On relaxing walks and mindfucks

My mind’s been overstimulated lately; I’ve been constantly thinking of different situations that could come up in a D/s relationship and how I would struggle internally to work through them.  I want so much to be in situations where I can face that struggle.  And I keep reading stories online to see how other peoples’ relationships work.  And I keep feeling intense longing to be in a relationship like those.  And I keep wanting to talk to people about BDSM and learn more.

I’m constantly thinking about this stuff to the point where it’s hard to give my mind a rest even for a minute.  And when there’s that much going on in my mind without a rest, I start getting mentally numb, and I still feel like I have needs to fulfill, but I can’t even think of what they are anymore.  I end up wanting to talk to people even more, because talking with people can help me sort out my thoughts.  But if I can’t find people to talk to when that happens, I can start feeling upset and depressed.

I was at that point yesterday.  I didn’t sleep that well, and woke up at six this morning.  Usually when that happens, I get some water and try to go back to sleep, but I felt rested this morning.  I enjoyed the feeling of being up early and decided to go for a walk.  Walking, for me, is how I can really spend time with God.  It’s calming, and there usually aren’t many people around so I can talk to God out loud without too many people thinking I’m crazy.  And it’s good to be outside and get some exercise and fresh air.

Lately, when I’ve gone for walks, I’ve had trouble focusing on talking with God.  My mind has just kept drifting back to all the BDSM fantasies and concepts I’m working through.  I’ve tried to just spend time with God without thinking about BDSM so much, but it’s hard to snap my mind out of that mode.

Today, though, God helped me with that.  I was thinking about how I missed being able to just relax my mind and not think so much.  When I could enjoy the scenery around me and take joy in that without it just being the background to my thoughts.  At that point, I felt like God was prompting me to just listen to the sounds around me and focus on them.  There were birds and traffic, and it did actually help me relax my mind; tuning into sound, rather than sight, is a refreshing shift of consciousness.

I got to the park that I walk laps around, and no one was there, which was nice.  I sang the songs that came to my head, and reflected and talked and with God about our relationship.  I was enjoying just resting in us being together.  I was still focusing on sounds, and that helped.

I’ve started seeing that my relationship with God works like a D/s relationship; it was always that way, I just have words for it now.  I also have more ideas to try out, since I’ve seen the ways people have D/s relationships.  In the throes of feeling secure in our relationship, and thinking in terms of BDSM sessions, I asked, “God, take me!”  It’s not like we haven’t had intense trust-building and spiritually pleasurable experiences before, but I just had a new way to ask for it this time.

Then I remembered (and started playing) a game I like, where I close my eyes and keep walking and just rest in knowing that God takes care of me.  I pay attention to how my steps feel to know if I’ve gone off the path or something.  Walking without seeing is an awesome feeling.  I love the feeling of trust it can evoke.

I did this for a bit, occasionally opening my eyes when I got too far off the path, which was bordered by grass on both sides.  Then I got to a straight section, and went for longer without opening them.  It was on the side of the park that’s near some houses, and I started thinking about how someone could be on the path in front of me and I wouldn’t know.  They could be a rapist or something.  But then I settled back into trusting God; God and I were spending time together and anything that happened would be something that He wanted to happen.  And if He wanted me to run into a rapist and get attacked, then that was fine because I know that when we’re spending time together, God takes care of me and is in control; I believe he honors my gift of trusting that He’s in control by taking it up fully.

So if He wanted me to run into a rapist, that was fine.  It was then that I ran into a chain-link fence.

My eyes snapped open as chills raced up and down my entire body.  I was momentarily stunned, but then started laughing when I realized what had happened.  I laughed for a while, and then felt closer to God for it.

You see, one of the BDSM things I’ve been reading about lately is mindfucks.  I’m really fascinated by the idea.

I might want to try it sometime if I’ve already been in a long-term relationship for a long time and my Dom knows me really, really well.  It’s kind of weird that I’m so intrigued with the idea because I feel that honesty so absolutely important in relationships, and mindfucks are inherently based on some form of deception.  Maybe I like it because I’d have to trust them beyond my reliance on honesty.  And I want to be stretched in my level of trust.  Or maybe it’s because I feel that giving psychological control adds another level of intimacy to the relationship.  I seek that sort of intimacy.

