Let’s assume if you are reading this you have already taken on the toughest, touchiest and tenderest of tests – intimate relationship. And if you are running (or considering running) a business with a significant other, I imagine you not only can handle the heat – you and your partner actually like it hot. So can we talk as adults? Intelligent, awake, adventurous and business-minded adults.
Kids, perverts and punks – I know BDSM got you here, but notice the words “intelligent, awake and business-minded”- this article will probably bore you. Although this first admission might titillate.
I lived my early adult life as a TV personality, outwardly successful but inwardly hollow from the early death of my mother. In my early 60’s I sought out being whipped by my now wife Olga (relatively gently, i.e., safe word: ouch) to help my body reawaken after years of suppressing my feelings. It cracked my soul out of the prison of control I’d created with thinking and “knowing” everything, and opened up an authentic aliveness well worth a walk on the wild side. (BTW, you can try what Olga can do for you – she offers FREE 1on1 sessions for BDSM curious :-)).
Some data: BDSM is a variety of psychological, and often erotic, practices involving dominance and submission, roleplaying, bondage, and other interpersonal dynamics. This article is about the insistence in BDSM that everything be strictly “safe, sane and consensual” and how those rules can serve your relationship and build your business.
When my partner and I work with clients, though it is never erotic, it is often a kind psychological practice of voluntary control, submission, roleplaying and other interpersonal dynamics. By its very nature the coaching process can be uncomfortable, humbling, self-denying, painful, and counter-intuitive; nonetheless, it also often brings lasting results, genuine happiness and true self-fulfillment.
More data: The book “50 Shades of Grey” started as a self-published e-book but something about its distorted version of BDSM launched it into a pop frenzy that wound up selling more copies than the entire Harry Potter series, vaulting it to the top of USA Today’s book list for a record 20 consecutive weeks and motivating the money in Hollywood to make it into a major motion picture!
Interestingly, in the year after the book was published, sex related injuries requiring emergency room visits increased by over 50% as amateurs tried out the BDSM depicted in the book. This makes our first point. Injury to you, your relationship and/or your business happens if you are not carefully being “safe, sane and consensual”. That means not valuing the power of the one who is not a leader but a follower / supporter in a particular situation, not honoring each other’s limits and losing respect for individuality in the pursuit of power and profit.
People who practice say the book misunderstands the “safe, sane and consensual” guidelines of the BDSM community. In the book the “Submissive” is manipulated and completely at the mercy of the “Dominant”. But in a healthy Dominant/Submissive relationship, experts say the reality is exactly the opposite. The “submissive” partner must be in charge and hold the absolute power to control what does and does not happen – always free to communicate clearly with the “dominant” partner, while still letting them feel like they’re in charge.
It’s all about trusting one another to create the opportunity to safely let go of control.
Are you beginning to see how can this help you better understand relationship, co-create a better business and bless yourself and your partner?
In our overstressed, uptight, repressed, never good enough American culture we desperately need ways to relax, blow off steam, let go and drop the facade. And what’s more challenging than running a business? Ooops, I meant what’s more challenging than being in an intimate committed relationship? The answer is being in a relationship AND running a business at the same time.
My wife Olga Kostrova and I find ourselves in just such a situation and fully recognize the difficulty and opportunity involved. Two powerful egos always ready for battle struggling to find a way to hold interactions as play and forgive ourselves and one another again and again for the human ego identification’s desire to win and control.
In your relationship who’s on top and dominates situations, who’s submitting, what’s your safe word (what the submissive says to control when the play stops) when emotions are boiling and the stress of business is off the chart? How do you currently stay safe, sane and consensual in running the relationship and the business? How could you, especially if you’re the dominant, listen for the safe word and not take advantage of the authority you’ve been given?
Regardless of the madness in the moment, EVERYTHING depends on doing whatever it takes to put the love and relationship first. Dropping your ego desire to be right, be in control and be the hero is the difference between being able to live to fight again another day and being alone with no relationship and no business.
We live in an alienated, stressed-out world where pressure builds day after day and tension is in the very air we breathe, in the media we consume, and I have decided sharing the right tools and techniques to release stress, unwind tensions and tease traumas out of our bodies is divine work for our times.
For FREE 1 on 1 or couples’ coaching with Olga and me to turn any stressful suffering into playful possibility in your relationship and/or business, click here.
And I’ll offer you the basics about healing yourself and others here during my PAIN & STRESS MANAGEMENT WEBINAR: How to Use Pleasure to End Pain.
Before I let you go, may I offer a word about CONTROL? At a deep level our minds and ego identities are frightened by uncertainty and naturally seek to create a static, unchanging, safe place for us to be. That urge to control, however, has minimal effect on the ever changing universe. The urge to have absolute control over our partners or businesses only tends to produce anxiety, rigidity, frustration or worse.
Einstein said the most important choice people have in life is deciding whether they believe the universe is or is not on their side, friendly or unfriendly. Your choice to distrust and try to entirely control your partner or your business tends to makes the wild roller coaster ride of life terrifying and stressful for both of you. Trusting life and one another makes that same ride thrilling and wonderful.
We learn to go with the flow or swim against the current in life. Swimming against, tires us quickly. Flowing with the current you are carried along toward happy, relaxed and productive “safe, sane and consensual” partnership.
My wife Olga and I have now been happily married for 3 years. We operate several businesses together including The Couple’s Business – couple’s coaching practice. She’s described by one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists as a brilliant business consultant. She’s a serial entrepreneur, marketing executive and can be reached by clicking on this link to receive a FREE coaching session.
For FREE 1 on 1 with me, please click here – to turn any of your stressful suffering into playful possibility in your relationship and/or business.
And enjoy this wild ride!
