. One day I am full of energy, steaming through my work and other days I feel like I could sit and stare all day, trying my hardest to generate some momentum, but still having difficulty. I do a few things, sort through solutions to some problems and then, I'm trying all over again to move further on. 

I think it is the chemicals running through my body; the mind that rarely turns off. I dream eroticism, I think eroticism. All day. Everything else pales into insignificance, but since I do have many responsibilities, I must push against this dreamy state repeatedly. (I am hoping the writing helps.)

This morning my husband asked me if I would like to touch myself while he showered, or would I rather ask permission later in the day. I took the opportunity as it was presented to me and said I would like to do so now. Orgasms came thick and fast, since, I think, it was just an extension of whatever I was dreaming as I was waking up.

I'm not a personal fan of having one's orgasms controlled, but I also felt it wasn't wise to whine about the restriction. I also didn't feel it wise to even think about disobeying the order. In the past, I might have thought about it, but I am changed. It's profound, the change, and although some may be excused for thinking the training done under trance not possible, I am here to tell you that, it works. I am here to tell you that my mind has been tampered with and I wouldn't dream of disobeying. 

'Obedience is pleasure.'

I can give you endless examples of the training in trance applying to my life, how I am during sex, how my mindset is altered. To give a simple example, under trance I was told to say, 'Yes, Sir'. At one point I was told to say, 'Sir, yes, Sir.' This is not a form of address I have barely ever used in my life, and up to that point he was just his first name to me. So, of course, I noted it, complied with the instruction.

In the past few weeks my husband has told me that unless the children are around or there are people that could overhear, he is 'Sir' or 'Onnr'. That's how he writes it in chat and how he wants me to write it in chat. It's so new to me that I often still forget, or just revert back to my default, 'Yes', 'No'. '

'Yes, Sir' he will say, not unkindly, just a reminder of the new world order. 'Yes, Sir' I say.

It's not just that. It's the world I was presented in trance. I obey. I don't even think about disobeying, nor do I plead for mercy. The orgasms last as long as they last, sex lasts as long as it lasts. If my knees are getting stiff, I put up with it. If I'm tiring, I remind myself, it can't last forever. It would feel so wrong to defy the control. There's a glimmer of the old me, enough to consider asking for my preference, but it's quickly discarded. I. have. no. control.

I make the bed with a new sense of service. In a nutshell I feel incredibly owned.

My husband, due to a condition, has had to undergo therapy that means he does not have penile erection. BUT HE SO DOES. The doctors can't quite believe it. Tell them, I said to him, that they don't know about power exchange.

This is an experiment, that has had outstanding results. I give enormous credit to the hypnotist who stuck with us through thick and thin. 

Just before the last session ended, he said to me, 'I could have done this on day one. But, I waited. There is so much more I can teach you.'

I don't doubt it for a minute

Power, or the lack thereof

 I have been doing some listening to and reading the words of Robert Greene. It has prompted some thoughts about seduction and charisma; power; emotional intelligence.

I admit readily I haven't had any great desire for power in my life. To the contrary, I've been happy to live under the wing of someone who aimed for power; way more driven by a desire to be unique and to be successful than I could ever be.

I have wanted stability. To that end, marrying someone with an endless search for self-expression; for the very real possibility of failures and hard times that can be generated by that individual drive for self-expression, hasn't been ideal for me. 

On the positive side, it has generated an intense understanding that I, and no-one else, is responsible for my own sense of stability and overall well-being. This can occur internally, irrespective of outside forces. That's the ideal, of course, for even monks and those that make this sort of thing a lifetime's work can be triggered by words or deeds of others.

My own self-expression, that is, the expression of my submissive nature, in many ways allows me to have stability within my own self, regardless of the ups and downs of the outside world; that is, outside of my Self.

To this end, staying in my lane is a personal choice; very much a choice generated by what I know works for me. Deity said to me several times over his life, 'if you are a bird, then trying to be a cat is a useless exercise'. Well, he didn't use the words cat and bird, but the idea is the same. If you are an introvert, an observer of people, and not craving power, then don't waste your time in pursuit of power. 

