Devotion vs. Obligation: How Real D/s Grows Over Years, Not Months

Eric is back. If you have been around a while you know him as a personal friend, and from the Conscious Dominance podcast we co-hosted before he spun up DSRX with Rachael.

Today felt like a homecoming and a checkpoint on the path of devotion. Not the Instagram version. The lived, daily practice that forces you to meet yourself, over and over, in the mirror of a woman you love.

This post distills the episode so you can get the lessons without listening first. At the end I will link both the audio and YouTube if you want to go deeper.

Devotion is not grip

Many men confuse commitment with grip. They stay, but they harden. They carry a private resentment or a silent checklist of what she should change. That is obligation. Devotion is different. Devotion keeps opening. It is the choice to become more truthful and more capable every time life exposes where you are not free.

Devotion is not a one year sprint. It is a way of living. It keeps desire alive over years because you keep becoming someone who can meet more life. When you fall down you do not collapse into blame, you look at the place that is not yet strong and you train it. That is the “how good can this get” ethos Eric and I keep returning to. Not perfection. Practice.

The Dominant’s mirror

Here is a hard truth. Most male reactivity is avoidance of vulnerability. We flare up, argue, go cold, or get clever because we do not want to feel small, scared, sad, or unsteady. Eric talked about how learning to befriend his vulnerable states made him less reactive and more powerful. I have lived the same thing. When I let the body feel what it feels, strength returns. Presence returns. Leadership returns.

A Dominant who refuses his own vulnerability gets brittle. A Dominant who can feel everything without collapsing becomes unshakeable. That steadiness is what allows her to relax and bring more of herself.

When her “no” is your “no” to yourself

Men ask me about rejection. Here is the pattern I see. You bring an idea or a desire. She says no. You take it as a verdict on your desire. You shut down or push harder. The cycle repeats.

In most devoted relationships her “no” is not a judgment of the thing. It is the mirror of your internal wobble. Shame around the desire. Ambivalence. A quiet self rejection. If your energy is unclean she will feel it. If your energy is grounded and clean, many things that were once “no” become “not now,” and many “not now” become a full body yes.

Your job is to get aligned inside yourself so your leadership is clean. Self acceptance first. Then offer. Then listen.

Set the chaos free, then steer

Feminine energy is inherently dynamic. It surges, spirals, and sings. Your job is not to make it smaller. Your job is to make it freer, then guide it. Provide direction and safety while you invite more life. That is the art. Containment without compression. Structure without suffocation. When you get this right you do not get a flat, calm relationship. You get dynamic peace. Aliveness with acceptance.

Simplify to lead

Leadership is heavy if your life is cluttered. Eric and Rachel moved from a large multi-story home to a simple apartment that feels like a quiet hotel suite. Less stuff. Less mental load. More focus on health, work, and their dynamic. Our family did something similar in a different way. We live in a small RV and travel. The point is the same. Simplify so the main thing can be the main thing. Make your life reflect your values, not your impulses. Then you have the bandwidth to lead.

Ask yourself: what commitments are you carrying that do not serve devotion or truth. Where are you buying peace with clutter. Start pruning.

Craft and consistency

We also talked about the compound effect of weekly creative work. This show just passed 100 episodes. That is hours of recording, editing, writing, publishing. Small steady actions stack into momentum. Relationship is the same. Treat it like a craft. Practice the fundamentals. Do the reps. The results will look like “sudden breakthroughs” from the outside. You will know they came from years of quiet practice.

Injury, mortality, and integration

Eric shared about his shoulder injury from surfing and how it forced him to slow down. He lost strength and work capacity for a season. Rachel stepped in more. He had to feel his limits rather than fight them. That was a doorway to softer parts of himself he had overridden for years. He came out of it more integrated, less reactive, and oddly enough, stronger. I have seen this over and over. When we stop performing toughness and actually feel what is true, real strength shows up.

Practical ways to live this

1) Inventory your inner “no.” 

Write the desires you are afraid to bring forward. Under each one, name the fear, the shame story, and the clean version of the desire. Practice saying it out loud until your body is calm while you say it.

2) Clean offers, clean listening. 

Make a clear request without selling it or hedging. “I want to try…” Then drop all defense and listen to her body and words. If it is a no or not now, keep your heart open. Track what in you was wobbly. Strengthen that and revisit.

3) Set her free on purpose. 

Choose a time and space where you will invite more of her energy. Your role is to steer. Offer direction and edges. Do not clamp down when it surges. Keep breathing. Keep your eyes soft. Keep your frame steady.

4) Remove three drains. 

List the top three clutter points that steal your presence. Stuff, subscriptions, side projects, social scroll. Cancel, sell, or delegate. Buy back your attention.

5) Practice non-reactivity daily. 

When you notice heat in the chest, jaw, or gut, pause. Name the feeling in simple words. Breathe into it for two minutes. Do not fix or argue. Let the body complete the wave, then respond.

6) Build consistency. 

Choose one weekly ritual that reinforces devotion. A walk to debrief the week. A scene you plan together. A shared training day. Keep it simple, then keep it going.

Peace is not the absence of intensity

What we are building is not a quiet, beige life. It is a relationship where intensity has a place and is welcomed. Where a woman gets freer because a man is strong enough to hold what she is opening into. Where the Dominant becomes more powerful by meeting his own vulnerability rather than outrunning it. Where devotion keeps growing because both people keep becoming.

If this resonated, the full conversation with Eric goes deeper into the details, the stories, and the feel of it in real life.

Listen to the episode here:

Audio: infinitedevotion.com/podcasts/dom-sub-devotion

YouTube: https://youtu.be/5nSauhk6Fw4