The Rabbit Hole

If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.

If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.

Sure.

Red means stop. No more negotiation, something has crossed a line (too painful, something bad that wasn’t negotiated, etc.)

Yellow means that you need a break or that something is too much, or that if the top continues then you’re going to “red” soon.

Green means that things are going well and you want to continue if not ramp it up a little.

While a bottom might blurt out red or yellow, I’ve never seen a bottom volunteer “green”. It’s usually said in answer to when a top is checking in to make sure everything is okay. Asking “How are you?” and getting an answer of “fine” or “okay” might mean the bottom is just on autopilot and reflexively answering. Asking “What’s your color?” and getting “green” or “I was very close to yellow when you stopped” is much better.

One of my favorite doms to watch at parties was doing a pre-scene negotiation with someone he hadn’t played with before and said something like “Now, just between you and me here ;-) , my favorite color is yellow. It’s not about taking anything I can dish out. I promise you, I can always go harder. I want to know how you’re doing. I’ll likely yellow you, on purpose, a few times, just to find out where your limits are and then aim for a little below that. I don’t want to hear ‘green green green, green green red’ because then the scene’s over. I want some indication of how you’re doing and when you’re getting close to what you can handle, okay?”

Before the war, they went skating on the weekends. They played cards with their families. They read books under the covers at night. They missed assignments at school. They had new coats with shiny buttons. They went grocery shopping. They cooked dinner. They had inside jokes. They dipped their toes in the river in summer and took walks in the woods. They wondered about the mysteries of life, formed questions and answers, found people to brave those mysteries with.