Yet, there's still a part of me that isn't (as yet?) prepared to give up thinking my thoughts that are different to my Dominant, or 'trainer'. It's no good telling me the sky is yellow when I know it isn't. Sure, I can use my powers of submission, of emotional intelligence to observe what is going on, and to just note it; to know what I know inside myself and let that be enough. Most of the time that works just fine for me. 

However, it must be said, I have a 'bullshit filter'. I just do. I know when someone is trying to deceive themselves with a self-generated story about what happened that works for them; that tends to the ego. I'm good with that. We're human. It's what we do.

On the other hand, I'm still not ready to accept someone else's version of how things went down if they are not only protecting their own ego but also trying to bring mine down. In some circles, this may be thought of breaking someone. I don't know. It's always seemed an odd thing to want to do.

I've had nearly 50 years of practice in being that person that supported someone in their efforts to have an effect on the world and I did that willingly since I don't share that same desire. No-one needed to compete with me for power since power is not my jam. Giving up power is my jam, my experiment, my erotic state.

Here's the thing. I am happy to cede to the story that your ego and the massaging thereof is more important than mine. It's fine. I don't care. I am happy to explore submission in a high protocol sort of way.

However, in a less than subtle form of manipulation recently it was suggested to me that a true slave has more character than a garden variety submissive because they can give up all desire or ability for any individual thought process and simply go with the decisions of the other; even if they think that they are not right. Please don't take offense at this verbiage. I know when certain traits of mine - wanting to excel - are being used against me to be used for me, if you know what I mean. Just saying.

Hmm, interesting times.

Aspirational Statement

 It's quite lovely the efforts the hypnotist is making re this 'Contract', which we all agree is so poorly named. It's more a statement, an explanation, an Aspirational Statement. Yes, that seems the best description.

I decided on my 'Dealbreaker'. The hypnotist assures me it is likely, when Trust is 150% assured, that we are likely to want to have secondary partners, to get more experimental; for the Control to extend to such scenarios of which I can only imagine, although D describes them luridly while I just quietly chuckle. (There's just so way!) I assure him this won't happen, and he assures me that that's what they all say, and yet 70% of clients change their minds.

With this in mind my Dealbreaker would be if I ever became secondary to my husband; if someone else was more desirable than me; if he loved someone more than he loved me. 

I say this because it is my strongest feeling of what I want in my life - abiding love and desire - and what I don't want - heartache - but also because I have been reading the blog of a Slave who was under the misapprehension for several years that her Owner desired other women, loved other women, more than he loved her. Before he died, he was able to assure her she always came first in his heart, but still she lived with that heartache for several years, and I definitely want no part of that scenario.

The hypnotist's strongest advice is to write down 'preferences' and not 'Rules', but my husband is disagreeing at this point. D believes that if it is a Rule, there's a punishment, each and every time for the breaking of a rule, for the rest of our lives. Hence, call them preferences, and then he make an assessment that has more flexibility, more give and take. They are working it out.

I have made a lot more suggestions - plenty of them now and they will be written down for appraisal and potential adjustment. We have committed, that is, given our pledge of honor, to D/s forever, so it has to be right. It has to signify our aspirations just so. It has to be a thing of beauty; a thing we build together.

Our relationship already feels a 1000% better than anything that ever went before it. I feel so much more myself and he does too. It's feeling quite quite wonderful. It goes like this - no matter in which era I live - in ancient times or in modern times - I am living out my nature, my true and authentic self - and growing. I am growing as a woman and that feels right.

Contract awaits

 I await the Contract. No, it's not a legal contract and no lawyers are involved. Nevertheless, it seems like a lot of thought is going into the document, in spite of the fact that various iterations are expected to get it just right.

I made a small contribution. I was asked if I had any requests or ideas, and I made a note of them. I wanted to express what I saw as my role and the characteristics that make up that role in my mind. I wanted to express what I saw as his role. It's what the hypnotist refers to as the Keystone statement. 

