Some of the TOUGHEST questions I've ever been asked on Dom Sub Devotion

 In this week's episode of Dom Sub Devotion, I asked my listeners and followers to send me some of their toughest questions. To challenge me. To question me if they think I'm full of shit. 

And then, in the episode, I spoke for an hour completely from the hip. With no prep or outlining, just speaking from the heart about some really tough questions. 

I've gone into each of them below, for those of you who prefer to read. But in all honesty, this is much better on the podcast, so I'd love it if you went to check it out. 

You can listen here. 

Or watch on YouTube here. 

 

When Spirituality Meets Reality

"What does divine mean to you? I don't know why, but it sounds so unserious to me when you say it."

This question, this challenge really, cuts straight to the heart of a problem that plagues modern spirituality. The assumption that to be spiritual, you must be serious. That enlightenment looks a certain way, sounds a certain way, feels a certain way.

But this is just another version of ego. A spiritual ego.

Divine means authentic. It doesn't mean dressing a certain way, speaking with hushed reverence, or performing some identity of what "spiritual" is supposed to look like. To be divine is to be fully in connection with your soul, with your spirit. And that has nothing to do with seriousness at all.

There's an old saying, possibly from Lao Tzu: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

Life before and after coming into consciousness doesn't look different. The same life is going on around you. You just relate to it differently. You're no longer performing. You're no longer trying to be something. You're just being.

If divinity has to look or feel a certain way in order for you to accept it as real, you're just living in a different version of the exact same cage you're trying to escape.

---

Why Would a Man Commit When He Has Other Options?

"Why would a man want to commit to one woman when it's so easy in today's culture to have multiple women, easy sex, and so many options?"

This is one of the most honest questions a man can ask himself. And it deserves an honest answer, not a moralistic one.

Yes, it would seem there are fewer reasons for a man to commit today. But the question isn't really about commitment versus freedom. The question is: Do you want to explore with different people, or do you want to explore life more deeply?

We all recognize there's a certain shallowness to casual, fleeting relationships. Something gets missed. But we also can't ignore that variety appeals to our deeper animal instincts, especially for men.

So why commit?

The Real Reason Commitment Matters

Years ago, before Dawn and I had even entered a D/s dynamic, I seriously considered leaving the relationship. I knew that changing what we had after 7 to 10 years together was going to take immense work. I owed it to myself to consider whether that work was worth it, or whether I should move on and start fresh with someone new.

As I thought through this deeply, I realized something crucial. In order for me to have the kind of relationship I wanted with anyone, I was going to have to change things about myself. I was going to have to go through the exact same internal work whether I stayed or left.

And that's when I understood why commitment matters for men.

Taking the easy route, the casual route, the multiple partners route... most of the time that isn't because you're actually polyamorous. Most of the time, it's because you're avoiding the things it would require of you to go deep with one person.

The moment it gets challenging, you bail. You get to avoid uncomfortable feelings. You get to make her wrong. You never have to look deeply at yourself and the role you play in why the relationship isn't working.

Commitment forces you to grow.

When you stay, you have to bring yourself, all of yourself, to another person, knowing there might be resistance or rejection. You have to face your own patterns, your own wounds, your own ways of self-abandoning or people-pleasing or controlling.

That has made me become so much better for myself.

I could have avoided all of that depth. I could have felt like I was "honoring myself" by leaving. I could have decided I'm polyamorous and need multiple partners. But the real question is: Am I actually polyamorous, or am I just afraid?

The Truth About Polyamory

To be clear, I have no problem with polyamory as a concept. But if you can't go deep with one person, if you need to bail every time things get challenging, you're not polyamorous. You're just afraid.

And if you don't deal with that fear, you're the one who's going to live in a constrained, suppressed version of yourself while thinking you're chasing freedom.

There's nothing free about running away constantly.

Being able to live any kind of healthy polyamorous or open relationship requires that you can do it well with one person first. Then you can explore if there's space for that inside of that connection.

Why would a man commit to one woman when he can have as many as he wants?

Because it makes him a better man.

---

Dominance Without Jealousy: The Uncomfortable Truth

"How can anyone listen to anything you have to say? You've lost all credibility as a dominant by letting Dawn have an OnlyFans."

"How can you be dominant if you're not possessive or jealous at all?"

