The Need to Serve

"…I would like to beg you…as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Rainier Maria Rilke

As my relationship to Daddy continues to deepen, I find myself plagued with questions about who I am and what I truly desire out of life.

My desire to serve runs very, very deep. Serving the desires and needs of others brings me the deepest satisfaction I've known in my life. I've channeled that desire in many directions - starting a home for teen mothers when I was 19, volunteering for the HSU women's center, tutoring at risk teens, creating The Yoni Endeavor (an art/writing project towards women's empowerment), directing a Welfare-to-Work job training center, devoting my career to service organizations, The Conspiracy of Blessings (an art project in which I sent art blessings to those in need of a bit of kindness), co-chairing the Board of Directors of our local Pride organization, and being a Hostess for the Imps. No matter what is going on in my own life - no matter how crazy or depressed I was, no matter that I worked full time to support my family and was single parenting two children, no matter what relationships I was involved in - I have always needed a place to channel my desire to serve in order to feel any sense of satisfaction in my life.

While I understand that my Servant archetype is a fundamental aspect of who I am, I have struggled with how I feel about where I channel my service and what I receive in return. There is no such thing as true altruism. We always get something from giving, even if it's just pleasure from the act of giving. When we give to a person or an organization or a cause over the long term, it is vital that our needs for pleasure and reward are met, otherwise we experience burn out. I have found that I often reach a point of burn out with the places I've channeled my service because I'm not getting all of my personal needs for pleasure and reward met, whatever they are. For instance, I often serve by meeting the administrative needs of an organization because I'm really good and efficient at administrative tasks, even though I am extremely under-stimulated intellectually, creatively and emotionally by administration. I get the reward of service, but it's shadowed by lack of fulfillment in expressing my other gifts and interests, especially my intelligence and creativity.

I am so very good at meeting the needs and desires of others. As a single mother most of my life, I've always focused on meeting the needs of my children first. I also naturally put the needs of my romantic partners first, not because I believed I had to, but because I truly wanted to. I've always wanted to give as big and deep as I can. I just failed to realize that I have needs to be met, too, and that I would have even more to give if they are met. I have never, ever been good at identifying many of my own needs that can be fulfilled by others (I know how to self care), let alone getting them met. The shadow in my service has been giving all I have until I'm drained and not always knowing how, or feeling I deserve, to get my reserves filled back up with things from others that feed joy to my heart.

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. Howard Thurman

I've seen this quote often and I keep asking myself what makes me come alive. While service itself makes me come alive, it's often shadowed by the lack of reciprocity in meeting other needs and desires.

I've started questioning my lifelong belief that I need to serve the world in the biggest (from the world's point of view) way that I'm capable. My entire life has been committed to service in a belief that I am here to help facilitate the revolution of consciousness in humanity. And my desire to serve is so big that I've wanted to figure out where I can have the maximum impact. And yet I wonder if I have been partially driven by ego and partially by the actuality that I've not found truly rewarding containers for my service.

I have always desired to serve through building others up - empowering women who've been abused, supporting teen moms in becoming self sufficient, inspiring welfare-to-work single mothers to dream for themselves and their children, facilitating sexual confidence in my community - and have always tried to build up the person I am in intimate relationship to as well. I tried so hard to build up my ex-husband to pursue his bliss. I tried to build him up so that he'd have the confidence to develop friendship and community. I tried to be emotionally and spiritually supportive by offering insights, ideas and resources for healing and growth. But he didn't want those things. He wanted to remain a bakery driver and spend all his free time in video games because he was afraid to try to be more.

I've had other relationships in which my energy and love towards building up my partner didn't really go anywhere. Either they couldn't accept it or they weren't interested in it.

I realize that I need a much different kind of man than I have fallen for in the past. I need a man who is not afraid to be all of who he is, and who desires a woman who will build him up and support him in his power.

Daddy is such a man. Daddy does big world changing sorts of things in his work. He claims his power in the world, uses that power to make the world better, and then He comes home and claims his power as a Man who deserves all the devotion and worship that His bitch has to give. Daddy is big enough to hold what I have to give and He desires it.

Here's the truth of the matter:

Serving Daddy makes me come alive. Being a source of joy, pleasure, rejuvenation and building up for a man who shines his light so bright and earns my devotion makes me come alive.

The emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical stimulation and intensity of the Master/slave relationship makes me come alive.

The immense opportunities for growth and self improvement make me come alive. Under Daddy's guidance I am improving myself physically (i have an exercise program now), psychologically/emotionally (i am working through insecurities and fear as i claim my erotic power), and spiritually (i am experiencing the Divine Spark in us both).

The conscious use of my erotic power to fuel my day-to-day joy makes me come alive. Daddy calls it pussy power. Being in touch with my erotic power and being turned on all the time gives me confidence and energy, keeps me smiling and makes me joyful in all my interactions, and inspires me to creativity.

I am not saying that I should give my life to Daddy and stop striving to serve my fellow humans in some way. I am not seeking to completely give my self up to a man like that. I know I have all sorts of things to contribute to the world as an artist, healer and community builder. And Daddy knows and appreciates that, too.

What I am doing is recognizing what makes me come alive and what brings me fulfillment in relationship, because relationship and intimacy make me come alive more than anything else. I'm recognizing what feels like a healthy and immensely rewarding way of channeling my need to serve into a container that allows me to express my service in ways that meet my needs as well as His. I am getting so many needs and desires met through this relationship. However things do or don't unfold with Daddy specifically, I now have a much better idea of the kind of man I truly desire to be in relationship to, and perhaps the specific shape I'd like that relationship to take. No matter how long our connection lasts, the rest of my relationship life will be positively impacted by what I'm learning with Him.

I've been telling myself for quite awhile now how unhealthy relationship immersion is and that it's healthier to focus on the work of my heart rather than who I'm in relationship to. But now I'm doubting the truth in those beliefs. I think it's a matter of being conscious of why I desire to immerse in a relationship like this. I'm not in relationship to Daddy because I have poor self esteem (I wouldn't have lasted this long with Him if I did). I'm not giving up any aspect of myself for Him (in fact He encourages me to be healthy by maintaining a sense of self and shine my light brighter). I'm not in this relationship because I'm playing out an old pattern (this relationship is different than any I've ever had). I'm in this relationship because Daddy and i make amazing magic together, magic that builds us both up in the rest of our lives, magic that brings us pleasure and joy every day. I'm in this relationship - that's also been rather awkward and odd some of the time - because it makes me come alive.

I have to admit that I've been looking really hard for how this is unhealthy, but I can't find it. He and I will have shadow patterns play out, as all relationships do. But my heart tells me this relationship is based on a sharing of light (paradoxically through darkness) and reciprocal support of each others service to the conscious revolution.

Coming back to the Rilke quote above, I want to live this question through this journey with Daddy - how can I shine my light brightest and be most fulfilled in expressing my deep need to serve?

Traveling to the Edge of Myself

"I’ve been taught: to fear this power (of sexuality and creativity), to fear my feral side, my passion, my fire, my ferocity and uncontrollability. I’ve been taught well to fear chaos, yet it is from chaos that anything new is born." Julie Daly

Daddy read my last blog post and He liked it very, very much. My vulnerability aroused Him (anything i share potentially gives Him power to use it against me), as did my invitation to into darker and rougher places. i've been pushing my limits around vulnerability with Daddy, trying to figure out where i'm willing to expose myself and where i need to keep myself protected. i didn't know that my vulnerability arouses Him until now.

i like that there is sexual power in my vulnerability, that it's a place to feel strong.

He commanded that i visit Him for a blowjob at slavequarters that evening. It was the first time He spontaneously commanded my presence; all previous visits had been scheduled through regular conversation as equals. i was happy that i earned Daddy's approval and desire, but more importantly i was excited that i had done something to bring Him pleasure and was being given the opportunity to do more. Pleasing Daddy makes me very, very happy. i already had plans for the evening, but i could carve out an hour for Him. i assumed this would be a mellow encounter, easy to integrate into my night.

i was very wrong,
and will be certain never, ever to visit Daddy right before other plans again.

Daddy sent me a text within minutes of my arrival commanding me to come in, undress to panties, and kneel at the sofa. i did exactly as he asked. i could hear the shower running in the back of the house. i used the time to stretch my body so that i would be in optimal shape to do whatever Daddy wished, for as long as He wished. i breathed deep and let the world fade away as Daddy became my breath and reason for being.

