192. Vanquishing Negativity

Failure to understand the problem impedes any attempts to solve it.

If you’ve read enough of my posts, especially ones I’ve filed under Random Ruminations, I am someone who gets to the bottom of what I am feeling.  I keep at it until I am satisfied that I can reconcile what it was that triggered that emotion.   The reason I am that way is because I believe negative feelings are always symptoms of a problem. They are never the problem themselves.  Shining the brightest possible light on your feelings will help you get to the root of the problem.   

JENNY PSYCHOLOGY 
I am quick to play armchair psychologist.  I don’t have a degree in psychology, (but I was a school counselor and have a master’s in guidance and counseling).  So yeah, enough to play an expert on my blog.   No offense to you real experts out there.  Hey, if you disagree, then share your comments!

Example: “It makes me angry when you do x.”

You can deal with the symptom of anger by simply avoiding x.    Problem solved. Or is it?
More than likely, x will recur, and again you get angry.  In fact, other things may occur and you get angry at that as well.

Or, you can find out why x makes you angry.  You are likely to find it was rooted in far more than x.  There was a y and z that you didn’t realize were there.  Now address the root causes of  y and z, and suddenly, not only does x no longer anger you, but you are no longer unsettled by y and z that were subconsciously nagging at you.   Result- you are a happier you!

FIND YOUR TRUTH (Hint: it isn’t always going to easily reveal itself)
The challenge is having an open and honest dialogue with yourself.  Typically, this is where it goes wrong as the first fault is typically yours.  You fail to be honest with yourself, thus you justify your anger instead of confronting it.  To successfully confront it, you need to ask yourself “Why?” and whatever the answer, ask yourself again, “But why?” and then again, “But why?”  Keep doing it until whatever you are thinking soundly resonates with your soul. That’s when you know you’ve found your truth.

If you are honest with yourself, now you have to deal with being honest with others, and they must be honest with you.  That’s two more potential faults to overcome.  And where does all this honesty come from so that you can avoid the faults?   Hey, if you read my blog, I don’t have to say it.  Here it comes.  It’s that “V” word again. Vulnerability.  Many, many posts dedicated to that topic (just Google ddjennifer vulnerability). Lastly, sometimes all the vulnerability and honesty just aren’t enough.  That’s where I was with this.  I was stuck in trying to reconcile what I was feeling.   

I realized that I typically post about my feelings after I have reconciled them.  Thus, I probably come across as always joyful, always positive, etc.  Well, I am a joyful and positive person, but of course there are times I have to deal with stuff. 

This time, I posted before I worked through my issues.  Reason being was I was feeling stuck.  In other words, despite my best efforts I wasn’t connecting to the core of what I was truly feeling.  I had to really work through reconciling my feelings over the events I shared on my last post.    Writing about it helped. After I wrote about it, it just took one final talk with the three of us and it all started to come into focus.

REALIZATIONS
Here is a summary of the “mental walk” I went on:

PART 1:  My feelings about Kayla

• Sex that is raw, wild, and even crude, is not unfamiliar to me.  The three of us have been plenty “freaky.”  We have watched and have been watched by each other.  So it wasn’t the “rawness” that bothered me regarding Kayla, I am sure of that.
• I believe for me it “crossed a line” because it encroached on the “sanctity” of the Discipline Ceremony and Discipline Integrity.  However, those terms are unique to my Contract, not Kayla’s. 
• While Kayla’s submission has always been a “deeper, darker” submission than mine, until that moment her punishments still followed in the spirit of my ceremony and integrity.
• Part of what I was feeling was disconnected from what was happening.  That disturbed me.  But as I think about it now, I don’t have a right to require such as connection.  That connection is a bonus.  It is not an obligation that Mike or Kayla have towards me. 
• Her needs are different from mine. She is not me.  Mike has been phenomenal in treating us based on our unique needs and personalities.  I do not want Kayla to be treated like me, nor do I want to be treated like her.   
• My feelings that were at the root of my lack of compersion for what Kayla was experiencing were reasonable in the moment.  It was just something I never experienced before so it shook me a little.  I was thinking, “Does she really like that?” “Is that what she wants?”   
• Upon reflection, I see those questions were rooted in a bit of selfishness on my part.  “I” didn’t like that.  “I” don’t want that.  Thus, my selfish feelings disconnected me from the joy I normally feel for Kayla’s pleasure.     
• I rejoice in Kayla’s happiness with her dynamic with Mike.  I believe if I were to witness that incident again, I will feel joy for Kayla.

