• Do you make time with your slave to discuss your career challenges and problems within your biological family?
• Do you take time out to release stress and free yourself from everyday worries and anxieties?
• Do you have adequate help at home? Are you overtaxing one slave? (Just ask, your slave will tell you.)
Ongoing Improvement
How do you grow, personally? How do you add skills? Do you expect your slave to grow in this M/s relationship? Will you be satisfied if your slave has the same skills in five years that he/ she has right now?
• Are you living your life based on a philosophy of ongoing improvement?
• Do you feel that your greatest achievements are still ahead of you? Do you remain curious about the world around you?
• Do you have a methodology for living up to the best that is within you?
• After a period of rejuvenation following a substantial success, do you challenge yourself to continue to reach even greater levels of success?
• Do you expect, encourage, and enable ongoing improvement from those within your family?
Taking Risks
• Are you willing to create new opportunities by taking risks? In what area are you willing (or unwilling) to take risks? Financial risks; emotional risks; relationship risks; social risks; workplace risks?
• Are your convictions more important to you than your need for approval from authority figures?
• When you are going out on a limb, do you trust your abilities?
• Do you allow enough preparation time when you set out to create the best opportunity for yourself? Do you ever prepare a "briefing book" or go through a "trial run" when preparing to propose a new idea either to your slave, or in a work or social setting? These are certainly standard business practices (at least in successful businesses), so why not bring them into your Household?
• Are you aware that it is often riskier not to do anything than to make a bold move? In the business world, this is referred to as "lost opportunity risk."
Responsibility
• As Head of Family, do you step out of the way and enable your Family members to assume a greater share of responsibility?
• Does your slave strive to take a greater amount of initiative?
• Do you encourage your Family members to become independent from your daily direction?
• Do you reward your Family members who take on greater responsibility? (Personal note: we often dress in military fetish for dinners. I have begun to award military ribbons to recognize outstanding service.)
Motivation
• When you are having a very bad day, do you consciously take action and deal with the problem head on? Clearly, your slave needs to know whether or not your upset is a Family matter.
• When you find that your slave hasn't followed what you thought was a clear Directive, do you try to turn the negative experience into a learning lesson for further growth? Hint: if you gave your slave a clear Directive and the slave apparently ignored it, chances are, one of two things just occurred. First, you were not nearly as clear as you thought you were about your Directive; second, your Directive may not have been as good an idea as you thought and your slave has outthought you on this score and self-corrected. Tread carefully, lest you create an automaton, rather than a forward-thinking slave. (No, I didn't miss the problem of willfulness in the second part of the discussion - and I'm glad you caught it, too. M/s relationships can be tricky.)
Rules of the Mind
• What you expect to happen tends to happen. (This is a cousin to one of my favorite expressions: You get what you resist. The common denominator is that when you dwell on something a great deal - whether positive or negative - you tend to notice it when it finally comes to pass. Also, when you expect to one thing to happen you limit your own ability to consider and act on creative alternatives.)
• Imagination is more powerful than knowledge; your body will produce what your mind believes. (In many cases, you don't notice something until you realize that the something can possibly exist. That is, until you hold a concept of something, you may find that it's right in front of you, but you don't recognize it for what it is. This phenomenon gave rise to the bumper sticker you sometimes see: Some things have to be believed to be seen.)
• Every thought or emotion has a physical reaction. (This concept is at the root of the observation from the field of psychology that there is no distinction to a person between something that is real and something that is imagined.)
• A belief programmed into the subconscious mind will remain until it is replaced by another idea; your mind seeks validation for previous beliefs. (This is another important concept not only for understanding how you think, but also for slave training.)
Twelve things to remember:
Marshal Field (founder of the department store chain)
1. The value of time
2. The success of perseverance
3. The pleasure of working
4. The dignity of simplicity
5. The worth of character
6. The power of kindness
7. The influence of example
8. The obligation of duty
9. The wisdom of economy
10. The virtue of patience
11. The improvement of talent
12. The joy of originating
The Dali Lama's Instructions for Life
As said for the new millennium. But, why not take his words beyond that.
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
• Respect for self
0 Respect for others and
• Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then, when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12.A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16.Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19.Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
Reflections on Life
Collected by Robert J. Rubel
• A commitment is doing what you said you would do long after the feeling you said it in has passed.
