So, in today's episode, we are answering questions we put out on our Instagram account, lots of a few different options and ways for people to send us questions.
And so we've got a bunch of them here that people want to know some things and we're gonna answer basically all of the questions that got sent in.
Yeah, this is fun.
So thank you to all of you who uh sent us the questions and also just a big thank you to all of you who choose to listen um to our shared experience and just um share your interest for your own life experience.
And however, we can um be a part of your journey and that it's really humbling and rewarding and we really appreciate you all deeply.
We have a lot of gratitude for being able to do this and for how many of you have tuned in and really enjoyed listening to the beginning of this.
And so that's why we're doing this Q and A episode because people have had lots of questions for us.
As new people have found us and started hearing our story.
We've been sharing it for a few years now.
But this podcast has really opened up a lot of new people learning about who we are and, and how we live.
So they have questions, we have answers.
So the first few uh that we're gonna answer are ones that people had to ask for me.
So Donna's gonna ask me a few questions away.
Princess, if your submissive refuses to do something that you think is in her best interest or yours, What do you do? And is there a punishment? And that is a really good question because first of all, in our dynamic, there is no punishment.
We don't do punishment at all and haven't ever been at a place where we would have found it necessary in the first place.
And that sounds foreign to a lot of people when they think about dominance and submission.
Like what is, what is this without punishment? Like I thought like a lot of people think what dumb sub is is I tell you what to do and every time that you step one quarter inch out of line, you get punished and like that doesn't feel good to either one of us.
So first of all, we learned this um I don't remember where but a hierarchy really of if something's not going the way you want it to, it starts with correction, not with punishment.
Like I said like this, not like that.
And Don loves to follow my lead.
She's very driven to please me and to make me happy.
So if the, if something that she's doing is differently than the way that I want it to be, all I need to do is point that out.
And generally she's going to put forth her best effort as she always does to follow in the direction that I'm leading her.
Now, the other piece of that is why is she having trouble following in the first place? Um Because generally, if a woman has agreed to submit in a dumb sub consensual relationship where both of us want this, this isn't something like I'm doing to her or she's getting from me, this is something we're doing together.
And so if I tell you to do something that's in your best interest and you won't or can't, then we've hit on something that we need to go deeper into.
Like, why? Because we both want the leader, follower dynamic in this relationship.
So if I'm saying, like I think this is absolutely the right thing for us or for you and this is how I want you to go forward and you go nope, then, then we need to look at why, what is it that is causing the hold up in you? And that's where I share my emotional experience, my, my response to what's going on and, and then you're able to lead out of that, right? So dominance and submission doesn't mean order and obey like immediate order and immediate obedience.
Especially not like at the beginning, this takes time to get to authentic leadership and authentic followership.
So this doesn't make like her a bad sub if I say do this and she's like uh uh like if I were to punish her when something doesn't feel right to her and she doesn't want to do it and then punish her, then what am I telling her? I'm telling her do things that you don't want to do.
I'm violating the principle of consent and I'm encouraging her to perform for me to pretend like she wants to do something that she doesn't really want to do.
So instead of expecting that kind of obedience, what I've done is make the unpacking of that.
Why doesn't it feel good into a part of the dumb sub dynamic? Like it's not about getting her to do what I, what I want her to do or what I think is best.
It's really about, yes, I think this is best.
You don't think so.
Let's figure out which one of us is missing something.
Am I out of integrity here? Is there something in, in what I'm asking you to do? Because generally, if I'm in integrity, if I'm solid with what it is that I'm asking of you, it generally feels good for you to follow that.
And so what we've really found and this is a lot of years and a lot of practice at this and most people hearing this won't trust it until they try it and do it.
But really, generally if I'm saying this and she's having like a nope reaction, there's some, there's something in the command in the direction and the leadership is tainted.
It's not true.
It's not an integrity inside of me or, or I'm succumbing to fear.
Correct.
And that is where my leadership is required above all in these kind of situations.
Because if it's me out of integrity, that's making you feel resistant, then I've got to straighten myself out.
If it's you feeling fear or giving into some patterns, some old pattern that you like, it would feel way better to keep doing it the way I've always done it, then that's also on me to be able to call you forward out of that and to lead you to a place where you can follow because again, that's what we both want and I still call that fear.
And so my role in that is being able to identify a, at least a little bit of something to give you to give to you as the gift as, and that's my emotional experience.
And so you can, like I said before, lead through that because that brings us more of everything else that we want.
And you're either shutting her down in the way that you respond to her resistance or you are setting her free in the way you respond to her resistance.