These questions reveal a fundamental misunderstanding about what dominance actually is.

Built into these questions is the assumption that dominance must be possessive. There must be jealousy. There must be some sort of controlling energy for a man to be a dominant.

But let's examine where that energy comes from.

Why Are Men Possessive and Jealous?

If I am jealous and possessive, I am constantly reacting to her. Someone else looked at her. How dare they? Someone else saw her content. She's mine! I'm reacting. I'm being completely controlled by other people, by her desires, by external threats.

My inner world is completely at the whim of what other people do.

Jealousy isn't a good look for a dominant. All I'm showing is that I'm afraid. Afraid of losing. Afraid of being taken from.

And I'm not.

I'm not threatened by any of that. If Dawn doesn't want to be with me, she's free to go. I've told her this from the very beginning. I only want this if you actually want it. If something else is better for you, I will be the first one to cheer you on.

I'm not afraid of losing her.

What Real Dominance Looks Like

If my credibility comes from controlling her and limiting her, then what I have to say probably won't resonate with you. And that's okay.

But I've said this time and time again. My dominance is about protecting her freedom to explore what it is to be her.

If that has to be possessive, jealous, limiting... "you can do that, you can't do that, if you do that I'm leaving"... that's not dominant. That's weak.

It takes far more strength to trust someone enough to let them explore what it means to be themselves and still love them the same. To stand right there and smile and enjoy that person exploring their individuality.

That, to me, is real dominance.

The opposite, being reactive, possessive, jealous, that's a terrified human being putting on a mask of strength.

There's nothing strong about being reactive.

The real strength is the ability to still love someone regardless of what they do. To love someone deeper than their actions. To take joy in another human being exploring what it means to be them, and knowing that you still get to be a place where they're unconditionally loved, accepted, and celebrated.

If a man is possessive, jealous, controlling, forceful in any way, in my opinion, that is the opposite of dominance. That's not a dominant man. That's a weak man. A wounded man. A scared man. An insecure man.

And that's okay. I've been there. I used to be very jealous in my first marriage. But I didn't trust that person, and I didn't trust myself.

---

Should You Stay or Should You Go?

"How do I know if I should stay with my partner or leave and start over with someone new? I'm afraid I'm running out of time."

The fear that you're running out of time is the real problem in this question.

You have time. I don't care how old you are. I have people in my courses right now who are in their sixties, seventies, and early eighties. People who've been married for over 50 years who've decided they want to try something different.

The Real Question to Ask Yourself

Here's what I suggest. Set down every single way you blame your partner for not being good enough. Every complaint about them not doing it right, about them being the problem.

Set all of that down for a year.

What if you completely let go of needing that person to be different for a year? And you just focused on:

• How am I showing up?
• How am I being reactive?
• How am I contributing to this relationship?
• Where am I living out of wounds and traumas?
• Where can I show up differently for myself?

Not to try to change them. Not to change yourself in order to get them to change. Just to be better for yourself.

Do that for a year. Then maybe let yourself ask that question again.

The Pressure Problem

The fear that you're running out of time causes you to put pressure on yourself and pressure on the relationship. That pressure works directly against everything you want.

You can't change when you're trying to pressure yourself. Your partner can't change at all when you're trying to force them to be different.

You might think, "I'm not trying to force them. I just really want it."

But if you're telling them they have to do this or not do that in order for you to love or accept them, the only real options they have are to perform for you or suppress themselves.

If you really want to know whether to stay or go, set everything about the other person aside. Give yourself at least a year of working on yourself. Work on your own codependency. Work on your own inner child. Dive into your own patterns.

Take the pressure off of them and take the pressure off of yourself. Sit down with all of your mess.

You'll start to see if there's anything in that relationship for you or not. But it's going to take a while.

---

How to Give Without Draining Yourself

"How does giving so much not drain you? It seems to me like you overgive."

"Where does all of your energy come from? How do you lead your life and hers when most people are struggling to manage even themselves?"

I love these questions because I would have asked the same thing years ago.

Think about my life. I lead my life. I lead my wife, my submissive. I lead everything about our lives, including the chaos of living a nomadic life and being in different places all the time, all the travel arrangements, all of it. I run our Infinite Devotion business, our social media. I do all the web programming. I record, edit, publish, and market this podcast. I hold space in our courses and coaching for dozens or hundreds of people at any given time.

