about what is of "higher" value, we can begin to understand that
it is possible for a woman to be submissive, and to be healthy.
And we can try to imagine what a healthy submissive functions
like,and how she developed her adult personality. Let's start
backwards, and ask ourselves, what might a healthy adult submissive woman"look" like, psychologically speaking:
1. The healthy submissive is capable of, and thrives on, intense,intimate, emotionally open relationships. This is often evident in the number of nourishing, sustaining, and life affirming friendships she makes over the years.
2. The healthy submissive is a giver. She often needs help to
ration
herself because her impulses nearly always lead her to want
to do good for others.
3. The healthy submissive is capable of intense joy,
especially in the context of a sustaining relationship.
4. The healthy submissive finds significant relaxation when
properly
related. She is at ease in that place.
5. The healthy submissive has finely tuned interpersonal
sensitivity.
She is reactive to subtle shifts in the emotional tone of others.
6. The healthy submissive has a fluidity of self,
a flexibility that enables her to adapt to changing
circumstances.
7. The healthy submissive is playful.
8. The healthy submissive has no more than the usual cultural
conflicts about her body, and its goodness and beauty.
9. The healthy submissive takes pride in her accomplishments.
10. The healthy submissive accepts herself as she is,
knowing that while her culture values independence
and self sufficiency, she has strong dependency needs and that
there is no inherent "wrongness" about those needs.
11. The healthy submissive seeks nourishing relationships.
12. The healthy submissive, in accepting herself "as is" is
tolerant
of
others. But neither will she allow anyone to tell her what
her truth should be.
13. The healthy submissive has a reasonable self concept,
aware of her difficulties as well as her strengths.
14. The healthy submissive hunger is to be the object of an
intense and penetrating understanding. When her nature is
understood and she is held in a loving and firm frame,
her devotion is almost limitless.
The healthy submissive has an enormous capacity for devotion,
from which springs her service.
This baby, as she grows into childhood, will be easy to control,
to shape, especially if she is tempermentally on the "easy" side.
This little girl will be exquisitely sensitive to criticism and
correction, to disapproval, to praise. Rather than requiring a
raised voice to correct, a raised eyebrow will often do.
Even further, this little girl will be exquisitely sensitive to
nuance:
she will know when others are angry, hurt, sad,
bewildered even when they are not spoken about.
She has a "sixth sense" about people.
To know oneself as a submissive woman,
to accept that it is neither the terrible thing that society
tells us it is, nor the only right and true way to be for OTHERS,
is to be free. What is, is.
There are two kinds of strengths: the strength to lead,
and the strength to follow; the strength to control,
and the strength to yield. There are two kinds of power:
the power to strip another's soul bare, and the power to stand naked.
Do not mistake following for weakness, for it is not.
Do not mistake yielding for weakness,
for in yielding there is resilience.
Do not mistake the submissive's need for relatedness for
inability to be alone.
Submissive women are not weaklings.
They are sensitive people who have a great deal of resilience in
the face of their particular challenges.
Submissiveness is a strength seeking a proper context.
As you can see, there is no weakness in submission.
Enjoy it, embrace it.