• Be bold about ideas, tentative about people.
• You can never solve the problem using the same logic that created it in the first place. (Einstein)
• Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
• There is not a right way to do a wrong thing. Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.
• The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative; the second is disastrous.
• Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
• Professionals are people who can do their job when they don't feel like it. Amateurs are people wh
o can't do their job when they DO feel like it.
• If you have tried to do something and failed, you are vastly better off than if you had tried to do nothing and succeeded.
• The average person has about 10,000 ideas per day; the problem is that same "average person" had 99.9% of those same ideas the day before. And the day before, and the day before. Actually, the hidden problem, here, is with overworked ideas.
• Things don't change, we do; there is always a way if you're committed.
• In the long run, it's more orderly to convert chaos to system than to cover chaos with system.
• What you are afraid to do is a clear indicator of the next thing that you need to do.
Commentary: The last few sub-heads - and their associated bullets - are intended to spark your thinking about how to configure your Household. I said from the beginning of this book that my Household is somewhat cerebral. But, we find these ideas to be challenging; they often prompt us to reconsider how we're doing things.
Chapter Summary
Okay, we're coming to the end of the book. In this chapter I've tackled the task of proposing some approaches to maintaining a relationship. Largely, I've included bulleted points that cover a wide range of topics that impinge on the subject of relationships. Much of what is included in this chapter requires reflection and introspection; you have to think about yourself and who you are both as a person, and as a Master. Among other topics, I touched on communication, goal-setting, and risk-taking. I also touched on responsibility and motivation within the M/s structure. Finally, I brought the chapter to a close with the Dali Lama's Instructions for Life and a collection of aphorisms that I have collected over the years.
In my experience, it takes a lot of work to ensure that a relationship remains healthy, vibrant, and fulfilling for each partner. If you've reached this point in the book and decided that this makes reasonable sense, then here are a few thoughts about maintaining your relationship in tip-top shape. This chapter contains a brief listing of things that have particularly helped my M/s relationship.
Know Your Priorities
As Master Jim Glass says: "Decisions in this relationship always serve the Family's wellbeing." Unlike a Vanilla relationship, a Leather Master/slave structured relationship is serving a higher purpose. As Master, it is incumbent upon you to keep that vision in the forefront of your mind and behavior. You have much more to do in this kind of relationship than you would have to do in a husband/wife relationship.
Don't Drift: Plan Your Future
In the same way that a Master/slave relationship is based on structure, you may - like me - find it extremely helpful to put more thought and structure into your lives as a couple (or threesome, or more).
As Lewis Carroll said in Alice Wonderland, in "If you have no destination, any road will take you there."
I'm completely committed to thinking through where I want to be in five or ten or twenty years, and then focusing my ener gies towards that goal. I've found that to be very successful. The more clearly I can explain my goals and work through the necessary steps to attain the goals, the more easily my new life unfolds before me. There are many planning models you can use to build a personal/Family plan: pick one and use it. Here is a very basic (and well-established) model that works well for individuals or small businesses that don't have a lot of strategic planning experience:
1. Identify your purpose (mission statement). This is the statement (or statements) that describe why your Family exists, i.e., its basic purpose. What are you and your slave all about? Are you focusing primarily on yourselves and your relationship, or are you intending to give something back to the Community? If you intend to give back, what are you giving back? Time? Service? Money? Wisdom? The statements will change somewhat over the years.
2. Select the goals your Family must reach to accomplish its mission. Goals are general statements about what you need to accomplish to meet your purpose, or mission, and they address major issues/constraints that you will face in the process.
3. Identify specific approaches or strategies that must be implemented to reach each goal. Strategies often change quite a bit as the Family eventually conducts more robust strategic planning, particularly by more closely examining what are called the external and internal environments of the Family. An external environment concerns outside forces that have an impact on your Family. The internal environment concerns itself with how the two (or three or four...) of you have learned to interact and work together.