How can I do all of that?

The Truth: I Put Myself First

About 10 years ago, I quit a whole bunch of stuff. I cleaned out my life. Back then, I was giving far less than I give now, but I still felt empty.

So I started putting myself first. Prioritizing me, even over Dawn.

I cut things out of my life that drained me. I cut people out who drained me. I eliminated places where I was giving but not receiving back.

And then I started to feel better about myself. I started to gain a sense of value. I felt like I mattered because I started treating myself like I mattered.

I built self-confidence based in self-trust. Not fake confidence. Real confidence from treating myself well. Eating better. Sleeping better. Saying no more.

Giving From Overflow, Not Emptiness

In my course "Becoming a Dominant Man," the first step is taking responsibility for your life. The second step is taking care of yourself first.

You've got to own your life and take care of you because giving comes from overflow, not from emptiness.

I work to keep myself full. I've built a life that gives back to me. I don't give myself away in ways where I don't receive back, unless I'm already feeling full and can give from overflow.

I don't do it for her. Dawn is the recipient of the love I have for myself. Of the excess love I have for myself.

Part of taking care of myself was also doing therapy. Working on my trauma. Letting go of attachments and the reasons I would overgive, the reasons I would empty myself out, the reasons I self-abandoned.

So I stopped doing that.

The Hardest Lesson

Here's probably the hardest lesson for anyone asking this question. Life is probably trying to give back to you, and you're probably pushing it away.

You're probably giving and giving and giving, feeling like shit and feeling empty, but you're also not letting people love you. You're not letting people help you. You're not letting people give back to you.

When somebody appreciates you or feels gratitude for you, you block that out in some way. And that's how you get back for what you give.

You have to be able to let the reciprocal energy back in, or you're just pouring yourself out with nothing filling you back up.

That's how I give so much without draining myself. The more I give, the more I receive, because I'm open to receiving. And when I start to feel drained, I just stop giving for a while. Then I start again when I feel full and when it feels like I have overflow again.

---

Why You Resist What You Want Most: The Sky Is Green

"Why is it so hard to just let go and obey and submit? I want to. And when I do, I fucking love it. But most of the time I just can't. I try to force myself to let go. I try to fake it until it feels real, but I just resist. Why do I do this?"

This might be the most important answer in this entire post.

You Still Believe the Sky Is Green

Imagine that as a very small child, someone taught you that the color you see when you look up at a clear sky is called "green." You went through your whole life believing this.

Every car that was that color? Green. The grass? Blue. Tree leaves? Blue. That's what you were taught. That's what you believe.

Then someone comes along and says: "That grass isn't blue, it's green. That sky isn't green, it's blue."

You're going to think they're lying to you. Even if they're telling the truth, you're going to believe they're crazy, trying to manipulate you. That color up there is definitely green. That grass is definitely blue. They're so wrong.

The Uncomfortable Truth

When the truth comes along, first you believe it's a lie.

But then, in order for you to start believing the truth, you're going to have to go through something really, really uncomfortable.

If you've gone through your whole life believing this, you've probably stated this belief hundreds or thousands of times. So to admit that the sky is actually blue and the grass is actually green means:

• You have to admit you've been wrong your whole life
• You have to admit that everyone who disagreed with you was right
• You have to come to terms with the fact that you decided to believe the lie
• You decided to go along with that belief
• You made the choice and lived as though the lie was true

How This Applies to Submission

When you want to obey, want to submit, want to surrender, and you start to see and feel that it's right for you, you've just realized the sky is actually blue.

But you still believe the color up there is green.

You still believe on some level that it's not okay. Not right. Not good. That you don't deserve to be taken care of in that way. That you don't deserve love. That you're going to be dropped. That it's shameful. That it's wrong.

You still believe that. And your actions, all that resistance, are coming from that belief.

Even if you know the belief is false, you haven't been able and willing to look at it yet and accept the deepest, hardest thing about it.

You were the one who decided it's not okay. You were the one who went along with and adopted the belief that it's bad. You were the one who decided you didn't deserve love.

You made those choices.

