Understanding

This one might get away from me as it meanders from my mind but hold on until the end.

 

We say you need to know yourself, understand yourself before you ever jump into a relationship. Yet people rarely, if ever, bother to try to understand themselves. To make a relationship work and be healthy, requires you to understand who you are with. Now, follow the logic. People rarely can answer questions about knowing themselves, to the point that if I sat and asked hard questions I would receive a lot of “I don’t know” and ‘only thought about right there on the spot’ responses.

How do you find yourself? How do you come to an understanding of yourself and who you are with? It is not easy, and requires introspection that most shudder to even think about because it WILL make you uncomfortable.

What do you want? Such a simple question right? People often can rattle off 15 things without much thought. None of which are the truth. To answer this one question requires some understanding of yourself. One answer people often give is to live comfortably, yet how often do we see people who ARE living comfortably be miserable? The reality is they don’t want comfort, they want to rough it to one degree or another, or they need constant competition of some form. Some people always need a goal, they need to achieve things. Not necessarily huge things, but they need to feel like they have done something every week. Such people cannot sit idle for long periods. Others need direction or they float aimlessly no matter how focused on their goal they are. You need to know yourself, be willing to answer that uncomfortable question and see the truth of who you are. If you are an achiever, don’t make a goal for yourself that is going to take years, you will be miserable. You make your goals week by week, and you do not get ambitious and suddenly make your goals larger as you accomplish things. If you do, not hitting your goal will crush you. Likewise someone that needs direction will have to have someone nudge them here and there. The rough it type needs to intentionally keep their house or work in a state that lets them push themselves or feel the work, such as using a stove for heat and chop the wood yourself. The competitor needs to find something that can keep the competition going, which means purposefully NOT doing something you are amazing at often as those you regularly pit yourself against might not be able to keep up with that. For example, if you are great at archery but everyone you compete against can’t be even half as good as you, it means you compete against them in throwing knives or axes as an example. Due to you not being as practiced or innately as good at it now you won’t outshine everyone and you have something to compete and push yourself at.

To know yourself, to understand yourself means answering this bluntly and honestly. It means self analyzing what you do and why you do it. You must remove self bias and look at yourself and your actions as an outsider. This is notoriously painful for anyone that tends to be an asshole or a complete bitch. When they self reflect they tend to over compensate on the niceness for awhile. Those who are extraordinarily nice people tend to be more aloof for a period after true self reflection as well. This is an understandable reaction as one looks at themselves from an outsider view they also see the harsh shadows they might not want to admit to themselves. Extremely outgoing people will uncover a reason for why they push themselves and find it might not be all that happy of a reason. It is usually the bad things that shape us, be it bad memories, bad habits, bad injuries, etc. The good leaves it’s mark too, but our natural self protection our mind uses tends to cause a shift in personality that becomes ingrained. The why isn’t important, simply knowing you do something or are this way is what is needed for this.

It is in this reflection that you will learn if you are also being true to what you claim to be. I am dominant. I did not choose to be so, I did not see it somewhere and think that would be cool, or that it looks neat, or that “hey, getting a subby girl who will do everything you say sounds awesome so I’mma be a dom”. It was natural progression from being around people, inevitably those with a follower mentality looked to me, and I kept such people on track. Women are attracted to confidence and those who followed what I did actively tried to make me happy as well, natural progression into being a dominant within the lifestyle. It doesn’t end there, some people are just good leaders, it doesn’t make them a good dominant though. Dominants have to care, have to take responsibility for, and invest in their submissive. Plenty of guys like all of what I said right up to the responsibility part. They want respect and feel that a submissive serving them is respect, but without giving it the submissive feels less like they are in a relationship and more like they are simply a replaceable cog. These kinds of dominants don’t want to actually be responsible, they just want someone to wait on them and do what they say. This is not a dominant. This is just someone who found a submissive and is exploiting their nature. When it comes to giving orders and expecting them to be followed. Emotion is only good if you are in control of it, yelling and letting anger or frustration effect you while attempting to give orders only makes things worse and will only lead to a submissive that is likely to not hear you. They will ‘hear’ you but they won’t be listening, and likely will run off if you continue acting like a child.