And if you are trying to somehow shut her up or stop her from feeling an authentic feeling.
The only thing that you can possibly do as a dominant is turn her into either performing for you or into not feeling safe to open up with you.
Neither of those get you to the promised land of a place where this feels authentic and free and real and good.
And our, it's our job to really be leading in a way that sets a submissive free, not leading in a way that shuts you down and takes you farther away from your own self.
Right? So last quick thing I mentioned correction instead of punishment most of the time, if something isn't going the way that I want it to and it is, it's something that can be solved just with like this, not like that with a gentle grounded, calm response in my system.
And if there's continued challenge with follow through on something that I've a plan that I've laid out for us, a ritual that I've made a rule that I've set and it's not being followed, then maybe there's a little bit more, um, firmness that I need to bring to that correction.
And that's really the, the area of discipline which still comes before punishment.
So I need to be leading in the way that I correct in the small moments, the way that I apply discipline.
Now, I'm not talking about punishment discipline here, I'm talking about like being able to voice with, with inner strength and solidity.
What it is that's not happening.
And what I see is why and try to lead us forward to a place where this can go better.
And I believe that we as dominant men should be able to solve almost 100% of problems in a mutually agreed upon consensual, loving, dumb sub dynamic with correction and with discipline needing to get to punishment is generally a failure on the dominance part of not applying correction and discipline when it was necessary and needed.
If it's gotten so bad that you feel the need to punish leading from a place of inner strength, you should never get to a place where something is so bad that you feel the need to punish.
And if you do, you probably need to look at your leadership skills way more than you need to look at her followership skills.
And I will just add that, you know, there's a term out there called punishments where like where there's room for the play and the, you know, the, the bratty.
So the sassy, like whatever, if that's your thing and like to me, I see that more of that like fun kink arrow aliveness, like playfulness, whatever.
Yeah, by all means like do that.
But this is, this is really outside of that.
Um When your focus is a love and devotion of each other and bringing forth um the depths of who each other truly is.
Like, that's the focus for us.
And when you, when you think about this question in the way that it's phrased, like she refuses to do something that I think is in her best interest.
Is there a punishment that would be me saying, I think this would be great for you.
And you're saying no, and I'm gonna, what beat you into thinking it is right for you.
Uh Like this, that's not how human beings treat each other, especially not human beings who love each other.
That's not leadership that's trying to basically force rather than use authority and power.
So I will just add from my experience in this like the way you've always approached it with the correction that discipline.
Like there were plenty of reasons why punishment was off the table for me from the very start.
It didn't feel good to my system.
It never has.
There was a hard limit like at the beginning in our conversations for Dawn like no punishment.
Yeah, I'm, I'm not being treated that way that that just felt inhumane to me.
And um so what I've received in the way you've led me there is the ability to just open and receive your direction and time and time again, you got to show me that what you were bringing forth was actually much better than the world of fear I was living in.
And so like it, it, it was a pattern that just continued to get even better and evolve.
Your hard limit of no punishment actually forced me into having to approach this with leadership skills instead of with like even that like that tool is out of my tool belt.
So, yeah.
And you didn't even want it from a start either.
All right, next question.
All right.
Does your sub ever go out without a collar or go without a collar? Does my sub ever go without a collar? No, no, she doesn't.
This like this collar means in some ways even more to us than this wedding ring does that Dawn wears on her finger.
It's very pretty if you're on watching this on youtube.
Um, because the call represents the conscious rebirth of our relationship and a new level of commitment that is beyond what we understood when, you know, 12.
5 years ago when we got married, we didn't understand the depth of the commitment.
We were really making those words like till death do us part.
And a covenant that we talk about in wedding ceremonies, they, they don't mean as much, at least didn't to us until the collar came around.
And after that, when we started to realize what this connection was becoming between us.
So, no, she never goes without a collar.
She wears it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, she wears it to bed, she wears it when she showers.
The only couple times that she's ever really been without it in public, not even really in public, but is when you would get massages and the massage therapist kind of needed to take it off so they could massage your neck.
So she would take it off and put it back on with my permission.
Next question.
Do you get jealous about thousands of people wishing they could have done? I love this question.
No, I do not because that just shows that thousands of people have really good taste.
Uh um No, I'm, I'm not a jealous person generally by nature.
Um I've experienced bouts of jealousy in my past in my first marriage when I was cheated on and that was a whole different thing, but that was well earned jealousy.
Um But no, I don't get jealous about it at all.
I, I really do.
I've always looked at other people looking at you and thinking you're attractive as a compliment to my ability to make a good choice.
