After all the talk of the amazing openness and vulnerability that I wish for from my submissive, I’ve been considering posting something that shows me at my most vulnerable. It is scary, the showing, even though it doesn’t really matter because the actual terrifying part of doing it is already done, is over.
I rarely take emotional risks, and when I do, they are quiet risks, whispered into someone’s ear, tentatively put on the table for the taking, and this was a quiet risk also. It is the sharing that makes it noisy and loud; that gives me pause, though it is tapping insistently on my ribcage and calling me out for hypocricy.
I am not good at it, taking risks, opening up what is bleeding, exposing my soft underbelly, and I rarely have the compulsion or desire to do it. It has to feel like *need*, and even then, the *need* to do it has to be extraordinarily strong, and when the need is there, it does feel compulsive, like something ticking in me obsessively, something that simply will not be willed away, will not be ignored.
I will ignore it, though, for as long as I can, in the hope that it will go away if I don’t look directly at it. Sometimes it refuses to go away, it will plant itself at my feet, make roots, settle in and grow happily, sometimes with sharp and spiky thorns, sometimes with stunning heartbreakingly beautiful flowers, and it will bloom there, patient as the gods, and wait for me.
Despite my reluctance to go there, I have found, and I wonder how true it is for others, that finally opening up and bleeding all over the floor feels like a kind of strength, and I recognise that it is a smidgeon (oh, such a tiny one!) of the strength I so admire in submissives. For me, I don’t think it is the ‘making myself vulnerable’ that feels like strength as much as getting over the fear of it. And as I say that I am very aware that vulnerability for me also feels like a terrible weakness, I wish it didn’t and I don’t see it that way in others, and I know that makes no sense, but sometimes what we feel doesn’t really make sense. It just is.
There is a ceremony that the Thai do, where they create floating lanterns, light, rice paper constructions into which candles are placed and lit. The heat lifts these lanterns into the the sky; they are symbolic of problems and worries floating away. There is a sense of doing that for me when I give in to this need and finally send my vulnerability out into the world.
I expect my having done it to make no difference to anything, and that’s ok. I have put myself out there, into the ether, and that is enough. And it is enough.
I am working up the courage to share it, which makes me shake my head and laugh at myself.
I am being cryptic, I know, but dipping a little toe into the cold, black, swirling water and admitting that some things are hard to share is a start.
24 comments
“Despite my reluctance to go there, I have found, and I wonder how true it is for others, that finally opening up and bleeding all over the floor feels like a kind of strength”
I would say absolutely yes. It does feel like a kind of strength. I know, from first hand experience, that exposing ones vulnerabilities presents an open invitation to ridicule, rejection, and loss and it takes courage to take the emotional risk.
Yet at the same time, exposing our innermost self can be totally liberating because by “laying our cards on the table” so to speak, we make a bold, personal declaration of who we really are and that is not a weakness.
Closing your eyes and falling backwards, in the hope that you will be caught, is neither foolish nor weak. On the contrary, it quite courageous and in case you are unsure, should you chose to do so, all of us here are waiting with open arms.
slapshot: “I would say absolutely yes. It does feel like a kind of strength. I know, from first hand experience, that exposing ones vulnerabilities presents an open invitation to ridicule, rejection, and loss and it takes courage to take the emotional risk.”
It does, yes. I am not quite sure why I put the 'I wonder' part of it in there, to be honest. I see it clearly as a strength in others and perhaps the question is about how it is *felt*.
I think I put it that way because of the issue I have with it feeling like a weakness… it's like *having the feeling* of vulnerability is a weakness, whereas *exposing it* is a strength… Given how I consider it and value it in others, I do know it is an odd way to feel about it for myself.
“Yet at the same time, exposing our innermost self can be totally liberating because by “laying our cards on the table” so to speak, we make a bold, personal declaration of who we really are and that is not a weakness.”
*smile* I really like the way you put it. Yes.
“On the contrary, it quite courageous and in case you are unsure, should you chose to do so, all of us here are waiting with open arms.”
Thank you, though to be clear, I have done the scary thing already, now I am just musing about revealing the scary thing, which is another scary thing… Really, how many levels of scary are there?
Ferns
You can tell me you know Ferns ya know in confidence and all that
*looks about furtively*
Honest!
Coug
Oh and RE. “that finally opening up and bleeding all over the floor feels like a kind of strength” Lay down plastic or rubber ( mmmmmmmmmm rubber) sheets first saves ruining the carpeting dear
Coug
Coug: “You can tell me you know Ferns ya know in confidence and all that… Lay down plastic or rubber ( mmmmmmmmmm rubber) sheets first saves ruining the carpeting dear”
Well, sure, I will tell you right after you clean that mess up… heh.
