Fear Class

Since i’m a therapist, i actually already know a lot about anxiety, phobias, and anxiety disorders.  i know about it from a clinical perspective, and i know about it from watching family and friends, and of course i know my own anxieties intimately.

So it’s a lot of fun to watch and listen while Sir Top and Bonnie describe their experiences and demonstrate fear play with participants.  Sir Top has ~ had ~ agoraphobia, and describes vividly what that was like and how restricted her life became.

Bonnie sort of rescued her from that, helping her calm and soothe herself as she confronts the fear of going places, over and over and over.   Clearly, the treatment worked, since they travel extensively, doing workshops at different events.

They engage the audience beautifully, amusing us, and getting us to volunteer our secret fears.  Then ~ let the games begin ~ they challenge people to come up to face their fears.

So ~ for example ~ afraid of the dark?  Let Sir Top put a hood on you and sit in the dark.  We watch the victim’s breathing change as the hood goes on, her chest heaves; her mouth is visible and gives a hint of her emotional state.

Sir Top and Bonnie play her well, checking frequently to make sure she’s ok and enjoying her discomfort, enjoying watching her stretch her limits.

They repeat the process with a woman with a fear of closed spaces – zipping her up in a body bag.  Yikes.

And finally, a young man with a fear of guns.  Sir Top wields a huge pistol and we watch him anxiously endure having the gun stroke his chest.  Watch Sir Top put a thumb on his temple, carefully point the gun behind his head and squeeze the trigger… 

Yikes and double yikes.

The part of the gun where you put the bullets is sealed, there is no way it can be loaded, and yet.  There’s that moment when you hear the click, and it’s scary.  It just is.

There are things that just are scary to us.  Knives.  Any sharp object, really.  Sir Top strokes Bonnie’s cheek with a knife, pretends to shave her eyebrows.   Bonnie trembles, and it’s not faked.

Feeling cold steel against your face, knowing a slip could lead to real damage, takes tremendous trust.  It requires overcoming a very basic fear of harm, fear of death.

After all, fear helps keep us alive.  If we didn’t feel fear, we’d be like the people who are have that condition that keeps them from feeling pain.  If you can’t feel pain, you don’t know when you’re hurt, don’t know when you need to get your hand off the hot stove.

In the same way, fear helps keep us safe.  They alluded to this in the presentation, that some fears are reasonable and realistic.  Fear is our alarm system and helps protect us.

And when we’re anxious or afraid, we are almost always “over-estimating the risk, and under-estimating our ability to deal with it.”

The people who participated all agreed that they felt less afraid once they were doing whatever they’d been afraid of, and of course that makes perfect sense.  Confronting our fears is the way to heal.  Discovering over and over that we can leave the house and survive, sit in the dark, ride an elevator, handle a snake… The list is almost endless. 

i love working with people with anxiety.

So, ok, don’t laugh, but while Sir Top and Bonnie were presenting, i kept thinking about information i wanted to share.  i didn’t of course, but i thought it would have been cool to offer more facts about anxiety

It’s fascinating to me how their workshop parallels the clinical knowledge and expertise we have about working with fears.  For me, it would have been fun to have them laying that out beside the personal.  

Of course, if it were me, i’d probably have little booklets on dealing with anxiety and fear to hand out to people at the end.  And really, it wasn’t my presentation…

But it got me started thinking about what i’d present on if i were going to do a workshop at these events… more on that later.

i thoroughly enjoyed watching Sir Top and Bonnie do their thing.  Sir Top is funny, and Bonnie is the perfect “straight man.”  They are well worth seeing.

Speaking of which ~ they run an event in Florida ~ in Fort Lauderdale.  It’s in April, and here’s the link to information about it.

http://www.beyondleather.net/

It looks like an awesome event, and i think i’m going to try to see if i can go.  If i lived in Florida, i’d be there for sure!

Of course, youall know me, then i’m thinking, gosh, maybe we should tack on a blogger’s convention piece, or just see how many of us could get there…

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In other aspects of my life ~ the information i posted on the collar of consideration was sent to me by Sir X from this website:

http://www.denversub.com/collars.html

Yesterday, He sent me there to read about service.

http://www.denversub.com/service.html

It was very interesting.  i think i tend toward: Proactive, obedient, and devotional, with some transactional elements thrown in.  i think the ideal Master combines result oriented and task oriented styles.

And i don’t have time to go into more detail, but if you get a chance to read the article, i’d be curious to know how you see yourself.  i may blog more about it later too.

So tonight, we’re having dinner, and Thursday we’re getting together.  And  ~ omigosh, this sounds strange, but true ~ i am “in training.”

Yeah.

With ~ um, with positions to learn.

Maintenance spankings.  i am learning to know the routine.  

It goes like this.  Collar.  He has a different collar for this, also made of rope, but with a padlock that hooks into two loops in the front and  ~ well,  you know ~

~~it makes that locking noise when He closes it.  

Cuffs, wrists and ankles.

Bound with my arms above my head in  the doorway.  Touched and explored first.

Then spanked

First with His hand.  

Then the flogger, this lovely, mostly soft flogger, only not quite so soft on nipples and other sensitive spots.

Then a rope ~ that stings.  A lot.

And finally, His belt.  

That is the routine.  Hand, flogger, rope, belt.

It makes me shiver thinking about it.  

The other thing i was thinking… about the collar of consideration.  It did happen really fast, and i think maybe He would not have moved so quickly if i hadn’t been going to COPE. 

But you know ~ well, youall know how it used to wind me up when MoR used to talk about branding me.  And part of that ~ as he well knew ~ was about me wanting to “belong,” right?  And maybe to “belong to.”

And with MoR, it was delightful talk, but we both knew the end of the story wasn’t going to be “and then he branded her.”

Then Sir X comes along, and in a quick moment, lays claim to me.  

Like an old-time homesteader traveling west,  He hasn’t quite settled here but He’s staked out the territory He wants.

And that feels so good.