Like why would I want to be with someone that other people didn't think was attractive? And that is what I've always experienced from you in the felt way like the no jealousy whatsoever.
So I like that other people think don is attractive.
I'm sure this is gonna blow up our D MS when I say this but whatever we can handle it.
And um yeah.
No, it's not threatening to me at all.
It's, it really is a compliment more than anything.
Now, we got a few questions for you.
All right.
The first one, someone asks what is Andrew really like as a dominant and a husband? What am I like? I don't really know what that question is exactly getting at it.
But um amazing.
You're fucking amazing.
What you see is what you get.
It's what I get every day and I could.
Wow, I'm, I'm gonna try to sum this up.
I'm gonna speak to you in this.
You have always seen me always in a way that I didn't see myself.
You experienced life and I didn't, in a way, I didn't even experience myself and through our relationship and just our committed love.
That's always been there of the over and over death and rebirth of our egos of the identities of who we thought we were.
Like, we've walked through some fires together and wow, the authentic life soul experience that you have drawn forth in me, by your patience, by your compassion, by your forgiveness, by your attentiveness and presence in all of the ways through when frankly, I maybe didn't exactly deserve it.
By the way, I was showing up the ways that you give to me out of authentic love and devotion for me by cooking breakfast every morning, by taking control over every aspect of our lives, by leading me in the day to day, by leading me in the bigger aspect of life.
Like I didn't even know life could be this amazing the depths of it all.
And so I feel like I'm your billboard.
I am your display of your connection to truth and consciousness and your ability to see your ability to draw forth out of the depths, out of the void out.
Like it's your gift that you are giving to the world.
And I have got to experience it firsthand every single day.
And so I know that maybe is a little bit side tangent, but I can't even answer this question without saying that.
And I'm enjoying the answer to this question.
By the way.
Thank you to the anonymous person who asked it.
Please continue.
Like I, the amount of gratitude and love that has continued to deepen and, and like, like that, I get to feel in ways that I didn't even know was possible for a human being and the way you've led me, I was gonna say back to myself, but led me to myself because I didn't know who I was.
I didn't know how disconnected I was.
So you, you made a statement that I'd like to hear you say a little bit more about because I can imagine the heckle standing up on the back of some people's neck when you said the way that I take control of every aspect of our lives.
What do you, what do you mean when you say that as a submissive, especially saying it in a way that is coming as gratitude, not as like something else.
Let me see if I can sum this up and make sense all at the same time.
Um Back at the beginning, there were certain ways that you were, that you brought forth to me, that you were like, this is one area where I see that I can step up and lead you to a better experience in these areas.
And so it was like, yes, absolutely.
Yes.
Um I wasn't always good at following like we had to going back to the beginning question, it was working through those emotional responses and letting go of the fear based grasping for, I have to have it my way.
Um Because with each time of me being like, yes, please take charge of like money paying the bills.
Um figuring out like anything in relation to like the house, like insurance, like all of those other nitty gritty must do things in life.
But then it evolved into more of like, I guess more personal things about my life.
I mean, eventually I was like, all right, I need to figure out a better product because I don't want to use the chemicals in my these products anymore.
And I said, please decide what is best for me.
So you would receive my request and be like, yes, I want to take care of this for you and then you would go do all your research and decide what is a product that you feel good having to use.
And then I get to receive that and be like, oh yes, I don't have to live in the figuring it out.
I don't have to live in the, in putting all the information and I don't have to make the decision and it's like this relief to my system of um yeah, just not having to make all the decisions because my role, like the way I would handle those is like, well, this person says this and this person says that and this person says this and like those two are contradicting.
So who do I believe? And now I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't know what the perfect decision is.
And can you hear the way that you, you're just describing that your voice is like, exactly almost mimicking what it would sound like in your head to be overthinking.
I lived it so I can articulate that very well.
And that was just about what kind of face wash or body lotion or whatever.
So somebody asked us this week in kind of a snarky comment like, so you don't even get the pleasure of choosing your own cosmetics.
And like my thought to that comment was like choosing her own cosmetics, didn't bring her pleasure.
It brought her all sorts of decision, fatigue and anxiety around.
Is she doing it right? And making the best possible decision.
And then even after you would make a decision, you would question whether you made the right decision or not and still continue to research and see if you made a bad decision, if you needed to make a different decision.
And so over and over again and take that times 1000 with every little thing in your life.
And that was how you like, I would see you spinning out of control.
So when I, when I take control over part of our life, it's you really needing to let go of something me hearing what's important to you and then making a choice and you following that choice because it's not only do you trust that I can like pick out a good face cream for you.
