Insecurity and Self-Confidence

 Everyone has insecurities. From an early age we are taught to believe that we must attain the unobtainable, that we have to stay in the lines and have to be blond-haired, blue-eyed and perfect husbands and wives in order to see our true worth.  Society at large, the media, and even contemporary music and television shows depict the common person as lacking. Day in and day out we are bombarded with not so subtle messages and reminders that we'll never make enough money, that we're not attractive enough, not young enough, just plain not good enough. June and I had an interesting conversation the other day and I realized that fostering a healthy self-image and a positive self-mindset are going to be a lifelong endeavor that demands my finest vigilance and most selfless motivations.We know what sometimes causes insecurity, So why then are we still susceptible to it?  Why is it so easy to lift others up and yet doubt our own veracity? In my own case, I guess I've always feared never measuring up to what June desires and deserves in a man, I fear that I won't be a good enough father and that the kids truly deserve better.  June reassures me every day that I do a better than descent job, and when I see them smile, or watch them playing or check on them when they are sleeping, it gives me a confidence that bolsters me. Confidence is a beautiful thing and it is easy to take delight in it's design in our lives.  I have been told that confidence in a man is sexy.  June does indeed thrive when I take charge, not only in our relationship but in and around our home as well. Her confidence me furthers this, but I always try to remember that there is being confident and take charge, and there is being arrogant and dismissive, I try very hard not to be the latter. Observing these benefits, I face my fears with the intent on improving not just myself, but improving my leadership overall and leading by example. June does display beautiful confidence at fleeting moments, and that is what I seek to nourish. Her poise, her skill, and her intelligence are a delight to behold and they serve only to highlight the beauty that shines both inside and out.  June is a remarkable homemaker, a brilliant chef,and an outstanding mother add to that her intellect and it's no surprise as to how I fell deeply in love with her.  As I have told her, "So what you aren't bottle blond and 115lbs, you are beautiful, vibrant, and have a brightness that could not be duplicated. You have a real woman's body, a body designed for nourishment, nurturing and comfort. You have a few grey hairs to speak to your experience and wisdom and I LOVE it and would not change a thing... anyway, this gentleman doesn't prefer blondes."  She laughed and said it was good, and even if she thinks I'm crazy she knows my love for her is real.                                                            Self-confidence begins with understanding that we have our partner's back and that no matter what, they have our deepest and truest love. From there I would encourage you all to take a moment to reflect on what is positive in your world and about yourself.  Take delight in your individuality, marvel at your uniqueness and understand that there is beauty in the honest soft beauty in the display of soft openness and the acceptance of one's strength, appeal and beauty... especially when it is hard to see ourselves.  Despite the selfishness of others, even people we grew up with, shared a home with, or were once intimate with... No sometimes we must dig deeper and see not only our worth, but how our self-perception affects our partners. I'm sure that I am not the only HoH who takes issue and will vigorously correct self-degradation and unhealthy, sef-directed language that only hurts and adds to a layer of negativity.  June knows that I take no pleasure in the act of  correction. It is a painful thing for us both, but I also understand that sometimes, like the truth, the growth process can sting a little.

                                         

The funny thing about fear is, that it's very often not rational.  I realize that this does not make fear impotent, but often times fear is unjustified, and dealing with fear often requires the influence of love and patience. I would encourage the HoH's, the husbands and the leaders of homes to reach out, reassure, and display the earmarks of true love, great and unconditional.   If it took a hundred thousand forevers I would show her that she is beautiful every day and that is the kind of wholesome earth that happy, healthy thoughts thrive in.

The same is true of you. Walk tall, communicate and be confident in your family's confidence in you. Lead from the front and be a living, breathing example of  self-confidence and healthy male energy. It won't always be so simple or easy, but it will always speak to simple, solid leadership.. it all starts with love!

                                                                         

                                                      

Her POV:

Is my fear rational? No. Do I know that? Yes, Can I stop it? No. It's there, deep seated in the back of my mind. I have been taught from the earliest that I was unworthy. There was a fundamental lack trust building that should occur in babies (more psychology stuff), it changes the brain chemistry. It changes perceptions, and 'gut-reactions'.

Do I believe he loves me? Yes. Do I trust him? With my live and the lives of my children - our children now. Do I trust his veracity when he says he will never leave - I''mm 'stuck' with him? No, I know he will not leave. What do I fear? Not being worth it. I have never been worth it. What happens if when all the struggles are over he wonders what in the world he fought so hard for? What if some mystical thing changes and the inner darkness comes out and permeates our lives?

