A toy box of tools to help LGBT+ and kinky people to lead fulfilled work and

personal lives.

Matthew Bennett (English Leather Master)

Mastering Life

 Contents

2 Introduction

6 What do you want?

17 Core values

26 Emotions

32 Cognitive behavioural therapy triangle

38 Guilt and shame

54 Being yourself

65 Trust

74 Rejecting comparison

81 Your own personal metaphors

88 Change

99 Edge effects

110 The drama triangle

119 The empowerment dynamic

128 Planning your best life

132 Acknowledgements

Page 1

 Introduction

 Introduction

Nobody

Why I wrote this bookSome people will come to this book knowing me as English Leather Master on Twitter and various

websites. I'm proud of the work I do, which is a combination of being in a helping profession and some

fantasy on the side. I live a fulfilled, authentic life and have the privilege of helping others along the way.

Getting here has been a long journey.

A while ago, I was made redundant from a job in education

and planned to become a freelance consultant. Almost as an

afterthought, I decided to add coaching to the portfolio of skills

that I could offer to clients. That decision ended up changing

my life.

Following my coach training, I realised that, having spent 20

years in education, I was ready for a complete break. By

learning the subtle art and science of coaching, I learned

much more about myself and the multitude of ways that we

can help ourselves get live better lives.

I started to think about this and wanted to encapsulate what I’d

found in some sort of self-help book.

I’ve noticed over the years that self-help books tend to come in two varieties:

There are some that have one big message. “Do this and all your troubles will be over”. They’re snake

oil textbooks as there isn’t one simple way of making things better. Life isn’t that simple.

Then there are the ones that are based on a researcher’s area of expertise. These are likely to be more

valid, but tend to assume that everyone’s problems come from the same place, whether it’s childhood

trauma, shame, depression or wherever.

We really need another self-help book.

Page 2

 Introduction

Neither of these appealed. I wanted, most of all, to write a self help book for people who don’t need help.

Those people whose lives are ticking along fine, but who realise that they could somehow be better.

This book is structured more like a leadership manual than traditional self-help books. Each chapter looks

at a different aspect of life and provides examples from both LGBT+/BDSM and non-sexual life to explain

the point. Each chapter ends with an exercise that you can use to learn a bit more about yourself. You’ll get

much more out of this book if you try them.

Many of the concepts and models in this book have been developed by psychologists, counsellors,

coaches and other helping professionals. They have stood the test of time, and I’ve tried to translate them

to LGBT+ and BDSM worlds to reflect our lifestyles more than you’d get in the average book. As with all

these books, if you don’t like a particular model, or if something doesn’t speak to you, just ignore it and

move on.

 LGBT+ and BDSM issues in this bookThroughout this book, I’m very open about sexuality. I use explicit language and reference quite a lot of

activities that aren’t normally discussed in polite society.

Why? Mark Twain put it succinctly:

So let's include the "supremest of all delights" in our discussion of how to have a better life.

[Man] has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all its delights, the one ecstasy

that stands first and foremost in the heart of every individual of his race -- and of ours -- sexual intercourse!

It is as if a lost and perishing person in a roasting desert should be told by a rescuer he might choose and

have all longed-for things but one, and he should elect to leave out water.

Page 3

 Introduction

For those who haven’t come across me before, allow me to give you some more background. Before

becoming a coach and online entertainer, I worked in education, first as a teacher, then more recently as a

product manager, assessor, sales person, writer, consultant and trainer. I worked mainly in the UK but a

couple of years ago moved to South East Asia.

These days, I coach, and I have an online presence under the moniker English Leather Master. I make

explicit videos that people enjoy. The fact that in a lot of these videos I’ve got my clothes off shouldn’t

detract from the fact that they’re made with as much thought and care as content produced by any vlogger

or columnist. They make people happy, and I’m proud of that.

I was in a relationship with another man for 18 years, during which we brought up two children. Over time,

our interests diverged in a number of ways and we split up. I had been interested in BDSM (Bondage,

Discipline, Domination, Submission, Sadism, Masochism) for a number of years and have now been in

Master/slave relationships with various people for over a decade.

One thing that people outside the kink world don’t realise is that BDSM and kink relationships often play

with our values, feelings and emotions in very deep ways. Trust, intimacy, honesty and openness are so

ingrained that it’s difficult to imagine a true kink relationship that doesn’t have them. In many ways, I’ve

known the submissives who I’ve dominated better than many people know their partners.

It’s been a privilege to be part of so many people’s lives, and it has taught me a lot about what makes

people tick and many of the lessons I’ve learned about myself and others are collected in this book.

In my examples, I’ve deliberately chosen a wide range of ways of looking at events from our personal and

private lives, as well as from a BDSM perspective.

Consequently, this book contains references to many different lifestyles and sexual practices that you

wouldn’t find in the average self help book. It’s not designed to shock. It’s a reflection that many of us live in

a world where being LGBT+ or practicing BDSM is the norm. Too many books skirt around or totally ignore

issues that are important to our lives.

As an aside, for those who don't know, the spanner is associated with same-sex BDSM in the UK following

the "Operation Spanner" trials in the 1980s. Find out more here.

Page 4

 Introduction

How this book is organisedThis book starts by asking the most fundamental questions about what we want and who we are. It then

strays into the land of emotions, discovering at what emotions can tell us. Once we’ve cleared that up, we

discuss identity before moving into our relationships with others. Towards the end of the book, I give some

tips about how to make plan and make changes in our lives.

Each chapter is pretty much stand-alone, although I reference values and the CBT (Cognitive behavioural

Therapy) triangle throughout the book. You can read it from cover to cover if you’d like, or you can dip in.

You may wish to come back to the exercises when you’ve got more time to consider them, or during times

in your life when you need them.

Where the ideas come fromThe ideas in this book have been collected from far and wide. You may recognise ideas from TED talks,

self-help books, coaching, counselling, leadership development and even internet memes. I’m an ideas

thief and have tried to put my own spin on others’ work. There are a lot of giants whose shoulders I’m

standing on. I would thank them all, but there’s too many.

I wish you all the best luck in the world on your journey through life. I hope that you find this book

interesting, thought provoking and useful.

Maybe I’ll meet some of you at the fetish events I attend around the world, or the talks I give. Maybe you’ll

become one of my coaching clients. Or maybe our paths will cross online on Twitter or similar. You may

join the Mastering Life course. If you do, make sure you tell me how you found this book and how I could

improve the next edition!

Matthew / English Leather Master

February 2020

Page 5

What do you want?

What do you want?Want or need?

George Bernard Shaw, “Man and Superman”

ScarcityWe live in a world of imposed scarcity.

While billions struggle to have enough water, food or shelter to survive, those of us lucky enough to have

been born in a westernised society find ourselves wanting more and more. More money in our banks.

Bigger houses. More clothes. More power. Longer holidays to further destinations. Newer technology.

Faster broadband. More choice. Bigger dicks and boobs.

Thousands of years ago, when humans were evolving and living on the Savannah in Africa, we really

needed more. We lived a life of true scarcity and evolved to search for the essentials in life. They were

important. They kept us alive and safe.

Many people will have seen Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It shows the relative importance of different

categories of things to our lives. If a lower category is not satisfied, we’re unlikely to chase a higher one.

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.

Page 6

What do you want?

In the model, our basic biological needs (air, food, water, shelter from the elements) must be looked after

first. Once those are satisfied we look for safety (primarily physical, but also including health and owning

property, which means employment). Next we aspire to belong to a group or to feel loved. We crave

connection to other people. Then we look for ways to make ourselves feel good by gaining confidence, the

respect of others and achievement. Finally, we’re ready to hit the top level of being able to use all of our

faculties for to become the best we can be: by creating, by showing empathy for people unlike us, by

finding inspiration and inspiring others.

This basic evolved system has been hijacked by modern life by marketeers, politicians, religious figures,

corporations and even self help guides to make us believe that what we want is different from our actual

needs.

In ‘The Devil wears Prada’ (2006), Meryl

Streep’s character lectures her secretary

on the fact that even the “lumpy blue

sweater” she’s wearing is ultimately a

product of the fashion industry. Our

choices of what to wear have been limited

by what we’re are allowed to buy and by

what advertising and influencers tell us is

acceptable.

We’ve had our brains hijacked to demote ‘wearing the right clothes’ down from where it should be (esteem)

to belonging. You don’t belong here unless you’re wearing the right things. This message is reinforced

when we watch Bridget Jones turning up to a normal party wearing bunny ears. “This is what will happen to

you if you’re wearing the wrong stuff.”

A few years ago, I travelled to Kuwait city to give a talk. As my colleague and I rode the taxi from the

airport, we asked the driver what we could do in the city over the weekend, thinking there might be

beaches, historic places or museums. The only thing the driver could think of was the mall. There are

whole cities now being built with only consumerism in mind. I’ve been to several places where people are

so bombarded with the idea that more is more, that spending is the way to live that they’ve forgotten there

could be something more to life than that.

Page 7

What do you want?

And yet here I am, typing on the computer that I’ve been considering upgrading even though it works well,

sitting on a new chair, messaging on my fairly new iPhone, wearing branded clothing. My credit card is

peeking lasciviously out of my wallet begging me to spend more on stuff I don’t need. I’m not immune to it.

No one is, and we tend to view those people who have foresworn modern life as hippie weirdos.

I learned a lot about accumulated consumerism when I moved out of the house I shared with my partner

for 18 years; I took one car full of stuff from a three bedroom house that was overflowing with junk and

haven’t missed anything that I left behind. Of course, I’ve bought a few things since, but have worked hard

to stick to the basics. The lesson I learned was that we often accumulate garbage just because we

constantly feel the need to want something.

We need to be careful about what we believe we need. It’s absolutely fine to find stuff attractive, but it’s

good to question whether we actually need it.

It’s not just consumer goods that we find ourselves feeling scarcity over. We’re told that jobs at the

companies we work at are scarce, so we have to work harder, longer hours. There are only so many

places on the management team, and we fight to get there. There’s arguments about who sits near the

window or who gets to travel for work.

Whatever your political persuasion, you can see the same messages of scarcity dominating politics.

For example, the EU referendum in the UK was dominated by slogans of “taking back control” – a claim

aimed at making us believe that control was in scarcity. The gun control lobby and transgender bathroom

laws in America make people believe that safety is scarce. On the other side of the political spectrum,

liberal politicians make people believe that the working class have a scarcity of power and individuals are

incapable of doing anything without the government stepping in.

Religions tell us that there’s a limited number of places in the afterlife, and that we have to compete for the

love of a deity by conforming to the set of things they are happy for us to do in order to gain their

acceptance.

Page 8

What do you want?

Meanwhile, environmental campaigners tell us that there’s a limited amount of time left for us to do

anything about climate change and that the lack of clean water is going to become a major issue in the

near future. The organic lobby essentially limits the amount of food that can be produced by reducing the

yield per square meter dramatically, increasing the prices and therefore the potential profits by making us

feel bad for eating food grown using conventional methods.

No wonder we’re stressed. And that’s before you’ve opened a magazine or watched porn and seen guys

and girls with perfect bodies, perfect skin, perfect six packs, perfect genitals and perfect chests living

perfect lives. It’s no surprise that a whole gay underwear industry has built up around clothing porn stars in

branded trunks.

We see people on Twitter and Instagram and in pop videos living these amazing lives filled with sex and

alcohol and parties and think that’s normal. There’s a whole generation of men who grew up with video

after video of male artists singing songs by pools surrounded by scantily clad women who seem to want

nothing more than to have sex with them – and we are bewildered that the gender divide is still there. We

see our favourite adult star hopping from bed to bed and having sex with multiple people every night and

wonder what we’re doing wrong as we struggle to find a partner. Instagram influencers seem to be at a new

high class restaurant in a new luxury destination every week and we feel we need to have their lives. We

hit ‘like’ on their pictures of champagne fuelled parties while we drink a diet coke from a multipack sitting on

our worn-out sofa.

We’re being deliberately pushed down the Maslow scale, not just by a billion dollar industry, but the whole

of society today.

Page 9

What do you want?

Mini exerciseBreaking the cycleStop right now. It’s too early in the chapter for an exercise, but we

need to release some of this negativity ready to turn things

around.

1. Set your timer on your phone for ten minutes and get ready to

close your eyes.

2. Say to yourself, “I’m grateful for…” and then start listing the

good things in your life. Don’t allow any ifs, buts or exceptions.

Be wholly, fully grateful for what you have.

If you struggle, allow yourself to compare yourself with people who have it worse than you, and be as

melodramatic as you need with this. Kids with childhood cancer. LGBT+ people living in Chechnya, the

Middle East or Sub-Saharan Africa. Homeless drug addicts. People living in war zones or North Korea.

Women living in far too many countries.

3. Keep finding things you’re grateful for over the course of 10 minutes. They can be as big or as small as

you wish.

4. Make a list of the things you’ve said thank you for after ten minutes. I pretty much guarantee that you

struggle to remember everything there will be so many things.

Oh yes, and you, the person who just ignored the instruction, telling yourself you’ll do it later, or that you

don’t need to, or you don’t have time, or it’s too touchy-feely. Go back and do it. Now. I just did it and I’m

writing a book at the moment. So what’s your excuse?

Page 10

What do you want?

What do you really want?I met someone on holiday once who told me he was actively chasing becoming HIV positive and wanted

me to help him. This became one of the events that led me to pursue coaching. We spent long hours

discussing this need. On a basic level, this sounded like self harm, but he otherwise seemed to have his

head screwed on. He wasn’t depressed.

It took me a while to get to the bottom of what he really wanted. It turned out that he had been watching

porn and believed that you had to be positive to be ‘initiated’ in the ‘brotherhood’ that had the kind of sex

that he wanted. This was about belonging. He wanted to be part of group of people where sex was wild and

free and something you weren’t ashamed of.

We then looked at what this meant. It didn’t mean he wanted to become positive. It meant he needed to find

ways of having better sex that was free of shame. We worked on that. 18 months later, he’s still negative

and having a better sex life. Now he’s let go of a short term destructive goal, he’s also becoming much

happier in who he is, fitter than ever before, living a life he never dreamed of. And he smiles much more

since he has truly found what he really wanted.

We all seem to aspire to get promoted at work. Why is this? Is it because we truly want more hassle, more

responsibility, longer hours, more power? Is it actually just about wanting a pay rise? Does it feel like our

contribution is lost in the company and we need to feel acknowledged for the work we’re doing? Or

perhaps we feel our skills are being underutilised. Maybe it’s about power and that we feel powerless to

make a difference in our current role.