You also get to let go of all of that other background noise at the same time.
Yeah.
And like before when I would input a lot of more information, like we both care about health.
And so that was one thing that like overall body, health, fitness, nutrition, whatever it was.
And so if I happen to come across something from a friend from someone from something random, it's like, huh I wonder if this would be really good for us.
Now, I can say sir, I came across this um it felt really good to me.
I'm giving it to you and then you take it and do whatever you need to do all the research and decide.
Is this for us? Is this gonna make our lives better or is this not for us? I get to live in the not having to figure it out and it feels really, really good, the more I've stopped trying to control all the little aspects of getting to a perfect life because I was trying to get to the a perfect life that didn't lead to happiness.
I actually feel like I live a perfect life now.
I'm glad to hear that like I love it.
I, I heard it's, I heard someone say this earlier today that overthinking isn't actually trying to get to action.
Overthinking is trying to get to a place where you can avoid discomfort.
Yes, I agree with that.
All of the overthinking is, is trying to save yourself from an uncomfortable situation.
It's not actually helping you in any way to get to a to a good decision.
Yes, I've experienced that time and time again.
All right.
Next question for Dawn.
How has the personal growth and healing you've experienced in submission, impacted relationships in other parts of your life? I have to read that question to really get the depth of it.
Hm.
Um Wow, this one is bringing up a lot of emotion.
Oh, I've done so much personal development, healing work, releasing of the emotional poison from my past, uncovering wounds and traumas.
I didn't know was there were there.
And I've said this before.
Like you always saw me and you spoke about like authentic you.
And I don't, there was kind of a, a point like almost four years ago when this ball started just kind of rolling in, in my personal development journey and just read books, listen to podcasts one thing after another.
And, um, I started to not even realize or I started to realize that I didn't even know who I was like all of these different things such as like being a personal trainer, it was like chasing something.
And as I started realizing that I don't even know who I am.
It really started.
Um And I really truly sought authenticity and being more and more of who I am.
Um Friendships dissolved, like not in a bad way, it just was like less contact.
Um Some new people came in and then those kind of dissolved.
And now like as, as I connected more with the truth of who I am.
Like, I've attracted people into my life that is like, wow, like, wow, this, this just feels incredible and life giving and I went through a period of time where I really retreated away from people and relationships because I needed to find myself.
I needed to connect with who I am.
And at that point that also felt really, really, really good.
I used to think I was this like extreme extrovert and I needed to be social all the time.
What I didn't realize was how much that was a distraction because I wasn't comfortable with myself.
And so, like, I just had this kind of thought today that, like, as I meet new people, nobody knows that I used to be a personal trainer unless I tell them.
And I'm like, that just feels really, really good because to me, I was just trying to be myself and that really wasn't myself.
Now, there's truth in the fact that I love helping other people like that was at the root of being a personal trainer.
So, and then in relation to like, you know, family and, you know, just closer relationships like that, it's really, really brought out a level of compassion and acceptance for other people's human experience and not trying to force my life experience on anyone else and really, really accepting in my words, what feels appropriate is that they are a soul here, having their own human experience and I'm gonna love and I'm gonna respect that and I'm not gonna try to think that I know better for anyone else.
And so I feel like that's been a positive in influence to the way that I get to now show up in relation to other people because I know I tried to like, this is a common theme like, oh my gosh, I just found out about this great thing about life and I think that you need to hear all about it too.
Who am I to think that that's appropriate? Right? Or that there is a place to receive this thing.
That was a big revelation to you, right? So really, I think that's my favorite part of my journey is this self acceptance and this acceptance of other people like genuinely, it's the cliche of live and let live.
But I've seen your growth really allow you to actually live for yourself.
And because you understand how like what it has taken to live consciously, like you have, you have so much more compassion to let others live and to be where they are because they're, they're at where they're at in their own journey.
Yes.
And I just want to add this other thing because I know like we've heard this common theme as other people has deep, have deepened into their own authentic journey, more authenticity over and over.
Um You know, the old cliche is when one door open closes, another one opens and like I've grieved the loss of some friendships.
Like it was important to feel that in it.
But, but also understand that they had a place in my life.
It doesn't mean anything more than they had a place in my life.
And I enjoyed while they were a part of my life.
And if they don't, they aren't a part of my life going forward and I'm not a part of theirs.
Like that's ok.
It's, it's, it's good and it also creates this open capacity for what can be for you.
Now, that will help you to be more of yourself.
