The Submissive Wife | Community | Welcome to Mentoring

Community | Welcome to Mentoring

elcome to the online community of the Submissive Wife Project. Thank you for your patience in accommodating the screening and admission process that has brought you here. As you can see, the extensive archive of experiences and insights is a bit overwhelming. In the brief time our community has been online, we have seen tremendous growth. The articles in our discussion areas would fill many, many large volumes. Many new members find they are simply lost once they come through the door. To try to make the transition into active community participation less confusing and painful, we provide novices with the services of a community mentoring programme.

For every new woman welcomed into our small community, a mentor is chosen from among our community members, forum advisors, moderators and participants, all of whom are volunteers. When you log on, you will see a discreet mentoring area available for you to use. It functions just like the rest of the community discussion areas: Use it to ask your mentor for guidance and information. The discussion will not be visible to other community members—indeed, others will not even know the area exists. Please take advantage of this facility and rely on your mentor until you feel you have engaged successfully with the community. Like all formation processes, in addition to your assigned mentor, this area is monitored by an experienced Project participant as well. Between them, you will be able to receive the information you need to feel a part of this sometimes confusing place. The mentoring area used to welcome you will disappear once it has ceased to be of use—usually a week or two after the last post has appeared. Mentoring is not meant to be a longterm process—although it’s hoped your relationship with your mentor will continue, even as you come also to know others active in this part of our Project.

The Project does not have a textbook; there are no courses, no curriculum, no graduation, no diploma. There is only you, your transparency, the needs you feel you have, a supportive community of sisters and a wish to learn more about your instinct to surrender and where it may lead you. In community discussions, there is no formal protocol to follow, other than the general rules of the community, a page you should read carefully. Other pages may be of help, too:

§ For a helpful theoretical overview, please see our page on watchfulness. It’s perhaps the most important document on the site.

§ For an understanding of the sentiment informing our community, see this page on the theme of the “Women at the Well.”

§ For practical advice, many novices find this article offering “10 Ways to Get Started” a very useful one. If you need help making a post, have a look at this article, called “Coding 101.” (You must be logged into the community to read these; they are both found in the introductory discussion area.) Don’t be intimidated by the software we use. If you have a problem, just ask. If your mentor doesn’t have an answer, she’ll get one for you.

§ The site’s FAQs have answers to most questions concerning the Project.

A few tips: Please make your introduction immediately after entering the community for the first time. Once that is done, other areas of the community—including the sexuality and spirituality discussion areas—will be opened to you.

Consider undertaking a personal project in the areas set aside for Independent and Community-Monitored Disciplines. Once you have some experience, you might consider seeking admission to some of the private sub-communities or to the Transparency project.

We actively discourage passive participants; reading the contributions of others but leaving none yourself is not encouraged.

And neither is sharing any of the contents of these discussions with your partner or husband. We must depend on each other to maintain the privacy we need in order for this community to exist.

Again, welcome. All of us are pleased you have allowed us to be a part of your life here. Ask anyone for help, and you’re certain to get a helping hand.

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One of our number, lisamarie, prepared some notes on her experiences with mentoring others and navigating on one’s own. They’re offered here with a hope that they will be useful to you as you begin your journey.

“W

hen a new sister is granted entrance into our community, they arrive with many questions, expectations and assumptions; they may wish for a how-to or a map to submission, a course or a book that will spell it all out. For me, trying to identify the elusive core elements of submission is sometimes like herding butterflies: they are beautiful, fleeting, and always changing formation with each breath they take.

Submission itself is nearly impossible to define for all women, as each of us are such unique creatures. Perhaps one commonality is that we wish to be pleasing.

I tend to visualize this part of the Submissive Wife Project and its associated discussion areas as a type of Submissive Labyrinth. Once mainly used as prayer and meditative tools, labyrinths are being used today as tools for self growth. Walking into one with specific intention is said to bring about inner transformation. Upon exiting the labyrinth, one is said to be purified in their ‘new’ selves and prepared to engage fully in their life’s journey.

One meanders here at her own pace; within the Submissive Labyrinth there are several circuits and many doors of opportunity. The twists and turns of a labyrinth are not meant to confuse or detract one away from their personal goal, but are paths of patience that give one the time and space in which to direct their thoughts. I’ve walked slowly, and at times I have run full force. I have stumbled and fallen and risen up to begin my walk once again.

The doors within the Submissive Labyrinth are plainly visible; I have been able to use my inner wisdom to discern if what is within is geared towards an aspect of submission that requires my awareness. I have taken deep breaths and knocked on doors of opportunity and been granted access to rooms that have benefited my submissive journey. I have also knocked on doors that I thought would be relevant to my personal journey, only to find through much discussion with a labyrinth guide that the door led to a place that was not where I was in my heart and head at that time.

I’ve noticed that along the path of this labyrinth I have been the recipient of many gifts of growth. I’ve received more gifts than I could ever thank the project or my sisters in submission for. One of precious gifts for growth I received upon my own admission was tolerance, the thing one writer described as “the positive, cordial effort to understand another’s beliefs, practices and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them.” I also received truth, my truth, that my husband desires my happiness. My submission gifts him with great joy, and I am gifted with inner joy.

I suppose that it’s a natural curiosity to want to know how many circuits are within this Submissive Labyrinth and how many doors and what lies behind them and what they can give to you (and hey! Where’s my map!?!) but I feel that the only real answer is how long I will walk now that I am on a dedicated life journey. Forever, in here there is no end in sight, ever….not for me.

Oh! The mystery of the Labyrinth! The great mystery is that there is no mystery but one’s self, and that is the deepest mystery of all.”

—lisamarie

This page last reviewed and edited June 2007.