I will write more, after I have diges­ted this news but for now it is per­tin­ent for me to simply say it out loud, record it in vir­tual his­tory so that I may tend to the feel­ings and emo­tions necessary.

Last night Kandy was killed in a car acci­dent while enjoy­ing some play time away from home.

Candace Elizabeth Cain
December 17, 1984 — November 18, 2008

~His grace

Psychology is the study of human beha­viours, at least that is how I have always viewed it. I can not recall a time when I have not stud­ied those around me, observing the every­day ‚nor­mal‘ activ­it­ies, pon­der­ing over the why behind the what to our actions and try­ing to under­stand the motives to every action we make. My eager­ness to quietly com­mu­nic­ate through voyeur­istic man­ner­isms has con­tin­ued through­out my life­time and has guided me to enter a pro­fes­sional world which mir­rors my hob­bies. One would think then, after spend­ing years help­ing oth­ers to under­stand his/her desires, fears, motives and goals that I could, in turn, dis­cover my own.

Apparently not. Do not mis­un­der­stand, I have, through reflec­tion learned a great deal about myself but it took a patient Master to show me what I was unable to see. This real­isa­tion came sud­denly, without expect­a­tion and was stirred due to an addi­tion to my Mantra. The first part of my Mantra is: Obedience is Pleasure. Pleasure is Obedience. I have con­nec­ted to this stanza of my Mantra quite quickly and I find it helps me to bal­ance my inner battles. Today I had asked Master if I could add, ‚power­less­ness is pleas­ure‘ and Master was thrilled to know I wish to help cre­ate my chant. Master pondered this new addi­tion and asked me what power­less­ness means to me. Without hes­it­a­tion I replied, ‚help­less­ness‘. Master remained quiet once more and asked me what being help­less means to me. Once more I stated it means unable to do any­thing — to have to ask. With a chuckle to his tone Master stated, „pup­pet, do you ask? No. No you do not ask, you beg. You always beg“. In that one moment Master had cre­ated the second part to my Mantra: Begging is Pleasure. Pleasure means to beg.

The instant I heard the addi­tion I became angry. I did not like hear­ing the truth, it made me feel help­less, which, iron­ic­ally, is the essence of how I want to feel. This con­tra­dic­tion dis­turbed me and in fol­low­ing mine and Masters new rules of com­mu­nic­a­tion I dis­closed to Master just that. Master asked if I could explain my feel­ings and I stated I could not. Master then asked me to place a col­our to it; I described my emo­tions as red; blood red. Master, in his infin­ite wis­dom then instruc­ted me to close my eyes and slowly push that red por­trait into a tiny dot even­tu­ally blow­ing it away. But it did not dis­ap­pear quickly, rather, it slowly dimin­ished through conversation.

Almost all my irra­tional reac­tions stem from fear and Master knew this instantly. Master asked me why I was afraid to relin­quish con­trol. This is where my light bulb flickered. I was not even aware of the why until he spoke those words and then, like a flash­back from a cheesy tele­vi­sion show, I saw my fear, felt it, breathed it in, allow­ing its ugly tentacles to curl around my neck, strangling any com­pos­ure I still retained. With tears trick­ling I explained to Master that how could I pos­sibly give up all con­trol, how could I pos­sibly allow another human being to own me com­pletely, to sur­render my very exist­ence to another per­son because what would be left of me should he leave. Not leave me by his own vir­tue but should he be taken, should he die.

This exchange between Master and myself brought know­ledge to a wall that I have been build­ing for a very long time. So long in fact that I was not even aware I had stacked the bricks; that I had cre­ated an unpen­et­rable bor­der which kept me from truly let­ting Master in. Slowly, Master dis­sec­ted me, ten­derly expos­ing my grief — grief which I have tried to avoid, bury, neg­ate. Grief that first infec­ted my being when I was thir­teen and has only layered with life’s losses. I was not aware that when my friend died when I was thir­teen it had affected me at this age and truth be told I do not truly believe it is that loss that has inspired my fear. Truth be told I believe it is an accu­mu­la­tion of monu­mental exper­i­ences which have, without my know­ledge instilled an unknow­ing pro­tect­ive shield so that I do not rely on any­one or give myself to any­one so com­pletely that should he/she dis­ap­pear I would be hurt.

After shar­ing my thoughts with Master I became aware just how deeply ingrained my beha­viours are and I recalled all moments when I pushed people away, kept friend­ships at a dis­tance, kept my resolve, unwill­ing to ask for help or sup­port from friends and loved ones. I revis­ited exper­i­ences with pre­vi­ous lov­ers, how I cre­ated con­flict or was flip­pant with emo­tions when all I wanted was to con­nect and I was stunned at just how stub­born my resolve to avoid love was; how aggress­ive my determ­in­a­tion to remain power­ful, strong and inde­pend­ent I was. But was it strength?

This fear — the fear of being weak — for if I am weak how will I ever be able to pro­tect myself? And should I be help­less and depend on another how will I be able to take care of myself should I one day only have myself to rely on? Interestingly Master believes it is my abil­ity to be weak which only proves I am strong. That sur­ren­der­ing con­trol, hav­ing to depend on another to guide, mold, nur­ture, trans­form me shows a strength he him­self does not exude. And if only minutely, I have come to agree. I have also come to terms with the know­ledge that grief will always exist but it does not mean I have to stop expos­ing myself to a world of exper­i­ences that will provide me with a range of emo­tions and sensations.

This exper­i­ence with Master has allowed me insight to what chal­lenges me and has brought an aware­ness to why I with­hold and I am grate­ful for this but I know it will not be the last time I pull back. „Old habits die hard“ I once read and this habit has been form­ing for a long long time. Still, under­stand­ing my beha­viours is a start and although today was awk­ward I did come from it with a lib­er­ated idea and a man­tra to match.

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