The other thing I've seen this do for you in terms of other relationships is you've come to value yourself in your own energy so highly that you won't put up with, you know, the energy vampire types anymore.
You won't put up with relationships where people just wanna take from you.
No, I can't do that.
You, you recognize how valuable your energy is to yourself and to me and to our love together.
And so you have been very willing also when it's necessary to say to like, lovingly detach from people who don't have a place in your life anymore.
Yes or um, put just more boundaries around certain relationships.
Yeah.
100%.
So last question, just for Dawn, what are a couple of examples where you followed Andrews leadership that you wouldn't have before submission? Hm.
Great question.
Um Well, one really, really good example is in fitness and nutrition because that was an area where I um I kind of was the example for you when we got together in like being more active and caring about what we eat and all of that.
And so I have been through numerous different things of following suggestions.
Um, um I treated them as truth from other people in like lift weights this way or follow this program or eat this and not that and it has shifted and morphed and I've learned a lot through all of that.
Now I'm gonna tell you, I learned that there's a lot of useless information um that really just didn't fit for me.
And so um there was one point in our early on in our dynamic that I gave this to you and it felt so fucking hard to give you.
I was now going to write your workout.
I'll explain that.
So I think it was at the point where I was a personal trainer and I was writing workouts for a lot of people.
I put so much time and effort into trying to give them all the perfect workout and to create the perfect spin class along with the music to the beats per minute.
Like, oh my gosh, the overthinking, it was intense.
So at one point it was like, oh yes, please write my workouts for me.
So I don't have to do that for myself.
So we would sit down, you would be like, this is going to be your plan.
And I remember like, I remember a moment sitting on the couch by you and I was like, like just having a oh my God, that's how he's going to write it.
Like uh uh that's not how I would do it.
That's just not OK.
I wouldn't say that you would feel that in my lack of receptivity and my block my energy like, nope, you would just shut down and then try to pretend like everything was OK.
Yeah.
So um i it, it did not go very well.
Like, I don't even need to try to remember how it didn't go.
Well, I know it didn't go well because you came back to me and you're like, this is going back to you.
I'm not doing this anymore.
You're not respecting what I have to give to you.
And I was like, I felt humiliated.
I felt like, shameful, embarrassed.
I was like, oh, and I don't remember how long I had control of it again.
But I went back to the normal like, oh this person that this for like, how do I do it? I don't know, like just trying to seek that perfection.
And I got to a point where my body was saying no and giving me some painful experiences in my lower body in response to what I was doing.
And it took me a while of trying to navigate that, trying to stretch more to like, do all the things.
And I remember it was May of maybe a year, a year and a half ago.
I literally fell flat on my face on the bedroom floor and I just cried out to God and I said I can't do this anymore.
It felt so stupid.
It felt like why am I so attached to this fitness and nutrition thing and this perfection and like, this is so stupid.
Why can't I stop Carrie? And I remember coming to you when we were out at the park and I just cried and cried and cried to you.
I was like, I can't, I can't do this.
Please, please, please take it.
And I wanted you to take all the pain.
But it took, it took a lot of unraveling from that to fully be able to live in the receptivity to where whatever you said was going to be my workout, whatever, you know, that's kind of where we transitioned into.
And um so without going into a lot of detail there, I used that as the example because that was what I clung to.
Um and my being able to surrender that and to surrender the outcome, to surrender any of that.
But also get to live in what I truly desire and you receive all of it has brought forth this liberated freedom.
I didn't even know was possible.
And that's truly the whole thing of surrender is like I want this, I'm not going to control the outcome.
And um yeah, like every single time I have been like, please help me with this, my life has gotten better over and over and over again and it hasn't always been a different way than I would have done things for myself, but you've done it even better.
So I don't, I honestly don't know if I have specific examples beyond that, that can be shared, but that's a great one.
And I think one of the things that I will that I'll add to that is, you had, you would use this as a way to control yourself as a, as a method of self control too.
Keep yourself in shape to like trying to be perfectly healthy, perfectly in shape, eating the perfect nutrition for the perfect health.
And like I saw you constantly researching, constantly inputting, constantly reading, following hundreds of different Instagram accounts that were all giving you information and you had so much conflicting information in your head, like you had concurrent beliefs that I needed to do this thing and this thing and this thing that would all actually work against each other.
But you still had in your head that you needed to do all of them.
Because if you didn't, this person said that this is what will get me this.
But then this person says that if I do this, it's gonna do that and I don't want that.
So then this person's and so you had like this spider web of garbage in your head.
