Success is Scary

I was reading an entry on another blog just now, and it brought to mind a very common scenario.

Many submissives will encounter a point in their experience where it seems too difficult, where things don't "flow." The submissive will question him or herself extensively, usually in fairly negative fashioin, wondering why he or she can't "get it." Wondering why they keep holding on to things they know they should let go of.

In My experience, what' going on, almost always, is this: It feels like fear of failure, but in fact it's fear of success.

We are all, to varying degrees, resistant to change. D/s is so intense and scary for many people precisely because, particularly in the submissive role, one's confronted with the necessity of changing. That is a scary moment. Even the unhappiest people among us, are, in some (sometimes perverse) way, comfortable with where we've landed. Budging from that spot, even in the face of compelling logical and emotional reasons to do so, is extremely painful and difficult, often, and many people never do.

And success, for a submissive, is largely change. I've talked before about changing one's basic orientation from holding on to letting go. This is the essence, to Me, of true submission. And to change someting so basic in us, something that is the product of a lifetime of socialization, is a momumnetal and scary effort.

Given all that, succeeding is a much scarier prospect than failing, even though failing might ultimately feel worse, and succeeding will feel so good that words are inadequate to describe it. We are, in many ways, perverse, contradictory creatures.

The trick, and this a time where the submissive must fully participate in the trick, is actually not to think about in terms of either success or failure, but instead to remember that one has placed one's trust with the Other, and that following the Other, each day, each moment, each step, is a tiny little success. The big "success" is only felt retroactively, when you turn around a moment and see the seemingly endless trail of tiny successes behind you.