I have no answers. I wish I did. I wish I could gain the confidence. I hate sometimes that I am so needy. I worry that he will weary of that. When I am in his arms I feel that, I feel that confidence, that ....sense that I am ok. Then I so much as walk to the bathroom, and can be smiling and feeling full of him, and glance up at the mirror and the smile fades and I wonder just what he sees that I do not. And how long it will be enough.

I try, I do. I want to be better. It's hard. He'd have to tell you, sometimes I feel that I hold onto it a bit longer. My therapist and I talked about it not long ago. She said it may never go away, that I may have had my brain permanently altered. But she see's very positive results since Daddy - yes she knows exactly what kind of relationship we have, and she still thinks he's good for me :) I work, I try. I love him. That's all I can do.

What is Discipline?

In a post a while back Blue Bird asked what was discipline to us. I haven't forgotten, I promised  to expand on it in a future post. It just took some time to get here :)



We've outlined the kinds of spankings we employ, but I guess never really went into lots of depth about them. So I guess I need to describe how Ward administers each, a little. In the event that I have broken one of our rules Ward will administer a correction spanking. Correction is given hard and fast, with a greater level of intensity for longer periods of time. He will pause and lecture, so that I can hear what he is saying. He will tell me he is proud of me for taking my correction like a good girl. It is correction, but the message that it comes from a place of love is very clear. During the pauses he will rub my bottom in the pauses, but there will be no sexual touch. There will be no sexual intimacy immediately after, but we do cuddle and snuggle and talk to affirm forgiveness and the clean slate, and then sometimes nap. It is all emotional reconnection.





I don't think I have to tell anyone the purpose of a good girl/pleasure spanking. This is given slowly, luxuriously. Every spanking starts and ends with discipline, but in a GG, it's not quite as vigorous,  nor is it quite as long, and as soon as Daddy breaks out the Angel Maker, it's almost forgotten....okay, the owww, is almost forgotten. but not the message. I am his. I belong to him. My pain and my pleasure belong to him. Even in the vigorous part, Daddy talks sweetly, and say the things that make even the most intense of sensations bearable. There are lots of pauses, for rubs, sensual touch, intimate touch and other attentions (ahem).





Discipline, that's kind of our catch all. It generally means that one of us needs to feel my submission, or his Dominance, I'm toeing the line of breaking a rule and he is reigning me in before I cross it, one of us is stressed beyond belief, I'm premenstrual (okay, I hate to admit that, but hey, we're all being honest here), and again quite frankly, perhaps because one of us has a deeply visceral, primal need for intensity. I guess you could say that for us discipline is a no-reason-necessary balancer.






Discipline is much more intense than a good girl. It does not preclude the use of my GG toys, they will just be used much more vigorously. The stretches between touch are longer, but the touches are a definite and delicious claiming. There will be very sensual connections made during and after the spanking. Sometimes the spanking will be paused for love-making, and then resume. The entire message of this is that he owns me, and that I belong to him in every sense of the word.



Even though discipline for us might appear as severe as correction to some others, it is something that is necessary in our dynamic to allow me to be who I am, and allow him to be who he is, allow us both to blossom and grow in the depth of our devotion to one another. It is something that connects us at a very deep level.





 HIS POV: 

Discipline for us is a very nourishing and sensuous experience that puts an emphasis on my dominance, her submission and the unified dynamic that we share. At the heart of it all is love, regardless of when or why June is over my knee, love is the chiefest and greatest reason for spanking and the many motivations that we use it for.

Pleasure, correction, affirmation, nourishment and understanding are all worthy and excellent reasons to share spanking with the ones we love.  DD/TTWD, love, affection are all beautiful and vital to our process!

The Value of Good Girl Spankings (An HoH's Perspective)

                                                                                                                

                                                            

 June has done several posts on the pleasurable  and connective experience that a good girl spanking can bring to a DD/TTWD relationship. I think it's high time that I weighed in on this and several other subjects.  A good girl spanking  is a spanking that is designed to bring a couple closer through the use of pleasure, touch, intimacy, and good old-fashioned dominance and submission to bring said couple to a state of pleasure, unity, and release. This reaffirms the bond  and clearly defines roles.  and oh yeah.... it's fun!

I also believe that for the newly initiated  HoH  these spankings can provide a wonderful and pressure-free opportunity to explore, embrace and enhance their new found roll in a "safe"  stress-less, and delightfully sensual way.