And when you were able to surrender that to me, you were able to let me not somebody, not someone on Instagram or youtube who doesn't know you, but someone who does know you well and deeply and cares about you and knows that you sprained your one ankle and that's gonna make certain sorts of workouts different than like what maybe some influencer would put out there for you to do.
And when I saw when you act actually let go of it.
And the like I could just come in there with a broom and clean out all the spider webs and now I can just say go do this and you will just go do it.
And then if there's something that needs to be changed or improved, you'll just share that with me.
Like, you know, that was a little much or that didn't feel that great.
And then I adjust and also where we're at with it now is I've actually given some of this back in a way where you, with some of your workouts, you do what feels right to you and what feels good to your body and share it with me when you're done.
Yeah.
And I will say that um my ability to receive what you write for me feels way, way, way better.
It actually in a weird way, the workouts feel easier than when I would try to be so hard on myself.
Like I, I don't know what that is, but it, it was out of self hatred that I would do these things and try to push and push and push and force and that never felt good.
And so now I like there's so many different factors that you consider in what you um how you give those workouts to me in ways that just feel so overwhelming to me.
Like consider the sleep and the where you're at in your cycle and like all of these different factors and what, what our day looks like to conserve energy or expend energy.
Like you masterfully do this for me.
And like, I'm just deeply grateful, like you make my life really easy.
So I have surrendered, oh, like basically the decisions of our lives and you make my life better every day.
And also if I do something that doesn't make our life better, this is where the, like the concept of polarity kicks in.
Because if I, if I make a decision, it's gonna make our life worse.
Like actually make our life worse, you're gonna feel something, but you're also gonna feel something of a decision I make, makes you afraid and you are always completely free and expected to share how you feel so that I can consider that and say, is this fear? And is this something I need to help her through or is this actually something that I need to reconsider? And I'm like, that's my job to stay open to your expression so that I'm not over here becoming a tyrant.
But I'm in a way held accountable by your willingness to speak up and express your experience.
And I will say with a lot of humility that most often my ex expression is driven by fear has been and I am willing to admit that and the more that I can catch that and just say no, thank you ego.
I can, I can open myself to the possibilities of what you are able to bring forth and that's with years of evidence, right, of, of seeing that.
Not that I'm perfect that I make perfect decisions that I never make mistakes that I never fail like that.
I never collapse.
I do all of those things.
I do less of them as I've gotten better and better at, at this.
But like I'm not a perfect man, but I'm a man who's always willing to accept responsibility and to look inward at my own integrity and own the parts of this where I'm not living up to my end of the bargain so that it can be easy for you and its ownership on both of our parts.
All right.
Next question from someone who is seeking a partner.
How will I know when I find the right guy for this kind of relationship? What are the red flags to look for? So I would start with this if you're a single submissive woman and you're looking for a man who can be a dominant and a DS dynamic, you are probably better off looking for a good man who doesn't identify as a dom and be willing to share what it is that you're looking for in a relationship because this is not about finding a finished product.
A guy who's already a dom who already knows all everything he wants and he's got his whole life straightened out and he's done all of his emotional work and, and he's solid and strong like those men only get that way inside of relationships.
It, it's relationships that teach us as men what we need to know in order to be that kind of guy.
So if you're a single submissive woman and you're looking for a dominant partner, look for a good man who's willing to accept responsibility for his life.
Look for a good man who's willing to grow together with you into something and look for someone who does not make himself the victim, who doesn't expect immediate obedience, but who's really willing to see you and work with together with you to grow.
What would you add to that? Um Also um the words, dominance and submission, dominant and submissive.
Um There's a lot of connotations with them.
So really, it's what are you seeking in your relationship? What are you seeking to experience on a daily basis? What are you seeking to feel? What do you, what qualities like, understand what's behind the words to be able to have the conversations? And um again, it's the biggest aspect here is in any relationship, is being able to grow through life together with the focus on authentic expression of who you are.
And that requires commitment and love and devotion on both parts.
And it's not necessarily about control and obedience.
That's like the beautiful by-product.
If you will of being able to surrender and being able to step up and take charge.
And so that's what I would say is like, kind of get rid of the labels instead of just like, well, I'm seeking a dominant, understand what you're seeking.
Not just the word because to some people, dominant might mean guy who bosses you around to some people.
It might mean someone who is in the B DS M scene and likes to wield flogger and, and whips to some people like it means a different thing to every single person.
So to your point like, what is it not? I want a dominant or I want to be a submissive? But what are the things that you're looking for in a man who would be dominant? What are the characteristics and what do you want to experience as a submissive and then be courageous enough to have those conversations early in a connection, a relationship to speak up and say this is what I am looking for in a partner.
