How to Be a Sub: 14 Steps to Becoming a Submissive Woman

Ladies, do you want to become a submissive? This complete guide to becoming a submissive woman will lead you through 13 steps on your submissive journey from understanding yourself, getting in touch with your emotions and desires, and finding a Dom you respect and can fully surrender to.

In follow-up to the How to Be a Dom: 16 Steps to Becoming a Dominant Man, let's explore the other side of the slash.

Before we dive deep into the world of being a submissive, I would like to talk about perspective. Yes, I’m a Dom and I’m giving you advice about how to be a sub. No, this is not another article that says, “just do what your Dom says”. 

In fact, I’m going to teach how to really feel the difference between a yes and no, viscerally in your body, how to identify and express your boundaries and how to use your voice and have agency as a submissive. Even more, I’m going to show you how to find a Dom you respect, get over the fears of surrender, and get in touch with your deepest pleasure. 

If you stumbled upon this guide, it’s because you hold a desire to submit, even if you haven’t let yourself fully accept or admit that. My job is to help illuminate a path for you and lead you to what you desire most. In the process of doing that, I will point out areas that may be dangerous, challenging, or keep you from experiencing the bliss of submission you so crave.

What is a Sub?

Generally, a submissive is a person who willingly consents to relinquish control, authority, and decision-making to their Dominant partner. Submissives take on the role of being obedient, compliant, and responsive to the wishes and desires of their Dominant within the agreed-upon boundaries of the relationship.

Submissive vs people pleasing (or being a doormat)

Being submissive means consciously choosing to give over control, influence, or authority to another person because they have your best interests at heart and you want to serve them.

People pleasing, or being a doormat, means serving others while disregarding your own needs, either by unconscious choice or insecurity, and sometimes even when you don’t want to serve them.

The major difference here is that being submissive means your needs are actively being spoken for and addressed (whether they are met or not is up to negotiation between you and your Dom). You are also consciously making the choice to be subservient to your Dom, rather than letting others take control of your life without your consent.

Being submissive is also not a passive role. You don’t just let things happen to you. Receiving is a skillful act. Both sides of the slash must contribute and actively participate to make it a mutually beneficial and enjoyable experience.

Why be submissive?

The surface answer here is that it’s hot, right? Having raw masculine energy wanting to rip your clothes off, make you his, own your body so he can have you anytime he wants because you turn him on ALL THE TIME.

But it’s much deeper than that.

Why on earth would a woman want to willingly give control of themselves over to a Dom? For some, going as far as being a slave to them?

Simple. The Dom cares.

Let’s take a step back for a second. Think back to when you were a child. Unless you had an entirely traumatic childhood, most of the time you were willing to let your parents have a say over your life because they have your best interests at heart. You trusted they cared about you.

Submission is about trust. You want to find someone that is going to have your best interests at heart, that is going to care for you when you are at your most vulnerable with utter lack of control. It’s the feeling of being so loved and desired that someone is willing to care for you and keep you safe no matter what.

To some degree, all of us hand over control of our lives to all sorts of people everyday. We make the exchange because we believe that the other party, whether an employer, a corporation, or a government, is going to benefit us positively in some way. The most prominent benefit is that we don’t have to worry about a lot of logistical challenges to getting our basic needs met.

So, is it so far-fetched that you’d willingly give over control in order to have your mental and emotional needs met, too? Especially, if you know that person cares about you?

You get to feel:

• Free
• Safe
• Desired
• Important
• Appreciated
• Accepted
• Loved

The dream for a sub is that as long as they do what the Dom says everything will be great, they will not have to make any decisions, they will not have to accept any responsibility for what happens, and they will not have to worry about anything period. It’s liberation and freedom from worry, anxiety, uncertainty, and the stressful realities of life. Yet, they will still be cared for and taken care of. 

Submission allows the sub to enter a state of tranquility and sink fully into the pleasure of the fantasy realm, a special bubble without stress or pressure, recharging your mental, emotional, and spiritual battery to battle through another week of life.

They only have one responsibility: pleasing their Dom. The Dom will take care of the rest.

It’s as close to a utopia, to heaven on earth, to pure bliss, as you’re ever going to get.

How to be a submissive

Step 1: Figure out why you want to be submissive

Submitting for some of you is going to be easy and feel very natural. Once you’re able to overcome your own shame or mental obstacles to doing so, you’ll happily submit to the right Dom.

However, for some, submission is going to be a challenge. You’re going to fight him. Most importantly, you’re going to fight yourself, going against what you say you truly want.

So unless you know why you want to submit, you’re likely to give up before you ever truly experience bliss.

Whenever you want something in life, you don’t actually want the thing per se, but rather the feeling that thing is going to evoke in you. For example, you buy a nice necklace because you think it’s going to make you feel important, respected, attractive, or loved.

Submission is no different. Submission evokes strong feelings and it’s these feelings that you are seeking. 

Here’s some questions to help you uncover why you want to submit:

• What feelings are you seeking in submission?
• What is it that draws you to submission?
• What does submission mean or look like to you?
• How deep does your desire to submit go?
• How does acting submissive arouse you?
• What would your ideal D/s dynamic look like?
• Will your submission be purely sexual and tied to the bedroom? Or would it spill over with your Dominant and yourself engaging in psychological power play outside the bedroom?

Note to any Dom reading this guide: these questions are fantastic ways to start uncovering the psychology of a potential submissive. Understand what she truly wants and you’ll be much more equipped to Dominate her.

Step 2: Submit from a secure place

One of the biggest concerns of new submissives is submitting to the right Dom and not falling prey to a “Fake Dom”. 

Typically the Doms who are labeled as Fake Doms fall in one of two categories:

1. They are inexperienced. 
2. They are manipulative.

The first category isn’t really fake. They just need to level up in becoming a Dom. No big deal. Give them some grace.