I didn't have any deal breakers since we've been together quite long enough, I would say (48 years!), to trust that nothing is going to be a dealbreaker at this stage of the game.

I mentioned, very broadly, maybe there's a few things I could have at my disposal to key him in to me wanting attention without breaking the tenor of the Contract...

Maybe there's a list of 'go to' activities that he can know are welcome. Maybe not. I think they think that's not the way to go; maybe, apart from the obvious no-go zones, everything is a green sign. 

I thought a nighttime ritual would be cool, and the hynotist responded to that with an idea I like very much.

In other words, it's all up in the air, and it's kind of like some old show I used to watch where the owners of the house leave and the designers come in and make over your house. 

Not quite. It's a sort of a negotiation. I think.

Most of the time I can be patient about this, like a girl awaiting a proposal of marriage, maybe. You sort of know it will happen sometime soon, but you can't be sure. Is it tonight, or in three months? So, you just sort of await the other in some sort of suspended animation.

Half a week ago the hypnotist and I had a brief chat around the Contract, extending out the conversation to traverse the relationship that would result from it. I happened to mention that my submissive appetite was waaaaaay up and he said something rather surprising to me.

He said that a passionate force (me, I guess) required a strong hand, clear boundaries and high standards.

 I interpreted this as strictness, maybe because I was wayward. I tend to think that this sort of statement is directed towards someone who needs to be kept in her lane. David, my friend who died some years ago and was sort of like a father to me, said to me that he kept me in my lane, but that there were bumpers on the lane. So, I rolled like a ball from the left to the right but stayed in my lane. Never forgot that. I felt it was said endearingly.

No, no, no, the hypnotist assured me. It was not a derisive comment at all. His explanation is really worth reading carefully.

He said that there are three motivations for a person to want to express his or her submission. It could be devotional (love), positional (a desire to do things well) or transactional. I tended towards 40% for the first two and 20% for the third.  (He may have said 50% for the first two and zero for the last category. I know my husband thinks there is a negotiation side of me.) I remembered as he explained this that I knew this material from a podcast of his and we had even briefly discussed it months ago when we were first getting to know each other.

He made me an audio message and said that I was a person who wanted to do things well, that that mattered to me and so to "win" at my submission I needed a 'strong hand, clear boundaries and high standards'.

When he put it like that it was far more palatable. I didn't need to feel like I was 'bad' which is an insufferable thought or feeling for me. He was committed to explaining all this to me because he was not in any way criticizing me. That was comforting.

Since writing the last post and this post I have had wonderful sex and although I have no quarrel with the explanations above, I think really great sex goes an awfully long way to a girl being more than happy to follow the rules as laid out. I may be smiling as I write this, but we both know it's true. 

Climbing the mountain

 The trance that I spoke about recently in the last post was much awaited. The reason for this is that two months earlier, my submissive mindset had been removed. I wouldn't have ever thought this was possible if I hadn't experienced myself. 

I'm not sure that it was intended for me to have such a hard time of it, or so it was said later, but that was certainly the outcome. My mind has been kinky for 60 years, so to suddenly have trouble accessing it, in spite of my best efforts, was discombobulating and confusing.

I don't think the hypnotist cared a dot. I think it was designed that way for a couple of reasons, for my best interests. First of all, he needed to be sure that I was 'independent' enough to go into a permanent D/s style relationship. He wanted me to tend to myself, my needs, my goals, my Self. Secondly, I think when you deprive someone like me of their thoughts that provide succor, you build up an intense demand to have your deepest desires met, to get to the 'just BE submissive' part. I'd offered him access to this blog and of course it wasn't lost on him that I had been evaluating submission. Now it was time to practice it and simply be in that mode.

It didn't always go the way it was expected to go. At one point, I walked away. I wasn't used to someone else deciding such a thing on my behalf or to use such methods.

Anyway, it was a flat tire, the car was still in good working order, and so we resolved that problem with a telephone conversation where I could tell he was using all his persuasive powers to get me back on the road.

 I dilly dallied, and finally said, "....okay..." 

"No, no, you don't have to decide now. Take some time to think about it."