Knowing why we want something can help us decide if it’s actually what we need. Then, formulate a plan to

get or achieve what will truly make us happy.

When I’m coaching, I use a number of questions to help clients gain understanding of what they really

want. These include variations of:

What’s behind the desire for…

What would getting/doing that give you?

How would that change how you see yourself?

Page 11

What do you want?

More often than not, I find that the first thing clients say they want isn’t what they really want.

In the exercise, I’ll show how visualisation can help us answer the questions.

How would getting that/achieving that change your life?

What’s the big picture here?

Imagine your immediate goal is like a close up picture. What’s in the wide angle shot?

If you achieve that, how would you feel about yourself, and how long will that feeling last?

Why is it important to you?

Page 12

What do you want?

Sex and BDSM desiresSex is about desire. On Maslow’s hierarchy, sex is down there on the bottom rung, the biological needs.

That’s why so many people who are single spend their lives searching for sex. However, sometimes

people are searching for the wrong thing. Having watched porn or read kinky books, they think they’re

looking for a specific type of relationship when actually, deep inside, they’re looking for simple human

connection or someone to hold them when they feel sad, lonely or ill.

We tell ourselves we want to try doggy style, or bondage, or pup play or cross dressing. We can get so

caught up in the “I want to try…” vibe that we ignore the true feelings within us about what we actually

need.

The kink world allows us to express our darkest desires and there’s always someone out there who will be

willing to help us achieve it. Some of those desires are fairly benign and have little long-term risk.

Consensual adult spanking may hurt but the pain subsides fairly quickly; water sports (piss) play carries

little risk if you don’t have an STI. If you try something and don’t like it, you can move on. On the other

hand, there are other things we attempt that require more vigilance in order not to let our desires get in the

way of common sense. Be careful with breath control, bondage, and hard whipping among others. Know

what you’re doing. Then there are the truly extreme behaviours that some people desire. Personally, I have

nothing against body modifications and the like. However, I am sometimes contacted by people who don’t

seem to have a plan beyond a particular extreme modification. When I question them about what happens

once it’s been done, they draw a blank.

In some ways, BDSM allows us to get what we want without knowing why we want it. I get asked fairly

regularly to help people become temporarily mindless through hypnosis. It works well and I’m happy to do

it. As I’ve delved deeper into the lives of the people who have asked, I often find that they’re escaping a

particular situation, whether pain, or family pressures, stressful jobs, dark thoughts or caring for others.

Page 13

What do you want?

So while I think it’s healthy to enjoy a bit of time out, I also think it’s important that we don’t numb the pain of

our everyday lives by using sex or BDSM. It’s no different to using alcohol or drugs to “get away from it” for

an evening. Instead, we need to be awake to what we’re taking time out from, in order to then use the extra

energy we’ve given ourselves to make the underlying situation better. I see this as much the same as the

parents of a child with special needs who take the child to day care so they can have some time to

recuperate. This allows them to be better parents after the child comes home as they're not so tired. It’s

not, as some may see it, selfish. It has a purpose to alleviate frustration and allow the parents the release

so they can care for the child even more.

For many people, sex and BDSM are simply part of a balanced diet of activities in life. Beware creeping

feelings of scarcity – the constant need for more. This is particularly acute when we walk into fetish shops

or see a new outfit on someone we follow online. Will getting that new skin tight rubber all-in-one superman

suit really make your life better?

Page 14

What do you want?

ExerciseWhat do you really want?You may wish to do this exercise a number of times with different starting points. Set aside about 15 – 30

minutes for each cycle.

1. Pick one thing you currently desire. It could be something like “To go to university” or “To get a

promotion” or “To get a boyfriend” or “To try fisting” or “To buy the latest Samsung phone”.

2. Imagine that you have now attained the thing you desire. It’s six months later (or longer if it’s a longer

term plan), and you’ve got it.

How will your life have changed?

What will you have gained?

What will you have lost?

Who will you be?

How will you view yourself?

3. Now ask yourself whichever of the questions I listed before that make sense in your situation.

What’s behind the desire for…

What would getting/doing that give you?

How would that change how you see yourself?

How would getting that/achieving that change your life?

Why is it important to you?

What’s the real challenge here?

Imagine your immediate goal is like a close up picture. What’s in the wide angle shot?

If you achieve that, how would you feel about yourself, and how long will that feeling last?

4. Finally ask yourself:

What do I really want?

Page 15

What do you want?

Find this di�cult?The vast majority of my coaching practice revolves around the question “What do you actually want?”

Many people come to coaching thinking they want something, but actually find that they want something

completely different. For example, one client came in wanting a plan to change jobs and ended realising

that he needed to evaluate what made him happy in life. Another came in wanting a boyfriend and realised

what he really wanted was to feel accepted and connected.

We often repeat stories so frequently that we believe them. “I need to go to university because I need to

become a doctor.” Is that true, or is this about pleasing your parents? Coaching can help unlock these

deep insights through powerful questioning.

If you’re aware that you’re not happy, but can’t work out why, if you’re stuck in a cycle of wanting more or

better or greater or fewer or newer… but never seem happy when you get there, then coaching can help. If

you’re trying to get something at work and never seem to get it, coaching can uncover the deep need and

help you plan for how to achieve it.

Find out more by visiting my website, www.englishleathermaster.com and learn how your goals can

become clearer by working with a professional LGBT+ and kink-aware coach, wherever you are in the

world.

Page 16

 Core Values

Core valuesWhat’s really pulling your strings?

Ayn Rand

Underlying personasIf you know me from my Twitter feed, it would be fair to

assume that I’m a nasty piece of work. There’s videos of me

online doing all sorts of kinky stuff with other people, and

quite often I come across as a bully or an arrogant bastard.

Don’t tell anyone, but the persona I show in videos isn’t the

real me.

The thing is, the internet has a funny way of bringing out only

one side of us. We become known as a particular type of person and our followers expect that. I’m sure

some of the particularly nasty political and social commentators (pick your favourite love-to-hate tabloid

columnist or Twitter troll) are perfectly nice people to those they love – they just come across as

narcissistic / sarcastic / evil because that’s the persona they’ve carefully created for themselves. It gets

attention and creates opportunities for them.

In a similar vein, my Twitter persona reflects what my followers wish to see. What they don’t get to see is

the aftercare I put into place after each of the videos. And of course no one online gets to see what I’m like

with family and friends.

Whether at work, at home or online, we display different sides of our personalities. However, deep inside

we all have underlying values that drive our choices and behaviour.

Over the years, I have found myself increasingly aware of the tension between my core values and what

the expectations of the people I interact with and the roles I play. This book is part of me responding to that

tension.

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds

from the achievement of one's values.

Page 17

Core Values

The trolley problemLet’s consider the famous trolley problem.

You’re standing by the side of a track and notice that a trolley (a type of train) is hurtling down the

track. Further along the track, five people are lying down (presumably tied there by some evil villain).

They’re going to die unless the trolley is diverted. There’s no way of stopping it and it’s going too fast to

rescue the people from the track.

Luckily, you’re standing next to a lever that will divert the trolley to another part of the track. Hurray!

BUT! The evil villain has tied a single person to this track. If you divert the trolley… that person will die

– there’s no way of saving them.

What do you do? Not touch the lever and let the five people perish? Or grab the lever, kill the single

person but save the five?

What you choose is likely to be driven by your core values.

If you chose to save five but kill one, you’re likely to be driven by the need to maximise the good in any

situation. You may be being pragmatic, dispassionate, clear-minded or level-headed.

If you chose to leave the situation as it is, you’re more likely to be driven by belief in a higher power or

fate/karma, or perhaps by the need not to be the direct cause of suffering (you didn’t kill them, the trolley

did – but if you move the lever, you’ve chosen to kill the single person).

All the words in bold are examples of core values and they teach us how to react in different situations.

We all have multiple core values, and there are many different ways of defining them. Edward de Bono

goes as far as suggesting that ‘the smell of food’ is a value when we’re hungry (de Bono Textbook of

wisdom 1991). I’d personally disagree as this is transient. In my definition, core values are the underlying

values that are always there and drive our behaviours in subconscious ways.

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Core Values

If I was to consider de Bono’s ‘smell of food’ suggestion, I would personally consider that to be driven by a

need to eat, which is ultimately about either self preservation, self soothing or pleasure, depending on the

situation. If I’m in a shopping mall walking past a cookie shop, then the smell of cookies piques my need to

seek pleasure. However, I’ve managed to strengthen my core value of health to allow myself to keep

walking. Most of the time.

My core values: caringBelieve it or not, one of the strongest core values I have is to be caring. This sounds like a positive value to

have, but it has unexpected impacts on different areas of my life.

For example, I pride myself in being a hard worker when I need to get something done. Just this morning, I

set myself the task of completing this section of my book. Core values that should have been in play could

have been pride, hard working, determination or similar. However, someone messaged me and asked for

some advice. My core value of caring trumped my need to complete the work I’d set myself and I found

myself playing mentor to someone I don’t know really well.

Now, of course, maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe that wasn’t at all about caring. Maybe in fact that was

about feeding my own self-importance or even self-aggrandisement. “Look at me, I’m helping this person!”

This will come up again later when we discuss the drama triangle later.

So in this case, care meant that I put someone else’s needs before my own. Great if I’m being altruistic,

not so great if I’ve got a deadline. And in my case, who knows? Maybe I’ll publish this book a day late

because of that incident and someone else will be hurt because they don’t get to read the life changing

prose within it. We can’t always see down both tracks.

My core values: fairnessOne of the best ways of spotting your core values is when you get upset by something.

I get very uncomfortable in situations where people are blamed for things that aren’t their fault. For

example, if I see a customer abusing a waiter. Or when I read stories of how the British treated Indians

during the days of the British Empire.

My core value of fairness can cause all sorts of problems for me. For example, when I try to divide my

time equally between friends and loved ones I become stressed.

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Core Values

Why do you need to know your core values?You’ve got a set of core values locked up in you, and you may be aware of some of them. Does it matter if

you know them all? Can’t you just go on living your life as you are?

Our core values often surface during times of conflict.

Take this example:

You’re at the petrol station and the clerk doesn’t even look up when you hand over your credit card.

They’re too busy talking on the phone. You start to rage. This puts you in a bad mood that spills over to

your loved one who’s sitting in the car and has done nothing wrong – yet you still snap at them for

changing the radio station. Why did this happen? Maybe because you have a core value of respect and

it wasn’t attended to. When our core values are tested, we will often get angry.

Another example:

You’re in a meeting at work. The boss goes around the table asking for contributions, but accidentally

misses you. You feel really put down. Your core values fairness, partnership, engagement were in

conflict with the way you were treated.

By firstly recognising the emotion, then recognising what caused that emotion to be stirred up, you can

quieten the negative side of the situation quicker. The petrol station clerk is on a minimum wage and has

been on all day. Maybe he’d had bad news or wasn’t feeling too good. It certainly wasn’t aimed at you. Your

boss didn’t mean to miss you, and actually asked you to contribute later. But because you were too busy

moping about the first time round, you gave a curt answer that didn’t really contribute.

Understand your core values and you’ll recognise these mood swings better, so you can arm yourself

against them. It also helps us to display more empathy.

and

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Core Values

How BDSM plays with core valuesI often consider that the BDSM part of me is my

brain’s way of coping with my core values.

While I often get really angry when I see unfair

behaviour (whether directed towards me or to other

people), I enjoy playing with the thrill of ignoring that

inner voice that tells me I have to be nice to

everyone.

For example, I completely believe that we shouldn’t make fun of people due to things outside their control.

Cock size is something no one is able to claim credit for as there’s nothing any of us can do about it. In

some BDSM sessions, however, I’ve used consensual small cock humiliation scenes. I enjoy flipping my

core values as it feels thrilling to be nasty. At the same time it can actually help the person on the receiving

end as a situation that would normally be deeply shaming becomes about mutual enjoyment.

Similarly, when I’m with friends and family, I make sure I pull my weight in whatever needs to be done –

from cooking and cleaning to paying my fair share of the bill in a restaurant. The Master in me enjoys

sitting back and letting the submissive do the work. And while we all enjoy being spoiled sometimes, the

Master part of me manages to be spoilt without any feeling of obligation to give back fairly.

And care? Of course, when I’m in a BDSM session I take care of the submissive and ensure that aftercare

is in place. But there’s something thrilling about leaving a sub on the floor covered in piss and walking out –

as long as I know he’s going to wank off about it later.

The irony is, like the yin-yang (taijitu), playing with the negative side of our values that comes out in BDSM

or when we’re angry, helps to show the positive side in even starker contrast. It’s sometimes easier to see

what we truly want to be when we’re playing another part.

Don’t stress too much if you seem to play against your core values. Maybe you just enjoy stretching

yourself once in a while. In the same way that the CEO now and then needs to be bossed around by a

professional Dominant and the demure housewife enjoys whipping her husband. Changing things up a bit

keeps us fresh and alive.

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Core Values

Exercise

What are your core values?Set aside about 30 minutes to do this exercise.

How can you find your core values?

1. Look at the list at the end of this chapter. Scan through and highlight any that seem to resonate with

you. Access a printable pdf version of the lists from www.englishleathermaster.com/downloads

2. Write each word down on a card or post it note.

3. Move them around to group them. For example, you may have a group about work ethic, and one

about friendships.

4. See if within each group a particular core value stands out as the central one. Or it may be that you

can find another word or phrase that encompasses the whole group.

5. By the end of this process, you’re likely to have maybe 5-10 core values maximum.

Now check that they work.

6. Consider what happens when that core value is missing from an interaction. For example, if your

core value is love consider how you feel when you’re alone, or when you see someone who is

unloved. Or if your core value is integrity, what do you feel when you find out that someone has been

insincere or deceitful?

If you feel strongly negative (anger, resentment, hatred, pity) then it’s likely that you’ve found a core value.

7. Now consider where that core value has driven your behaviour. In particular, when you had a choice.

Again, if your core value was love, maybe you chose to stay in your home town and be with your

significant other rather than move to your dream job elsewhere. If your core value was ambition, this

situation would likely have been reversed.

Keep a list of your core values near you. Over time, you will spot yourself responding to situations and

realise what’s driving you. Sometimes, you’ll be puzzled when a behaviour isn’t driven by one of the values

you’ve written down. Go back to the list below and see if you can spot a value you’ve missed.

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Core Values

On other occasions, you’ll realise that what you’ve written down isn’t quite right. Maybe love didn’t quite fit.