Submissives are on the flip side, they have to feel it and truly desire it. Plenty out there think they hold all the power and a dominant has to out guess them and take care of all their wants and needs and guess what they want. That is not how the lifestyle works. The submissive gets what they need, truly need, not what they think they need. Yes this is a distinction one must recognize before stepping into the lifestyle. A submissive gets what they need, the dominant gets what they want. A submissive might find things they want to do getting pushed back, it is a want, let go of any frustration and serve your dominant as you are in the lifestyle to serve and feel fulfilled through it. Now, wants are not supposed to just keep being pushed back more and more and more, a dominant has to try and weave it all in, we are human and will often fail at this. Remain respectful and calmly talk about it. Getting emotional and yelling will accomplish nothing but make your dominant even less likely to hear you. As a submissive you must retain the respect for your dominant if you want the relationship to hold. Apologize after outbursts, regardless if you feel at fault. Any time you slip, apologize respectfully and it smooths out most any ruffled feathers. Now, in spite of all of this, a submissive is not a doormat and must be respected and cherished. If you do not feel this than do not stick around. I haven’t forgotten my original statement, and here it comes. Do not jump into submissive because of the imagery, because you read something that turned you on. Submissives in the lifestyle have to embrace fully without even one second looking back that need to serve another. To feel truly at peace and complete while on your knees at the call of another. If you resent it, chafe at it, fight it, need to be made to submit again and again, than you are not submissive and are merely fighting your own nature because this is where you think you need to be. Do not fight yourself! This will tear you up more than even what the worst dominant could ever do to you.

So that is the lifestyle from singular perspective. I am not done yet. Remember, you don’t just have to know yourself, you have to know who you are with! This means watching who you are with objectively. Looking at how you are together and are you actually happy? While spending time together; are you happy, feel loved, feel cared for? I mean genuinely feel it. Not “I know they love me” yet never actually feel it. While together do you feel more like roommates that just happen to occasionally do couple things? Friends with benefits but no actual relationship? Do you feel resentment as often as anything else? Why? The why is important! You can never fix it, or look out for it if you do not understand or seek to understand the why. Now, the why is not always a satisfactory answer, sometimes it is simply “they are a dick”. Why they are that way might not be known, but just the fact they are that way toward you is enough. Do not cling to such a relationship, ever. It is better to tear your own heart out early and get away and heal than to cling onto something that isn’t there, that you are romanticizing, and will only make you worse. Notice I have not once mentioned which side of the relationship in this, it effects both equally. You made a connection, you love them, it isn’t always bad, none of these are valid reasons to keep a relationship going if it is harmful to you. This is where knowing yourself really hits home. If you know that the other side is a total ass, a bitch, a backstabber, or whatever than there is no reason to ever allow yourself to be one more second with them. Yes it will hurt, yes it will shake you up, but if you know yourself than you also will know what you need to do to keep moving forward and heal past them.

I did warn you in the beginning it will wander and I am not done. Knowing yourself, as I touched upon in the beginning, is more than just the lifestyle and relationships that are romantic. In the business world you have to get close enough with your coworkers to know their motivations, or else you will never truly be able to work with them effectively. Remember these people are coworkers paid to do a job, they aren’t friends until you have made a bond with them and they have made a bond with you. People hate to think on it but many are the coworkers that will do small underhanded things in order to look better in the eyes of the boss. I in no way condone acting in such a way, simply be aware and protect your ass. If your part of things is always done, no fault can be found with you. However, if you know your coworkers, understand them and their motivations, you can quickly ingratiate yourself even with people that may not like you that much.

Understanding others also lets you help them better. A submissive that truly knows their dominant will be able to serve the dominant so much more. That isn’t to say the submissive won’t need the usual, being told what to do for the thrill of following orders. We are all human, a dominant that comes home from a crappy day at work. The dominant in question tends to believe that after a bad day they need to do something with the submissive. Yet the submissive has learned from watching and paying attention that their dominant actually gets through the bad mood from work faster and comes out happier if the dominant is left alone with a book to read. Thus in understanding the needs and the way their dominant is, the submissive can be ready with a book and either say they feel this will help, or go run an errand and chores to leave the dominant alone. This is easier to do with the situation reversed but the submissive can still act and use that understanding to serve. A dominant that is actually committed to the relationship would truly appreciate such an act. It shows the connection and bond is strong to see a need and fulfill it so.

Things are rarely cut and dried. I meandered and wove back and forth but…that is the point of this blog. Thoughts spill out and the rant/discussion starter just writes itself. I’m honestly not sure if a point was made and I’ve reread through this several times but…still pleased with it. Understanding and knowing oneself also takes into account knowing when to just be happy with what you have done and accomplished rather than nit picking yourself to the point of destruction over attempting perfection. We are human, perfection doesn’t exist for flawed beings.