The second category is much more insidious because they want to use your desire to submit in order to fulfill all their needs, with complete disregard for your needs and whether or not you consent to it. In which case, they are not being a Dom at all.

The best way you can keep yourself safe is to submit from a place of security within yourself. Being insecure and submitting can be dangerous because some Doms can use your insecurities to manipulate you. 

Furthermore, even a good Dom might overstep a boundary or mistakenly disregard a need if you never spoke up for them. We’re not mind readers. (Yet.)

You’re only going to speak up for needs if you believe you’re worth having those needs, if you’re secure in yourself.

The kicker here is that the process of becoming secure in yourself is also going to make you more attractive to the right Doms. So, let’s talk about your Self.

The Self is a mental construction of how you perceive yourself in relation to the world. I like to conceptualize the Self into three components which give us a clear model for how we can improve the Self.

The three components of the Self:

• Self-image = value of identity or how you think you look
• Self-efficacy = value of doing or what you think your capable of
• Self-esteem = value of being or who you think you are

Within each of these categories you have insecurities. (Spoiler alert: we all do. It’s ok). Let’s start with the most obvious: how you perceive your own beauty.

Your Self-image

Every woman I ever met has something they wished was different about their looks. Their eyebrows. Their nose. Their breast size. Their thighs. Their hairline. I could go on and on…

The problem isn’t that you have those things. Hell, even guys have things they would like to be a little different about their looks. I wish my beard was a little fuller on my cheeks. 

The problem arises when you tie your self worth to how you look, when you say you are less of a person because of some unrealized beauty standard.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t care about your looks at all. You can rail on about beauty standards, genetics, people being too judgemental, and so on. Reality is that people DO judge how you look and have preferences. Plus, men adore beauty. We write songs about it, photograph it, and even go to war for it.

However, beauty standards are based on the values of the culture in a certain time period. Those standards are ephemeral, just like your own beauty. One day you’ll age and it will all fade. Do you really want your confidence and worth as a person built on something so fragile?

My advice to keep your body’s biomarkers (hormones, blood sugar, ect) healthy and maximize your genetic potential to get the most out of your natural beauty. Then adorn yourself in whatever way makes you feel sexy. Then accept that there will always be someone prettier than you, and that who you are as a person is deeper than how you look. 

Your Self-efficacy

Good girl.

The simple sound of praise that melts you into a little puddle. The recognition that you're appreciated because of what you have done. 

Again, on the surface this is not a problem. We all want to be recognized for our efforts. Even Doms. (Yes, I have a praise kink, too.)

The problem arises when you tie your worth to what you do for other people, when you say in order for your needs to be met, you must sacrifice yourself to meet everyone else’s needs first. 

That is people pleasing and codependency, not submission. 

This is not to say as Doms we won’t expect you to do things. Submission is not passive either. Just because we’re taking responsibility for you, doesn’t mean we’re not going to put you to work in order to make our lives easier.

A statement that’s often used by submissives is that their “submission must be earned”. I understand where this comes from. They are not going to submit to a Dom unless they trust and respect them, and know that the Dom cares. 

This road runs both ways. Dominance is about leadership and taking responsibility. It takes a lot of energy and commitment to be a Dom. We’re not going to put that into just any submissive. So our Dominance must be earned, too. It’s a gift to you just as much as submission is to us.

However, to think you are only valued based on what you can do for us completely misses the mark.

My advice is to learn what your needs are and then learn whatever skills you need to meet them on your own first. Then practice fulfilling those needs, just like you would do for another person. 

Doing so will change your perspective in three ways:

1. You’ll respect yourself more, allowing you to stand up for your needs.
2. You’ll give from a place of fullness. Your needs are taken care of and you’ll feel overflowing with energy to share.
3. You’ll choose to submit, asking another person to care for you, even though you know you could care for yourself, instead of feeling like you need that person.

Still, you’ll have to go one step further to not base your worth as a person on what you do, to really feel that you are of value to be cared for and have your needs met.

You’re Self-esteem

People either have a low self esteem, where you place others’ value higher than your own, or you have an over inflated ego, and place your value higher than other peoples. Either way, you’re insecure and have an ineffective self perception.

What we want is to be secure, where you view yourself as worthy irrespective of others, and also view others as worthy without needing to be more than them or tear them down. 

When you’re secure, you have a positive view of yourself and don’t need reassurance from others that it’s ok to exist, to be loved, or to have your needs met. 

You also have a positive view of others. You trust others, openly express your emotions with them, ask for needs to be fulfilled, and can easily form long lasting relationships, romantically and platonically. It’s easy to love and be loved.

There is a lot you can do to make yourself more secure and I’ve written extensively about that.

However, the strongest belief that helped me become secure was the understanding that as humans we all share the same being. We might all look different or do different things, but at our core, we’re all essentially the same. We all have needs, desires, fears, emotions, and a body that can experience suffering just like everyone else. When you view yourself through this lens, you untangle your worth as a person from what you do (self-efficacy) and what you look like (self-image). You have value for just being. Just like everyone else.

That’s not to say what you do and how you look don’t matter or you shouldn’t care about them. I think we’ve already proven why that’s to the contrary. It’s to say, that who you are transcends those things. The other parts of the self are interchangeable parts, clothes taken on and off, and things done and forgotten, yet you still remain. 

You’re worthy of having your needs met. You’re worthy of being cared for. You’re worthy of love. 

When you submit from this place, you do so out of conscious choice. Before making that choice, you will speak up for what you need, you’ll express boundaries, you’ll seek a Dom you can trust and respect, and one that will trust and respect you (even when they degrade you). 

That is your power.

Step 3: Learn to listen to your body

You know all those times you were told you’re too emotional.

