To Be Mindful

Mindfulness is a concept that I have been pondering lately.

To be mindful...It's important right?

Submission is very much about being mindful of one's Dominant, and no small part of that is being mindful of oneself, one's actions and reactions, of the way that we think and behave.
It is about seeing ourselves and our behavior as a reflection on him and who he is.

I think that when we are mindful, that is when we are able to bring grace to who we are and what we do.

Mindfulness is about avoiding those knee-jerk reactions that so often get us in trouble, it's about thinking before we speak, taking care that our actions have meaning.
It is about using coherent thought to guide our behavior in a way that pleases.
It is about living the meaning of what it is to be owned.

To be mindful is to be pleasing
to be the best of what they see in us
it is an awareness of ourselves and our interactions with others
it is about relinquishing control while retaining a sense of personal responsibility.

Often, submission is a repeating series of conscious choices, choices that invariably lead to the conclusion that the choices we are to make are the ones that our Dominants desire to be made.
After a certain point, many of those choices become so automatic, that we no longer realize there is any choice at all. Because while we are multifaceted, what we really are, is his. And all our choices become ultimately rooted in that fact.
Yet, we cannot get to that place without a certain degree of mindfulness.

So how we attain this thing called mindfulness?
I think that we practice it until we become...Mindful.

And yes, I am still stuck in the attempting to practice phase.

Human Race

Somehow 

somewhere along the way

we fell through a hole

in the heart of our race

we forgot that we were born okay

we forgot that we belong to the earth

and that she does not belong to us

from her we are born, and to her we all shall return 

Somehow

somewhere along the way

greed planted a seed

and the human race

in an attempt to save face

decided to descend from grace

we became a culture of greed

based around what we see as our never-ending need

Somehow

somewhere along the way

 we forgot that we were made of stars

that we are infinite possibility

only caged by our own beliefs

And so we go on

fighting our holy wars

in the name of Gods 

who's meanings we have long since forgotten

Religions come and go

Gods live and die

yet we continue

to perpetuate the lie

that we are different,

you and I

And so we have become

a culture of genocide

as our governments lie and devide

in the name of a country's pride

 

Creating a race

who is forgetting the meaning of human being

in its race against being human

where we don't want our governments

to tell us who to love

and how to live

yet

we accept that they tell us who to hate

they tell us who to kill

 in a race to the bottom wherein we believe

that war is the cost of peace

and rights must be sacrificed in the name of security

We raise our children on war games

and we lie to them

when we tell them

that they are not one and the same

that their pain

is more than that of the person next door

and so we fight

in the name of Gods that will one day lie forgotten

and so we have become

a world misbegotten

 because we no longer remember

that I am who I am

and you are who you are

and inside

we are all the same.

We are the human race
so caught up in believing
that we have forgotten the power of thinking
we have forgotten
that there is nothing more dangerous
 and nothing more beautiful
than an intelligent and articulate mind
so we land where they tell us to take our stand
we forget that we belong to the land
we eat what they feed us
and so we believe what they see in us.

Coffee Trauma

It's no secret that I love coffee. Seriously, if the world as we know it ended tomorrow, I would be fine. Except...Lack of coffee would be a major issue.

I'm not a fan of pink, but if my kids couldn't read, I would so own this cup.

But I digress...

I can make a cup of coffee last for a while, so I was sipping away innocently over the course of the afternoon.
In the
very
last
drink
What should I spit out?
A spider.
I'm pretty sure it only had three legs too. Which means...Ew!

The next day I only had one cup of coffee.
It was like some terrible and traumatic, (yet effective) form of aversion therapy.
In fact, at this very moment, I am drinking tea.

To Share One's Truth

I occasionally get emails from new subs asking for advice. The one thread that all my responses seem to have in common, is the assertion that they need to talk to their Dominant.
Given my tendency to be communication challenged, I am sure that Alpha finds great irony in that statement.