Maybe it’s connection or friendship or loyalty. Update the list as you develop new insights.

Once you become aware of your core values, you will be able to use them to make longer-term decisions

that make you happier. For example, if you have a choice about whether to accept a job or not, checking

that the company’s values align with yours will help you decide if you’ll be happy there in the long term. In

dating, you may find someone attractive and share interests, but if you’ve got competing core values, it’s

going to be a difficult ride as your values will pull you in different directions.

Find this di�cult?It can be difficult to be objective with this exercise. Sometimes you don’t know yourself very well. On other

occasions, you’ll find that you’re focusing on what you want to hear, not necessarily what actually happens.

Working with an International Coach Federation accredited coach can help. Have a look at my website,

www.englishleathermaster.com to learn more about how online LGBT+ and kink-aware coaching can help

you find your values and move forward in life.

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 Core Values

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 Core Values

Page 25

  Emotions

 EmotionsWhy do you feel?

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Negative and positive?We tend to only notice our more extreme emotions: anger, ecstasy, grief, amazement, but we’re actually

feeling emotions all the time. Like fish swimming in water, we don’t notice the everyday emotions.

Once we do notice them, we often get so caught up in the feeling that we don’t notice what’s causing it.

When it’s a ‘positive’ emotion, we almost don't care. We feel happy - why question what's causing that?

When it's a 'negative' emotion, we often become aware of an event, but sometimes don't really understand

how the event caused that emotion.

There are many theories of emotion. One suggests that all emotions evolved to tell us something.

For example, imagine you’re an early human, 100,000 years ago, living on the Savannah in Africa.

You’re standing tall above the grass. You’re exposed. What do you feel? Fear. Because that creates

awareness of the potential for danger. So fear isn’t ‘negative’ – it’s useful.

You're surrounded by people you know and they give

you something to eat. You feel trust as you have

history and knowledge that what you're eating is safe.

You're accepted and don't need to be concerned.

You pick up an animal carcass and find that it’s rotten.

You feel disgust which stops you from eating it,

keeping you healthy.

You’re surrounded by people you know and they give you something to eat. You feel trust as you have history and knowledge that what you’re eating is safe. You’re accepted and do

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

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  Emotions

Eating food would have made you feel happy because it

tastes good. This comes from the genetic code that

creates our taste buds and olfactory systems. Eating the

nutrients needed for life allowed early humans to pass on

these genes on to the next generation… and eventually

to modern humans.

So although some emotions seem to push us away from

things, and some encourage us to repeat actions, they have

all developed for a purpose.

Emotions todayIn the past, we needed to react to our emotions. Feeling scared or stressed was the body’s way of telling

us something bad could be about to happen. We needed to stand very still or get out of the situation

quickly. Our resources were sent to the fight-or-flight areas and away from the parts of our bodies that

looked after longer term health like the immune or reproductive systems. These days, we have the same

biological responses every day on the commute to work and wonder why we’re always ill.

When we were happy, we got a jolt of pleasure sensation that caused us to do the thing again. That was

great when we only found a few fruit trees every week and needed to be encouraged to keep eating. It’s not

so good when the latest on-phone game gives us a rush of happiness every time we complete a level,

desensitising us from true happiness.

Now, I’m not for one moment saying that we should try to go back and live like cave dwellers, or even like

those pre-millennials like me who didn’t have smart phones and to whom soft-scoop ice cream was a treat

when we grew up. That would be madness.

However, we do need to be aware of how modern day life has messed with this basic set of systems. We

have unhealthy food, alcohol, drugs and a multitude of amusements from theme parks to pornography

which make us happy. We have the always-on culture of social media and work emails on our phones,

24/7 news and more and more mindless work that causes fear, anxiety and stress.

I’m simply saying we have to become a little more aware of our emotions, what they are designed to tell us

and what’s actually causing that.

You’re surrounded by people you know and they give you something to eat. You feel trust as you have history and knowledge that what you’re eating is safe. You’re accepted and doPage 27

  Emotions

What emotions are telling usThere are many lists of emotions, and every book you read will tell you something different. The table

below is simply a starting point for your thoughts. You may disagree with this model, and in many cases,

the trigger for you will be something different. The idea here isn’t to give a definitive picture, it’s to raise

awareness.

Once you become aware of the messages that your emotions are sending, instead of attending to the

emotion itself, you can start to consider the deeper reason for the way you’re feeling.

For example, if you find yourself in a situation and you’re feeling concern, it’s your body’s way of telling you

that danger could be around the corner. What can you do to ensure that you’re safe?

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 Emotions

If you find yourself angry at a particular situation, question whether shouting and throwing things is the best

method of making yourself feel better. Your emotion is telling you that you’re being stopped from getting

something. Check that the person you’re angry with is the one stopping you, and whether there is a better

way of dealing with that than expressing anger.

We will delve deeper into how to manipulate our emotions in the next chapter.

 Emotions in BDSMBDSM plays with emotions all the time. I always used to say I loved leather because I only wear it for sex.

The look, sound, touch and smell of it remind me of hot nights. I put it on and start to feel a building sense

of anticipation.

The actual definition of fetish is “A form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal

degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.” (OED). The link between the object and

the emotion (desire) is there in the definition.

At the beginning of a scene, if a submissive doesn’t feel trust, they cannot give over the level of control

that’s needed to feel enjoyment.

Once in a scene, a good dominant will play with emotion. For example, a submissive bends over and waits

in apprehension for the dominant to whip them. The dominant talks about how much it’s going to hurt,

instilling fear, then suddenly cracks the whip, causing surprise as well as pain.

There are activities that may be viewed in completely different ways by different participants. For example,

some see boot licking, water sports and other toilet play as humiliating and disgusting. Others see exactly

the same activities as part of worship, generating feelings of admiration or even love. Similarly, rimming

can be humiliating or respectful or empowering, generating any emotion from disgust to excitement or love.

Some dominants even display disgust or anger towards a submissive, playing with feelings of rejection,

concern or fear on the part of the submissive in a safe space.

Depending on the submissive, pain play like spanking or whipping can do anything from causing sadness

or anger to sparking genuine ecstasy.

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 Emotions

At the end of a scene, a good dominant will ensure that the submissive above all feels acceptance, peace

and hopefully interest in doing it all over again.

By becoming more aware of the emotions you are feeling or encouraging in others, you can heighten the

enjoyment and excitement of situations. You can also watch for when negative emotions start surfacing

and work out the best way of dealing with them, both in yourself and in others.

 ExerciseWhat have you been feeling?Set aside about 30 minutes to do this exercise.

1. Look at the table of emotions above. Choose 3 or 4 of these emotions, both ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

2. Consider when you felt them. What triggered that feeling?

3. Consider whether the possible messages ring true for you.

For example, if you remember feeling angry last time you tried to book a doctor’s appointment, and

couldn’t, was this because you were stopped from getting what you wanted (the appointment) or because

you felt you weren’t being listened to?

4. Consider when you have manipulated your emotions, or others’ emotions. Was this for positive

reasons for both people?

In the next chapter, we will delve deeper into the link between emotions, triggers and what we do about

them.

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 Emotions

 Find this di�cult?We feel emotions all the time, and sometimes it’s difficult to unpick what’s going on. Counsellors and

psychologists and similar therapists can help you if you have constant feelings that cause you distress or

are preventing you from living a normal life. They’re also great for working through emotions that are left

over from past trauma.

On the other hand, if you’re living a normal life and simply want to understand your emotions a bit better,

working with a professional coach can help. You can explore how your emotions are driving your

behaviours in your home life, in your relationships and at work. By choosing an International Coach

Federation accredited, LGBT+ and kink-aware coach, you can ensure that you’re comfortable putting all

parts of your story on the table without fear of judgement. For more information, go to my website,

www.englishleathermaster.com and find out how online coaching can help you, wherever you are in the

world.

Page 31

   The CBT triangle

 The CBT triangleUnderstanding where emotions come from

How you think – feel - actSorry to those who thought they were going to get a section on Cock and Ball Torture; you’re going to be

sorely disappointed. CBT here stands for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. While this is not a book designed

primarily for people with diagnosable mental illnesses, there’s nothing stopping us from learning from

psychotherapy about how the mind works.

CBT originates from the work of Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck in

the 1960s, and was further developed into the 1980s and 1990s

by a number of different therapists. It’s widely used as a way of

helping patients understand what is going on in their minds when

they feel emotions.

The core of CBT is the following model of how the brain works:

The body experiences an external stimulation

This stimulation triggers an automatic thought

This thought triggers an emotion

The emotion causes behaviours

An example of how this works well:

You spot a lion in a bush in front of you

You think “I’m in danger”

You feel fear

You run away (or sometimes freeze)

For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

William Shakespeare (Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2)

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   The CBT triangle

The neurological systems behind this cycle developed over thousands of years, so it’s very difficult to

break. However, the brain has a nasty way of tricking us into thinking the wrong thing, which sends us into

a spiral.

Example of when it goes wrong:

You say “Hi!” to your boss, but they don’t respond.

You think “My boss doesn’t like me”

You feel anxious

Later, you stay quiet in a meeting….

…which leads to you not getting offered a task

You think “My boss overlooks me”

You feel angry

You don’t work as hard…

… which leads to your boss overlooking you for promotion

You think “I’m worthless”

You feel degraded

And of course the kicker (which the non-emotional, rational you sitting reading this spotted coming) was

that your boss was simply preoccupied and didn’t hear you say hi.

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 The CBT triangle

The thing is, we do this all the time. We misinterpret people’s looks and behaviours. We expect other

people to be thinking something in response to what we’ve done. We overthink situations. We call these

thoughts “Negative Automatic Thoughts” as they’re unhelpful and seem to arrive from our subconscious

without prompting.

Here are some examples.

Event Emotion

Someone doesn’t reply on a dating app

“I’m not good enough” UnworthinessSadness

Your boyfriend leaves his phone on the bed and you

notice he’s got a message from his ex

“My boyfriend’s getting back with his ex”

JealousyAngerFear

You don’t get the sale you were hoping at work

“I’m no good at my job” ShameFear

You fail an exam or test “I’m shit at this” ShameAnger

You’re alone in a bar and everyone’s in groups

“I’m never going to meet anyone”

DespondencyInadequacy

The negative automatic thoughts cause negative emotions, which then cause negative behaviours such as

lashing out, or withdrawing or writing angry emails which then cause worse events to happen… and so the

cycle continues.

The first step in breaking the cycle is to recognise the negative automatic thought. Simply recognising that

you’re having one is a very positive step. Just the act of recognising the thought can make you feel a bit

differently.

After you’ve recognised the thought, you need to interrogate yourself to consider: is that actually true?

If someone doesn’t reply on a dating app, it could mean you're not good enough. Or it could mean:

Negative automatic thought

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 The CBT triangle

You’re not their type (which, incidentally, is a very different thing)

They didn’t see the message

They’ve gone offline

Someone got there first

They’ve run out of messages

They’re catfishing and the profile isn’t theirs

They’re wasting time because they’re bored

Think about how each of these different reasons would make you feel. In each case, the resultant

behaviour is likely to be different. It can range from ‘block and move on’ to ‘vary your way of messaging’ to

‘get help to change appearance, go on a diet, change clothes and/or get a haircut’ or ‘wait for someone to

come along who’s worthy to get you as you are’.

The key here is that you don’t actually know what the reason behind someone else’s behaviour is. We

have to catch our thoughts before we get into the cycle.

In a very benign example of how this can be used, I went to see a show on Broadway a while back. A large

proportion of the audience was clearly unused to being at the theatre and were doing everything that

regular theatre goers don’t do: talking, texting, eating loudly, leaving to go to the bathroom five minutes into

an act. I realised that I was getting angry about this. I spent a lot of time doing the thing that Brits do

brilliantly when confronted with something they disapprove of. I silently stared at the back of their heads to

make them realise how annoyed I was. The negative automatic thought I caught myself thinking was

essentially “They’re doing this to annoy me.”

Of course, this was clearly untrue. Later I realised that the people around me were from a couple of tour

groups from Russia or Eastern Europe. They had probably been bussed around all day going from one site

to another with little choice. Some of them won’t have wanted to have been there. Others won’t have

understood the language. Others won’t have been to the theatre in the past. They were living their own

lives with their own issues. They weren’t trying to hurt anyone.

So I reframed the negative automatic thought. “They’re doing their thing, and they don't need to change

that.” I found that the feeling of empathy changed my behaviour and I became more accepting of the way

they were acting. This allowed me to concentrate on the show, which I enjoyed much more.

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 The CBT triangle

 ExerciseCatch your thoughtsSet aside about 30 minutes to plan how you’ll do this, and a week to catch thoughts.

We have automatic thoughts throughout the day, every day. Most of these are benign and don’t cause

problems, but when we’re confronted with difficult situations, they jump in.

It’s often easiest to spot automatic negative thoughts when we feel negative emotions. So in the next few

days, become very aware of when you’re feeling emotions like sadness, anger, fear, jealousy etc. When

you feel those negative emotions try to rewind the tape. Often we can recognise the stimulus that caused

the emotion before we can identify the negative automatic thought.

Once you’ve identified the stimulus, try to work out what you actually thought that caused the emotion, then

question the thought.

For example:

What is the emotion? I feel anger.

What happened? Someone took my parking space.

What were the negative automatic thoughts? No one ever gives me any consideration. I’m worthless.

I’m invisible. People are jerks.

Is that true? No. This guy may be a jerk, but it’s not everyone. And someone held the door for me on

the way into the mall, so it’s not all bad.

What do you feel now? Calmer.

What do you need to do now? Actually, nothing. He’s a dick, but I’m going to get on and live my life and

I don’t need that cookie to calm me down.

Spend some time now working out how you’re going to ensure you do this. Fast forward through the

coming through days to consider when you’re likely to find yourself feeling negative emotions so you’re

prepared. Think about how you’ll remind yourself of the questions in bold above. Will you put them on a

post-it note at work, or on your phone?

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  The CBT triangle

As you work on this, you’ll find yourself becoming more mindful and, amazingly, more empathetic. You’ll

find that by stopping yourself attributing negative thoughts to others, you become aware that other people

have hard lives too and other people have their own struggles. You’ll realise that your boss is just trying to

do the best that they can. Your partner didn’t really mean to hurt you when they said that thing. You’ll feel

better about yourself and others and get into a positive spiral.