Yeah, I want you to ignore that.

Truth is, you’re not emotional enough. In fact, you’re disregarding your emotions so much that the only one you can actually feel is anxiety. The rest have been boxed up and put away because they “get in the way of life”. 

Emotions are actually extremely important for a submissive. Emotions are information rich indicators about your experience in any given situation. They are at the core of your intuition about what you want to experience in your life and more importantly, what you don’t. For example, that anxiety you feel is an indicator you have a lot of unfelt and undigested emotions bottled up.

At some point in your submissive journey, you’ll need to differentiate between a yes and a no for yourself. You’ll need to be able to hear what your body is telling you and what a yes and a no feels like. We’ll cover that more in the next step.

For now, I want you to start reconnecting with the somatic experience of your emotions in your body. Basically, I want you to get out of your head and all the made up stories about your experience, and connect with what you’re actually experiencing in your body.

You can do so by improving your interoception: your awareness about your bodily and emotional states. Your practice will be to regularly check-in with yourself several times a day identifying body signals and linking them to your emotions. Set alarms if you must, in order to check in several times a day.

You can further your ability to be connected with your internal state by practicing body scans:

• Start by getting into a comfortable position  
• Take a few slow breaths and mindfully bring your attention to your feet. Notice (without judgment or evaluation) any sensations you experience in your feet.   
• Move to your lower legs and continue upward with each body part until you've reached your head.   
• When doing a body scan, it is important to use specific words and to use descriptive words (squishy, tense, hot, buzzy, relaxed, sharp, heavy) rather than evaluative words (bad, good, hurt).

Doing all this will allow you to create an intimate relationship with your body. When it has something to say, you’ll be able to hear it. Which is going to be important for the next step.

Step 4: Feel the difference between Yes and No

D/s relationships are built on consent. Both sides must say yes and be fully bought in. However, Doms rarely have to exercise saying no because they are in control of the situation and are unlikely to steer it in a direction they don’t want to go. 

Submissives on the other hand must be well practiced in speaking up and saying yes or no. When you learn to say no, your yes becomes authentic. What’s confusing for you though, is sometimes somethings a no right now, a yes later, then a no again. You become a little uncertain about what it is you truly want. 

Furthermore, if you’re a no to something, and you say yes for whatever reason (being nervous, wanting to please, unsure of yourself, ect), you are setting yourself up for regret, shame, and resentment later. You also begin to erode the trust not only in your Dominant, but in yourself as well.

This is why it is critically important for you to learn how to feel into your body and emotional state at any given moment. Although they can vary from person to person, and you know your body best, yes and no have distinct feelings.

A yes often feels:

• Expansive
• Light, airy
• Warm
• Full of energy and excitement
• Attention is dialed in
• Free of tension

A no often feels:

• Contracting
• Heavy, dark
• Irritable, restless
• Detached, bored, or tired
• Uncertain
• Full of tension
• Cringe

There is an important distinction to be made between being a complete no to something, and being afraid of something but still desire to do it. When your uncertainty is being driven by fear, you still feel being drawn forward towards that something, usually with a nervous excitement like going on a roller coaster, however your mental stories are keeping you from fully committing to a yes. This is where the help of your Dominant’s guidance will be useful because they can invite you further into what you truly desire and remove your mental obstacles. If your Dom truly is keeping a pulse on you, they will only take you as deep as they believe you can safely go.

Step 5: Figure out what you want as a sub

Now that your feminine intuition is fully online, it is time to figure out what you want as a submissive. It’s important to figure this out before engaging with a Dom for two reasons.

First, hearing “do whatever you want to me” can be sexy if we’ve already talked beforehand what the “whatever you want” boundaries are. Yes, let’s build the walls of the sandbox and then let me have free reign to play. However, if you tell your Dom that before you tell him what you want, it’s going to be frustrating and anxiety inducing because what if he fucks up by doing something you didn’t want. 

Second, we can be quite charming and persuasive. We’re not looking to cause malice or manipulate you into doing something you don’t want, but we are trying to do what we want to do. Every person is trying to get what they want. Our hope is that it’s a win-win for both of us, but if you don’t know what it is you want, you’re going to feel like this whole ordeal is pretty one sided.

Desires

To discover your desires and really understand them, I recommend doing the erotic journaling exercise from my 3 Tools to Discover Your Turn Ons. Starting with an erotic journal will be the purest expression of what turns you on without outside influence of how you should be turned on. An important element for you to pay particular attention as you do this exercise is what type of partner qualities would turn you on and help you feel all the erotic feelings you're seeking. Those notes will come in handy for when you begin looking for a Dominant partner later. 

Then I recommend that you fill out a Sex Menu in order to flesh out what certain sexual acts and kinks might look like for you. When doing so, I want you to pay particular attention to what might be boundaries and limits for you.

Boundaries

Boundaries are the line between what is acceptable behavior and actions and what is unacceptable in relationships with others. Often, external factors such as social norms and cultural beliefs influence personal boundaries, as well as individual preferences. Boundaries can (and do) change over time, depending on mood or circumstances.

Some boundaries to possibly consider :

• When and where you feel comfortable engaging in D/s play, like only in the bedroom or anywhere
• How much protocol (rules, rituals, service, ect) you want in your dynamic
• Whether punishments are used and how strict they are
• If and when you would like wearing a collar
• If there is a contract
• How much the dynamic is a part of your life
• Where you are on the spectrum of monogamy to polyamory
• What forms of address or honorifics, if any, you enjoy being called during sex and play
• Acting out specific taboo roleplay scenarios
• Who gets to know about the dynamic

As a beginner submissive, knowing where you stand on specific actions and behaviors outside of your D/s dynamic will help you better judge whether you want to participate in BDSM activities that may challenge those boundaries.

