Service-Oriented Submissive Mental Space – The Other Side

Note: I am still writing with a fever.  I am hoping to remain coherent.

In a post from yesterday I talked about how reaching a mindset of service-oriented submission and the calm it yields was a half-truth.  I handled it a bit ham-handedly and I thought it would be good to expand upon that statement.  Half-truth was the wrong descriptor for it, as there is a lot of truth in it.  The problem is that it isn’t a “light-switch” concept.  You don’t tell it to someone and they go, “oh, I get it now, I’ll be like that from now on.”

What tends to actually happen is that subs will either resist the concept or in other cases, it just makes them feel bad.  The people who seek and are given this advice are frequently in the midst of their frenzied ache.  They are hurting, confused, and trying to find solace in anything they can.  If you strip away the delicacy, recommending service-oriented submission as a means of calming the soul basically says, “your form of submission is selfish.  Here is what you should actually feel.”  This feeds a shame spiral that makes the ache even worse, as there is an additional layer of guilt dumped upon the already difficult task of communicating that you NEED something that isn’t there.

A lot of this goes back to some of the ideas that I wrote in Temperament and Patience.  Unless you are one of the lucky few that naturally gravitates towards service-oriented submission, there is a very strong chance that your submissive self will have to mature to reach this point.  In many ways it resembles how children learn the concept of sharing and giving.  When young you might not want to give up half of your cookie because it means you get less cookie.  When older you may give up half of your cookie because it is fair and you may end up with another half of a cookie at a later date.  Later you may wish to give up your whole cookie because the joy of watching someone else’s excitement at receiving the cookie outweighs the temporary pleasure of eating it yourself.  This last stage is where the joy of service submission falls.

When you reach this stage, you do find an extra sense of peace.  You find much of your submission in doing things for others.  You find yourself aching and desiring less for things to be done to you.  You start thinking of ways to please them.  While it may not satiate all of your needs, it will keep many of them from reaching a state of desperation.

Reaching this state of mind can take a while.  It took me a few years.  It is an ideal concept to keep in mind as you grow through submission.  It isn’t wrong to not feel it right now.  It isn’t bad that it doesn’t make sense just yet.  Just try not to ignore it and deny its existence.  As long as you keep it in the back of your mind, you may find it someday.