 Find this di�cult?If your emotions mean that you can’t cope with what most people would think of as a ‘normal’ life – getting

up in the morning, washing, feeding yourself, getting to work, having at least some social relationships –

you may need professional counselling or psychotherapy. If the CBT triangle speaks to you, you may wish

to seek out a psychotherapist who specialises in cognitive behavioural therapy, but there are many other

types of therapy available.

If, on the other hand, you’re getting on with life and things are ok, but not as good as they could be, then

working with an ICF (International Coach Federation) accredited coach could help.

Whilst counselling or other therapies treat underlying problems, coaching assumes that you’re fine, but you

could be living a better life. Maybe now you’re better at recognising your negative automatic thoughts or

emotions, you need to plan how to improve the relationships with your loved ones or set a path to get your

career back on track. To find out more about how online coaching can help with this, go to

www.englishleathermaster.com to see videos of coaching in action and find out about how my spin on

LGBT+ and kink-aware coaching works.

Page 37

   Guilt and shame

 Guilt and shameDid you do something wrong, is something wrong with you?

Let us not search for the guilty ones only among others, let us speak the bitter truth: we are all guilty ...

each and every one of us. Maxim Gorky

 WARNINGThis chapter discusses some topics that may be

hard to read about and may trigger unpleasant

thoughts. Please proceed with care. Make sure

you’re in a good place to read this.

The di�erence between guilt and shameAccording to Brené Brown (whose TED Talks on shame, wholeheartedness and vulnerability are highly

recommended), the difference is simple:

When you feel guilt, you’ve done something wrong.

When you feel shame, you are something wrong.

When I learned this, so many things fell into place, and it is particularly important for LGBT+ people, or

people into BDSM and kinks.

Take these two examples.

You and your partner have agreed to go on a strict diet to lose some weight. You both agree you want

to look great at the beach on holiday. Each evening you spend time together preparing delicious, low

calorie meals to eat at lunchtime.

Shame occurs when you haven't been able to get away with the who you want people to think you are.

Carl Whitaker

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  Guilt and shame

One morning, in the office, it’s someone’s birthday. Cake appears in the communal kitchen. You have a

slice without thinking. Immediately after swallowing the treat, you feel guilt. You’ve done something

wrong. You were tempted and you succumbed.

Compare this with:

Your highly religious upbringing has taught you that homosexuality, masturbation and sex in general are

wrong. You have been brainwashed to believe that touching yourself even to wash is tantamount to

being evil. At school, in the locker room, you start to notice other guys and start to find yourself

fantasising about them. You become wracked in self-doubt and self-loathing because you know it’s

wrong to look at guys. You’re ashamed of yourself. You feel shame because you ‘know’ that you are

somehow wired wrong and can’t change that about yourself.

In the first scenario, you’ve clearly done something wrong. You gave into temptation. Guilty as charged.

However, you recognise that you’re human, that packaging and sugar and peer pressure and hunger and

coffee and stress and simple forgetfulness all contributed to the infraction. You’re not inherently flawed.

In the second scenario, you feel that there is something fundamentally wrong with you, so you feel shame.

We cannot change who we are. We can change what we do. We must not be made to feel shame for our

identities. Feeling guilt for our actions can be positive if it helps us to become better people.

One of the religious phrases I’ve always hated the most is “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” It’s regularly

used to claim that homosexual acts are sinful, but having homosexual thoughts is not. There is not enough

time to go into my thoughts on this in detail, but the problem here is that the underlying assumption that

homosexual acts are sinful causes shame. This causes people to feel that they are existentially flawed for

feeling them. It has a thread of shame running through it.

A better phrase would be “Love the guilty, not the guilty act”. It’s perfectly possible to love your brother who

got arrested for stealing money without approving of what he did. You don’t have to think him fundamentally

flawed. He’s not ‘a thief’ who cannot be helped to change his behaviour. He’s your brother who did

something stupid or bad. He is not a bad person or a stupid person. Of course, this phrase can’t be used

for homosexuality as it’s not a something anyone should feel guilty about in the first place.

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 Guilt and shame

Brené Brown lists twelve categories of shame:

Appearance and body image

Money and work

Motherhood / fatherhood

Family

Parenting

Mental and physical health

Addiction

Sex

Aging

Religion

Surviving trauma

Being stereotyped or labelled

Sound familiar? Almost all of these have been used against LGBT+ and kinky people to make us feel bad.

Sometimes by our own communities.

I’m going to use the CBT triangle to unpack a couple of these in ways that are common for LGBT+ and

kinky people and to help people on both sides of supposed infringements.

Appearance and body imageImagine a perfectly normally built guy goes to a club. He doesn't have a six pack, but he is not obese.

In the club, he sees there’s a load of guys there with their tops off dancing around. He looks at these

chiselled Adonises and feels that he doesn't belong here. He feels that he's not good enough. He feels

shame.

To make it worse, 90% of the people we see on TV or advertisements are beautiful, with single figure body

fat percentages. We go to the gym to try to do something about it and we’re surrounded by more

sculptured, beautiful people. The standard they set feels unobtainable. These perfect people feel like

they're not the same species. They’re the Beautiful People and we are made to feel flawed, second rate.

This is shame.

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 Guilt and shame

Now, a million self help books can tell people that they’re wrong to feel that way, but the constant

bombardment of messages that anything other than stick thin = bad means it’s going to take some deeper

work to let go of this kind of shame.

Let’s look at this through two possible CBT triangle progressions.

Stimulus You see people who have sculptured bodies.

Negative automatic thought

They’re better than me. I look so fat.

Emotion Shame. Degraded. Shame. Sadness. Being outcast.

Behaviour Remove yourself from the situation; avoid going to the

club again. (Avoidance)

Become a manic gym user and heath food addict.

So how do you stop this cycle?

First, catch the negative automatic thought. Replace it with something more positive:

I appreciate that they look good, but I’m sure they work harder at it than I’m willing to.

I look fabulous as I am. I eat well and I exercise, but I don’t need to fit in like that.

Many people like me for who I am. I don’t need to be accepted by this group of people with a limited

set of criteria for accepting.

There’s a danger of turning your own shame onto other people. Try to avoid things like:

They look skinny because they’re off their heads on drugs and don’t care about eating.

They must have really boring lives to spend so long in the gym.

Try to practice loving acceptance – both of yourself and of them. It is amazing how powerful simply saying

"I love myself for who I am" can be if you repeat it daily. And try sending positive vibes to everyone you

walk past in the street. The rush of good feeling feels amazing.

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 Guilt and shame

Now, there’s nothing wrong, and a lot right, with caring about your body. I certainly could do with losing a

few kg and I feel bloated and blobby after overindulging. However, feeling that you’re dirty, wrong, not as

good as other people or other negative thoughts is not healthy.

If you want to get thinner, or more muscled, or even to put on weight, then that’s fine. But make sure you’re

doing it for you (or for pure health reasons) and not because you’ve been shamed into believing that your

body shape is somehow ‘wrong’.

Money and work

The media, magazines and nightclubs seem to be full of those people who are dripping in designer clothes,

make huge amounts of money and spend it lavishly.

I first encountered this when I was a student in London. I used to rollerblade across the city from my

university to Russell Square (which at the time was an amazing cruising ground). Occasionally, I’d be

picked up by someone who I’d go home with. They’d hail a taxi and pay with bundles of cash. I’d be in awe,

thinking of my part time job that paid pennies.

The most extreme was when I met a DJ who used to headline the major clubs. Being bright eyed and

curious about things, I asked him how much he was paid per night. He told me an outrageous amount

which was probably true. I felt small and unimportant. I looked at this guy, decked out in the latest clothes

(at the time, jeans with 6 inch turn ups were all the rage) and felt small in comparison.

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 Guilt and shame

It was only later when I went back to his flat that I realised the truth. Yeah, he had a great job, yes, he had

the trappings of a superstar DJ, with the pay to match… but he didn’t have any toilet paper, lived in squalor

and couldn’t get hard because of the drugs he’d taken earlier. He had made certain choices over the way

he led his life, but they certainly would not have been the same that I’d have made. I would prefer a

comfortable home over outward glamour any day – but that was his choice and he was entitled to it. I

learned to recognise the public person and the private person are very different.

The first thing people ask when they meet us is “what do you do for a living?” The question sometimes

comes out of simple interest, but can feel like a shame trigger. Whether you’re a McDonalds cashier, a

doctor, a call centre customer service agent, a sex worker, a teacher, or a lawyer, you still get up in the

morning, go to work, and work hard to earn the money you need to live the life you want to live.

I feel incredibly lucky to have an amazing job that hits all of my core values. It gives me pleasure and

maintains my interest, allowing me to travel and play and work and live a great life all in one.

That may be what you have, or what you are searching for. On the other hand, some people are

completely content to have a job that pays the bills and they can forget at 5pm. They 'live' outside the

office. I had a very good friend at university who would work boring call centre jobs for 9 months at a time,

then travel for three. Another friend found that he was perfectly content delivering people’s supermarket

shopping. Meanwhile, his partner runs a very successful business.

We all have different opportunities and drivers which mean that we make different choices in life. We

should be slower to judge and more caring of both ourselves and others for being different.

Constant comparisonsThere’s a simple rule in life: there’s always someone with a better x than you. Bigger salary, bigger dick,

bigger boobs, newer car, better phone, nicer house, more interesting job. If we continually compare

ourselves to these people, we get nowhere.

One of the best things I ever did was to live in South East Asia. I was asked by my company to move out

and they agreed to match my salary from London. In England, I’d felt that I had a lower salary than most.

Other people my age seemed to have better houses, nicer cars. I moved here and saw people washing in

ponds because they didn’t have bathrooms. I’d complained that I had to do my laundry every two weeks

because I ran out of t-shirts; they had one set of clothes. I realised how lucky I was.

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It’s so easy to use other people’s measuring sticks to measure our worth. If you want to be a dustman

(garbage collector) because you like the camaraderie, the dirty uniform and the early mornings – good for

you! If you want to be a lawyer because you want the status and power and salary – good for you!

Shame triggersThis is an example of a shame trigger.

When I was 19, my boyfriend at the time was a 30 year old accountant. It was his birthday and we

went to dinner together with his friends to a really nice restaurant. Everyone knew I was a student.

When the bill arrived, it was huge. I knew I couldn’t afford my share, but put my credit card into the

middle of the table with everyone else, signifying that we were splitting the bill.

My boyfriend quietly took my card off the pile and gave it back to me. I felt so much shame as I was

unable to pay and felt that this had been highlighted by his action. I ended up snuffling to myself

melodramatically in the toilet.

Where did this shame come from? From an older perspective, I can see this as a generous gesture by my

boyfriend (and the other guests who shared my portion of the bill). From the younger me, I felt that there

was something wrong with me. I felt I was in the wrong for not earning the same as people ten years older

than me with full time jobs. I felt small and ‘other’. It made me feel sad. I felt like I was outside their group.

Stimulus Being told I didn’t need to pay

Negative automatic thought I’m not good enough. I’m outside the group.

Emotion Sadness. Rejection. Shame.

Behaviour Withdrawal.

Instead of this, I should have questioned the negative automatic thought. “Do they really think I’m not good

enough?” “Are they doing this to make me feel better or feel worse?” Eventually I would have landed on

“They want to help me, they understand my situation and they’re being kind.”

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Shaming othersThere was recently an article published in a Washington DC newspaper by a gay man complaining about a

leather event that took place in the city. The writer felt that men being seen in leather would “annihilate gay

progress”. Aside from the absurdity of this remark (the event has been going on since 1976), there is a

fundamental issue here in that we shame people when we have an issue within ourselves.

To see what I mean, let’s try something less emotionally charged.

I have a long standing irrational phobia of men who do the top button of their shirt up when they aren’t

wearing a tie. I find it repulsive to look at, and even typing it makes me feel a bit weird. (I’m really

tempted right now to delete this and talk about wasabi instead.) I don’t know where this came from but

suspect it’s from 80’s films where the psycho always dressed like that.

When I see a man who chooses to wear his shirt like that, I think he’s disgusting. I couldn’t look at Gary

Barlow for years because of this issue.

The problem wasn’t Mr Barlow’s – it was mine. He was perfectly happy, but I was pouring shame on

him for wearing this abomination of fashion.

The same happens when we shame someone for something that they choose to do – whether it’s having

sex with multiple partners, ‘selling out’ and working for a big corporation, dressing in clothes not designed

for their assigned gender, choosing not to have kids, or having plastic surgery. In each of these cases,

we’re the ones who ultimately have problems with sex, money, gender identity, children or our appearance.

We slut shame because we feel deep inside that sex is bad. We surgery shame because we struggle with

our own appearance and wish people wouldn’t highlight society’s need for people to be beautiful.

A place for guilt and the guiltyWhat I’m not saying here is that no one should feel guilty. Absolutely, if you cheat on your partner when

you’re monogamous, you’re guilty of breaking trust. But you’re not a ‘bad person’.

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If you’ve stolen, you’re guilty of that. But you’re not fundamentally flawed. Unless you’ve a medically

recognised mental disorder, you’ve just made a bad choice that had negative consequences.

Do guilty people deserve to be punished? Absolutely. If you want your partner to be monogamous, and

they agreed and then break that trust, by all means decide what you’ll do to punish them, up to and

including breaking up with them. However, make sure you’re punishing the infraction, not shaming the

person. If someone believes they are ‘an adulterer’ then why wouldn’t they just keep doing it?

Think about this on a very basic level. If a child spills some drink, are they a bad person, or just a child who

spilled drink? We shouldn’t label them ‘bad’ as that’s what they’ll see themselves as from then on.

Describe the event, not the person. “I can’t be with you as you don’t have a job,” not “I can’t be with you

because you’re lazy.” Labelling and name calling feel cathartic in the moment but do no one any favours in

the long run.

If you’re the guilty one, own up to the misdemeanour. Don’t turn it into shame by labelling yourself. “I’m so

sorry I forgot your birthday, can I make it up to you?” not “I’m such an idiot, I forgot your birthday.”

 BDSM and shameThe classic trope of the bishop being whipped by a dominatrix has its roots in the idea that religion often

causes us deep shame by telling us to believe that we are bad. But it also teaches us that BDSM can help

us play with feelings of shame and turn them into feelings of excitement.

There are a number of forms of BDSM that are designed to play directly with shame. Humiliation play and

associated acts such as verbal abuse allow submissives to feel shame in a controlled manner. The key

here is the aftercare – either self care or provided by the dominant. The long term effect of shaming in

scene shouldn’t be that the submissive actually feels worse. It should be that the submissive is better able

to cope with the feelings of shame that they have.