Limits

As a new submissive in a D/s dynamic, it is vital for your safety that you know what your limits are and that you communicate those limits to your Dominant before you submit to them for the first time.

Unlike boundaries which can be more flexible, limits are hard lines to never be crossed. Limits act as protective restrictions imposed upon actions and behaviors, in which actions are expressly prohibited or hardly tolerable in exploration during play. The difference between boundaries and limits comes down to ideas of safety and harm reduction.

For example, certain sexual acts may trigger past trauma for that individual in which case engaging in that may cause them more harm. A generic limit may be your physical flexibility. No matter how flexible you are, if someone were to push you past your flexibility limit, it would result in injury.

Some limits to possibly consider are:

• Who you play with
• What activities you perform
• Certain sexual positions (in bondage or otherwise)
• What toys you use
• Chosen contraceptive and barrier methods, etc.
• Words used during sex or play

Crossing someone’s limits can cause harm beyond the physical and includes emotional or psychological distress. In this sense, you may regard the consequence of crossing someone’s limits in BDSM as typically more severe than pushing someone’s boundaries. The result of which could be an irreparably fractured relationship.

Being that you may be new to all this, you might not know what your limits are yet. That’s ok. If you are unsure about any activity, you should voice your concerns and apprehensions with your Dominant.

To help you navigate your uncertainty, you can describe limits as being ‘soft limits’ or ‘hard limits’. The difference between hard and soft limits is the degree of restriction given to the specific action:

• Hard Limit: a firm NO. It is generally understood as being 100% prohibited, without any flexibility toward performing that action.
• Soft Limit: a maybe, but most likely not. It is almost entirely prohibited, with any potential exploration of said action only possible after very detailed pre-scene negotiations, under specific circumstances, and with explicit consent from the individuals involved.

As a beginner submissive, it is important to establish your firm no’s and differentiate those hard limits from possible maybe activities (your soft limits). 

As you explore and learn more about yourself, you can continually keep updating these which is why I recommend using a sex menu that can be updated over time. In a responsible D/s dynamic, it is possible to safely explore unknown kinky or sexual experiences when your Dom can assure you that they will honor your limits.

Your style of submission

Finally, you can take some of the popular quizzes and see how your desires might fit within certain D/s archetypes such as service sub, babygirl, rope bunny, slave, prey, masochist, or degrade to name a few. These archetypes are not meant to put you into a box saying you can only do those things. Rather, it's to help you identify the Dominant men who are more likely to turn you on as well as point you towards skills and education to learn how to be safe when engaging in acts related to those dynamics.

Step 6: Find a Dom you respect

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but the truth is, you will never be able to fully submit to a man you don’t respect. 

Before you even gauge whether he’s a good dom or not, ask yourself if you respect him. Look at his character, how he leads his life, and his masculinity. Anyone can learn the skills necessary to become a good Dom, but having the capacity to be a Dom is much rarer to find. 

Look for the man who takes responsibility in his life. Men who live with integrity and follow through on what they say they’re going to do. Men who have strong personal boundaries, and aren’t afraid to say no to you when they need to. Men who are emotionally receptive, but not 

excessively defensive or emotionally reactive. A man who isn’t afraid to grow, learn new things, and admit when he’s wrong. If he can lead his own life, there is a good possibility he will be able to lead yours. However, you aren’t looking for a finished product in a partner. In fact, it will be ideal if you both grow together.

You will, and should, reject anyone who doesn’t feel good to you. This isn’t being judgmental. It’s actually a very valuable thing that you offer to men. Men need to be rejected by women in order to see where they need to be better. For the man who takes responsibility for his life, your rejection is a gift that fuels his improvement.

You also have to trust your natural desire. It’s always there if you listen to it. This is why we spent so much time getting you in touch with your body’s natural intuition. Listening to what feels good and what doesn’t will show you a lot about what’s right for you and what’s not. 

On a practical level, you basically have two options for finding a Dom: either look within the community of those who already know what D/s dynamics are, or date outside the community in the world of vanillas. (No hate vanillas, I love you, too. But just know, I will corrupt you…)

If you’re dating in the scene, I highly recommend getting off FetLife and meeting people in person at munches, workshops, and events. Most men’s profiles on here are garbage, and even if they were great, you can’t judge a man’s character through pixels on a screen. That said, there are plenty of great Doms who don’t partake in the community. For those, watch their behavior on FetLife, how they treat others, what they post about themselves. You can ask around about them, however, I believe you should make your own judgment call about them based on your intuition, not someone else's.

If you’re dating outside of the scene, you enter a whole new set of challenges. You’ll need to be able to articulate yourself and your desires to someone who might have zero idea of what you’re talking about! For those, you’re going to have to let them discover what Dominance looks like for themselves, otherwise they will just be pandering to you, it will be inauthentic, and they wouldn’t be leading the dynamic, you would. You can help the process though by influencing them.

If you've done your due diligence about screening for men you respect, I promise that Dominance lies within him.

Step 7: Surrender

Surrender. 

What does your body feel like when I say that to you?

This will most likely be the hardest act in your submission, relinquishing control and trusting your Dom completely, even though it’s what you want most. 

First, you will have to surrender to yourself, to the desires that are clawing their way out of you and you keep repressing.

Then, you’re going to have to take a step of faith that your Dom will guide you to where you want to go. Even in the best negotiation, vetting, and trust building, you will still have to take a step of faith that they truly have the best intentions. You can never know someone fully.

Your Dom, the one that you carefully chose and respect, is here to lead you through the rest of your submissive journey, but he can’t do that if you’re fighting him. And you will.

You will have to surrender internally, over and over again.

Because the Dominant has taken on the responsibility for the dynamic, holding the best interests of each person at heart, you signal trust by showing respect to him, acknowledging his role and authority, treating him with honor and courtesy, and value his guidance and decisions. 