An excellent strategy, I must say. The guy is good. I emailed the next day and said I was ready to go.

In the trance that followed on a few weeks after that conversation, I did identify as a slave. He has written a great deal of material about kink and yet in all that material there was one paragraph that deeply resonated as to my circumstance.

He explains that someone who identifies as a slave has willingly and with full consciousness surrendered their right to say 'no'. It's a bit like owning a car, he says, and then giving it away. She no longer needs a car, doesn't want the car anymore and willingly and with full consciousness gives it away to her partner. First, she needed to own the car before she could give it away.

That's what happened to me. I think. I needed to feel what it was like to be 'just a girl in control of herself' to, with full consciousness, surrender that independence in order to develop interdependence.

He was issuing commands, and I was complying. Nothing seemed difficult about that...until the orgasms were so ongoing, and I was tiring, that, unwittingly, unconsciously, as if I were with my husband and might request mercy, my throat formed one tiny word, 'please'. If it were conscious, I wouldn't even have tried this. I assure you; it was completely unconscious.

'Please what?' he asked, softly, as soft as my 'please'.

I can't remember what I said. Maybe, 'please may I stop?'

His voice became deep and powerful. There's no way I can remember everything that he said but it went something like this.

'How dare you be so disrespectful. Did I tell you to stop? You do as you are told. You'll keep going as long as I tell you to keep going. Don't you dare stop!'

Like that.

Yeah. I had willingly and with full consciousness surrendered the right to say no.

Did it feel right? Did it feel good?

It felt fantastic.

He has a keen sense of when to demand, and when a girl complies satisfactorily, or exceedingly well, I don't know, he rewards. That's when he told me the story, and when I sat on the floor with my left face cheek on the upholstered seat and listened with the rapture of a little girl to his story about ancient times and me being brought to the household of slaves to be trained.

Maybe ten days later, after quite a bit of back and forth with my husband, some ups and downs in our lives, I committed to establishing a power exchange for life. I took on the mindset of a slave.

There hasn't been any sex since then, so what does that mean for me at this point? It means, in my mind, that just as a slave may have a volatile Owner, an anxious Owner, but still is a slave, serving, so am I. That may not sound like much, but it is a lot to me, and it feels right.

Two little anecdotes from my morning. On the way to yoga, I played music in the car and on came 'Climb every mountain'. Barbra Streisand and a male singer do a little chat first and Barbra says, 'If you want something you never had, you have to do something you've never done.' I have heard those words many times but today it meant something very personal to me.

Then, the yoga class was led by a young woman who is into deity stories and such and she told little stories while we held poses and said at one point that a pose was in service to Lord somebody.  I believe we were performing 'Humble Warrior' at the time. These service poses have always felt right to me.

Towards the end of the class she said, 'We are so often in service to others, and this can come naturally to some of us, but we find it more difficult to be in service to ourselves.

The slave mindset is, in fact, in service to myself.  It feels so natural and such a relief to just be who I am. I climb the mountain, one step at a time, inching forward to my dream.

Slave mentality

Therapy is meant to make you feel better, but before it makes you feel better, it can make you feel worse.

Acknowledging and simply being your authentic self is also meant to feel better, but it isn't necessarily so at the outset either.

To explain, by way of hypnotherapy over the telephone, a session of a sexual nature, I experienced the depths of my submissive self. 

I believe for the first time in my life I referred to myself as a Slave and did those things that slaves do. 

'Admit to me what you are!'

'I'm a slave, I'm a slave.'

These words came from the darkest recesses of my mind.

Orgasming on demand, over and over, occurred effortlessly. Obeying these commands seemed the most natural thing in the world.

 I was told a story, set in ancient times, of what my life was like. My primary role was to be trained and f**ked, not just by one Owner but by many men, and women. I listened in a trance, found it all quite wonderful.

For a day or two, I felt liberated and joyous. The possibilities for my life in real terms seemed transformational and exciting. I felt buoyant and rejuvenated.

Then, real life happened, new knowledge of on the ground life challenges. It was necessary to get out of my kink head and problem solve; come up with answers for the problems presented to me. Far from a simple slave girl here I was using my brain hard to resolve financial issues like a big, independent girl.