Not six months down the road when you've hidden this.
And now you've got like some closeness and some connection.
And now it's like, oh here's this little thing that I've been hiding for the last six months that's really important to me.
And if this relationship is gonna work, I need all of this from you that, that'll feel like a bait and switch? Yeah.
And I have one more thing to add.
OK? One other thing I had to add is when another important thing to look for is someone whose words and are they, their words align with their actions like they, they're about doing something, not just making promises, someone who gives a lot of unfulfilled promises and speaks a lot of like I'm going to do this.
I want to do this, but their actions don't line up with it.
That's a person who is, who might be able to talk a good game but is not willing to follow through on doing what they say they're gonna do.
And how will I know when I find the right guy? Um, for this kind of relationship, that's a very personal experience.
And that's where being able to trust yourself is important.
And you're gonna find that trust through your body, through connecting with your physical body, all of your feminine parts, like understanding what your y your body's.
Yes, is what your body's no is.
And there's like that's a whole another rabbit hole to go down to, to really understand that.
Um But that's, that's how you're gonna know who is for you and who isn't.
It's not gonna come through the mind, it's gonna come through your body.
Next question is gonna be a relatively short answer.
But have you heard of major issues for submissive through menopause? And I guess first of all, no, we haven't but we're not at a point yet where don has reached menopause.
But what I will say is being very tuned in to your submissive menstrual cycle does nothing but good and provide benefit to you as a dominant man.
It helps you understand her to get some sort of respect and understanding for how she naturally changes and ebbs and flows throughout any given month.
It ha it for me, I've been tracking your cycle now for almost four years.
I just saw on my, the spreadsheet that we used to keep track of it.
It's been like 1200 days of keeping track of this every single day.
And it's given me so much, especially at the beginning, it gave me so much compassion for what you go through.
And it really helped me show you things about yourself as I was learning them about you.
It's like, oh, every single month on about day, 21 22 23 of your cycle, you get in a really bad mood for a few days.
I used to just have these, you know, as guys would be like, she just gets so cranky sometimes like, oh, well, she's always cranky this time.
You know what? This is probably a physical thing.
It's not about me.
It really helped me start to let go of making your mood about myself, like thinking I did something wrong or you were upset with me like you were just having a moment right now and instead of feeling threatened or defensive or like I had to fix you, now, I could more easily understand that you were having a natural kind of response to your body's cycle.
And that's just the very first thing.
We also track your ovulation using a basal body temperature thermometer every day, which tells us when you ovulate every month.
It helps us predict when you're going to get your period each month, which helps with all sorts of things.
Like, let's just say, on a very vanilla, basic level, you're gonna go on a vacation and you're figuring out when are you gonna leave? Would you like to go on vacation when your partner doesn't have their period? Most of us would.
So being able to understand and predict relatively well, even 456 months out into the future, what week ish might you have your period? I can plan a vacation for when it's probably not even possible for it to be an issue.
And I will add that as I've deepened into more of who I am as a woman like connected with my feminine essence, my sexuality, all of that started tracking this.
My cycle has become more regular because it used to be longer in between.
I don't know what all affected that there's so many different things there.
But as we've paid more and more attention to overall health, overall life experience, emotional healing, it, it literally has become trackable where before it was like, well, I think it'll be somewhere in these seven days.
We can guess it now within like within 24 hours a month, two months in advance, almost all the time.
So I know that doesn't get at the specific question here about menopause.
But the reason I bring the, the cycle tracking thing up is if you are this in tune with her body with where she's at and how she functions and kind of what her normal baseline is when Dawn does hit a point of starting to get into even para menopause, which is like the, the premenopausal state and where she's not all the way in menopause, but she's starting down that path.
We will know that the very first month it happens because we'll know that this is how it always is.
And we've been keeping track of it for 1200 days, 1500 days, 2000 days, whatever it might be at that point, it's gonna be a long time.
Whenever it gets to that point, we'll know it won't be like what's going on with me.
We'll have a very good idea because of the attentiveness that we've paid to your body's normal.
And in terms of menopause itself, I, we can't really answer that question.
Um Last couple questions, how do your families feel about your DS relationship? That is a broad question.
And in general, we don't talk a lot about it with family.
We don't hide it, but we are like, even though we talk about this on the internet for a living and I always wear my collar and you always wear your collar.
Um It really is not something we talk about with our families.
Now, I would say at this 0.
5 years into it, most of them know on some level.
Well, I wanna elaborate on this a little bit because he, this goes back to the words like dominance and submission.