For me, one of the most freeing and wondrous things about ttwd, was the discovery that there was a space between us wherein I could tell him anything.

If you want to explore someone's mind, be closer to them than their skin, and be the person who defines their limits, you have to help that person develop the ability to spill their heart and soul to you.
A big part of that is realizing one cannot expect to be freely told someone's deepest darkest thoughts, if they are waiting to criticize what they hear.
You cannot expect her to bare her heart and soul if she believes that you are going to rip them out when she does.

Much as submission becomes easier when there is Domination for one to submit to, being completely open is quite a bit more appealing when you know that the response, while perhaps not necessarily what you want to hear, is not going to culminate in an argument--because he will accept you regardless of what you tell him, and you will accept his thoughts and decisions about whatever you have said.

Of course, there is also the little issue that if you use that space and acceptance as an excuse to be a disobedient and raging brat, you are going to lose it immediately.
A fact that I was clearly informed of and confronted with in the not so distant past.

But when we can achieve and maintain the ability to create that place in our relationships...

In that space, there is no shadow of yesterday, no suffering for tomorrow, just two people sharing a moment of pure and unadulterated truth.
When we empty our hearts and minds of the words and thoughts to which we hold on so tightly, that is the moment we gain the ability to share a meaningful silence that outweighs the power of words.

I think that sometimes, if we want to be really close, we have to empty out the space between us.
We do so by laying everything out on the table, and sifting through the piles until we can set them aside or throw them out.
Until all that is left is our shared silence.
The silence of acceptance, of redemption, of surrender, of knowing.
The silence of two people with nothing left to hide.
Simply being.

How Silly Is It?

I have this not so little issue...
I can't enjoy sex if I can't go into sub-space. Yes, there are plenty of times that I can get off on the fact that he is taking what he wants whether I want it or not. But it is not a given.

That space? Sometimes that space comes easy.
Sometimes I just can't go down to save my life. And I always need help to get there. No matter how badly I want it.

I was having a terrible time of it the other night, I just couldn't let go enough to really go under.
We were lying together afterwards when, in a surprisingly gentle manner, he said, "How silly is it to want to be made to do what you want to do?"

Well, if you want to put it like that...It does seem pretty damn silly.

Since when do logic and I play nicely though?

It did get me to thinking about that high maintenance need I have to be hunted, conquered, forced to do that which I do not want to do, and made to do what I wanted to do in the first place.

I realize that, for me at least, it is much easier to reconcile certain things in my mind if I can tell myself that he made me do them. Therefore absolving myself of some responsibility for events.
Not saying that is the best approach or anything, but it is a truth that I have observed myself replay time and time again.

I believe that submission must come from an inner desire that leads to a conscious choice, made of one's own free will. That choice giving one the ability to go to a place of unconscious surrender where there is no longer thought, choice, or a will of one's own--just being.

Somehow though, that belief does not cure me of the desire to be forced into what I want...

Falling off the High Road

I try to play nice, I really do. Unfortunately, I am not always successful. What can I say, I'm a work in progress.

The ideal approach

It doesn't always come out like that though....Sometimes I fail at the niceties, and things look more like this

To put it bluntly...

What can I say, I try to be a nice person, but I had a really crappy day, and everyone falls off the high road sometimes right?

Gremlins

Something happened to me that has never happened before. Quite honestly, I am less than thrilled about it.

I started pulling out my summer clothes and made a terrible discovery...

A bunch of
no good
rotten
awful
very bad
wicked
little gremlins
sneaked into my closet and shrank my clothing.

My husband seems to find it reasonable that 13 year old shorts no longer fit me. I do not. I mean, after all, they fit just fine last year!

 See where regular exercise has gotten me? Pfft.

And that is all I have to say about that. For now. Though I'm sure this will present plenty of opportunities for future complaining.

And now I shall proceed to answering comments on my last post. If by chance I don't get to them all today, I did not forget you! I simply succumbed to laziness. Or the need to make dinner.