It's not just the problems and the efforts it will take to solve them that troubles me. It's the compatibility issues that have come about for what I refer to as 'the slave mentality'. I fully understand that I can't just permanently dwell in a slave mentality, but did the shove into the real world need to happen so immediately and so starkly?

The undeniable equation is that a slave needs a Master/Owner. A Master goes about getting a 'slave', if that is their inclination. Off the Master goes to the slave market, or whatever, and buys himself a slave fit for purpose - pretty, enticing, useful; easy to train to desired specification. (In the trance I don't know where I came from exactly, but the hypnotist accompanied me back to ancient times and took me to his expansive home where slaves abounded, and I was trained and prepared for Ownership. Always welcome back to visit the girls, the gardener and cook who regularly used me, of course.)

But what if it is the other way around? Does a slave go looking for a Master? Sure, sometimes that is going to happen, but what about transforming a husband into a Master or Owner, somewhat permanently? Can that really happen? 

It's taken me this long to acknowledge my deepest desires and here I am with a husband not at all well and, should he have married just about anyone but me, would never in his wildest dreams thought of going about having his own 'slave'. Now, what to do?

I have been thinking about this in a practical way. What needs to happen here? One might consider a Contract. Your responsibilities are this and mine are that. I want this and you want that. I fail to do this and that means you need to do that. Like that.

I think there is a step here that hasn't been considered. Once upon a time, my husband enjoyed 'scenes' with me. He'd have expectations, things he wanted to do, usually to achieve pleasure for me and thus himself. There was a lot of dopamine flying about and thus in daily life, it was all pretty smooth. I sought to please him. He rode that high for himself. All good.

That was a long time ago now when we were playing for mutual pleasure. My husband became unwell, and although we made it up the mountain of D/s pleasure every now and again, we spent much more time down in the valley. It's much, much harder this time for things to be spontaneous about this situation. The last dozen years have been very wearing on both of us and on the relationship.

What I know is that this slave can't wait for her Master to devise her curriculum, her daily tasks, her expectations. I think that might be a 'Waiting for Godot' situation and we all know how that turned out.

He's been advised that all slaves need 'training' but where's the manual for that? So, I bought myself 'Dom's Guide to Submissive Training' by Elizabeth Cramer and next step I think is to summarize it for my husband. Boy, she's tough, but I get off on listening to that audio. I may have listened to it four times now.

Although the next step is to devise a Contract, I think you have to have some idea of all this before you can begin to know what to write down, what to discuss; whether this is even going to work for the two of us.

Is he prepared to put the time aside? Does he think he will enjoy the training? Should we do it in, say, two-hour intervals when we get the time? Should there be protocols for a 24-hour period? Can we accept, both of us, he may need to be tough at first? And how, can we smoothly make the transition from that world to the real world where we need to have our heads about us?

I came across a good article by Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes entitled 'Dominant and Submissive Relationships - Top 10 Rules to Follow. I think my husband needs suggestions for the revised relationship and I have offered him a few suggestions. 

I like the idea of sitting below him when watching television. I like the floor and I like the slave feeling this gives me, always have.

I like the idea of learning some positions and being asked to get into those positions using the number. It's just a weird turn on I have used a lot in fantasy. I think one correspondent mentioned it many years ago and I never forgot it.

Snipes suggests, 'Make Master proud'. Yes, love this. I am seriously considering a short course to prepare myself for part time employment, as an example, and he has given his support for that, would be proud of me. I would thrive on receiving praise. 

'I speak, you obey'. God, yessss, that's such a turn on.

It's a pity this is all happening at this busy time of year. You need plenty of down time to get this established, to do the communicating and sharing of ideas. Without his participation, all I have is fodder for fantasy and endless unrequited desire.

I so want this to happen. 

It would make me so happy. I also think it would make him happy too.

And, most importantly, us.

Note: The image above is a photo of a card that was left by my mat whilst I was meditating in a group this evening, after writing this. It felt right to include it in this post today.