You show respect not just because Dominant’s hold the power, but because Dominants hold the responsibility.

Surrendering includes obeying the rules and direction set by the Dominant. These rules are in place for a reason. If the Dom has done their job well, you’ll know why. You’ll be expected to follow them. You’re not just doing it because the Dom told you to. You’re doing it because it will take you to where you said you wanted to go: the bliss of submission.

Step 8: Slow down and give over control

To go from zero to 100 percent surrender is going to be difficult for anyone to do. Instead, let’s start by just giving over one piece of life at a time, building trust in yourself and your Dom with each successful exchange of power.

To do so, you need to sloooow down. 

Right now, you’re being a busy body and submitting to everyone else other than your Dom. Think about it, where are you already submitting and giving of yourself out of obligation? These obligations drain you and make you resentful of being of service to others - which is the energy you're going to bring to your Dom. 

So first, we’re going to take an inventory of your life. In order for you to be able to surrender, you must look at your life and where your time, energy, and resources are going. Most importantly, how it feels to you to spend your time doing what you do. The goal here is for you to get real with yourself, and start to consider where you can create space for yourself to be alive and full, so that you can serve your Dom from that place of fullness rather than lack or obligation.

Now you might be thinking, “But Brandon, I only want this in the bedroom. This doesn’t apply to me.” I’d urge you to reconsider for two reasons. First, even in the bedroom you have obligations. For example choosing what lingerie to wear may be fun for you or making that decision may be deliberating, in which case it would be freeing to give it over to your Dom. Second, extending the dynamic slightly out of the bedroom in small ways might make the dynamic even stronger when back in the bedroom.

So, let’s start by creating four columns with the titles obligations, energy, enjoyment, action. 

Obligations

In the first column, list out all of your obligations you’re currently committed to. It's essential that you include the things that feel like you cannot change. Even those need to be looked at. Children. Partners. Family. All of it.

Questions to ask yourself to uncover obligations:

• Who do you give your time and energy to?
• What things must you do every day?
• What thing must you do on a consistent basis?
• What obligations and responsibilities do you have?
• What things are you committed to?
• What do you do with your free time? 
• How do you take care of yourself? 
• How do you take care of others? 
• When do you numb or distract yourself? 
• How do you waste time? 
• How much do you sleep?

Continue adding to the list of people, obligations, and commitments until you feel as though you have accounted for most of where you give yourself. It can help to look through your calendar, phone contacts and texts/call history, and email.

Now, take a breath. Better yet, take a bath or a walk. Seriously. That list probably feels pretty overwhelming.

Energy

Your next column is energy. I want you to go through the list you have just created and mark whether that obligation gives you positive energy or drains you. 

Use the following marks next to your obligations:

• Plus (+): you get positive energy from this obligation
• Minus (-): you feel this obligation drains you and takes away energy
• Slash (/): you feel neutral to this obligation

Enjoyment

Next is to rate each item on your list of obligations for how much enjoyment you receive from it. 

Using a ranking scale from 0-10, mark your obligations:

• 0: being you don’t enjoy this obligation at all and despise the time given to it
• 10: being you enjoy this obligation immensely and love giving time to it.

Action

Our last step is to decide how we want to approach this obligation moving forward. While they may seem like they can not be changed, we always have a choice about where we spend our time and energy. Those choices might not be easy ones, or even ones you would actually choose, but you still have a choice nonetheless. 

Luckily for you, you have already decided to enlist the help of a Dom to bring more freedom, fun, aliveness, harmony, and calm in your life. It will just require you giving over control for some of these obligations and helping you discern what is absolutely necessary to have in your life, and what can be dropped. In fact, I recommend doing this step with your Dom so they can help give you that clarity.

I want you to go through your list, one item at a time, and discern whether or not you can change your relationship with these obligations.

Use the following actions for your obligations:

• Stop: Look for anything that has a minus or a slash next to it, with an enjoyment score under 5. These items are things that do NOT give you positive energy, and that you do not enjoy doing. Evaluate what would happen if you stopped doing these things. If possible, remove them from your life.
• Relinquish: Still considering the items with a minus or slash next to them, and enjoyment score under 5, which of these cannot be removed, but you could possibly relinquish control to your Dom in order to create more space in your life? Then consider the items with an enjoyment score of 5-7. Which of these items could you relinquish control to your Dom so that he may run them better, allowing you to focus on what you enjoy the most?
• Cherish: Your remaining items should be ones with a plus sign next to them, with an enjoyment score above 5, ideally 8-10. These are the places you should not give over control because they make you feel the most alive and full of joy. 

As you can see, relinquishing control doesn’t have to be difficult, especially if you start with the places that drain you and you don’t enjoy.

That said, you are NOT just dumping all of your problems on your Dom. We’re problem solvers, not charity workers. The more you relinquish control of your life over, the more you’ll be expected to serve your Dom in the way he sees fit. That’s the exchange. 

What you’ll gain though is the ability to focus on only that which fills you full of life, energy, satisfaction, and enjoyment. You’ll free your time to tend to and create an intimacy with yourself, which will then allow you to show up fully, almost overflowing, with passion to serve your Dom. 

Exactly what we want: eagerness, passion, joy, vibrancy, glowing energy, and ultimate devotion to us.

Step 9: Overcoming fears

I can hear it now. “But what if…”

Being out of control is going to be scary. Sometimes you’re going to be challenged by your own fears. Your work will be to maneuver those fears to reach what you desire.

First, let’s delineate between fear and anxiety. Fear is the response to a perceived threat, while anxiety involves worry about a threat that has not yet, or may never, happen. Most of the time, you are anxious about worries in the future that may never come to fruition. What’s interesting about anxiety is that oftentimes it feels very similar to excitement and what is different is the frame or story you are assigning to the feelings. Hence why fear can sometimes be arousing.

