Hello Cage friends,
I recently had a statement with a friend that created a great sense of understanding within myself. It had been previously discussed and one aspect of the idea made itself known to me. Today while having a seemingly innocuous conversation over an action and feeling I had realization struck my brain space like a bit of a lightning bolt.
So I had written a blog a little bit back now about how I minimize my positive attributes. I look at myself and I do tend to minimize what positive things I bring into different situations. During this recent conversation this morning it was made apparent that I do the exact opposite.
I not only minimize my positive qualities but I exaggerate the negative aspects of who I am. I've always seen myself through a negative lens. The good I do is never "good enough" while the bad and negative things are blown out of proportion.
When I look at myself I choose to say "I'm a terrible person. I'm evil. I'm the worst human in existence." This has been the way I see myself my entire life. Each situation I made a poor choice just reinforced this negative self view. I continued down this path of self abuse. I completely disregarded the positive I managed to accomplish, or say that what good I DID do just wasnt enough. While I engorged the negative, inflating it until I saw myself as nothing but vile, despicable, deplorable.
I'm working on this self image. In fact since joining this site I've made tremendous progress on how I view myself. I've recognized that I minimize my good qualities and exaggerate the bad.
So what's the point of all of this?
Well the question I bring to myself and those who read my blog today is this, what happens when you make a mistake as a Dom? I mean you can't ignore when you make a mistake. When you consider what happens if your s type makes a mistake, brings something to your attention how do you choose to handle it? Do you listen, and fully observe the situation? Do you give yourself some time to consider what happened, why it happened and then dole out a course correction or punishment that is appropriate to the crime?
Thinking through this line of experience I recognized that I do not do that for myself when I make a mistake. I immediately jump to "Worst human ever" with no regard for what happened, the circumstance, why it happened, and working at understanding myself in my mistake. I mean you can't ignore when you make a mistake, some form of course correction needs to occur. But the most critical point is that you need to adequately and fairly understand what was the mistake. Was I selfish? Not really, although my actions were not altruistic. There was an element of self preservation within my actions, but does that make me an awful human being? I used to jump to "ABSOLUTELY YES". Although it's comical because when I witnessed someone else in that situation be it a friend or an s type there is an abundant amount of patience, understanding and support that I try to offer them. When it comes to myself though I used to hold no grace, no room for error, I demanded perfection in every moment, in every circumstance. The thing is it requires the right amount of balance. It takes seeing myself objectively, such that I don't jump to the most terrible I could see myself. I need to observe, evaluate, and take time to consider my actions and what do I NEED to do to properly and accurately correct my course? I was always way to extreme for myself, and in having this conversation with my friend I recognize that I need to be more authentic in how I judge myself. I need to hold the mirror up and see myself as I am, for what my actions are, and not the warped twisted image that I imagine those actions to be. I need to see myself and give myself credit for the good I do, and fairly evaluate myself for the bad. I need to give myself an appropriate level of punishment, course correction or just a slap on the wrist given the circumstance. Then walk forward knowing I can do better.
No one is perfect. But it does no good to view yourself worse than you are. It's not fair. It's not honest. You need to allow the right balance, to simply see yourself as an individual working on sorting themselves out. I need to work at giving myself the same discretion I choose to give my s type. I need to find the right balance for me. Not overshadow the good work I do, or inflate the bad decisions and actions I have made. Be honest, sincere and forthright. I deserve that much and so do you.
To those that read my blog today, thank you for your time. I appreciate that you choose to join me on my journey, I hope you find growth and inspiration for yourself today.