The following cycles (adapted from an anonymous online meme - thank you to the original author) illustrate

how consensual BDSM and abusive relationships vary from each other.

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  Guilt and shame

Consensual BDSMIn BDSM, the core is mutual agreement of what will happen. All players should have a broad overview of

what will happen and each others’ interests. They should agree limits and if appropriate safe words.

After the scene, the players spend time ensuring that the other is physically and mentally in a good space.

Novice dominants do not always understand the importance of this debriefing stage. It can be as a hug and

a “you ok?” on the way out the door, or a check in via text. For more extreme scenes, more careful

aftercare will be required.

Abusive relationships

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 Guilt and shame

Abusive situations often appear to start with a stimulus. For example, in a domestic setting this could be

something like burning the toast or forgetting to buy something. However, the planning is likely to have

taken place beforehand, with the abuser looking for a “reason” to abuse. Whether the abuse is physical,

sexual or mental, the abuser tends to go on to shaming the abused. “You’re a bad person for burning the

toast”, “you’re stupid”, “you can’t do anything right.” Each phrase is designed to make the abused feel that

they are the one who is flawed. Later, the abuser may make excuses designed to encourage the abused to

forgive them. “It was the drink.” “I was tired.” “Work has been tough.” “I’ve a lot on my mind.” Notice the

lack of shame here. The abuser is using an external reason, rather than saying that they are the one with

the problem.

Sometimes, this may be followed by a period of relative calm. However, in the background, the abuser is

looking for the next opportunity to lash out.

When things go wrongIf you find yourself in an abusive situation, the most important thing is your safety.

Whether you find that your relationship is abusive, or even if it’s just a BDSM scene that went nasty,

there’s no shame in calling a halt.

Everyone has the right to be safe, secure and cared for. If you’re not getting that, get out. If you’re in a

BDSM scene, use the safe word. Gather your things and walk out. A relationship may need more planning

and you may need help from friends or one of the many organisations who help people in abusive

situations.

Try not to bottle up what happened. Bad feelings have a habit of getting worse when you keep them to

yourself. Find people you can trust to talk to. This may be friends, or it may be one of the national helplines.

Don’t be afraid of telling as much of the story as you’re comfortable with. The helplines will have heard it all

many times before. They’ll be able to help you plan your next steps. No one will pressure you into doing

anything you don’t feel happy with.

Whatever happens, don’t let anyone tell you that you “asked for it”. You didn’t ask to be abused. Don’t feel

ashamed of telling people that you made a wrong choice or trusted someone too much. We all do that

sometimes. Abusers have a habit of using shame to make their victims believe that there’s something

wrong with them, not the abuser. Don’t fall for that. You’re fine.

Abusive situations often appear to start with a  Page 48

 Guilt and shame

Understanding the di�erenceFinancial domination is a controversial part of some BDSM relationships that splits opinion. Here I will use

it as an example to illustrate how different consensual and abusive BDSM relationships look from each

other.

Consensual BDSM �nancial domination Initial contact made. Submissive approaches a dominant (or responds to a dominant) who appeals to

their type. The dominant has the right looks, attitude, method of domination or whatever appeals to

the submissive.

Submissive and dominant agree what they are both looking for. Limits are agreed (maximum

amounts, methods of domination, no-go areas). The key here is that the dominant should be aware

of the submissive’s ability to participate. A millionaire will be able to give more than a student; a

closeted family man is likely to get into danger quicker than a single person. In effect, at this point the

submissive asserts control over the situation and trusts the dominant to take care of them from then

onwards.

The scene takes place with the dominant ensuring that the limits are stuck to, no matter how

horny/intoxicated/humiliated the submissive becomes. Both participants agree play the parts that

they agreed to play, but the submissive should always be able to call a halt to the situation.

After the scene, it is very possible that the submissive feels guilt. “I went too far” – communication

should continue at this point. A dominant who drops the submissive for feeling remorse is being

unethical.

Agreements are made for how to proceed next time, or to stop.

Abusive �nancial domination The dominant approaches a submissive. They often pick one who is in a bad place mentally. For

example, they may actively seek out submissives who are clearly feeling depressed, intoxicated or

in other ways incapable of making good choices.

The dominant does not ask any questions about the submissive’s circumstances. Note: there is a

danger here that the dominant asks questions in order to ascertain the most that they can get from

the submissive. The submissive should be careful being too open until true trust is in place.

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The dominant uses whatever means necessary to extract as much from the submissive as

possible, whether by humiliation, intoxication or blackmail. The submissive feels unable to stop the

dominant, and the dominant ignores any signs that the submissive has had enough.

The submissive feels deep shame in what they have done. They feel unworthy of love and affection,

they feel they are stupid or worthless and that they have to give to ‘superiors’ in order to feel they

have a place in life.

Meanwhile, the dominant ensures that the submissive is kept in a low headspace and is ready to be

used again. In the worst cases, the submissive ends up in unsustainable debt or missing key

household bills for the dominant’s gain.

Whilst it may seem like financial domination is unique, the above pair of cases could be recreated for

anything from whipping to cuckolding.

The important thing is to recognise when a relationship is moving down a consensual path and when it is

straying into abuse. Both sides should be wary of this.

Submissives, look out for what you feel after a session ends. If you feel excitement, that’s great. If you feel

guilt (“I shouldn’t have done that”), change something. If you feel shame (“I’m bad for doing that”/”I’m totally

worthless”), you need to get out of the cycle.

If you’re finding yourself in an abuse cycle: get out. Don’t fall for the sweet talking and apologies. No one

deserves to be hurt outside what they agree to. For that matter, no one should have been pressured into

accepting to be hurt beyond their limits. Don’t feel shame. You’ve done nothing wrong. Talk to a friend. Find

one of the many sources of help out there and find a healthier relationship. You deserve better.

Dominants, check your behaviour and your motivation. By all means, play with humiliation, pain, roles…

but make sure your submissive ends up feeling amazing at the end of the session. Don’t leave them

feeling like a piece of shit.

I’m going to end this section with a tip for dominants that I’ve never seen written anywhere else in terms of

BDSM. If someone is down it's easy to kick them lower. It’s harder to pick someone up. So if you really

want to prove your dominance – don’t ‘ruin’ or ‘humiliate’ a person to extremes. Anyone can do that. Help

them help themselves to get out of the hole. Believe me, having done this twice, you’ll have someone

who’s loyal to you for life. Now that’s demonstrating power.

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 ExerciseWhere do you feel shame?You may need to do this exercise a number of times over a period of time. Set aside 30 minutes each time,

but also allow yourself some calming time. This is likely going to go deep.

People often notice shame through different emotions. Sometimes it comes out as pure shame.

Sometimes it manifests as anger, withdrawal, irritability or loneliness. Many times, it comes out as hiding

our feelings about something as we feel so ashamed we don’t want people to know. Sometimes it shows

up when we shame others (whether slut-shaming, pouring scorn on others’ choices or looks, or pointing

out others’ transgressions).

1. Read again through the 12 categories of shame from before:

Appearance and body image

Money and work

Motherhood / fatherhood

Family

Parenting

Mental and physical health

Addiction

Sex

Aging

Religion

Surviving trauma

Being stereotyped or labelled

2. Choose one that you’re struggling with and try to identify the triggers – the places, people, situations

or actions that trigger those feelings of shame within you. Allow yourself to become aware of what

happens – what are the underlying negative self-beliefs that are causing these feelings?

Now start to rewrite the script. Imagine yourself in a situation where you know shame may be triggered. Catch yourself thinking the negative thought and question it. “Is that really true?” “Do I know that?” “According to who?” “So what?” “Is it truly Page 51

 Guilt and shame

3. Now start to rewrite the script. Imagine yourself in a situation where you know shame may be

triggered. Catch yourself thinking the negative thought and question it. “Is that really true?” “Do I

know that?” “According to who?” “So what?” “Is it truly that bad?” are some of the questions that you

may find yourself asking. Answer the questions then replace the negative thought with a positive

one.

Be careful that you’re not labelling yourself as ‘bad’, even if you did something wrong. Feelings of guilt are

healthy as they help us to learn and grow. Feelings of shame can be unhealthy as they can make us

dislike who we truly are.

If you find yourself feeling shame that should be guilt (because you did something wrong, for example), try

to formulate a plan to make things better. This may be admitting to a misdemeanour or apologising. It may

be recognising the chain of events that led to it so you can avoid it happening again.

Be kind to yourself when doing this. You’re going to rake up some deep nastiness. Don’t try to do too much

too quickly.

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 Find this di�cult?Sometimes, you can feel deep shame that stems from childhood. This shame is so ingrained that it takes

an expert to remove it. If you’ve got feelings of shame that are debilitating, then counselling or

psychotherapy may be the best option.

If, on the other hand, you’re aware that you feel shame now and then in your life, but it’s not preventing you

from living a normal existence, working with a professional coach can help you work through the shame.

In particular, coaching can help:

Plan strategies to deal with shame-filled situations

How to deal with situations where you sometimes shame others.

For example, coaching could help you develop a new role as a manager where you feel out of your comfort

zone and prone to feeling that you’re not good enough. Or help you plan strategies in dating when you feel

shame about something about you (body image, interests, background). Alternatively, it could help you

understand why you behave in certain ways when triggered online or in meetings or in family situations and

help you to move through them with care and respect for others.

For more information about my brand of online LGBT+ and kink aware life and executive coaching, go to

www.englishleathermaster.com and arrange a free chat with me to discuss how coaching can help move

you to a better, shame-free life.

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 Being yourself

 Being yourselfFinding your authentic self

DancingI’m a terrible dancer. I have a good sense of rhythm but my arms and legs flail about all over the place. In

ballroom dancing classes, they talk about ‘isolation’. This means that you can move different parts of your

body separately. For example, your hips can rotate while your torso stays relatively still. I can do isolation.

However, in my case it means that the different parts of my body want to do completely different styles of

dance, on different sides of the dance floor, at the same time.

But I love dancing. So, I dance. I go to clubs

and I find a spot that is large enough for the

entire bulk of my body to thrash about with

limited collateral damage and dance my heart

out.

And you know what? People may smile,

people may enjoy looking at this great

galumphing 6’2” beast gyrating. But no one

ever says anything bad and no one ever tells

me to get off the dance floor. Not even when a stray limb hits someone in the face while I do an interpretive

dance version of an epileptic fit.

I tried to explain this to my sub a while back. He had told me previously that he really liked dancing but was

scared to do it in public. He felt judged by the people who watched him. But he LOVES Kylie Minogue, and

we ended up at a club in Vauxhall, London, where they were having a Kylie night. So I told him I wanted to

see him dance. My sub froze. He was terrified. This was the worst thing in the world I could ask him to do.

The fear on his face was palpable.

You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.

Olin Miller

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 Being yourself

Now, as his Master, I can order him to do things and I can punish him. I ordered him to dance. I threatened

several horrendous punishments if he didn’t. And yet the fear was so great that he couldn’t do it.

Here’s the thing. When we were having this conversation we were already on the dance floor. He was

standing stock still in the middle of a load of people making an absolute tit of himself by not dancing. No

one was looking at anyone dancing (or at least, if they were, it was with admiration or to try and catch their

eye for a shag). People were looking at my sub and me as we stood and I bullied, cajoled, begged him to

just move his fucking feet.

What was going on here was that my sub’s sense of shame was so great, that he didn’t realise what truly

leads to rejection on a dancefloor: not being yourself. Standing still. He missed out on what he loved by

attributing his own self-judgement to others.

The end of the story is a happy one. I managed to get him to make the first few steps (by using some on-

spot hypnosis) and he eventually managed to start dancing. And he loved every moment. If anyone

noticed him dancing, no one said anything. They were too busy enjoying the moment to judge others.

Meeting others’ expectationsWe all find ourselves doing things because others expect us to do so. Some people end up going to

university, or into the family business, or into the army simply because our parents wish us to. Family

expectations are some of the strongest driving forces, and it takes a lot to resist them.

Other people start down a path and find it

impossible to get off due to people’s

expectations. I wonder how many engagements

would end before the wedding if it weren’t for the

fact that cakes had already been baked,

deposits paid and clothes bought?

Even in work, we end up taking the promotion because we’re expected to, or “iPage 55

 Being yourself

No one is immune to the perceived pressure and expectations of others. “Just another pint.” “You’ll come

along, won’t you?” “You’re not into that are you?” “Isn’t she awful!” We find ourselves agreeing just to fit in.

Worse, once we’re on a path, it’s so hard to admit that it’s the wrong path that we do anything we can to

stay on it. We tell ourselves stories. “I’m a City fan for life!” “I always wanted to be a…” “A different life

would be unbearable.” “I can’t do without…”

And it’s even worse if we tell others that we want to change because then we add the shame of admitting

we’re wrong. Imagine how difficult it would be to tell your family that, after 10 years of medical training,

you’ve decided you want to become an actor. Or that the boyfriend they told you was wrong for you

actually was wrong for you.

We end up living a life that’s built around other people’s desires and expectations, not our own.

Sexual identityIn a previous job, I used to travel the world giving training to teachers. I ran courses that lasted from one-

hour to two-days in as disparate places as Cairo, Dubai, Bali and northern China.

As a cisgendered middle income Caucasian man, I’m the poster boy for European privilege. I used to pull

on my suit, walk into a room full of people and have the respect of the room just because of the colour of

my skin and my job title. It’s hard for me to talk about what other people think.

Some of my colleagues, however, were deeply religious. Some were Muslim, some Christian. So what

would they do if I told them I was gay?

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 Being yourself

I made a decision early on to just be open with my colleagues. If one of them asked about my relationships

I’d simply say “I broke up with my husband last year, but I’m single now.” Or something similar. Let the

context do the talking. Then that person had a choice: Choose not to work with me; choose to work with

me, but not to socialise with me; or accept who I am. Everyone continued exactly the way they were. As I

was the first openly gay man that some had encountered, I was naturally asked questions, but they came

from a place of true curiosity and a desire to learn.

My BDSM life was always more hidden. I remember so many occasions on a Monday morning at work

when people would say “How was your weekend?” and I’d think about the fact that I was elbow deep fisting

a sub, or pissing in someone’s mouth, or floating down the river in Berlin eating cake and having my boots

licked (true story)… and say “It was fun, nothing particularly special.”

Why would I do that? I had an amazing life and I’m sure at least some people would be interested in it.