Part 2:  My feelings about Mike

• Although the rawness and forcefulness no longer bothered me regarding Kayla, it still bothered me regarding Mike.  It was like I was watching a part of him I hadn’t seen before.  That was unsettling as we’ve been married 26 years and experienced a lot of things sex-wise. 
• Clearly, I did not like watching him delivering discipline and having sex in the manner he was doing it.  But my initial reaction was more than just dislike.  The word that resonated when I thought of it was “safe.”  In that moment, I didn’t feel safe. In other words, I felt threatened.   Now that I had a word for my feeling, I can work on resolution. 
• To clarify, feeling threatened is not the same as feeling jealous, although they are close cousins of one another.  Feeling threatened can come from jealousy, but it can come from other places to.  
• In this case, since I most connected to the word “safe” I believe the threatening feeling was rooted in fear. Fear in that this was what Mike liked. This was what he wants. Not from Kayla, but from me.  And since I did not have any positive feelings about what I was seeing, I was fearful that I could soon be in Kayla’s place, experiencing that kind of sex with discipline.  
• I will do a lot of things for Mike that are not what I would choose absent Mike’s demands.   The act of doing them is an act of submission.   The boundless joy and fulfillment I get from the submission completely negates any thoughts about my own preferences.  My overarching preference is to do as he demands, not do as I prefer absent his demands.  BUT — 
• There are limits.  And this is one of them.  Mike and I talked about not mixing sex with discipline. I even wrote a little bit about it back in April 2016, as sex started to intertwine with our DD (POST 14).   We never talked a whole lot about it because our early talks were very clear and we understood each other.  Thus, it was a non-issue until this incident.  
• Mike and I had an honest discussion and he agreed that we would continue to keep sex and discipline distinct in our DD.  He said he had no desire to mix them and in addition, knows that I don’t either.  
• Mike is not promising he won’t do this again.  He might incorporate the two with Kayla, but now feels this should be relegated to a rare exception.  While Kayla enjoyed it, as did he, he understands the value of keeping them separate.  In fact, he said that after seeing how Kayla reacted– she was very into it–  withholding sex when she is getting turned on by the discipline will serve as another punishment all by itself. He just will have to be more diligent with any urges he is feeling.  

So there you have it.  I fully accept what happened.  In hindsight I am pleased that it worked for Kayla and Mike.  Further, I can accept a recurrence of it, with the caveat that it remains an exception.  I still believe I will have an issue with it if it were an everyday thing.  Both Mike and Kayla understand why that is, and at this point they agree that they don’t want it to be a “go to” thing.  With that, I am closing the file on this emotional incident and stamping it, “Vanquished!”

BUT WHY?
P.S.  This post didn’t get into why I want to keep sex and discipline distinct.  The three of us had a lot to share about that.  Suffice to say, it’s just how I am wired.  Since there was consensus, we saw no need to dive further into why it should or shouldn’t be distinct.  Such a deeper dive would have been necessary if Mike or Kayla felt differently.  I wonder what the discussion would have been if we needed this deeper dive, but there is no value in speculating.   Everyone is happy with the outcome.  That is, assuming we were open, honest, and vulnerable to each other,   Based on our history, I feel confident we were.

NEXT: 193. Lovebirds and Spankings