I don't ever feel like I have to be like, hey, everyone, he's my dominant.
I'm a submissive.
Here's what it means to us.
This is what it looks like.
Like I don't, I don't feel the need to talk about it.
Anybody of our family who experiences us has always seen the love and the devotion that we have for each other and only has seen that deepen and has experienced us without us talking about it, become more of who we are today and the expe the their experience of us has only like shifted and expanded and become more beautiful without the labels, without the talking about it, without the any of that.
And we are in this energy of leader and follower all the time.
So, you know, things happen like, you know, we might go out to dinner with someone and I order your food in front of family, friends, whoever all the time.
And this, it's, this is about us and our connection and it, and really one of the things we've learned over the years is it doesn't matter how anyone else feels about it.
That's, that really is up to them, how they feel about it.
But because we are so strong and confident and solid in our connection, the truth of it shows through beyond the labels.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And I, I do understand that, um, you know, we live in a world where men aren't stepping up the same and women are stepping up kind of like this whole feminist thing.
And, you know, so the people that you encounter might not live the way that you seek with this leader, follower, dominant and submissive.
But that's OK.
Like trust if this, if you seek this, like I encourage you to seek it all the way because there's a reason you're drawn to it and it really doesn't matter if someone else is or isn't and back to the relationship, question, some relationships might dissolve a little bit, but you're going to draw in more of what is for you, the more that you choose what's best for you.
And that's what we've continuously done and over and over and over again.
And gosh, I like our lives are incredible and continue to get better and better and better.
And I feel like a woman, I didn't even know I could feel like, and this comes back to something you said earlier around the idea of compassion for people.
Like if someone is judgmental towards the relationship that we have or towards the way that we choose to live it, we, we don't approach that.
Like we're afraid of it.
We like, we actually have a lot of compassion for the fact that this isn't the way that everybody lives their lives.
This isn't the way that everyone chooses to relate to each other.
And it can be very activating for some people because of their own life and their own experience.
And we can allow them to have that experience and not need to fix their view of us, for us to feel ok.
And we can have compassion for the fact that they, they, they might really not agree with us from the place that they are.
And that's ok.
I wanna say something to that because if for some reason, you're listening to this podcast and you're getting really activated and triggered and be like, what like how can they do that? I will tell you a little lesson I've learned in all of my triggers any time.
So I came from very, very black and white.
It was like, right and wrong this and that and all of a sudden I started challenging all sorts of different things and I was like, whoa, the way I saw the world is not really accurate anymore.
Um What I learned was anything that feels, felt deeply activating and triggering to me, that was a gift for me to really take a step back and think, oh the that trigger, that activation is in me.
That's about me.
What is it? Trying to tell me and I've used that over and over and over again and gosh, if I keep talking about this, I'm just gonna start bawling because that's been the path for you to let go of so much.
Oh, my goodness.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
So, the last question, do you get harassed online by people who disagree with this style of relationship? I think first of all, you can refer to our answer to the last question if we ever do like, but really generally and almost surprisingly, not really, not, not often.
There's some, yeah, but it's pretty rare and it even tends to be like, we don't, we certainly don't get attacked.
We get people who disagree with us.
But I think at least the way that I've experienced it because we're telling our story, we're not here telling you that you need to do this, the way that we do it.
And we're not even here trying to claim that we're doing it right.
What we are here to do is to share what we've done to be able to live this life that is so special and this love that's so special between us, how we have gone about it for anyone else who wants to experience something similar.
And so we aren't here telling you that you're wrong or that you need to do it our way.
And so that takes a lot of ammunition out of, from anyone who might want to attack us in our style of relationship because if you think we're wrong, that's cool.
Go, like, that's totally fine.
You can think that we're wrong and we probably are wrong to you if you think that and that's ok.
But generally, no, we really don't get attacked and we, we get very little, um, negativity in general.
It's more often we get people that are like, yeah, I could never do that myself.
But good for you guys.
Like we get plenty of that.
But yeah, very, very little hatred and very little um attack over the years, which has been a little bit surprising, but I can understand now a little bit more why when we just try to do authenticity instead of telling others what to do.
So thank you everyone for tuning in to this episode of The Infinite Devotion podcast.
And this is a lot of fun.
I've had fun answering all these questions.
I'm sure we'll do more of these Q and A episodes.
So if you're listening to this one and you're wishing we had answered a question that we didn't, you can always send that to us on Instagram, find this episode on youtube and leave a comment or just send us an email which you can find through our website Infinite devotion.
com.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you