Now, admittedly, part of this is safety. There are some jobs that being outed as gay alone is enough to get

you fired. There’s others that may be able to cope with that, but admitting anything on hanky code would

cause management to question your fit for the company. Never, ever, expose yourself to a level of danger

that you’re unhappy with.

The other driver behind this behaviour is fear of social rejection. We feel this in the emotion we call shame.

Deep down inside, the stuff I was doing at the weekend was, in my mind, something that my colleagues

would reject me over. I wanted to be part of the group more than I wanted to share who I truly was.

This is not to say I needed to give them blow-by-blow accounts of who I’d done what with. No one needs to

know exactly what their colleagues do in the bedroom. I’m talking about being open about my interests,

and how they impacted my life.

Now, you might be reading this and thinking “Why would you share that you’re into BDSM with your

colleagues?” Think about it this way. What’s the difference between these two sentences?

“I spent the weekend making a quilt with my needlework friends.”

“I spent the weekend at a fetish event with my puppy friends.”

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 Being yourself

The only thing that separates them is the underlying shame that we feel about sex… and the fear of

rejection due to it. In as much as I don’t ask my needlework loving friends for details, they don’t need to

ask me for details.

Of course, I’m not advocating that you tell everyone everything. I’m just posing the question: Why do we

keep some things to ourselves? And the answer is more often about fear of rejection or shame than

actually wanting to keep it to ourselves.

My authentic selfI’ve talked about other people here, but I’ve conveniently skirted around the actual issue of who I am. What

is my 'authentic self'?

The authentic self is the person who shares your dreams at night. The one who, when you close the

bathroom door, is staring at you in the mirror. They may be hidden behind a mask, but they’re there.

We all have layers of who we are and different masks we wear in different circumstances. Finding who you

truly are, what defines you, is a hard process. It will also change over time.

In my teens I defined myself as a swotty student who was focused on going to a great university and who

was going to change the world, probably through science. I made choices to leave the arts behind and I hid

my sexual identity from most people. What I had were goals (get into university, get a boyfriend) but not a

vision (what my life would be like and why I would be doing it).

As time went on, my goals evolved, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes through choice and

sometimes because I’d reached the previous goal and had to find another. Quite a lot of the time, I followed

my nose. Sometimes the choices I made were more about moving away from a choice I didn’t like rather

than about moving consciously towards something. For example, I realised that I didn’t want to work in the

money markets in the city, but didn’t really have a clear view of what I wanted to do instead, which is one of

the reasons I ended up in education.

Over time, I’ve been able to develop a much longer term vision of what I want in my life. Partly, this has

been because I’ve been able to discover the values I have at my core – those real drivers that guide my

decisions. Discovering them has helped me focus on what I want, and work towards that end.

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  Being yourself

On a lifelong scale, this is scary and difficult to get your head around, so let me give a very small example.

It’s Saturday night. I think about what I want. Do I want some rest after a hard week? Do I want to

dance? Do I want to fuck? Do I want some mental stimulation? Some company? Some art?

I plan my evening with that outcome in mind. A friend calls and asks me to do something else. I can

abandon my plan and follow, I can try to persuade my friend to do what I want, or I can ditch the friend

and carry on with my plan. I have the choice. If the friend doesn’t accept that I may not have the same

vision for my evening as they do, then they have a choice as to how to behave. If they reject me as a

friend, I’m down one friend, yes, but I don’t have to persuade that friend again to do what I’d like or give

up on my dreams.

Inherent in the above example is the fact that I personally have a strong belief that every adult has a right to

make their own choices. I don’t value connection that forces me to accept their idea of a good time. I prefer

a small set of friends who understand me to a large group who dictate what I should do and feel.

I am also comfortable putting on masks when appropriate. When I train professionals in Cairo or Amman, I

don’t stand in front of the room wearing leather gear. I don’t talk about being gay. I focus on the important

job I have. My personal vision of the delegates becoming more effective in their jobs due to my work

overrides my need to be seen.

For those who want to know, my personal values include: caring for others, legacy, mutual respect and

openness/non judgement. They drive all I do.

Your authentic selfIt’s one thing for me to say that I don’t give a shit about what other people think. I live a life of openness and

I’m happy doing so. But for many that doesn’t resonate. So I’m going to help step you through the

processes behind moving forward in life to become who you truly are.

I am not about to drive everyone to disclosing everything to everyone. The heart of this section is to

understand who you are and make a conscious decision about how you show up to others.

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SafetyIt would be unethical of me to continue without a side note on safety.

If you are in any danger due to making a choice to be seen, think very carefully. Being alive and healthy is

more important than self expression. If you put others at risk, think very carefully too.

There are plenty of organisations out there who are willing to help you get safe if you’re at risk. Whether

you need to talk to the police or a women’s or gay men’s group or other charity or agency, please do so.

They’ll have specific advice for your situation. Please don’t just rely on advice from random Twitter posts or

Instagram pictures.

This is the most important sentence in this book so I’m going to make it big and bold.

Sometimes this means you have to hold back on your ultimate vision of the best life you could lead. If

you’re gay and live in parts of the world where gay men are catfished and beaten, be very, very careful.

Find a route that allows you to escape if you can. If you’re becoming aware that your assigned gender is

not your true identity, but your hyper-religious family may lock you away if you let people know you’re

transgender, hold back. Plan your steps carefully. The first step should be finding someone to trust.

The most powerful questionThe most powerful question you can have in your armoury is:

Is that true?

Let me give you a few examples:

My dad is homophobic.

Is that true?

Well, yeah, he says loads of anti gay stuff, but then so does everyone in his circle of friends. What’s

actually true is that he doesn’t know any openly gay people apart from the ones on TV.

Whoever you are, whatever your identity, whatever you’re into, you deserve to be safe.

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I’m a bad person if I upset my friends by saying no.

Is that true?

No. They upset me all the time by not doing what I want to do, but I still love them.

I’ll be sacked if my boss finds out that I’m into pup play.

Is that true?

Not sure. I need to check the terms of my contract. Is there anything that could put me at risk?

Use “Is that true?” When you catch yourself making an assumption. Unpack it. Then come up with a plan

for what to do next.

 Exercise: Who are you?Set aside about an hour for this exercise.

This exercise will help you identify whether you’re showing up in all areas of your life in the way that you

wish to. It’s first and foremost about choice: are you choosing how people see you? Or conforming to other

people’s views of you? What assumptions are you making about people’s views, beliefs and potential

responses?

Step one: How people see youWe all have different roles we play and masks we wear. Maybe you’re a son, a co-worker, a manager, a

wife, a sexual partner, a friend, a training partner, or a Master.

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1. Choose three or four of these roles. They could be the ones that you spend the most time playing or

are the most important to you. Take a piece of paper and write each role at the top of the page.

2. For each role, think of a person who knows you as the person in that role. For example, your mum

knows you as “son”. Karen from accounts knows you as a “co-worker”; your Master knows you as

“slave”.

3. Write each person’s name on each piece of paper. So it could read “Son seen by mum” at the top.

4. On each piece of paper write words and phrases about how that person would describe you. How do

you show up to them? It may be helpful to imagine that person giving a speech at an event. Your

graduation, birthday party, or retirement party.

Step two: Who you really are5. On a fresh piece of paper write your name twice. This is “Me seen by me”.

6. Write the words and phrases that you know you are deep inside. Some of these may overlap with

the phrases others would have used. Some may be your deep personal secrets. You may be a

calm, considered person on the surface, but you’re paddling madly like a duck under the surface.

There may be contradictions here. You may be a team player to those at work but fiercely ambitious.

Step three: Comparisons7. Now look at the pieces of paper. They will be different, and this is entirely right and normal. Your

mum doesn’t need to know about your prowess with Excel and Karen from accounts doesn’t need to

know that you iron your underwear.

8. Ask yourself the following questions:

son seen by mum

Caring, considerate

Forgetful

Likes eating chicken pot pie

Loves animals

slave seen by Master

Loyal

Adventurous

Trusting

A bit naughty

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 Being yourself

Am I who I want to be in all of these situations, or am I being who someone else wants me to be?

Am I missing out by not showing all/other elements of who I am to each person?

Am I comfortable in each role? Does it make me happy? Do I have to go against my own core

values to play this part?

Am I truly on the right path here?

At this point you are likely to start seeing one of the following patterns emerging.

A. You're on the right path in everything you do and you're comfortable in all the roles you play. You're

happy about how you're showing up to everyone in life.

B. You're on the right track, but need to make a few tweaks to feel more authentic and happy.

C. You need to make some serious changes.

If you’re answering A, congratulations! You’re doing everything right. That’s great.

If you’re answering B, then you need to do some further work to identify what the changes are. It may be

obvious to you what you need to do, but you may need to have some help from a friend or a professional

coach to find the right path and the best ways to do things. The guidance later in this book will also help.

If you’re answering C, then you have some serious work to do. Working completely alone is going to be

tough, so I’d strongly suggest you get help from a friend who you can trust or a coach. Don’t try to change

everything at once – we aren’t wired in to allow too much to happen in one go. Take it slow, plan how you

want things to change and make sure you have a clear destination in mind before you take any drastic

steps.

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 Being yourself

 Find this di�cult?There’s a lot in this section. It’s about discovering who you are, who you want to be and how you show

yourself to people. It’s tough stuff and can be pretty hard on your own.

Coaching can help you sort all of this out. ICF (International Coach Federation) accredited online coaching

from www.englishleathermaster.com can give you a non-judgemental space to explore your desires and

needs and to consider how to move forwards in life. Asking for help is the first step in moving forward to

living as you – not as others want you to be. Check out my website to find out how LBGT+ and kink-aware

coaching could help you show up more authentically and help you live your best life.

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 Trust

 TrustWho can you believe?

People who fail to regard the truth seriously in small matters, cannot be trusted in matters that are great.

Albert Einstein

Why is trust important?I’m a naturally trusting person. I don’t know if this is because I was brought up in an affluent area that was

fairly free from crime, so I didn’t know too much of the dangers of trusting people, or whether it’s just in my

genes.

Over the years, I’ve made mistakes both good and bad

with trusting people.

In business, I was often tasked with interviewing

candidates for jobs. I generally trusted my instinct, and

often believed what people said in interview. When I

offered people jobs, I found that about 80% of the time, I

had been right. The person was great at the job. About

20% of the time, I made the wrong call. The reasons varied. Maybe the person wasn’t who they said they

were. Maybe my questions didn’t elicit enough information to be able to make the right decisions.

Does this 20% mean I trust the wrong people? I don’t think so. If I’d gone with the safe bet each time, I’d

never have moved the organisations I worked with forwards.

In both my personal life and professional life, I have a lot of messages every day from people wanting to

connect. I have to make quick decisions about whether I want to invest time in people or not. There are a

number of data points I use to help me with this. For example, if someone doesn’t have a clear face picture

and wants to connect on Twitter, I’m going to be more wary than if they have a feed full of pictures of

themselves. On LinkedIn I’m more likely to trust someone who’s linked to people I already know.

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 Trust

I’ve been known to use reverse image searches to check that pictures aren’t stolen, and google to check

that text is unique. I have certain red flags (such as anyone who says their phone camera is broken –

which is the standard excuse for someone who’s lying about their identity).

Sometimes, I’ve made very, very bad decisions. I let two people very deeply into my life who people

around me warned me about. I was naïve about what they wanted and they ended up hurting a lot of

people. One got so bad that I needed to get the police involved. It’s a shame, because situations like this

make you more wary in the future.

As humans, we naturally crave connection. We evolved in a very different world – in small packs

wandering around the plains of Africa. We needed people around us to help us survive. Our brains need

more sustenance than we can get from just raw food, so we needed to divide up tasks with some hunting,

some cooking, and some looking after the children and the living places.

If we wandered off out of the pack, or if we were banished, we felt bad. It was nature’s way of herding us

back to be with others like us. Similarly, throughout history, we had to learn how to trust people quickly.

This has led to some built-in mistrust of people who are unlike us or unfamiliar to us – we often have to

work hard to overcome this. But it’s also given us tools that we can use to help judge people’s

trustworthiness such as the ability to read people’s body language.

For example, we tend to trust people who are more open in the way they present themselves, with wide

open arms, a winning smile and who will look you in the eye. We’re less likely to trust those who can’t look

at us and seem to be hiding something.

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LGBT+ and kinky people have a particular issue: we may be around people, but generally our families are

not LGBT+ or openly into BDSM. So we start to reach out to find connections through clubs, bars, parties,

or the internet. By doing so we can build a community around us of like minded individuals. How do we

know who we can trust if we don’t know them?

How and why we trust peopleWe trust people for different reasons:

Some people, particularly children, are inherently trusting. They believe all they are told and always

assume good intentions.

Others believe that people are generally good and will give people the benefit of the doubt unless

we’ve got a specific reason not to trust other people.

If people have trusted us with something, we often return that trust.

If someone who we trust has vouched for someone who comes into your life, we’re more likely to

trust them.

Sometimes, there’s an ‘insurance policy’ behind the trust. For example, we would trust an electrician

to be in our house if we knew who they worked for; we allow maids into our rooms in hotels.

We trust most those who we have ‘tested’ and have shown to be trustworthy.

This last point is important to consider. We’d be insane to give people we don’t know anything about the

keys to our house the first day we met them.

Testing trustSo how do you know who to trust? It’s important to know your own boundaries. Recognise what matters to

you and what isn’t so important. For some people, their private lives need to remain private. If you’re a

politician, or live in a religious community, you’re going to have to be more careful than if you’re an out gay

man whose face and naughty bits are all over Twitter.

With someone new, test the waters. For example, if you meet someone online and are concerned about

sending a face pic, ask to have a quick video call to check the person you’re talking to is who they say

they are.

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A plea to those people who have to be discreet: Remember, trust works in both ways. If you don’t trust

someone with a picture of you, why should they trust you enough to meet you? Recognise that your limits

may end up compromising someone else’s. Try to find a way around the challenge that works for both of

you.

Moving deeper into relationships, allow a new friend to take your dog for a walk before asking them to look

after them for a week. Let your new fling hold your phone while looking at pictures and see if they

immediately go to swipe. Or leave your browser open while you leave the room for a while.

Yes, this is testing, and yes, you could be seen as being manipulative, but ultimately your goal is not to

catch someone out, but to help yourself trust them more. It’s the intention here that’s important.

Always have a get-out clause, and (especially early in relationships) make sure you have other people who

can support you. Make sure people know where you are, who you’re with, and when to contact the

authorities if things go wrong. Don’t tell new people too much too quickly.

