Language for modifying behaviour: 1)Thinking is bad for you.
“To have a second language is to have a second soul”. (Charlemagne, 800 AD) , and Charlemagne was only one of the early examples of those in a long line of individuals who recognised that language shapes our whole reality. Ludwig Wittgenstien said “The limits of my language are the limits of my world”. Language and human perception are inextricably interwoven with one another with verbal cues actively shaping the way we visualize reality.
“a Study conducted at Yale is poking holes in the idea that our perceived reality is all that it’s cracked up to be. Yale researchers used a technique called “flash supression” where stimuli in one eye will block your perception in another. For instance, a flash in your left eye can make an image in your right eye functionally invisible.
But it turns out, when given a verbal cue, such as the word “kangaroo” when the invisible image was “kangaroo,” it sometimes allowed the subjects to see the invisible image. As the Medical Daily notes, “The findings suggest that perception may be more subjective and erratic than most of us would like to think.”
Language is how we express our selves, how we communicate with others, from language we derive our values and our concept of identity. I can’t help but wonder, if to alter ones world-view perhaps the key is in changing the language which structures our understanding.
For the purposes of behaviour modification language is recognised as a vital component. Athletes, psychologists, the world of media know how to use affirmations effectively to aid motivation, alleviate anxiety, or initiate sales. BDSM also has adopted the linguistic tools in efforts to alter behaviour and belief by use of mantras, nlp, and hypnosis.
So now I’m going to do something controversial and break with my normal humble nature to comment a little on bimbo-training, or slave-training as a whole. I think it is being done wrong, and I’m going to explain why:
When we say “Don’t think”, as far as this can be very effective in suspending analysis, as much as you might be less inclined to rationality, and find that you are so suggestible that you will accept white is black, or black is white; there is still thinking going on. A different kind of thinking, but there is thought process nevertheless. In fact the process relies on cognition (by which I would like to point out I mean processing, in the way a computer reads code). In the case of NLP and hypnosis this may not even be conscious but the subject is still doing the activity that we would assign to the clumsy umbrella term “thinking”.
The problem with the word think is that it leads to all sorts of unhelpful outcomes. A lot of what human beings do is not rational, it’s not about thinking. We rationalise the things we do after we have done them by adding in a narrative, looking for cause and reason behind actions. Desire governs most action. Desire is natural. Desire is instinctive. Desire is what drives us. Thinking is not nearly as important as language makes it.
Thinking is not linear. A personality is made up of lots of feelings and thoughts, values and beliefs. Beliefs can be false. Values on the other hand are at our core and more associated with feeling. Feeling of course is a cognitive activity, but it is not intellectual. Animals exhibit, grief, fear, loyalty, jealousy, attachment.
Counsellors, particularly those in marriage guidance, have long tried to promote communication that begins with “I feel…” and there is a very specific reason for this. When people say “I think it’s wrong to …”, usually they are talking about something external to their self because otherwise they would not say “I think”… they would say “I feel betrayed” or “it hurts when”. You cannot think you are in pain, if you seem to be, then you are, it’s that simple.
“Think” is an entirely unhelpful word because it allows the individual to take a stance of judgement against other things, and other people. In addition to which it is from thinking that we derive the more complex abstract values, notions like respect, freedom, dignity, morality, guilt, shame.
I really want to explore thinking versus feeling a bit further. I’d be interested in any comments, particularly from those of you who use hypnosis would like to make. It becomes quite clear in the altered state of consciousness that is trance that feelings do not correspond to thoughts.
My Master illustrated this to me in one particular bit of hypnosis, in which he told me to feel embarrassed… every bit of me knew I was at home, safe in my living room, alone apart from him with whom I share my most private thoughts with anyway. There was no reason to feel embarrassment. Yet I did; from the physical responses of nervous glancing around, flushing, nervous laughter, evasive eye-contact, dropping my gaze, lowering my voice, but more than that, I felt it. I actually felt it; the way one feels a phobia, or an addiction; and no amount of reminding myself that this made no sense, and wasn’t rational, could change what I felt in that moment.
Embarrassment is a social construct, and it requires those other than self to come into effect. We feel embarrassment or shame when we are aware we are breaching social acceptability within our society’s norms and values. The feeling should not come into effect when we are alone. With one’s self one is not usually embarrassed by nudity, emissions, wearing an unattractive outfit, being greedy with food, masturbation etc.
I devoted a fair amount of time to explaining why thinking and feeling are different. Within Bimbo training particularly in my not so humble opinion, the word think is really unhelpful. In fact I’d go as far as to say in relationships in general the word think is unhelpful. I am not disputing that there is importance to cognitive processes but think seems to cover: feeling, rationality, and more annoyingly opinions presented wrapped up in rhetoric when someone opinionated wishes to express some belief they hold, and then rationalize why this is correct.
When Master’s allow the word think to play such a vital role they are not abolishing the concept. The thing is if we say there is only feeling and desire… willpower is a sort of desire, if a submissive act’s upon her Masters desires, because the desire to please, desire for belonging, desire to surrender is stronger than the desire to exert any other desire then actually no thinking has occurred in this entire exchange. He has will – He states will – she obeys, because it feels good to be obedient.
So I’m curious to say the least, what would happen if we got rid of the word think and created a new word, or separate words to separate out feeling, worrying, believing (words not born of pre-existing language – words unique to this particular society of us within BDSM that are not attached to other connotations)?
Motion: Let’s ban thinking?
There are more problematic words like: pure love, true love, faith many of which are bound up in the old world catholic moralism. And then there are wonderful words, unfortunately with English being a creole of French and Latin many of you will not be in touch with the roots of the words.
There are words like “penis” which derive from the word phallos (greek) in Greek which actually applied to phallic things in nature, things that have the power to grow, swell. Phaloss from which we get the words Phallus and phallic was a symbol of fruitfulness, fertility, power, regeneration. The Greeks and Romans celebrated this symbol in art and architecture. They also have festivals to honour the phallus and one, Burani is still in existence. Burani stems from a pagan tradition of public celebration of fertility, one of the rituals that has survived is that of chasing others and touching them with a phallic ornament to bring them fertility. The festival is more a day for debauchery and fun nowadays but the pagan idea is quite a romantic one.
I’m sure there are other good words… but that is enough brain work for me… bath-time , pink lipstick and back to focussing on how Master makes me feel now.
***Also if anybody is smart enough to dumb this down into bullet points so it makes easier reading, please feel free, otherwise I do plan to write another version of this when I have some sort of idea on where to begin with language modification. This is not intended as more useless academia, it is intended more as an action plan I can apply to my life to make me a better bimbo, and a better submissive for my Master, and if it actually works, and helps other submissives well that’s a massive bonus for me. I want to live in a happier, pinker, more submissive world.