So as we breakdown these “fears”, recognize if there is a real, immediate threat to you, or you are just creating stories about what might happen.

Fear of being out of control

Depending on the situation, being out of control and in what might seem like chaos, could be a real threat to you. However, rest assured you have done the work to find a good Dom. Now you need to trust he will take that control and bring order to your world. As long as someone’s looking out for you, there is nothing to fear. Your worries are perceived threats that will either be managed or completely avoided by your Dom’s leadership.

Fear of unknown

This fear is completely normal. Humans are predictive engines to better prepare for our survival in the future. If you don’t know what’s coming, how can you properly prepare? Really, this fear is one of our ultimate fears, the fear of death. 

But let’s stop to think for a second. Your Dom is leading, has a vision for where you're going, and has handled how you’ll get there. He’s also clued you into the parts of that plan that are important for you to know, the rest he has handled. So, is it really unknown? Or is it that you don’t know all of the plan and you’re worried that something could go wrong in the parts you don’t know or have control over? Trust your Dom. Ask him for reassurance if needed. Let him know what would help ease your mind while he directs you. Then let him lead.

Fear it won’t go right

Every time you give over control, it’s never going to be perfect or go the way you think it should. For one, that would mean you’re leading and not your Dom. Two, nothing is ever going to live up to the fantasy in your mind. Your fantasies don’t have the constraints of the real world or all the awkward moments as two people navigate something new, foreign, and out of the norm. 

Furthermore, maybe it’s a good thing it doesn’t go the way you think it should. I mean, look at that list of obligations again. Some of those were going the way you thought they should, yet you were miserable doing them. Why not let your Dom have a go at them and see if it doesn’t bring you more joy when he does it his way? When you give up everything being perfect, you gain the benefit of not having to be responsible or worry about it anymore, free to focus on other things.

Fear of abandonment

“If I rely on my Dom, giving over more and more control of my life over to him, and he abandons me, I will be screwed…” or so you think.

This fear, which is born of ultimately the fear of being alone, is more worry than an actual threat. 

Part of this worry comes from the idea that all the sudden you’ll be helpless. However, just because you temporarily gave over control to your Dom does not mean that all of your ability to provide and do things for yourself suddenly vanished. You’re fully capable of doing things on your own, you’d just rather not do it yourself.

The deeper worry stems from your own insecurities and attachment style. To be secure in yourself you need to feel worthy of receiving love and can easily share that with others. Sometimes when someone leaves you, it truly feels like abandonment, and you can start getting the idea that you're unworthy, also known as anxious attachment. I’d recommend returning to the work you did in Step 2 and reminding yourself of where your value comes from while also doing the work to become more secure. Even if your Dom leaves, it does not erode your worth.

Fear of losing yourself

If you’re letting another person control you, maybe even change you, there is bound to be a tiny little voice creep in that all the sudden starts yelling at you like the place is on fire and everything is burning down.

That voice is your ego.

Your ego wants to keep its individuality, its separateness, its identity. If someone else is controlling you, you’re going to fear losing yourself. 

What’s paradoxical about this journey is that the more you start giving control over, you are going to find more of yourself. Your actual self, not what you think you need to be. 

See, your Dom and you have already discussed where you want to go and who you want to become. You have already shared what it is you truly desire. Your Dom is going to lead you there and remove the obstacles that are keeping you from those desires. So when he controls you, he’s going to steer you towards your true self, removing anything that is inauthentic or interfering with you reaching that. 

Your ego doesn’t see it this way though. Your ego thinks your Dom is trying to get rid of it. So it does everything it can to hold on to the false identity it's used to. 

Guess what, you also have not lost the ability to use your voice. If you need some space, some alone time, some individuality, speak up. Revisit your boundaries and see how they may have changed. You’re still your own person and you can move as quickly or slowly as you like towards your full devotion towards him.

With that said, I’d invite you to occasionally feel into what it would be like to be that devoted and close to another person. You may find that sometimes the ego needs to go sit in the backseat and be quiet for a while. Silly ego.

Step 10: Get in touch with your pleasure

“Uhm… Brandon? When do we get to the fun stuff?”

Right now.

I know we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on all this work, but that’s because we were laying the groundwork for you to free yourself from everything and be able to focus on your pleasure.

You know all those brakes that keep you from experiencing your pleasure? Particularly the stress, anxiety, and worry running through your mind? We’re trying to get rid of all that. 

Your job now is to use joy and pleasure as your guide. Remember, your Dom has taken care of all the responsibilities. In return, we want to see you in your feminine beauty, radiating energy, full of joy, and a conduit of pleasure. Show us why we are working so hard. Remind us of the beauty that exists in this world if we are willing to go through the toil and trouble to nourish it.

Pleasure in everyday life

Let’s start by returning back to Step 8 when you slowed down and took an inventory of your life. Remember all the activities you marked as “Cherish”? Do more of those. Fill your day with them if you can.

Imagine you have a bucket. Every time you do an activity that gives you energy and enjoyment, you fill that bucket. If you’ve removed many of the draining activities, then your bucket will keep filling. As you do more fulfilling activities, your bucket will eventually fill and begin to overflow. It is from this place that you will happily and eagerly serve your Dom. You’ll be bursting with life that you will want to share it with someone and who better to share that with than the person who helped make it possible to feel this way.

You can further amplify this by scheduling in more opportunities for you to play. I’m not necessarily talking about BDSM play here (although that will certainly be a piece of it), I’m talking about activities you enjoy doing just for the sake of doing them. Not because there is a goal or outcome, just because they are fun for you. 

