Some time ago I wrote about the concept of acting as if as an aspect of "fully exploring the known," which I see as a precursor to any true exploration of the unknown, i. e., spiritual matters.
But to confine acting as if to that arena does a disservice to a very useful and necessary part of a submissive's behavioral makeup.
For something so simple, acting as if is hard to explain. I have on multiple occasions attempted to explain the concept, both to My girls and to others. I would rate My own success in conveying what I am trying to convey at about 50-55%. And since I can objectively say that I'm good at explaining, I must conclude that the difficulty lies largely in the concept itself.
But I have to take into account that perhaps I just haven't yet hit on the right way to put it. Thank goodness life allows for 1,843 attempts. As the saying goes, the 1843rd time is the charm!
OK. Here's a definition for acting as if:
Acting as if is a method for bringing about desired changes in personality, habits, etc., that is based on actions, not on thoughts and plans or desire to change. One simply acts as though the desired future state already exists and over time said state does become reality.
I'm not going to issue the 112 disclaimers that I conceivably could issue about the above statement. I am not talking about diving headlong into a delusional state, stalking the object of one's affection, pretending that one is the Queen of England, ignoring one's own or someone else's hard limits, doing anything illegal, you get the idea please tell Me you get the idea if you don't get the idea read this paragraph over and over and over until you do please thank you thank you very much whew.
What I am talking about are the situations that constantly come up, both in normal vanilla relationships and with amazing regularity in D/s relationships. The areas where the submissive is up against some blockage in his or her movement along the path. Not a limit, per se, but something that s/he is having trouble with. Often these are issues of consistency or completeness, inability to "remember" certain things, etc.
The typical way to approach this is to apologize, then to "think about it." This is preceded by a promise to "work on it." Then one goes off and "thinks about it," presumably to be followed in relatively short order by the "working on it."
The apology and the promise, 95% of the time, are genuine, as is the desire to improve. The "working on it" entails genuine sincere effort.
And yet, more then 95% of the time . . . it's not successful.
The reason that is is because we are captive to our own reflexive thought processes. That is, there is no way to "think about it" or "work on it" without engaging all the things (whatever they may ultimately be) that are holding us back from performing better in the first place.
Ideally, acting as if breaks through all that. One doesn't promise to do better. One does, and it ends up being better.
There is no way to talk about it without making it sound overly simple. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth -- it's the opposite of simple, even if it does involve simple base concepts. One does, in effect, trick one's self . . . one does turn off the thinking/analyzing part. One . . . lets go (another pet concept of Mine) of something very close to ourselves, in a very real way. And that is not at all easy or simple.
But acting as if is composed of simple units.
1. Simplify. Boil a submissive's existence down to the simplest three words. Serve. Please. Obey. Faithfully applied, that covers 99.9% of the D/s stuff (note we are not talking about normal daily vanilla life here).
2. Be Open. Do not commit to embracing a huge change in how you do things overnight, but at least leave yourself open to the possibility that there is another way -- a way not only not tried but likely not even conceived of to this point.
3. Put the cart before the horse. Start at the end -- that is, instead of trying to design a way of remembering to do X every day, do X today. After you do X, smile for a moment at your success, then do X tomorrow. Rinse. Repeat.
4. There are no big or small things. I talk to My girls often about this point. I tell them that all they do serves Me. And on that basis, all things they do are equal, because what is the same about them is much more important than the ways in which they might differ. The effect of thinking about all actions on this basis is that acting as if over time permeates one's approach to everything, and not only becomes easier to apply but also more effective. This approach also brings the proper consistency to one's thoughts and words and replaces the cycle of think/plan/try/fail/self-criticize/apologize with true self-respect as one's stockpile of tiny successes constantly grows in the background.
Acting as if works in this context because it recognizes and respects the paradoxes and difficulties of a D/s relationship, and instead of trying to apply typical responses and thought patterns to those difficulties, seeks to address them with an approach that succeeds by tackling that enormity with minuscule but absolutely consistent steps.
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