                                             

                                       

One of the beautiful things about what June and I share is our shared delight in many pleasurable things.  A good foot-rub, a long soak in the tub (sadly, I'm really too tall for this one, too long) and of course spending  much quality "us time" behind  closed bedroom doors as we can.  This perhaps seems obvious, but let us see if we can take a look at some of the valuable things that an evening of fun-centric spanking has.
                                       

                                                        

Time - Time is gold, there is never enough of it. From dawn until dusk many of us have hyper-busy, super packed schedules that make us feel like a hot shower is a luxury.  You've all heard me extol the virtues of making time for the ones we love. I'll go one step further and say that sometimes sacrificing what little 'you time' you have in favor of time spent improving your relationship can be seen as a precious gift.  I'm known and renowned amongst my guy friends, for passing up that beer after work in favor of precious time spent with June. Time is the one thing that we will never really have enough of, and the gift of time in favor of your love and relationship over other pursuits is always precious.

                                                     

Discipline - Gasp! somebody said the dreaded d-word!  Discipline and correction are two different things, and in fact even in the most exquisite, alluring, toe-curling instances of soft and pleasure-focused spanking, roles can be affirmed, lessons can be learned and the chance to both give and receive physical expressions of love, dominance and submission  is truly wonderful.

                                                                                             

                                                                                           

 

Pleasure - It goes without saying that a good girl spanking should be a pleasurable experience. Soft touches, the warm embrace of skin against skin, the warmth of leather, the sternness of sensation can all lead to a warm and pleasurable cocktail of unified delight, stress relief and generous love-making.

  

                                                      

 

A New Strength - Finding the delight in each other, being thankful for what we have and where we are now  and guarding our relationships against the dents and dings that everyday life throws at us is a wonderful strength that we have found. Stress, disagreements, bills, kids,  work, schedule-conflicts can all lead to distraction, misdirection, hurt-feelings, angry words, fighting and the other kind of spanking.... GG's are better folks, and finding that strength, that strength to say yes when we don't really understand, that strength that says I love you instead of "I'm right" that strength begins with closeness and togetherness, two things that GG type spankings provide and are conducive to.

                                                                                             

These things and many more lay waiting just beyond the thoughts of our partners, take time, make time to listen, make time to talk. Express your love, your submission or  your dominance.   Improving our relationships is often as simple as communicating and you know the beautiful thing  about communication is that sometimes the strongest messages are best sent without words.

                                            

                                                      

                           

Her POV: 

Daddy speaks of time, and I will tell you that he is a man of his word, that he walks the talk, he is not empty rhetoric. He proves his philosophy, his personal credo time after time, day after day. The first time it happened, I was astounded. I sat beside him and blinked. Daddy is an absolute football fanatic. There was a game on that he wanted to see. Something happened...now, I can't tell you what was going on, I can't remember what was said, but this I remember...I stuffed something down, because I knew he had waited to see that game, and it could wait really. And he saw it, felt it. He picked up the remote, turned off that TV, and took my hand, pulled me down next to him. I said, "It's okay, Daddy, it can wait. You've been waiting for the game." He kissed me, kissed my hand and said, "It's not more important than you, lovey."

That's the building we can do, simple little acts. No, I can't remember what precipitated the moment, that's not really important, the bigger matter was that my man communicated in a clear, concrete way that I mean something to him, that my concerns are important, and what I think and feel matters. It is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. And yeah, he got plenty lucky after....REALLY lucky ;-P

Discipline - should discipline make it's way into a gg, spanking? Well, that's part of our dynamic, and when we reinforce the foundations of our lives, we make them stronger, and easier to live...second nature. Daddy can get quite vigorous with the application of the brush in a gg...yes it hurts. But this is what I give to him, my submission to his authority, my acknowledgement that he is free to give me what he chooses to give me....[luckily for me, he chooses to give me his best]. It's not so much a reminder of what can happen if I break our rules, if I am not my best self, it is both of us acknowledging our places and that all things, my pleasure and my pain, belong to him, and his acceptance of them. It is the acknowledgement that I can trust him to uphold us, and to never harm me.

Pleasure, well as we stated above, my pleasure comes from him, his comes from me, and it belongs to us. It is not merely a physical pleasure, it goes far beyond that...it is spiritual, it is all encompassing, it is pleasure in existence within each other....without that the physical would be nothing more than an entertaining little rut.

