I fight with my own brain a lot. I’ve got stories in there, from childhood, that are false. I’ve got societal conditioning that I judge myself by. I have emotions arguing with logic. I have a care taker warring with selfishness. And I have a tendency to obsess and over think and over analyze when left to my own devices.
Last fall, I set myself to writing 500 words every day. Eventually, it just became circular and unhelpful. I was not processing, I was just rehashing over and over. I starting having that problem in my daily meditations earlier this summer. I was dwelling on things, over analyzing, and focusing on any problem instead of doing something about it because I was stuck there on my knees for half an hour. That’s how I felt, stuck.
So, I stopped doing it every day. I lost the original intent, the good, and could only see what I had turned it into. I was afraid to kneel. Afraid to let my mind focus that sharply on myself, because I had gone into self-critical mode too often. I got busy with more hours at work, and editing projects, and and and. Finding more and more excuses not to take a half an hour a day on my knees.
This bothered me. I shouldn’t use the past tense. I’m still doing it. And it really bothers me. I was afraid he would ask me. And one day, a few weeks ago, he did. And I told him I wasn’t doing it as often as I should. And it took me a few days to be able to verbalize why. And that bothered me even more.
He asked me to kneel for him, all those months ago. To kneel for him, to think about our relationship, and to have a time every day to feel a connection with him, even on days where I did not get to see or talk to him. Kneeling, for me, has always been a sign of my submission, it’s what I told him I enjoyed, and why he set it as my daily ritual. I still crave it.
So, problem identified, solution desired. What do I do? I need to make a new commitment to the ritual. Start again, recreate the habit, and make the time for it. What else? I tried music, to focus my mind in a more positive way. This worked somewhat, but I need a better selection. I have tons of CDs in front of me, that shouldn’t be a problem, just a process. Okay, but that process could take time, and that could provide me with more excuses. How else can I make this time a positive experience and get past the negativity?
Here my mind gets a bit flippant. Think happy thoughts. List all the wonderful things about our relationship. Refuse to dwell on problems, there is plenty of time for that off my knees. Create a mantra to force away negative thoughts. When I was first building up to thirty minutes a day, it would get so intense that I would repeat “my pain for his pleasure” over and over until the time was up. It kept me going, even though pain was not the point of the exercise.
I think that’s the key, this is a positive ritual, it’s not about pain, negativity or problems. It’s about submission and a wonderful relationship, both of which I enjoy and value. There is plenty of bad in the world, but this is about the good in my incredible life. He used to send me off to kneel when I was flustered and frantic, and it would calm me. Creating a habit entering this ritual with a positive attitude will be even more valuable to me.