Now, you made them probably as a two, three, four-year-old child. You were very immature. You didn't know any better. You were just trying to make sense of a world that didn't make sense.

There's a ton of compassion for every person who adopts these beliefs about themselves. But along with that compassion comes that really uncomfortable truth: most of your struggles, challenges, and suffering aren't because of someone else...they're because of what YOU decided that it meant about you. 

The Path Forward

But the reason you can't do the thing you want to do is because on some level, you still think the sky is green. You still think you don't deserve it. You still think it's bad.

And you haven't yet come to terms with the fact that this isn't because of someone else or what someone else did to you, or culture, or society.

It's because at some point something happened and you decided that it wasn't okay. That it was bad. That it was wrong. That you don't deserve it. That you don't have worth or value.

You made all those choices. Then you've been living like those are true for your whole life.

Undoing those choices and beliefs means you have to face not only everything you've ever done and said that was contrary to what you're now realizing is true, you also have to deal with the fact that you were the one who adopted that belief.

Someone else may have done something. Someone else played a part. But you went along with it. You were the one who decided to carry the belief that the sky is green.

Until you get down to that level and find forgiveness for yourself, for making choices and adopting beliefs that weren't true because you just didn't know any better, you're going to keep resisting the very things you want and pushing them away.

Compassion for Yourself

And then the last piece. You're going to have to have a lot of compassion for yourself.

Holy shit, we all do this. Every one of us.

This isn't just the reason you have trouble submitting. It's the reason people have trouble losing weight. It's the reason people push away love or sabotage relationships. It's the reason men have trouble stepping up into strength and dominance.

This is everything about why we struggle to live the life we want to live.

We didn't know any better. We did the best that we could.

And now you can choose to accept that the sky is blue. That you are worthy. That you do deserve it. That it is okay. That it isn't shameful or bad or wrong.

You can let yourself choose. You can let yourself believe that, as soon as you accept the reality that you played a part in adopting the wrong belief.

It was right for you at the time. It was just inaccurate and incomplete.

---

When Spirituality and Kink Collide

"I've never been interested in BDSM or kink because it always felt performative to me. Then I saw your interview and could see you go to a deeper layer. But then I saw Dawn write about being used and objectified, and that contradicted the whole open-hearted safety stuff. So which one is it?"

I love when people point out what seems like a paradox.

There's still an assumption here. That open-heartedness and safety are supposed to look like this. If it's spiritual, it has to be like this. If it's deeper, it can't be like that.

But you're still living in a world of either/or. Of comparison. Of this or that.

It's not "or." It's "and."

The Point of Spiritual Evolution

The open-heartedness, the safety, the spirituality, the polarity, the divine union... all of these things make it possible to feel safe enough to explore. To play. To have fun. To try new things. To see what's exciting. To see what turns me on, what turns her on.

What's the point of open-heartedness and safety if you have to sit still and not do anything dangerous in order to protect it?

The point of spiritual evolution is so that you can live your life. So you can really be alive while you're living. So you can be in this moment and say, "Yeah, that's hot. I want to do that. I like when you say those dirty things to me. Let's do that. That was fun."

It's getting out of the meaning-making. The "what does that mean about her? What does it mean about me? What does it mean about our relationship?"

That's the problem spiritual seekers are trying to get away from. The ego. The trying to be good and not be bad. The trying to be right.

We're trying to get out of all that to just be able to be there in the moment and enjoy it. To feel free enough in ourselves that we can live.

Being Fully Human

It doesn't have to look a certain way to be spiritual. It doesn't have to be all love and light.

No. It's the full range of humanity. It's being fully human.

Being spiritual doesn't mean abandoning the human. It means integrating the human. It means integrating the spiritual. It means healing the emotional.

If you believe we are spiritual beings, souls having a human experience, then the human experience is the point. It's not about trying to get away from the human experience. It's about being able to actually live it.

My definition of spirituality: To have the soul fully integrated in the body. The soul living freely in the body.

That means who you are, what you are, what feels good and right and real to you, you can enjoy it. Explore it. Experience it without shame, without limitation, without constraint.

You're free to be yourself. Free to speak your mind. Free to explore. Free to try new things.

It's not about meditating 12 hours a day or having the right hat or worrying whether your shirt has polyester in it.

In 50, 60, maybe 70 years, I'm going to be dead.

