Exploring motivation and emotion

[stormdog]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my experiences and feelings to date regarding relationships, dating, and play. As I've written about before, they are areas that I'd really like to expand my experiences within. I've been putting off serious exploration of such things for years, with various distractions and responsibilities. I'm finally in a

Comments

[cmcmck]

It can be hard for any decent person to say no but I think there comes a point where one has to learn the art.

[stormdog]

Agreed. I definitely need to do some practice at it.

[anais_pf]

Somehow, you have to put yourself in charge of keeping yourself safe and happy. I keep thinking of how I impressed upon my sub the need for him to always make sure he is safe, and my insistence on teaching him to SAFEWORD if someone is doing something potentially unsafe. I was never so proud as when he safeworded as a demo bottom in a famous presenter's class. The presenter said this was the first time anyone had safeworded during the exercise -- and of course safewording was the correct response to the situation as presented. To get back to you, even if you feel reluctant to protect yourself, ultimately ONLY YOU can do it and you need to get yourself to the point where self-protection is your first impulse. I don't know how to get you there, and indeed only you can get you there, but this is what you need to strive for. Because nobody else can protect you!

[stormdog]

You're right, of course. And it's all stuff that I know very well, rationally. It's really hard, though, to connect it to my emotional state. I want to say I'm fine safewording when I need to, but that's complicated for me in other ways, too

[anais_pf]

With respect to scening, of course the trick is to learn the point at which your body will be damaged by whatever is happening, and to have your top insist beforehand that you must call the safeword as soon as you recognize you are at the point being damaged. It does help to have a sensitive top who doesn't wait for a safeword, and it's good that you have such a person as a partner. There's nothing wrong with enjoying physical pain! Just don't let it proceed to the point of harm.

But you also need to learn to translate this sort of thing into vanilla life. Maybe if you stand outside yourself every so often, and ask what advice you would give a beloved someone else if they were in your situation?

[stormdog]

I think to some extent, knowing when harm will occur requires experience. After a really nice bite at my neck/shoulder junction once, I realized that I had minor nerve damage. I had a narrow strip of numbness on my neck and lower jaw that the feeling didn't come back to for a few weeks. I couldn't tell at the time that that would be a result, and I guess I'm still not sure how to tell.

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Thinking about what I'd tell someone else, a friend, in my own situations in vanilla life is definitely helpful. The therapist has walked me through some of that too, and it helps me see things more clearly sometimes. It helps a lot in curbing some negative self-talk.

[old_cutter_john]

Good work! Onward!

[stormdog]

Thanks! I'll keep working at it!