In any case, I’m fascinated by them, and I think it’s really cool that God wanted to do that with me.  All the components of a mindfuck were there.   Not being able to see reality.  The power of suggestion.  The mind creating a different reality to compensate for lack of sight.  A bit of fear mixed with trust.  And then a sensation that convinces you that what has been suggested has just happened.  That moment of “Holy crap!  What?!”  And then realizing how you were led to believe a reality that was never really there.  It was awesome.

In a way, it felt like a practical joke between friends; friends who really trust each other.  It felt playful.  It was fun.

I continued walking.  Near the end of my walk, I started thinking about how much I’ve been longing for these D/s relationships I read about.  I don’t think that’s bad.  But when I start forgetting that I already have this sort of relationship and that it’s a really, really fulfilling relationship, then I’ve lost sight of what’s really important.  It’s good to look forward to what I want later, but I need to be happy with where I am now.  I need to enjoy this wonderful relationship I get to have with God.  I need to keep working on my relationship with Him, even while I’m waiting to experience the human analogue to that relationship.

BDSM and My Relationship with God

I haven’t known anyone else who experiences their relationship with God like I do.

Growing up, I latched on to the parts of Christian scriptures and songs that dealt with submission, trust, and suffering for God. I’ve had (nearly) romantic fantasies of giving up everything, living on the street, and trusting God to provide for my every need. I’ve prayed fervently, many times, for God to do anything to me or let anything happen to me that would cause me to be closer to Him.

I felt that it was a common and easy thing to love God because he does stuff for you. That’s what most people seem to do. But love, it seems to me, can most truly be shown when it causes some sort of suffering to do so.

I wanted so much to have the opportunity to show my love for God in this way. I wanted to live in a country where Christians are persecuted because I could rely on God more and be closer to Him. I felt that those Christians were more blessed because they could have that closer relationship with God. And that idea seemed supported by Bible verses that talk about the least being blessed and all. I wanted to be the least.

When people would ask for me to pray for something or for someone to get better, I wouldn’t pray for that. I would pray (in my head) that whichever outcome would allow them to get closest to God would happen. Being close to God was the ultimate good; the things people wanted prayers for were secondary to that.

This is the sort of relationship I have with God. It is the most important thing to me, the most important part of me. I could say so much more about it, but I’m trying to be brief.

When my masochistic desires flared up stronger than ever in college, I began to act on them and read stories about them. However, I felt that they couldn’t be right and it must be sinful to act on them. And because I kept choosing to sin even though I wanted to be close to God, I must be choosing those desires over God and injuring my relationship with Him. I felt awful about it.

Toward the end of the five years I struggled with that, I was at a point where I felt like my relationship with God wasn’t as good as it had been, and that left spiritual needs unfulfilled. I felt like when I acted on my desires, I must be trying to fill those needs that God should be filling. I felt that acting on my desires was a perversion of my relationship with God. I felt that a perversion of my relationship with God was the worst sort of insult I could give Him.

I really wanted to talk to someone, so they could help me stop acting on my desires, but I couldn’t think of anyone appropriate to talk to. However, I recently remembered meeting a Christian sex educator, and I re-connected with her on Facebook. I sent her a long message detailing the desires I’d had as a child and how they developed in adulthood.

I had started to suspect that some of the things I was feeling might be okay; there were other people who had these desires, after all. However, I was shocked when she replied and said that everything I’d been feeling was okay. Everything was okay? Yes, everything, she confirmed. I wasn’t harming anyone, so it was okay.

When I started thinking of my desires as okay, it didn’t take me long to see that they weren’t a perversion of my relationship with God at all; they were a reflection of it. And I think that a marriage is a reflection of relationship with God, so then it would be okay if these desires were present in a marriage. No, not just okay: beautiful! Oh so beautiful, because that sort of marriage could reflect my specific and unique relationship with God, which was already based on BDSM-style intimacy.

The most important thing in my life finally fit with my sexuality, and I didn’t have to condemn myself for my desires anymore. It was so liberating and stunning and beautiful. The time spent with God that night was intimate for sure.