So what's the point of being spiritual if you have to abandon the human experience or any part of it?

To me, the whole point of spirituality is being able to experience the full human experience. And that means the dark and the light. That means bringing the shadows out into the light and playing with them.

Yeah, I can live a very spiritual life and do all of those other things that make some people uncomfortable.

---

How Does Dawn Survive Without You?

"How could Dawn survive if something happens to you? She's totally dependent on you, isn't she?"

Is she?

Now, in reality, I take very good care of her. I try to. I think I do a pretty good job of it.

But if I am doing a good job of leading her, I'm setting her up to be able to take care of herself if something happens to me.

Now, the reality is, is she going to miss me more? Is it going to be even harder for her to lose me when we are as deeply connected as we are? Yeah, because she's open to me. I've opened to her.

It's the same the other way around. People think, well, she's the submissive. So if I lost her, if something happened to her, I'd be okay.

I wouldn't be okay.

I rely on her as much as she relies on me. And she's more assertive, more competent, more capable than she's ever been. She's also more open. More free. And yes, that means she's more vulnerable.

So am I.

We're both more vulnerable than we were when we were making sure we'd be okay without each other.

So it's gonna hurt more. But if I'm doing a good job leading her, I'm also helping to make sure that she would be okay. That she's not just completely dependent on me like a puppy.

I have life insurance with her as the beneficiary. I have our affairs very well in order, so she would know exactly what to do and how and where everything is and how everything works.

If something were to happen to me, she's not helpless. And I'm also not going to leave her helpless.

---

When Life Gets Hard

"How do you feel in control and be a dom when you are going through hard times, like really hard times?"

You don't.

You don't have to be dominant when shit is hitting the fan. You don't always have to be in control.

The more you do this deep work, the more those hard times won't feel as hard as they used to. But stuff is still going to happen.

The Cost of Opening

The ways you have to open yourself emotionally to really settle into inner strength, that strength that allows you to be dominant in the ways I talk about, also means that life is sometimes going to hurt more.

Because the walls are down. The blocks are gone. The self-protection doesn't exist in the same way anymore.

Inner strength requires emotional vulnerability.

Emotional vulnerability means you're going to feel more pain sometimes. You're going to feel other people's pain sometimes. And when hard times hit, it might hurt you more.

When you're feeling that, it's not the time to try to get yourself in control. It's not the time to try to get yourself together and suck it up.

It's the time to feel. To let yourself feel.

How You Come Back to Strength

The way you come back to solidity isn't by pushing that down. It's not by suppressing your emotional experience.

It's by accepting it. Allowing it. Letting it move through you. Finding a way to process it, to move it, to express it.

Ideally, and don't take this as a directive, ideally you don't bring that back to your woman, back to your submissive. You work through it with a therapist. You work through it with other men. You find someone to witness you in your grief.

Ideally, that's not her.

This doesn't mean cutting her out. You still have to let her in. You can let her see that you're not okay. You're a human.

When you accept yourself in those challenges, when you let yourself fall down, when you let it hurt, when you let her see that you're in pain, and then you feel it, you actually let it hit, you actually let it hurt, and then you rise up and stand up and learn from it and grow and come back even better...

She gets to see all of that.

Rather than you just trying to act like nothing's wrong because you think you're not supposed to let her see it.

How do you feel in control when you're going through really hard times?

You don't. You go through the really hard times. You learn from them. You grow. And you get yourself back together on the other side of it.

---

The Unscripted Truth

This entire episode was answered on the fly. No planning. No research. No outlining. Just raw response to tough questions from real people navigating these dynamics in their real lives.

And maybe that's why it lands differently.

Because these aren't theoretical answers. They're not carefully crafted talking points designed to sound good. They're the lived experience of someone who's been in the trenches of this work, someone who's made the mistakes, faced the hard truths, and come out the other side with something real to offer.

If you've read this far and something here resonated with you, or challenged you, I encourage you to listen to the full episode. There's a depth and nuance in the pauses, in the contemplation, in the way these ideas unfold in real time that can't quite be captured in writing.

Listen to Episode 112 of Dom Sub Devotion

And if this message reached you in a way that mattered, please take five seconds to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or leave a comment on YouTube. It helps this work reach others who need it.