One of the biggest red-flags for trust is if someone pushes you to overshare or trust too quickly. If

someone starts to emotionally blackmail you (“You say you love me but you won’t give me your phone

passcode”; “If you really trusted me you’d allow us to stop using condoms”) it’s time to move on. The only

reason someone pushes for that is if they don’t trust you or they’re trying to do something that you won’t

like in the long run.

Build a trustometer (see the exercise) to be aware of where you are with the different people in your life and

to ensure that you’re comfortable in everything you do.

 How BDSM plays with trustBDSM play necessarily fast tracks the importance of building trust. Both dominants and submissives must

trust one another with anything on a continuum of simply being discreet up to edge play that could

endanger life. Sometimes the excitement comes precisely because we’re handing over trust, or asking

someone to trust us. For example, in a glove-over-mouth situation, a dominant holds his hand over a

submissive’s mouth. The submissive trusts that the dominant will only hold the hand there for long enough

for the submissive to feel a thrill, but not so long that the submissive is harmed. The dominant enjoys the

feeling of control and being trusted.

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 Trust

Make sure you’re clear about your limits when going into a session with someone, and be very clear about

what happens when they’re pushed.

Often, people will have hard and soft limits. For example, you may allow anyone to piss on your body, but

you may have hard limits of swallowing piss or piss in your ass (or vagina). However, you may allow

someone you know well and trust to piss in your mouth without making you swallow. This is a soft limit.

Don’t ever allow yourself into a situation that you can’t get out of without having deep trust in someone.

Binding all four of your limbs or total mummification should be limited to those people you know well (or at

the very least are well known by mutual friends you trust).

Pre-contracts and safe words should be discussed.

I personally reject anyone who says that they have “no limits” as they don’t know how dangerous BDSM

can be. I point out that could mean I do anything from breath control to cash rape, fisting or more extreme.

It’s been said many times before, but alcohol, drugs, poppers and fatigue can all have an effect on your

ability to safely decide what you should accept. If you’re a sub, never let a dominant who’s under the

influence take control over you. If you’re a dominant, make sure you’re sober enough to be able to watch

for signs of distress or health problems. You don’t want to harm someone or end up in jail for harming

someone because you were too drunk to notice that your ropes were too tight or your whipping too severe.

And remember, in more and more jurisdictions, sexual activities with someone who is intoxicated could

leave you wide open to very serious charges.

 ExerciseBuild your own trustometerSet aside about 30 minutes to do this exercise.

Everyone has different levels of trust and they are often contextual. For example, in some cities I’ve

visited, ladies can leave their purses on tables in bars and go to the dance floor for several hours and the

purse will be in the same place they left it. In others, people have to hold on to their glasses for fear of being

spiked, and valuables are kept on your person at all times.

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 Trust

1. Put the following into a hierarchical list that starts from “I’d do this with anyone” to “I need to know

you extremely well to do this with you”. Add any points that help you, and delete any that are

irrelevant.

Access a printable pdf of these cards from www.englishleathermaster.com/downloads

Leaving your pet in someone’s care for a week

Lending someone your car

Giving someone the keys to your house Allowing someone to sleep on your sofa

Condom-free sex with someone Tasting food someone prepared

Following advice on how to get somewhere in a new city

Allowing someone to swipe through photos on your phone

Undressing in front of someone Sharing your deepest secrets

Allowing someone to view your internet browser history

Giving your personal phone number to someone

Accepting a lift from someone Meeting someone for coffee in a public place

Giving someone right of attorney over your finances

Adding someone to Facebook

Allowing someone from your kink world to meet your family or work colleagues

Asking someone to hold your stuff for 10 minutes

Telling someone who you’re meeting before a first date

Lending someone a book

Sending someone online a face pic Asking someone to babysit your child

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 Trust

1. Now you’ve got your trustometer, add some names to different points on the scale indicating how

much you trust that person.

2. Think about why it is that each person is at that place.

3. Finally, consider whether each person is at the right place. Would you want them to move up or

down? If up, what would they have to do to prove that they’re worthy of more trust? If down, what’s

going wrong? Why are you over trusting?

Never share your trustometer with anyone on it. They’re likely to be upset by their position.

 Find this di�cult?We all have blind spots. It can be difficult to objectively think about how we trust people alone. Working with

a professionally trained coach can help. Professional coaches help by asking deep, powerful questions

that shine a light on the areas that we’re afraid to look at ourselves. A good coach won’t give advice, but

will help you to discover what you have to do in order to live the best life. Have a look at my website,

www.englishleathermaster.com to learn more about how online coaching can help you and others in the

LGBT+ and kink communities move forward in life.

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 Trust

 If it goes wrongI have lost count of the people who I have spoken to in the LGBT+ / BDSM world who have told me that

they had very distressing experiences. I know many people who have been robbed, drugged, raped,

abused or hurt. Sometimes by complete strangers, sometimes by people they trusted or even loved.

If this has happened to you, know you’re not alone. Many people have been through what you’ve gone

through. No one deserves to have their trust removed. You did not deserve what happened to you. No

matter what the circumstances.

Please try to reach out to friends, family, or the many organisations that help people who have been

through abuse. They’ll be able to guide you to the best ways of getting help. Many offer counselling, advice,

or just someone to tell your story to. Don’t be ashamed. You will have people who love you for who you are

and will help you. Professionals will understand and have heard it before whatever the circumstances.

People will not reject you; they won’t think worse of you.

Ask yourself what you’d do if you found out a friend or loved one had been hurt in the way you’ve been

hurt. Your friends and loved ones care about you like you care about them. Allow them to help.

If you can, report the abuse to the authorities. It will hurt, and it may open the old wounds, but is that worse

than hearing that the same person did it to someone else when you could have stopped it?

Be kind to yourself. Take positive self-care. Walk in nature. Talk to friends. Have some time away from the

city. Book yourself a massage. Give yourself time to reflect and heal. Don’t blame yourself.

Try to avoid too much numbing: sitting in the dark, drinking alcohol, and eating unhealthy food may feel

good for a few minutes, but they make you feel worse the day after.

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Please get help. However, if you really, really don’t feel you can talk to anyone, try this:

Tell yourself the story of what happened as if it was a third party. De-personalising can make an

experience easier to cope with. Pushing it under only makes things worse.

Ask yourself who you were in the story. Watch out for negative words and accusations. Were you

really “asking for it”? Were you really “stupid for trusting”? Make sure you remember who really was

at fault here.

Figure out how you would have played things differently. Sometimes you simply couldn’t have. On

other occasions there may be simple changes you can make to stop the same thing from happening

again.

Be kind to yourself. It wasn’t your fault. You did not deserve what happened. Give yourself time to

feel hurt and pain. Then try again and see if you can talk to someone. Believe me, it will help. Holding

it in will only make it feel worse in the long run.

Whatever you do, please don’t withdraw from your circle of friends and please don’t stop trusting people.

Not everyone is bad. Most people want the same things you do: love, warmth, compassion, connection.

Trust takes time to come back and you may find that people get pushed right down your trustometer.

That’s natural, allow that. But know that it will come. Re-evaluate your trustometer from time to time and

see if you can push your own limits of trusting people.

In time, what happened will just be another part of your life. You learned, you healed, you moved forwards

to a brighter future.

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 Rejecting comparison

 Rejecting comparisonWhose measuring stick are you using?

Go compare!In the late 1990s, a clutch of comparison websites started appearing online that compared everything from

airline tickets to car insurance. Customers were able to put in their details, their needs, and then compare

the prices and details of a number of products.

These websites remain popular, as they give us the best value for money and ensure that we're getting

what we need. I use a number of them to this day.

When grades are posted on a board at school,

students won’t just check their own scores – they’re

comparing themselves to others.

We compare material possessions like phones or

computers as a proxy for wealth. We snoop around

people’s houses, disappointed when they have a better

location or more bedrooms or higher quality furniture.

A while ago I was talking to a young submissive who had just got a new job. He disclosed that his new

job paid almost twice as much as the previous one. Not knowing much about his industry, I assumed

that this would be equivalent to what I was earning at his age. Later, though, he revealed to me that he

would be earning more per year at the age of 26 than I had ever earned per year after two decades of

work. Of course, jealousy struck.

It took me a while to decide what to do with this. Like many emotions, jealousy can be positive or negative,

but only if we’re awake to what it’s telling us. Negative outcomes of this jealousy would be to allow it to turn

into shame (“I’ve wasted my life.” “I’m not as good as him.”) or anger (“How dare people in his industry get

paid more than people in my industry?”)

ensure that we’re getting what we need. I use a number of them to this day.

Comparison is an act of violence against the self. Iyanla Vanzant

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 Rejecting comparison

A positive outcome would be to turn it into a goal. “If he can get that, so can I!”

However, I chose to take a third route. I cultivated within myself happiness for the life I live, and a

realisation that him getting more than me didn’t reflect on me. It just meant that he had made different

choices that led to a different outcome. Pay is not be ‘fair’ between industries; just because I didn’t get the

same as him doesn’t mean anything worse about me. It could mean that he’s brilliant and deserves that

salary. It could be that he made better choices. Or it could mean that he’s ‘sold himself’ himself to an

industry that demands things of him that I wouldn’t accept. Whatever the truth, it’s not for me to say, and

simply comparing one element of our lives is unhelpful. The only person the comparison could hurt is me.

There are many things that we compare that we have no way of changing. Genetic effects such as height,

cock size and ability to eat pizza without putting on weight have little to do with choice. There’s no point in

beating ourselves up about them. We are who we are; we’re perfect in our own way and there’s someone

out there for each of us. Instead of comparing, we should cultivate self compassion and realise that we’re

great the way we are.

There are other times that comparisons can be positive. For example, when you notice those around you

being promoted faster than you, you can sit and feel angry and resentful about it, or you can plan your next

steps to get to the top. Or, maybe you need to evaluate whether the job, company or industry you’re in is

actually the one you’re suited to. If people are passing you by because your heart isn’t in the work, maybe

it’s time to move on.

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 Rejecting comparison

Yellow carsOne way of breaking the cycle of constant comparison with those who have it ‘better’ than you is to realise

that you’re not doing too badly. Maybe you need to look for yellow cars. Unless you live in a city like New

York (with yellow cabs), yellow cars are rare. We don’t

even notice them until we look for them. Next time you’re

walking down the street, look out for them. There will be

more than you expected.

The same is true for many things. You notice the people

with the well positioned desks at work – you don’t notice

those with a desk that’s worse than yours. You notice the

people with better phones – but actively look and you’ll see the people who are still using older models. It’s

rare that we’re the worst in the room.

Whilst this approach may break you out of the “poor me, I’m doing so badly” cycle, it’s ultimately

perpetuating the comparison approach. You’ll end up making yourself feel better by making people feel

worse.

Getting out of the cycleA more powerful way of breaking the cycle is by redefining success.

It’s so easy to see the top 0.0000001% of people with their private jets and penthouses and telephone digit

incomes and wish that was you. But is that really what you want?

Think about the things you really enjoy in life. How many of those would be changed by having the life of

Jennifer Lopez, a Kardashian, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma or the Queen?

Personally, I love sitting in a coffee shop watching the world go by and reading a book. They can’t do that. I

enjoy eating weird street food from market stalls in new countries. They can’t do that. I like meeting new

people and having passionate sessions that don’t end up in the tabloid press. They can’t do that. I like

looking forward to a holiday as a change and giving and receiving gifts that excite me. If you’ve got

everything already, how can you get excited?

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 Rejecting comparison

So what exactly, is the success that these people have? If you define success by material wealth, they’ve

got it. If you define success by power, the ‘World leaders’ have it – but I’d question whether anyone, no

matter what political persuasion, achieves success in politics without some serious driving ambition and

the willingness to push aside those who get in your way. How does that play with your personal values?

So instead of comparing yourself to others, compare yourself to yourself and make your own measures of

success. By all means, want a better job. More money. Bigger biceps. More free time.

However, when you’re working this out, think of the bigger picture. What will improve once you have these

things?

Recognising your uniquenessIt’s so easy to see the airbrushed magazine view of beauty as the only one that is acceptable. But who

decided that? If you look back at magazines from different decades, you’ll see that what is classed as

beautiful now is not what was classed as beautiful previously. As soon as we realise that we’re being force-

fed a story that there’s one way that we should look, we can stop worrying about whether we’re conforming

to it.

In the West, advertising for fake tan, tanning salons and holidays are all designed to sell Caucasian people

the impression that we have to be dark and tanned to look good. In Asia or in Black communities,

whitening creams are all the rage as the cosmetics industry makes money by selling exactly the opposite

story.

One of the most telling types of thread I’ve seen online are those which put up a picture of a number of

guys or girls and say “which would you pick?” There is generally one person that I am personally drawn to

– but when you read the comments, there’s someone attracted to every one of the ‘options’. There’s

someone out there for you, and you’re out there for someone… just as you are. That’s why strip clubs

have a range of different ‘types’ on the stage. Each customer is looking for something different. Celebrate

your unique qualities.

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 Rejecting comparison

Don’t believe me? I’ve made money from being different. There’s tons of huge-dicked, muscled 20-

somethings online who make money being in videos. My dick isn’t huge. I have a belly and I’m in my 40's,

but I make money from posting horny videos which are essentially me being me. There’s people out there

who like what I do. If I can celebrate who I am, so can you.

 LGBT+ and BDSM comparisonsWhile I was growing up, the stereotypical gay man was either camp, dressed outrageously and flirty, or

leathered up with handlebar moustaches. The classic Tom of Finland look was used as a uniform to

cement belonging during a very difficult period of gay history. Over the years, pictures of gay men in clubs

in magazines have morphed to a different aesthetic: muscled, 20-35ish, top off, six pack.

There’s numerous problems with this. Firstly, it sets a standard that is impossible for everyone to achieve.

Maybe you don’t have the genetic makeup that allows a six pack. Maybe you can’t afford a gym

membership. Maybe you value the taste of cake every day over a six pack on show once a week. If you

want to be in the ripped-body top-off brigade, that’s great. But only if you want it for yourself, not because

you feel you have to fit in.

Lesbians, transgender people and other groups all have their own norms that they may feel pressured into

conforming with. For example, why does a trans woman have to act and dress in a hyper feminine way in

order to be seen as valid?

If you want to go to a fetish club, you’re likely to have checked out photos from previous events online or in

the magazines. Again, you’ll see people with the best equipment that you couldn’t afford in a million years.