4. Identify specific action plans to implement each strategy. These are the specific job responsibilities that each member must undertake to ensure effective implementation of each strategy. Objectives should be clearly worded to the extent that people can assess if the objectives have or have not been met. Ideally, each type of job function within the Family would have a work plan, or set of objectives. For example, if one objective is to develop a House Protocols book, that project would have its own action plan. If one objective is to improve the Family's wardrobe, that objective would have its own action plan. Ditto if the objective was to obtain new training in order to obtain a better job in order to bring more money into the Family.
5. Monitor and update the plan. Business planners regularly reflect on the extent to which the goals are being met and whether action plans are being implemented. Perhaps the most important indicator of Family success comes from comments by friends who notice positive changes in your life.
Say Nothing - Then Think About It
Menander - one of the rulers of the Indo-Greek Kingdom in northern India from 150 to 130 BCE - is quoted as having said: "Nothing is more useful than silence." I'll second that. It's saved me many times, and I recommend it as an active medication in all M/s relationships. It's closely followed by the admonition that when thinking about saying something, carefully plan your key points in light of what you can discern about the way your slave is looking at the situation from his/her viewpoint. That is; study to understand how your slave feels about the situation before you jump in with your interpretation or opinion.
Give Your slave Some Free Time
This relationship is not about getting your shirts cleaned and organizing your shirts in color-order on hangers in your closet. Well... it certainly can be about that, too, but it can be more about connection and purpose. It can be much more about living a purposeful and thoughtful life in which order supports tranquility.
Because there is soooooooooo much to do in life, and in this structured relationship, I find it very hard to release my slave for free time. I am often described as driven. At age 61, I have an acute sense of how little time there is in life. There are countless books to read, countless skills to hone or to acquire, and countless places to travel. I have uses for a personal assistant in many, many aspects of my life.
It's hard for me to release my slave to do something that doesn't appear to directly support our M/s structure. I often must remind myself that giving this free time supports my slave's emotional and physical wellbeing, which in turn, DOES support our M/s structure. Besides, slaves are subject to stress and burnout - especially when juggling career, family responsibilities, social activities, and regular daily activities, in addition to serving Master. You can find information concerning signs and symptoms of burnout on the Internet, but basically, the symptoms may manifest in various areas such as the cognitive, psychological, physical, social, and behavioral. Symptoms can include:
• depression
• irritability
anxiety
• hyperexcitability
• negativism
• excessive anger
• inability to concentrate and make decisions
• loss of motivation
• physical exhaustion
• headaches
• gastrointestinal distress
• loss of energy
• appetite disturbances
0 sleep disorders
• increased interpersonal co
nflicts
• decrease in social activities
So: be sure to release your slave periodically.
Catch Your slave Doing Right - Demonstrate Your Appreciation
Often, people only comment when their partner does something wrong. I believe that there is serious risk in this. If you are always catching the person making a mistake, then your slave is likely to start to anticipate that whenever you offer a comment - even a neutral or positive comment - you're hiding what you are really thinking. Clearly, this reaction is the opposite of what you want or need.
So, to break that possible cycle, I leave little congratulatory notes around for my slave. Good Job: The bathroom is spotless. Thank you. Sometimes, I will go up to my slave and remark on what a competent job is being done on some chore or another.
And, I'm careful about taking her out to dinner occasionally - considering the tremendous amount of work my slave puts into our formal dinners.
Oh yes, and I make sure that there are flowers throughout the house. Every week.
Learn to Focus/Refocus Your slave
Sometimes my slave drifts. My slave forgets and drifts back to actions or speech from the Vanilla world. Serving dinner, the slave jumps up from Table to bring something. First, how did that something get forgotten? Second, since we are already at Table, the slave must ask permission to get up. What to do, what to do, what to do??? The slave is serving from the heart; this is good. The slave is anticipating a need and moving to meet it; this is good. But this action, jumping up from table to bring something without first asking permission, is devoid of protocol; this is not good. It doesn't fit our structured relationship and deserves Attention.
In my world, if my slave jumps up from Table to get something during one of our formal fetish Dinners, she knows she's "in trouble." One of our Dining Protocols is that she can only walk around the table counter-clockwise. As she sits to my right, that means that she has to walk past me to get back to her chair. This affords the (lovely) opportunity to correct her for her impulsive action. Our punishment calls for her to bend over, hands spread on the seat of her chair, legs spread wide apart while I...
Master/slave Relations: Handbook of Theory and Practice Page 13