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natural submission How long is your memory? Frequently I work with people who approach me with a degree of personal anxiety because they know of the type of work I do and they are concerned taking a different approach to the nature of bdsm will in some way diminish them. Primarily they are concerned that their desire to submit will wane. Where does this come from? I tend to take the approach that you, the very deepest part of you, your *core*, knows everything about you. It remembers every event that ever happened to you, it remembers what you thought about before such events changed you. This deep core self has a single agenda. It wants to be your maximum potential. To achieve this your core has to sort out and try to reduce all of the choices and patterns you created over the course of your life, choices you made to manage or survive your experiences. Your core is in the business of repairing the magnificent powerful engine that is you at your greatest potential. Your core is my greatest ally and, in truth, the source of your hidden anxiety. On some level you know you are changing. Change is scary. Change is the unknown. Just when you begin to think you have found a means of clarifying and understanding yourself - change arrives with its threat of removing all that clarity where you have nested down and made yourself safe. You don't want to feel 'unsafe' any more, sometimes you want the wheel of change to stop its forward momentum, to hold still and be quiet so you can believe you are safe. And it works. Sometims for days or even years you can balance on the top of the wheel, holding back its forward turn with all the strength of your persistance fueled by the fear of 'loss'. But change is inplacable. It is like a constant force that you are damming up, holding back by the strength you have to keep adding to over the years. Eventually you reach a point of critical mass and no longer is change a soft turn of the wheel, now it is a raging storm ripping through your life with chaos in its wake. Your core will not allow you to stay stagnant. So, what am I talking about? Can you lose your submissive nature? If you follow the whispers of your core will this filter of understanding yourself be diminished? Are you naturally submissive? Did your submissive 'qualities' exist at birth? Excavating the core will answer your questions. How far back can you remember? Science suggests our memories of five and under are less clear, often as a young child we don't have the language/understanding tools to store memories as more than impressions. But science is also reasonably sure these same years are when we are developing our traits, patterns of behavior, responses to stimulation. The tricky thing is we begin life from a 'surrendered' yet fully self 'empowered' place. We are, based on physical capabilities, completely dependent on others to live yet we have had nothing happen to us to tell us to limit what we can be or do in our life. Is the objective to regain the power of a surrendered life - one where fear has no purchase to contain or control us? What is a surrendered life? What happens when 'submission' isn't a performance, isn't a choice emerging from thought process or old behavior patterns? Is the ultimate submission to the release of fear itself? How do you reconcile this within the needs of your relationships? If you cannot 'possess' your relationship - you cannot 'lose' it. Many people want to possess a relationship like it is an object to be put on the shelf. They want 'relating' to remain constant and firm, hardened into easy handling. But relating, by its very nature is not possessible, it isn't an object. Relating is an ongoing flow of ever shifting thoughts, feelings, opinions. It is constant in its features of endless change. It can't be promised into a hardened state - it will continue to challenge your borders. You cannot 'possess' a hardened descriptive of yourSelf either. There isn't a fixed formula that describes you. When you adopt one (a label or descriptive) in that exact moment you also adopt the mechanism for failure. Through this limitation your core (the river of self) will push because this limitation of Self is your weakest point, it is the hole in the dyke. When you adopt hardened roles in relationship, it is through these unstable points where the pressure of failure will build. The core recognizes no limitations which means on some level YOU recognize no limitations. This doesn't keep any of us from wanting to experience the illusiary safety of limitations from time to time. But we have to remember such guides or descriptions as we choose to adopt are indeed illusions we are using to mislead us from the truth of our endless, expanding potentials. A description can, at best, describe a moment in our life of change. We don't live inside a single moment. What is bdsm or d/s from within this framework? Perhaps, it is the flashlight your core is using to shine a light within yourself so you can develop the ability to see toward your own expanding potentials. BDSM or D/s are mentally challenging - but they get there quite often through the body - they offer a door inside where the self is hidden - but, they aren't a destination - to choose such as a destination is merely to conform to the existing pattern of trying to feel safe - if you feel it is a destination it means fear continues to exist and your empowered core continues to be held hostage to old choices made before you were able to remember. Ultimately, if you enjoy something - it is reasonable to believe you will continue to experience pleasure in it. It is like the connection between icecream and smiles - you probably still smile when eating an icecream these XYX years after your first bite. Perhaps you will lose some interest in some flavors, find they aren't as tasty as they used to be but the ability to explore new flavors is already developed. Submission, like any feature of the self - evolves, transforms. In its inconstancy it reveals its dynamic potentials, its flavors. Perhaps it won't stay focused on submitting TO another person, perhaps the person it will eventually focus on is the SELF. |
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