Yes, all of these things make us stronger, make us turn to each other, helps us focus on each other, and our relationship and our family. It makes it silly to have to argue a point, and easy to say - I understand love, I see it differently - and validate each other without minimizing either of us. And because we know that we are heard, and our views and feelings are important, and that transitory troubles cannot break the strong love in which we live.
                                  

Movie time with Ward and June

 It's time to talk about spanking videos.  I've actually wanted to do this post a little sooner than I am posting it, but  I guess there's no time like the present!  Along with many other spanking lifestylers I have developed a taste (or distaste in certain instances) for spanking videos. Today I thought I'd share a few of the things that I like and dislike about spanking videos both amateur and professional.Grab some popcorn and join us.

You may have noticed that professionally produced videos seemed to follow a certain stylized format.  Usually it's the same guys or girls in a series of movies, many of which seem a bit over the top or contrived. There are several big name producers but I think the most famous of which is probably Shadowlane.

You may have also run across more "homestyle" videos from couples on webpages like Spankingtube and spanking library.  These videos tend to be a bit more "real life" or in many cases "DD" oriented. 


Let's talk about the pros and cons of each....


Here are some of the Pro's of the professionally produced videos:
- Usually the lighting and sound are superior to that of amateur video makers
- The editing is usually seamless
- There is usually a video or video producer for every taste across the spanking genre
- Usually longer with a better variety of spanking and with many implements



Here are some of the Cons of the professionally produced videos:

- Terrible acting
- Unecessary predictable dialog
- Contrived circumstances
- Same actors and actresses in many videos
- Unrealistic presentation of the ideal spanking partner(s) you know, most of the produced videos have their spankee presented as some 19-22 year old waif without real curves and most of the men presented are the definitive stodgy old businessman types or the crumudgeon-like senior citizen.
- Hotel-like or obviously un-authentic backgrounds that look as contrived as the writing and acting.



Here are some of the Pros of the amateur videos:
- Authentic lifestyle interactions
- Real men and women presented in a true to life setting
- Passion
- Variation
- Inovation

Here are some of the Cons of the amateur videos:
- Bad cameras and editing
- usually a short duration
- Many times in amateur videos the background is a little more than lived in, the house is a mess or the room looks like a hydrogen bomb detonated
- The gentlemen in amateur videos often time wear any old thing (ratty old gym shorts, ugly t-shirts, baseball caps that look like they have been worn since the begining of time)



Spanking videos are a fun, and in many cases inexpensive expression of the spanking lifestyle. They are a good way to explore fantasies, share ideas, and discover new ones. I would encourage you all to take a look and see what you and your partner can find.  You never know what you might find.

Her POV
I agree with a lot of what Daddy said. I would add that I especially dislike contrived scenes. Perhaps that is because we live this 24/7, and as we have said before there are many reasons and many forms spanking takes for us.

I dislike that there always have to be a correctable 'offense' for which the spanking is given. I dislike wimpy spankers - take charge. I dislike brutish spankers - you can take charge without being verbally abusive. I dislike mouthy spankees. I dislike overacting - he only swatted you twice and you're carrying on like that? And for the love of Pete, keep your hands and feet out of the way, you signed up for this. And puh-leeeeeeeeeze - no female spankers, and certainly no male spankees. 

In real life sometimes it is a prelude to iintimacy. Sometimes it is just because, which incidentally is our favorite reason. Sometimes it is stress relief for either of us. Sometimes I just want to feel his ownership. What is wrong with portraying that? Why can't the spanker just hold out his hand for no other reason than he wants to? Why can't the spankee come and say, "Could you spank me, please?" All in all I think that gives people the wrong impression of our lifestyle. But then, I'm just one small, happy little girl with a red bottom :)

Wow! Who knew!

Spanking Cheesecake

 

Daddy said he had a project for me, and because I am such a good girl (don't snicker!), here it is. The pictures have been gathered from around the web & with special thanks to OTK Spank

Examining Submission Journaling Exercise - Day 21

Is there a physical position that makes you feel most submissive?

There are two, it will be interesting to have Ward's view as to which position gives him a deeper sense of my submission.

One is across his lap,be it for spanking, or just because he can ask me to and have me comply willingly and he can take advantage of the position for other pursuits.

The other is in his arms, with my palms pressed flat to his chest or under his arms and my forehead pressed against his lips, his hands on my waist or hips and his breath on my hair. Absolutely heaven.