I'm in a really good mood today, it's Friday! I'm feeling sassy and sexy, 2 things I would not have felt 6 months ago. It's like crawling out of a cocoon into the light. I'm not a gorgeous butterfly, but I am feeling like a fairly cute, reasonably fit, competent human being of the girl variety lol.
I’m really loving how submission is helping my efforts to improve myself. I sent E a pic a couple weeks ago and he was like hey, you should compare that to the first pic you ever sent me and you can see how much thinner your face looks - and how you look so much happier! He knows that I'm really working hard exercising and watching my food intake in an effort to lose weight.
I compared, and it was true! Now let me be clear, my drive for self-improvement is for me, and it started before I joined this site and met E. But having him as my cheerleader is so wonderfully helpful. He’s also the voice of reason when I get stuck on something.
In submitting to E, I feel like I have more instead of less. I have unloaded my worries and I LET him help me. I tell him my uncertainties as well as my victories, and he encourages me, but without bullshit - he's honest. Sometimes I need to vent, and figure out how to handle something - I don’t like to bring up a problem without being open to a possible solution, if I don’t have one in mind myself.
I tell him when I’ve had a rough day and just need him to, well, know what I need. And he does. So I get to focus on the things I need to focus on. As I feel better and better about how I feel and look, my confidence has grown as well, cascading across all the areas of my life. Even though we’re separated by distance most of the time, I still feel like I can lean on him. E is a really good Dom.
I’m really lucky to have found someone compatible, who wants to help me explore, and who is ok with being friends with benefits. Just being divorced for a few months, I don’t want to get into a serious romantic relationship. There's so much to learn and so much fun to have! But we are close - we message every day, take an interest in each other’s lives, and I can count on him. E really wants me to be the best person I can be, and wants me to find my way in this world and develop into the person (slave 😉 ) I am meant to be.
Being the best person I can be, for me, means being healthy. I will never fat shame anyone as one of my sisters has done it to me too many times. But for me, it was time to lose the weight. Having the breast pre-cancer diagnosis and going through treatment was a wakeup call. I don’t have any genetic tendency for cancer, but obesity is a risk factor. AND per my surgeon, exercise is statistically shown to help prevent the recurrence of cancer.
So the hiking that I started around the time of my diagnosis has become a passion - I love the peace I find in the forest, and the physical conditioning is amazing too. When I started I struggled to hike 3 miles. Now I can hike 8 miles easily and can’t wait till the weather cools off - I want to camp out and do a 9.5 mile trail at a state park near the town I grew up in. E applauds my passion and he’s impressed with how much endurance I’ve built. I’m working on running the hilly 3 mile trail nearby and I update him each time I go on how much of it I ran, how many hill drills I did at the top, etc.
E doesn’t dictate what sort of improvements I do or what girly things I explore. Sure, he has suggestions sometimes - he mentioned a corset for instance back when we were first talking. I recently bought one online, because as I felt more and more feminine, the more the idea of wearing one intrigued me. I have to say I like it, it feels very sexy. But if it didn’t intrigue me, if I wasn't willing to try it, I wouldn’t have bought it. He wants me to find pleasure in the things that I do, such as painting my toenails pink, when I didn’t paint them at all for a few years, or buying a pretty top, when I used to wear drab colors all the time.
My self-improvement isn’t about trying to be someone else’s idea of perfect. I’m trying to be my own idea of better. I take pleasure in so many little things now, putting on makeup and jewelry when I leave the house, wearing a bra that doesn’t flatten my boobs (lol or just skip the bra with the right top.)
I laughed with E last weekend about how I decided to put makeup on before I drove a load of junk up to Goodwill to drop it off, thinking hey there just might be someone cute there to flirt with - and there was! A guy about my age was dropping off junk as well. I’m learning how to flirt, I was never good at that. We bantered a bit and it was fun.
Building on that, I ran an experiment. I put up a dating profile on a free vanilla dating site. Ok,, free sites are not the best. But this was just an experiment. I posted my recent selfie along with a simple profile that hinted at D/s, but also came right out at the bottom and said “D/s friendly.” I kept the profile up for about 36 hours, and I received more than 60 emails. Sure most of them were just the “Hi beautiful love your smile” that they send to every new woman that pops up, but there were a handful that actually read my profile, even a couple that mentioned the D/s. It was nice just to feel like I’m attractive again after feeling frumpy for so long. And with a couple of them being D/s aware, that might open up more local possibilities at the point where I am ready for that romantic relationship. Can’t hurt to have options, right?
Even regaining the ability to cry was an emotional improvement. Since I was able to visit E a couple of weeks ago I’ve gotten back in touch with my tears. Mmmm, kneeling for him in submission was really powerful for me, and he gave me what he knew I needed - enough pain to get me to really let go and let things out.
Since then the tears have been close to the surface a couple of times - I didn’t really need to cry but it’s nice to know that I can now. Lol I may cry some tears of frustration as I work on projects around here, it’s hard as hell playing catch up on a place this size. Last night I stepped in a hole, lost my shoe, and planted the other foot right in a sticker bush. Many 4 letter words were said. But stress tears can be a good release, so I’m glad I can do that if I need to.
Let’s see, what else? Oh, E gave me a couple of hypnotic commands that help me get back to sleep when I wake up at 4 am and stress about work - I want them to work, and they do, so using them is helping me build a new habit. Again, I told him about the problem and he helped me with a solution.
Submitting to E has helped me in so many ways and I love what this journey is doing for me. Even after we've both moved on at some point in the future, the benefits of this relationship will stay with me.
I hope that others who are working on themselves are doing it FOR themselves. It’s great to have help and encouragement, but you have to do what YOU want to do. Having a strong sense of self is really important. Changing yourself for someone else is something to be done very carefully.
If I was in a serious relationship, would I make changes to myself that my Dom liked? That would depend on the change. I wouldn’t do certain things, but others I would consider. For instance, I just spent the entire pandemic growing out my hair. I dyed my hair for 20 years and I’m not interested in doing that again. My hair is pretty and I get compliments on it. I have white locks in the front, the rest is darker but greying. I should have just embraced my X-men Rogue look years ago but didn’t. But would I change the length or style for someone? Sure. Probably wouldn't shave my head though.
Would I get a tattoo or piercings for a Dom? Yeah I probably would. Would I let him control my food? Nope, that’s not good for me. A boob job? Probably not. Wear a corset or something super sexy or bondage-y under my office wear? Sure, why not?
I love the variety of humanity. We are all different and have likes and dislikes and things that we feel strongly about. The trick is to find someone whose likes and dislikes mostly match up with yours, along with mostly matching kinks, and then negotiate where the limits are both for kinks and for your body.
As someone who identifies as a slave, I would really have to take my time and get to know someone really really well before I did anything like give up my limits in favor of his. I don’t have a ton of limits, but I wouldn’t be comfortable, for instance, with someone who is super into needles.
And as far as limits on modifying my body, I wouldn’t be comfortable with a guy who wanted me to get a boob job or had a burning need to control my food intake. But a guy who wanted me to pierce my clit and wear a corset to work? Hmmm, I might go for that. Or fuck yeah, I should say ;)