#agency

Forget autopilot. Your safety doesn't depend on a "protective subconscious." It depends on you, conscious and active. Agency is something you do, not something you magically have.

Negotiate from clarity. Your first line of defense is explicit negotiation before entering trance. Limits, desires, safewords. If you can't speak clearly outside, there's no safety inside.

Train your "NO". Practice rejecting suggestions and using your safeword inside trance, from day one. It's a muscle that strengthens with use. An ethical hypnotist will celebrate you for it.

Know and fortify yourself. Work on your self-knowledge and self-esteem. Fawn responses or trauma make it harder to hold boundaries. Your psychological well-being is your fundamental shield.

Claim your power (and your responsibility). You are the person ultimately responsible for your safety. Empower yourself with knowledge, practice, and the choice to play only with people who respect your active agency, not those who promise magical protection.

Stede doesn’t say, ‘It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way,’ because Stede knows Ed likely does feel the same way. If Stede though had said such a thing, it might’ve set Ed up to say something he didn’t mean in the moment, such as, ‘Yeah, well, I don’t.’

What Stede does is recognise that Ed likely does feel the same, but there’s no compulsion to say it at such a raw moment, because Ed isn’t ready to be that vulnerable (or quite that forgiving).

Too often ‘I love you’ or the equivalent is said in expectation of quid pro quo. Stede’s approach removes that immediately, recognising that Ed’s feelings, and the current situation, are complex. It allows Ed the agency to say ‘I’m not about to [say it],’ not that Ed doesn’t feel it.

Emotionally, it protects both of them really. Because Stede’s smart like that.

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Sarah Stremming (Host) + Kim Brophey (Guest)