I’ve been reading Dan and dawn’s excellent book “Living M/s“. If you’ve not had a chance to read this, I highly recommend it. It’s written in a very accessible format and I would almost say that it uses the “Screw the Roses, Give Me the Thorns” approach to a Master/slave relationship. (Yes, I’m dating myself with that one…) It can be good for vanilla and those already in M/s relationships.
In that book, Dan described a small ritual/approach he has when reassuring his slave or needing to anchor his slave to him when they are discussing a hard topic or a personal issue that brings up a lot of icky feelings. It’s a very centering ritual, and one that focuses and strengthens and gives an anchor to both.
What I didn’t expect was to need to use it myself after reading it. In a moment when I saw that slave Angie needed some anchoring, needed more than just a simple voiced reassurance. And Dan’s advice/ritual just happened to pop into my head at that moment.
So I called her over to me, had her sit on the bed. I still in front of her, put my hand on her neck, cupping it. I kissed her forehead, told her that she was my slave. Walked her through that it was OK, that I was OK, that what was going on was just a small thing, that it was OK she was struggling, that I saw her struggle, that she was still my slave. I kissed her forehead again.
It anchored me and I could see the reassurance and relief on her face.
And the moral of the story, beyond the listening, the affirmations and the anchor/reminding of our places, is that you never know when you’re going to get your next bit of good advice.