Closed markcheret closed 3 years ago
I have been where you are. It is difficult. You are second guessing everything you do, trying to measure yourself up to an imagined yard-stick that you have never seen. The magic ingredient you are missing is, as you have pointed out, confidence, that is all; while there is no magic bullet to instantly gaining the confidence you need, rest assured with constant work and attention you can build it up to where it needs to be.
I know you are not attaching any fault to your previous partner for the situation but your first paragraph suggests it is on your mind as a factor. So, first of all, get your ex-girlfriend out of your head as to why, in part, you are feeling awkward. Focus on feeling grateful that you had the experiences you had and that it put you on this path. You need to take hold of the reasons that you feel this anxiety and own them. They are your reasons. When they are YOUR reasons YOU can do something about them.
In my world, being a Dominant is not living a life doing the things that Dominants do. For me it is not a list of activities that makes any of us a Dom. Fred can do all the things another Dom does and still not pull it off; on the other hand Fred can do things that we don't associate with dominance and yet come across as very dominant. For me, dominance is not in the things you do, but in the way that you do them, and, as a consequence of this, the critical aspects are your thought processes. Which brings us back to confidence.
You can read all of the books and blogs and internet fluff (there is a fair amount of that) as you like and it will not improve your confidence - confidence will only be improved by doing and is best tackled across all aspects of your life. To be sure, I am not advocating going out to tie people up without training, or flogging people you don't know without any learning in the bank. But I say go about your day pushing yourself to have confident human interactions where you display dominant traits. It takes practice and gumption to do this but it pays off in many ways. (I also advocate getting into your local 'scene' to meet likeminded people so you can realise that you are not that weird after all.) And I am definitely advocating rolling your sleeves up and getting knee-deep into your D/s dynamic to learn what it means to you. Learn how to hold the frame, how to handle feelings, brattiness, discipline, romance, learn how to boost your communication and how to keep her in a high state of arousal. So what if you say the wrong thing, handle an issue the wrong way or otherwise screw up in your D/s dynamic? If no-one gets hurt and you learn from your mistakes then I say go ahead and screw up. You will probably be faced with a partner that screws up from time to time too. We learn our most valuable lessons from our mistakes, and you will screw up. By doing you WILL improve your confidence.
Overthinking is not a dominant trait - so cut it out!
On a practical level I'd suggest a couple of tricks that can take the pressure off you during a scene.
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