When He came out from the shower, He immediately put in me in handcuffs and a blindfold. Over the course of our time He pinched me with clips and poured candlewax on my exposed flesh. He used discomfort and pain to emphasize my powerlessness.

He pulled out new knives and showed me a whole new depth of darkness. He used my past against me. He nearly brought me to tears in humiliation at some of the things He said about me and how He desires to use me. He did not allow me to touch myself at all, because He desired to enforce that everything is about His pleasure. In less than an hour He took me deeper than i've ever been psychologically and emotionally.

It was dark and scary

...and really quite beautiful.

My panties were soaked when i left.

*

I locked bitch up after leaving slavequarters. I had to in order to function in regular life.

she's been locked up for five days now.
she's pacing in her confinement.

she's feeling the absence of His attention
and the hunger to worship Him.

she wants out real bad.

Daddy says i'm becoming addicted to Him, and to being bitch.
He may be right.

*

Sometimes we have to travel to the edge of ourselves to find our center. - Buck Ghosthorse

Daddy left some marks with his knives that neither of us could see in the moment. I discovered them at the Imps Social on Saturday night, while playing with a lover. I noticed how desperate I felt for validation. I noticed how the old desperation to be seen and desired and touched, a desperation I hadn't felt for months, was driving my party experience. Having that realization opened the floodgates.

I remembered how Daddy told me i'm not worth dating. There was a deep sting in that knife. For one, it brought how other lovers might feel about me into the scene. That's too close to real. Two, it brought how I've perceived myself in the past into the scene. I used to believe that the only way to get affection was through being sexually compliant with men, whether or not I was attracted to them, whether or not I derived pleasure from what they did to my body. I was used for sex often in my early 20's. Too close to real. Three, Daddy and I aren't dating and it's possible he may really feel that way about me. Much too close to real.

Ouch.

I found myself trying to compensate for the potential truth in what he said by seeking as much validation as I could from my friends and lovers at the social. Once I realized what was going on inside of me, my party experience was altered. I became disconnected, half present to my interactions the rest of the night. My heart hurt. I spent 20 minutes crying by myself on the back porch during breakdown. I've been processing ever since, feeling all kinds of emotions, trying to understand what I felt, why I felt it, and if I need or want to ever feel it again.

I do not want to feel that sting again, but I believe I may need to. My initial response to finding my mark was to tell Daddy that we found an edge that I don't want to visit again. However, I talked to a mystic friend last night and he confirmed my sense that the knives I want to run the farthest from are the ones that lead directly into my healing and evolution.

There is a reason that knife felt real when the others didn't.

Humiliation is an expression of our shame. Shame is what keeps us from shining our Divine Light. It is shame that keeps me from being all of who I could be, all of who I desire to be. I must have some shame about feeling undate-able (= unlovable).

I believe this exploration is an opportunity to change my shame stories in a profound way. The last few years with the Imps have been a boot camp in self esteem and shifting my old wounded poverty stories into abundant love stories. But those old stories are still rooted down deep. I feel them regularly, I just rarely show them. This is an opportunity for direct excavation and destruction of those old ways of believing and rebuilding my Self in stories of power, freedom, love and joy.

How much power is there for me in allowing Him to shatter me with the old stories so that I can build myself up with the new ones?

And I won't be building the new stories entirely on my own. I am held by a tribe of loves who will balance my experience as bitch by shining my light back at me, as they did over the weekend. While I had much processing going on in my head and heart, I had friends and lovers who offered whatever I needed to get me through. Kisses and cuddles. A listening ear. Two of my loves told me how strong and brave I am for doing this exploration. They both said I am amazing and powerful.

My tribe reinforces what is real.

A few weeks ago I wrote Daddy a letter in which I stated my belief that I cannot be broken. It's possible I might fall apart, maybe even shatter, for awhile. But I know to the depth of my core that I will put myself back together again, and be stronger and more powerful than before. I've had a lifetime of practice. Resilience is what I do best.

Even this, writing these blog entries, is a way of using my experience as bitch to claim my power as a writer and a sexual explorer. There is something in this for more than me, I can feel it. My willingness to walk into darkness and share the story with you is valuable. I'm finding a significant lack of psychological exploration around humiliation and degradation play online. Most consider it edge play and from what I can tell, most would think what Daddy does is pushing the edge too far.

At the moment, I think his knives may be just sharp enough.