A wild concept I’m sure, but only because you’ve forgotten how to play. You knew how to play instinctively when you were a child, when you had no responsibilities. Then you became an adult and had to face the real world. 

Guess who has the responsibilities now? Your Dom.

So guess what that means? You get to play!

One of the best ways for you to do this is to have a date with yourself and do whatever you want to do. No one else to please, nothing to accomplish, just follow your heart’s desire. 

Now obviously you all have demands in life and the majority of you are not going to reach or maybe even want your Dom having total control, where you’d have the ability to play whenever you want (within the rules of the dynamic of course). 

However, all of you can schedule some time in the week. Find 10, 20, 30 minutes in a day. Block off an hour or two one day a week. Even just two hours of play a week is going to feel amazing. Well, it’s going to feel weird at first because your brain is going to be worrying that it should be doing something, but with time you’re going to find these play times quite enjoyable.

Pleasure in your body

Next, I want you to focus on the pleasure in your body, not just during sex or self-pleasuring. I mean all the time. I want you regularly tuned into what sensations feel pleasurable in any given moment.

In Step 3, you learned how to listen to your body by doing body scans, where you gained awareness of sensations in each of your body parts. I want you to continue this practice, only now, I want you to relieve tension and seek out pleasure. The process looks like this.

Pleasure seeking body scans: 

• Start in whatever position you are currently in and take a few slow deep breaths.
• Starting with your feet and moving your awareness up your body, feel into the sensations in each of your body parts.
• If there is discomfort or tension, how could you move your body or reposition yourself to make it more pleasurable?
• If there are pleasurable sensations, spend some time really feeling into those sensations and amplifying them.

Throughout the day, we are feeling hundreds of pleasurable sensations, yet we fail to recognize them. The fuzzy blanket. The warm, rapid water. The freezing ice cube in your warm mouth. The brush of your clothes against your skin.

If you have trouble with this, I recommend doing Betty Martin’s Waking Up Your Hands exercise which is going to teach you just how pleasurable it is to touch something.

You can also begin feeling more pleasure in your body by doing activities that put your body into movement. The body loves to move and feels best when it's doing it on a regular basis. I’m not just talking about regimented exercise here. I mean movements that feel like play such as dancing, yoga, or strolls in the park. Do the movements that feel best in your body. 

An exercise to help you discover movements that feel good is to take 20 minutes and literally move it in any way that your body is desiring to move. Do it in a place you can’t be seen (and therefore not judged). Then tune into how your body wants to naturally move. The moment you have an urge to move, just do it, don’t overthink it. If you want to make a noise while you move, do it. Don’t judge yourself. For 20 minutes, just keep doing this over and over again, listening to how your body wants to move, and doing just that. You will naturally find your way to only doing movements that are pleasing to you.

Pleasure in the bedroom

By now you should be pretty in tune with the pleasure you can experience on an ongoing basis. However, sometimes there can still be a block to experiencing pleasure in the bedroom, even to the point where orgasms are entirely elusive to you.

A practice that can help you here is sensate focus. Sensate focus is a practice that promotes the elimination of performance expectations that can lead to sexual anxiety. During the practice, you’re encouraged to maintain your focus on pleasurable sensations occuring. 

You’ll begin with designating roughly 30 minutes to an hour of uninterrupted time, two to three times a week, to practice these steps on your own.

Solo Sensate Focus Practice:

• Stage 1 - Non-Genital Sensual Touch: Engage in self-exploration of your body with only your hands and fingers while avoiding your genitals.
• Stage 2 - Sensual Touch (Including Genitals): Continue to explore the pleasurable areas identified in stage one. At this stage, you may include the exploration of the genitals, but continue to avoid stimulating for reaching orgasm.
• Stage 3 - Adding Lotion & Lubricant: Adding lotion and lubricant can increase friction and sensation, making the experience more pleasurable. Altering the medium of touch is intended to enhance sensory awareness.
• Stage 4 - Full Sensual Stimulation: In the final stage, you are allowed to stimulate more for orgasm. However, this should be sensual stimulation where you are slowing down and mindfully continue noticing the sensations and emotions that occur.

As you become more in touch with pleasure on your own, you can bring this same awareness of sensation into sex with your Dom. You should be gaining a pretty good idea of what feels good to you, so please, for all that is holy, communicate and share this with your Dom! You’ll both be happy that you did.

Step 11: Be of service to your Dom

One of the Dom’s responsibilities in the dynamic is to set the vision for what the dynamic is going to be. He sets the direction and creates the structure to get there. That applies in a fully committed relationship, a 24/7 dynamic, a casual relationship, and even just one scene that you play together in. He is always leading.

Whether one scene or an entire dynamic, leading is a lot of work. The sub is there to help the Dom in any way they need in order to reach the vision they agreed upon. The Dom can’t do it on their own. In fact, they don't exist without the submissive. Leaders need followers.

I like to view the Dominant/ submissive dynamic similar to the captain/ first mate dynamic. The captain knows where the ship is headed and empowers his first mate to help him get there. The first mate follows the captain’s orders, makes it easier for the captain to lead the ship, gives the captain feedback about the ship, and honors and respects the captain, especially in front of the rest of the crew. Your duties as a submissive are similar.

Duties as a submissive:

• Obedience: Doms need their subs to trust their leadership, and not undermine their efforts.
• Service: Whatever your Dom needs you to do in order to effectively lead, you will listen and take care of.
• Respect: Acknowledging the Dom’s role and authority, treating him with honor, and valuing his guidance and decisions. 
• Emotional Support: This does not mean playing mommy and making everything better for us. It means acknowledging and appreciating the effort we are putting into leading, tending to our wounds when we need, but still allowing us to work through our problems.
• Pleasure: Nourishing the masculine energy of the Dom with the sexuality, playfulness, and beauty of the feminine.
• Providing feedback: We’ll cover this in depth in the next step.

