The Submissive Training Mini-Course

Part 1
Submission Starts With You

Before You Decide To Jump In Head First

Know Yourself First Before Jumping Into BDSMPlease take a breath and spend some time understanding yourself first. If you don’t take the necessary time to do some self-reflection before you dive into BDSM, you will find yourself in for a shockingly painful ride.

Many of Life’s frustrations can come from a lack of understanding of ourselves and our essential needs and denial of our deepest desires. We can spend a lifetime ignoring and/or resisting these signals, but the frustration builds. We jump head first into activities that make us happy, hoping they will eliminate the frustration and create a better life. But the happiness is fleeting, and the frustration becomes more intense once the high from the activity is over.

Understanding your purpose will help make life easier, but to uncover that, you must first know who you are, what you need, and what you want. Taking the time to understand yourself is difficult, and most people can not be bothered with it, but as Plato said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” And you will not find true meaning and happiness from trying to avoid looking into yourself. Without understanding yourself, you will never be able to precisely determine what you require and what you need to do.

Here are some crucial questions to ask yourself. So you can dig down into what it is that you need/desire and who you are.

  • What does submission/slavery look like to you?
  • What does Domination look like to you?
  • What is the outcome you are looking for and want?
  • In three to five years, what do you want to be different?
  • What obstacles do you currently face that stop you from achieving your desired outcome?
  • What do you have control of that can help you to make the change you want?

There are no wrong answers. Answering these questions should force you to think. However, it should not take a minute to answer them either. This is your Life; does it not deserve the time and energy to discover how you are meant to live it?

At the same time, don’t put too much pressure on yourself, as the answers to these questions will constantly change as you grow and evolve. Keep these answers someplace safe, and refer back to them, so you see how far you have come and changed. It also lets you know where you might have been sidetracked and if you need to make changes to get yourself where you want to be.

That Is Just The Start

When trying to understand something, many people only focus on what. To focus on the what and only on how things make us feel, we only scratch the surface and never understand the why of the matter. However, the why will show you your purpose and reveal all the unknown—understanding the why gives us the power over the what. So without understanding why we become lost and powerless over everything else.

Here is an example:
You get together with one of your friends for coffee. They see you are down. So they ask the typical question, “What’s wrong?”
You reply, “I’m just really stressed.”

You can leave the conversation there, and neither of you tries to uncover more about the situation. Stress can then lead to anxiety, depression, and several other problems. In essence, you have become powerless against the problem, your feel stressed, and the what of the matter.

Now let’s say your friend being the concerned and caring friend they are, asks, “Well, WHY are you so stressed?”

This allows you to dig deeper into the root cause of the situation. It will enable you to vocalize a better understanding of the matter. Once you understand why you are stressed, you have power over what has controlled you. Now you can determine how you will dictate your future. Even if understanding why does not help you to resolve things, it still helps you to better understand the matter at hand.
Is the stress coming from an overly demanding jerk of a boss? Once you know, you can work the solution, like getting a new job, talking to HR, transferring to a different department, etc.

If you only focus on being stressed, you never find the root cause and therefore lose any ability to do anything about it.
Understanding the why allows us to understand ourselves better and gives us the freedom we need to grow.

As the famous philosopher, Benedict Spinoza said (let me paraphrase), happiness comes from increased understanding. Even understanding unhappiness can create happiness.

So ignorance is not bliss, especially when it comes to yourself.

Once We Know The What, Understand The Why?

  • Why do I want this? Why do I need this? Why do I desire this?
  • Why do I avoid, ignore or refuse this?
  • Why do I want this particular outcome?
  • Why do I allow these obstacles to block my path?

When answering these question it is very easy to resort back to the what over the why. The majority of the time when I ask someone

“Why do you want to be submissive/Dominant?” nine times out of ten I hear because it turns me on. That actually isn’t an answer to why, it is the answer to the what.

“What do you like about being submissive/Dominant?”

“It turns me on.”

When asking these questions, you need to dig deeper. Why does it turn you on? Why does it arouse you in such a way?

“Because I like someone telling me what to do.” Again, why do you like someone telling you what to do?

Write your answers on a piece of paper, and on every line, ask yourself “why” until you break down your answer to the point where you can no longer ask why. Even better, if you have a friend or a partner, write your answers to the what and have them take notes on your why answers. They can then keep asking you why until they can no longer ask.

By not taking the time to dig into yourself, you are essentially putting on a blindfold and just desperately throwing darts at a board, hoping you might get lucky and hit the bullseye. Instead, take the blindfold off and aim at what you truly desire. You may not hit it immediately, but you are far more likely to get it in the end and with fewer tries. And who knows, you may find out you enjoy being blindfolded, and that is when you should put it on.

Understanding Your Desire To Submit

Most people assume that independence overrules the need for dominance in any relationship. However, the need for authority is also natural in Life. BD, or bondage and discipline (sometimes referred to as bondage and dominance), is one way people exercise this need. While many are embarrassed to admit a passion for such an activity, it is more common than most realize.

While bondage and discipline bring to mind the idea of chains and gags, these are just some of the means of employ in such fetishism. Though the practice does involve some sort of restraint and perhaps “punishment” play, it is not a barbaric practice.