Ferns
If it was easy to do, it wouldn't mean as much when it happens.
Truly opening up is probably the single hardest thing that most of us ever have to do. It's easier online, often, but even then it still isn't easy.
A hug,
Clarence
tomio: “If it was easy to do, it wouldn't mean as much when it happens.”
True, there is value in the difficult things. More's the pity!
Ferns
Clarence: “Truly opening up is probably the single hardest thing that most of us ever have to do. It's easier online, often, but even then it still isn't easy.”
True. And here's the thing. I don't *have* to do it. I've done the hard thing already, all I am debating with myself now is the telling of it! Should be a piece of cake!
Ferns
Are you going to tell us, Or just torture us with anticipation? Really the suspense is killing me. (I kinda hope it lasts)
TELL! TELL!
Eh so much for my ice cold reserved Dommieness
Coug
Peroxide: “Are you going to tell us, Or just torture us with anticipation? Really the suspense is killing me. (I kinda hope it lasts)”
For now… I choose… ummm… torture! *claps hands with undisguised glee*
Ferns
She's in love ;)
Oh wait, Dommes don't do that…
Coug: “TELL! TELL! Eh so much for my ice cold reserved Dommieness”
I shall totally look the other way and pretend I didn't see it… *whistles, looks away*
Ferns
prsuasivpressure: “She's in love ;)”
*laugh* I TOTALLY don't consider that a vulnerability!
“Oh wait, Dommes don't do that…”
Oh, yeah, of course… that's what I meant to say: Dommes don't do that!
Ferns
Thats right twue Dommes are ice maidenly passionless robotic leather clad Goddesses of Godessness *nods wisely*
This:
“vulnerability” =/= “weakness”
is one of those lessons I keep having to learn over and over (and over and over). Don't know why it doesn't stick, but I've been getting better little by little. What's that saying? “Try. Fail. Try again. Fail better.” Or something like that. In my case it would be more like Learn. Forget. Learn again. Forget a little slower next time, and remember a little sooner.
And yes, in my experience the anticipation and the fear is almost always worse than the actual experience of the thing we're fearing and anticipating. I tend to forget that as well.
Amai: “”vulnerability” =/= “weakness” is one of those lessons I keep having to learn over and over (and over and over).”
*smile* I can completely understand that, thank you for sharing it.
For me, I *know* it's not weakness, but I still hate the way it makes me feel, I don't like feeling vulnerable, it *does* make me feel weak and knowing that it's not honestly doesn't change how I feel one bit.
The only way I can 'get over it' is to get to the point where the courage to overcome the fear makes me feel powerful enough to overcome the feeling of weakness (I made myself laugh with that… god, are things never simple with me?!).
Making myself vulnerable doesn't make me feel as if I am bonding in a lovely way with someone, it makes me feel like I am ripping out pieces of myself and throwing them into the void. So I do it cautiously, and only with those few precious people who make it into my inner circle.
It's the same with crying. I hate to cry, I don't like the way it makes me feel, I don't like seeing myself that way, I don't like others to see me that way.
However, when my submissive makes himself open and vulnerable to me, when he cries, I don't see it as weakness. I see it for exactly what it is… courage and strength and it makes me swoon.
BUT, that doesn't change how I feel about it for myself, not one bit.
Ferns
I find it difficult to open up since I hate talking about myself. Everything lies deep inside and unwilling to be let out. Only a few people know that I'm into BDSM and submissive.
ID
I absolutely get this. I would rather crawl over broken glass than be vulnerable or weak. And you know what Ferns, it's absolutely fine. I'm just not wired that way and neither, it sounds are you. Self knowledge and acceptance is just as important. What you describe is not a fault, it just IS.
ID: “I find it difficult to open up since I hate talking about myself. Everything lies deep inside and unwilling to be let out.”
I think this makes sense, and for some people, just opening up at all makes htem feel vulnerable.
“Only a few people know that I'm into BDSM and submissive.”
I don't talk to anyone about BDSM (ok, well if I go to a munch, I figure they know already… duh!). Otherwise, unless they are intimately involved with me, it's really none of their business. For me, that kind of exposure is a related, but different subject.
Ferns
Celtic Queen: “I absolutely get this. I would rather crawl over broken glass than be vulnerable or weak.”
*nod*You know, at my mother's funeral, I told someone to stop saying sweet things because it was going to make me cry. They were very kind to me with, “It's ok, you're allowed to”, and I said, “I know, but I don't WANT to!” If I'm going to cry, I don't like to do it in front of people.
“Self knowledge and acceptance is just as important. What you describe is not a fault, it just IS.”
True, and if I post the vulnerable-making stuff, it will be way out of my comfort zone, and everyone had better be fucking nice about it!!
Ferns