Maybe not appreciated by every Dom, and you should find out specifically for yours, but I DO appreciate it when you serve me without me having to tell you to do so. It shows that you understand me and understand our vision well enough that you can preemptively see what needs are going to need to be met. When the captain and first mate become that in tune, the ship seamlessly runs without effort.  

Step 12: Learn to use your voice

Your voice in the dynamic is one of the most important. If you allow your Dominant or yourself to suppress it, either by rules or your own internal fears, you are losing your strongest source of agency as a submissive.

The microcosm of this concept is the safeword. The Dominant has planned the scene, begun its actions, but if you’re not feeling good about it, your voice with one simple word can stop everything. 

Your voice is also the pulse of the entire dynamic. Once a mutual vision and goals are set, and the Dom gives the dynamic direction, it’s your responsibility to deliver feedback about how intentions are being received, if expectations can be met, and if the dynamic is truly serving both people.

One of the reasons we focused so much time on getting you in a deep relationship with your feelings is because these are like check engine lights on a car. The light comes on, but you don’t know what the issue is. Similarly, you’ll have a feeling, you know something is off, but you may not know what is wrong. It’s a signal to the Dom to check under the hood of the dynamic and adjust so that everything is running smoothly again. 

The other reason that your voice is important is because you are the only one who can advocate for your needs. Because the Dom is setting direction for the dynamic, it’s easy for him to make sure it fulfills his needs. If you never speak up about yours, they are likely to go unfulfilled. While the Dom should be checking in with you about your needs, it’s your ultimate responsibility to make sure they are expressed and spoken for.

So, you should be consistently providing feedback and using your voice. Let the Dominant know when they are making mistakes. Express gratitude and appreciation when the Dominant is doing well. 

With that said, there is an art to communicating so that your Dom doesn’t shut down and it’s well received, heard, and taken into full consideration. 

How to give feedback to a Dom as a sub

First, respect the rules set by your Dom in the dynamic, which form the foundation of trust and mutual consent. If there are specific protocols in place regarding communication, honor them while ensuring they allow for your emotional well-being. These rules may delineate a time, place, and form of communication that is appropriate for feedback.

Second, tune into your feelings while practicing emotional regulation. It’s important that you have identified what it is you’re feeling so it may be properly expressed, however, do not use the emotional intensity to attack your Dom. When emotions are heightened, it's better for both of you to calm down before discussing sensitive issues. This ensures that discussions are productive rather than reactive, promoting effective resolution and understanding.

Third, speak from your perspective using I statements. I recommend using non-violent communication because it allows you to express observations, feelings, and needs from your perspective without making your partner feel attacked or belittled. Every statement will be started with “I observe… I feel… I need…” instead of saying “You always do x” or “You never do y”. Additionally, with nonviolent communication, you will make a request for having your needs fulfilled. By making a request, you are giving the Dom power to still make the decision to fulfill or deny the request.

Fourth, emotionally support your Dom. Sometimes the feedback you have to deliver is going to be rough. If your Dominant is triggered, upset, or angry, maintain compassion while still asserting your feelings and perspectives. Never silence yourself in order to shield your Dom from uncomfortable feelings brought on by facing consequences of their actions. Honest communication, even when uncomfortable, is vital for maintaining trust and addressing issues promptly and effectively. We want to hear this feedback, for it’s the only way we can improve. That said, never intentionally be mean or use words to hurt your Dom. If you inadvertently cause pain, apologize sincerely and with humility.

Fifth, receive your clarity from the Dom and respect his orders and direction. Part of your expression of this feedback is for the Dom to give greater clarity to what your feelings might mean. Sometimes no change is needed, and you only feel the need to express yourself. Other times there is a problem that needs to be addressed. In those instances, take your Dominant’s decisions, orders, and directives with openness, grace, and respect. You may not fully agree, however, he is leading the dynamic, and if he is doing it well, has a greater understanding of the bigger picture than you do. Your ability to listen and receive will foster a sense of security and structure within the dynamic, reinforcing the roles each partner plays.

Protip 1: There is a time and place for giving feedback and it’s not always immediately in the moment. For example, if your Dom is low on energy, your words might fall on deaf ears. If you’re at a social event, giving your Dom feedback might undermine his authority in front of others, being disrespectful and weakening the integrity of the dynamic. When situations like these arise, it can be helpful to have a designated time every week that these issues can be put on hold till. For these, I recommend having a relationship check-in.  

Protip 2: Sometimes the roles and rules are getting in the way of something important that needs to be said. For these situations, I recommend having a communication safeword. Similar to a safeword used during intimate scenes, a communication safeword allows you to call a timeout on protocol and the power exchange so that you may both speak as equals. 

Step 13: Do the essential behaviors of a good submissive

As you continue the dynamic, be diligent about practicing the essential behaviors of a good submissive. Most importantly, look for more ways to deepen your submission and grow within the dynamic. 

As a Dom, I’m going to keep growing and bettering myself. I expect you to do the same. A good submissive will be open to learning. You are receptive to feedback and strive to improve your skills and understanding of the shared goals. In an effort to be a better submissive and service the Dom, a sub will also take the time to learn the preferences of the Dom and how to best support them, knowing that they are leading the dynamic.

Step: 14: Reflect & Change

As you continue your journey through submission, you are going to change as a person. Desires, boundaries, limits, moods, emotions, behaviors… all of it will shift and change over time. I recommend keeping an erotic journal and documenting your development. As you change, it can be helpful for you to revisit earlier versions of you. 

Don’t see this change as a bad thing. Instead, take each step with grace and enjoy your experiences, including the challenging ones. In the process, you will discover parts of yourself that you never knew existed.