You’ll probably be afraid to recognize such desires when you first realize that you have fantasies that fall within fetishism, including bondage, discipline, dominance, and sadomasochism. You may react with disgust in yourself, fear of such thoughts, or even denial of those needs and desires. However, if you feel this is a lifestyle you should be involved in, you’ll have to learn to get over embarrassment toward those desires.

There are several stages through which you will have to work before you reach a level of acceptance and understanding. The first stage is realization when you discover your penchant for such behavior. While many realize at an early age – sometimes even in childhood – that they enjoy such forms of stimulation, others don’t recognize it until later in Life, perhaps not even until they’ve gone through an emotional revolution caused by experiences like divorce that force them to explore their fantasies. Often, the initial discovery is met with a denial reaction, with difficulty in believing that it could ever happen to you.

However, the further you explore, the less you can deny your need for Domination or Dominance, whichever position you take. Because of social stigmas regarding practices of sadomasochism and bondage, as well as related bedroom play, individuals discovering their enjoyment of the practices tend to fear that their friends and family will find out about their preferences and either ridicule or even worry about them, suggesting therapy. Learning about this can lead to a fraction of fear.

This is typically followed by research, looking to both justify and explain the excitement gained from such practices. With proof that others feel the same way and information or studies showing that you are not alone or abnormal in your desires, you may begin to experiment with yourself to determine what you are looking for. Do you feel the need to play master to a servant or to serve a master? Do you enjoy just a little bit of pain? Do you like the idea of being restrained? These are questions you should answer for yourself before becoming involved with other fetishists to make sure you know what sort of relationship into which you should enter.

As you learn more about yourself, you’ll likely begin to look for others with your same desires or those that fit the opposing role. This search should be performed with care because you’ll want to verify that the relationships you decide to cultivate are conducive to your desires and healthy for everyone involved. When you search for others in your situation, you’ll be more likely to come to terms with your desires. There is always safety in numbers and affirmation in joining a particular community.

Upon deciding that you do not have any abnormal desires, you’ll be more comfortable in exploring this side of your sexuality, and you will want to find yourself a partner. Again, great care is necessary when entering any fetish, and you should practice safety measures in all interactions. What started out as something that ignited fear will become great fun for you as you become more involved in the world.

With that said, one thing I hear all the time from people in the lifestyle or who want to enter into the lifestyle is that BDSM is some sort of cure-all for the woes of their Life. Yes, BDSM is fun and can be safe, but it will not make you younger or happier. You may have a lovely time in the dungeon, and you might even enjoy pushing your boundaries, but you will not cure things that happen outside of the bedroom by heading into the dungeon. The endorphin rush and that great session buzz will only last so long. The feelings you had before you walked into the scene will come back, no matter how great of a scene you may have just had. The issues will always be waiting on the other side of the dungeon door.

BDSM Will Not Improve An Unhealthy Relationship

Some people think that things will be happier if they do a few more kinky things in their relationship. While you might have lost some of the spice in your relationship, BDSM is not how to bring the magic back into your partnership. Instead, you need to look for what is happening in your relationship and talk to your partner about how they can work with you to ensure you are heading in a more positive direction. BDSM might be fun to add to a good relationship, but when your relationship is on the rocks, adding a scene that involves having complete trust in your partner (when you don’t) is not the best of ideas.

BDSM Will Not Cure Mental Woes

Others with general trust issues, depression, or low self-esteem might think that BDSM will help them create a more solid sense of themselves. This often happens with new slaves who believe that obedience to a Master or a Mistress will help them feel better about themselves. After all, if they can please one person, they must be a good person. This sort of thinking is not real and mental issues are best worked on with the help of a trained therapist. This professional will be able to make sure that you work through your mental problems and that you don’t bring them into the bedroom, where they can’t be solved.

BDSM Will Not Bring Happiness To An Unhappy Person

Like anything in Life, the only key to happiness is how you think about your Life. Looking outside of yourself for answers, like thinking BDSM will make you happy, is not an excellent way to help your Life. Instead, you need to understand what is truly troubling you and work on resolving those issues. You may need to talk to a professional therapist, take some much-needed vacation time, connect with your friends and family, or focus more on you and your health. You don’t need to bring another complicated factor into your Life. BDSM is many things but can not make you happy when you are not.

BDSM is not a cure for the things that ail you in your Life. When you have issues coming up for you, don’t head to the dungeon to work them out. It would be best if you thought about how to manage your problems and then enjoy the time you spend with your partner in the dungeon/bedroom. Life isn’t always easy or pretty, and while BDSM might be enjoyable and fun, it can not take the place of personal self-development. You’re not in the dungeon always, so you need to realize that your problems follow you everywhere, especially when you’re not taking steps to deal with them.

Bishop BDSM Training AcademyI hope you enjoyed Part 1 of the free e-Course. Keep your eyes peeled for the next edition which will arrive in a couple of days!

In the mean time, take a moment to read about how The BDSM Slave Training Guide can teach you the best kept secrets of slave training (using our step-by-step instructional manual, pictures, and diagrams). To learn more click here!

To Your Journey,

Master Bishop

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