What you won’t see is the hundreds of people who are also there wandering around in stuff cobbled

together from eBay or second hand shops. The magazines and websites show the pinnacle – not the

normal, and certainly not the merely acceptable. For many who haven’t been, this puts a barrier to wanting

to go (“I can’t go to that club as I don’t have the gear”). If you catch yourself comparing yourself to those in

the perfect outfits, you could either aspire to get the best gear when you can afford to, or you could decide

that a thousand dollar jacket isn’t as important as a holiday. It’s your choice. Not others.

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 Rejecting comparison

Similarly, Twitter and Instagram are full of pictures of kinky people in well stocked playrooms. It’s important

to remember that this is not the norm for people into BDSM. Most people have fun with much less. By all

means aspire to have a fully functional dungeon, but you don’t need it to start. I personally have discovered

that the best scenes take place in my home or generic hotel rooms, with my hands, feet and body as the

main equipment. And don’t forget, 90% of pictures are cropped to show you what the photographer wants

to see. They avoid the angle that shows an overflowing laundry basket or a pile of takeaway pizza boxes

beside the sling.

 ExerciseWhere do you compare yourself with others?Set aside about 30 minutes to do this exercise.

1. Make as many sentences from the grid below as you can. You may need to add in words or phrases

to make it relevant to you. The words and phrases in the grey column are only examples; you may

wish to choose completely different words.

Examples:

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2. Now, turn each sentence around. What does this mean about yourself?

I get angry with anyone who has a bigger salary than me. I don’t think I’m paid enough.

I compare myself to people who have smaller boobs than me. I’m proud of my boobs and they get a lot

of attention. But I get some negative comments and that hurts.

3. Consider each of these turned-around sentences. How can you be kinder to yourself with each?

Suggestions may include:

Is this what I really want? If I was to get it, how would my life be better?

Would getting this impact on other areas of my life? How?

Can I actually change this? Should I just recognise that there’s a world out there of people and

everyone is different? I’m part of that world.

Is it time to change? Is there something I should be doing instead of doing what I’m doing? Is this

feeling a call to action?

Who’s dictating the measuring stick here? Am I conforming to someone else’s prescription of what is

good? If so, how can I take back control?

 Find this di�cult?Some people have deep shame within them that manifests as comparison issues. If this comes from

childhood trauma or abuse, then working with a counsellor or psychotherapist may be a good option.

If, on the other hand, you need some help to just get a little better in the way you act and react to others,

then working with a professional coach can help. During coaching, you can work with a coach to consider

how you’ll react in situations of potential stress (for example, when you go into a club or attend a school

reunion). You can consider the reaction that you may have and learn strategies to improve the reaction.

Coaching can also help you plan to get a better life if some of the stress is caused from being stuck. If your

job isn’t what you want it to be, if your talents aren’t being properly utilised, if you haven’t got to where you

want to be in life, coaching can help you formulate a plan to move forwards.

Have a look at my website: www.englishleathermaster.com and find out how online LGBT+ and kink aware

coaching can move you forwards in your life and work.

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 Metaphors

 Your own personal metaphorsIf you were a…

Metaphors are doorways – wonderful integrative doorways providing huge transformational potential.

Marilyn Atkinson

Ways to remember who you want to beSometimes, it’s easy to get swept up in the moment. To get angry when you meant to be kind. To forget

that you’re on a diet when presented with chocolate cake. To lose your long term focus on the big picture.

Religions realised the power of metaphors and similes centuries ago. For example, one of the Buddhist

writings states:

Just as a storm cannot prevail against a rocky mountain, so Mara can never overpower the man who lives

meditating on the impurities, who is controlled in his senses, moderate in eating, and filled with faith and

earnest effort. Dhammapada The Pairs 8

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 Metaphors

The implicit idea is for the person learning to meditate to be “more like a mountain”. This is a great example

of a vision, rather than a goal. No one can ever be said to be a mountain, but you can always be more

mountain-like. So even the ‘best’ meditator can find ways to become better by constantly comparing

themselves to this ideal.

Christian kids have been wandering around for years with armbands emblazoned with the letters “WWJD”

– “What Would Jesus Do?” – the idea being that they can make decisions in life based on the teachings of

Jesus. How would Jesus react in the situation I’m in now? What does it mean to be “more like Jesus”

when faced with this challenge? You don’t need to be religious to use similar ways to remind you to act in

different ways. One of my subs once walked around with a bracelet which read “WWMW” – “What Would

Master Want?”

I developed a metaphor when I started coaching when I tried to answer the question “What is my purpose

as a coach?” I decided that my purpose was that of a torch (flashlight) in a dark forest. By helping the client

see, I am able to help them spot the different paths (options) available to them. My job is to help shine light

on areas that have been ignored or are hidden. By taking me on their journey, the client is the one making

the movement; I’m just there to help when they need. It’s not my journey.

Some people use metaphors in business. They want to be lions, or owls, or sharks, or wolves. It helps

them to focus on the person they wish to be. Others develop personas, Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce being a

great example. Eminem’s Slim Shady may not be the best role model but is another example of a

metaphorical persona. And of course, drag queens throughout the years have put on a new persona along

with the makeup and dresses.

Finding metaphors that work for youEarlier, I discussed the different masks people wear and how we show up differently. I’ve suggested using

your core values to help you make decisions, but it’s sometimes hard to stick to this in the moment.

Metaphors can help with this.

For example, maybe you’re a quiet ‘mouse’ type in meetings. You’ve got stuff to say, but you seem to be

ignored by the stronger personalities in the room. So you can develop a new persona based on a different

metaphor. “I’m going to be more like an owl. Quiet, but wise and powerful. When I speak, people will listen

to me.” So you prepare for meetings by being ‘more owl’.

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 Metaphors

Or maybe you find your parenting technique needs a makeover. You find yourself getting frustrated by your

kids’ behaviour and sometimes say and do things you regret later. Maybe you want to be more like

SuperNanny or Mary Poppins? (I’m sincerely hoping you’re not going to be more Child Catcher here!)

You may even want to think of inanimate

objects or organisations to be like. When I

coach, I’d like to be like one of the bars on

Folsom Street in San Francisco on a weekday

afternoon. The bartender has time to chat and

is interested enough to listen to your stories.

He’s seen enough that you don’t need to feel

ashamed about telling him everything, but he’s

not so full on that you can’t talk about normal

life or work, too. The bar is open and welcoming even if it looks a bit scary from the outside. And there’s a

great juke box so you can choose the music that fits your mood.

Reverse metaphorsAn interesting thing about metaphors is that they can work in reverse. Look at these three pictures. Then

describe the story the pictures tell.

Some people will see a series of shapes moving about. (Incidentally, if you don’t see anything apart from

shapes moving, you’re just a little more literal than others. There’s nothing wrong with that.)

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 Metaphors

Others will construct a story such as “The yellow triangle and the green triangle had an argument and the

yellow triangle was chucked out.” or “The yellow triangle went to work while the green triangle stayed at

home and went back to sleep.”

Often the stories we construct around metaphors can tell us about our state of mind.

Years ago, I painted a bathroom with sponging, which was all the rage at the time. Dark coloured

background paint with highlights in another colour sponged on top. The pattern was random but the weird

thing is I’d see different things in it due to my mood. When things were going well, I’d see happy patterns

(animals, food etc). When there was bad stuff going on, the patterns became demons and devils.

 Using metaphor in BDSMI use a simile when I explain my approach to domination to new submissives. I say that I see myself as

being like a conductor of an orchestra. A musician doesn’t come to a conductor and say “what would you

like me to play?” The musician approaches and says “I am a skilled piccolo player. Do you have a place

for me?” The conductor will then decide whether adding a piccolo player to his list of musicians will

improve the sound of the orchestra, or be dissonant. By knowing the skills of the player, the conductor can

get the best work out of them. By using this simile, I help the people I’m talking to understand where I’m

coming from and to explain what I am looking for. Communication is improved.

Other metaphors are so common in BDSM we don’t even recognise them as being metaphorical. Pig, boy,

daddy, god, cuck, bull, stallion, mare, puppy, Master, Mistress, brother, slave, gimp, object and bitch are all

used to explain what we’re into or the part we play. Some are pure metaphors and others are more like

labels or descriptions. We play with labels and enjoy using them. Some can cause harm if used incorrectly

(faggot, bitch, whore) without aftercare.

Some people take these metaphors very seriously claiming “You can’t do x because you’re a y!” Why is

that? It may work for some people’s relationships, but it doesn’t have to for you. Others reject the standard

metaphors as being too mainstream and seek to define themselves in new ways. Why shouldn't a gay

male slave be a top? Or a Dominatrix like being naked while attended to by clothed slaves?

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 Metaphors

The clothes, toys and equipment used in BDSM all have their own metaphorical value. Cages and chastity

devices are obvious metaphors for entrapment or capture. Rings, collars, tattoos and badges can all

symbolise ownership. Clothes can signal meaning, such as the classic “band on the left means top”. Even

positions such as kneeling or sitting on a raised throne can be metaphors for what a person wants.

Learning to read the metaphors can take time, but it means there’s a whole new language out there for

newcomers to recognise, play with and enjoy.

 Exercise 1Who do you want to be?Set aside about 30 minutes to do this exercise.

1. Think about an aspect of your life where you’d like to show up differently. It could be in your work life,

private life, or in your relationships.

2. Consider the following categories. Choose what or who you’d be if you were showing up in the way

you’d like. With each, consider why you’d like to be like that person or animal or object.

For example, when I’m coaching, the animal I’d like to be would be a guide dog. The human (client)

chooses the path and the direction, but I’m there to help along the way and to point out dangers. I’m friendly

and loyal, but can bite if required!

If you were a…. which/who would you be?

Animal

Car

Restaurant or bar

Food or drink

Book

Household appliance

Superhero

Fictional character

Historical person

Celebrity

Song

Movie

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3. Once you’ve chosen for each category, look back through your answers and decide which speak to

you the most. Some won’t fix and can be discarded.

4. Consider how you’ll use the best to move forward. Some people, for example, get a picture of the car

they’d like to be and put it on their phone. Or you could get a toy animal and put it on your desk. Or

you could simply ask yourself “What would x do in this situation?”

You may decide to keep your metaphors personal, just something to hold in the back of your head, or they

may become the cornerstone of your corporate branding. Be aware that what works for you may mean

something else for other people. Owls are wise to some; bad luck to others. Use metaphors wisely.

(In case you wondered, for me as a coach, the answers are: guide dog, (no idea, I don’t like cars), Folsom

dive bar, a unique cocktail created just for the client to his or her specifications, the Harry Potter series, a

mirror, Batman, Rafiki from the Lion King, Shakespeare, Whoopi Goldberg, Firework by Katy Perry,

Edward Scissorhands. The answers would be very different for me in my role as a dominant.)

 Exercise 2The journeySet aside about 20 minutes for this exercise.

1. Read this journey and try to imagine it in as much detail as you can.

This journey was adapted from one written by Sir John Whitmore in his book “Coaching for

performance”. You can download an audio version of this story from

www.englishleathermaster.com/downloads. This will help you be able to visualise the journey more easily

as you wont' have to read it.

You’re on a path walking through a wood. It’s a bright day, so the path is lit well and the woods look inviting

and peaceful. What type of wood is it? What are the trees like? What’s the path made of?

You’ve a destination in mind and you have a general direction, but you don’t know the path very well.

As you walk along, you come across a split in the path. It isn’t clear which direction you should be going.

How do you choose the path to take?

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 Metaphors

You continue walking and come across an obstacle in the path. What’s the obstacle? To continue, you

have to get past the obstacle. How do you do it?

You come across an animal in the path. What type of animal is it? It talks to you. What does it say? Does it

help you with your journey? How do you feel about what it says?

You continue and find a small house near the path. What type of a house is it?

There’s a person who is near the house. What are they like? The person invites you in and gives you food

and drink. They tell you three secrets that will help you on your journey. What are the three secrets? They

give you an item that will help you progress. What's the item?

You say goodbye and leave the cottage. You have a choice now. Do you continue in the direction you were

going, or do you retrace your steps? Do you go back to where you started or do you go back to the split in

the path and take the other path?

Follow the path to your ultimate goal. What do you find there?

2. Now think back through your journey. What does this metaphorical journey tell you about something

you are doing in your own life right now? What ‘journey’ are you taking in your life or at work? Go

back through the story and try to work out how the story informs you in how you should be moving

forwards.

Come back to this story in the future. You’ll find different advice from your own subconscious surfaces.

 Find this di�cult?This stuff can be pretty hard if you haven’t tried it before. Working out what you want to be like and how you

can use metaphors to show up can be abstract and daunting if you try to do it alone. For some people,

metaphors mean nothing; for others, metaphors work really well and become the centre of the way they

behave and act. Some even make them their mascot or incorporate them into the logo of their companies.

Working with a professional coach can help you discover the metaphors that work for you and to delve

deeper into them and use them to move you forwards. To learn more about online LGBT+ and kink-aware

life and executive coaching, go to www.englishleathermaster.com

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 Change

 ChangeWhat happens when we’re forced to change? How do we know we’re ready for change?

If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going. Professor Irwin Corey

Types of changeThere are two main types of change. Many changes are imposed on us. We’re forced to go to school and

change schools several times. We’re forced into work. Our job descriptions are changed and the

organisations we work for restructured. Some people lose their jobs. Laws change. The environment

changes. People around us demand changes. These can be stressful.

Then there are the types of change that we plan for. These are often slower to get going as we don’t like

change to start with, so to initiate changes ourselves is hard. We decide we want to get a new job. We look

for love. We leave our partners or add new partners. We decide to come out as LGBT+. We move home.

Even trying new things can be stressful for some people. I’ve known people to return to the same holiday

resort ten years in a row as the stress of even considering somewhere new overrode the benefit of

exploring.

Imposed changeIn 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote a book about death. She recognised that many people undergo a

similar series of emotions after the death of a loved one. She modelled these emotions on a graph that has

come to be known as the Change Curve. Over time, the curve has been widely recognised as a good

model for almost any major change, from being losing your job to your partner leaving you.

The timescales and order of each stage on the curve vary widely between individuals, with many people

cycling back a number of times before moving forwards. Some may take a few days to get through the

curve; others take years.

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 Change

The reason I include it here is twofold. Firstly, if you have change imposed on you, it may help you to

recognise the rollercoaster of emotions you’re going through. Secondly, if you impose a change on

someone else (for example, if you have to let an employee go, or break up with someone), you may be

able to anticipate each of the steps and be ready for them. Obviously, the more unwanted a change, the

more acute each of these stages will be.

The stages on the Kubler-Ross change curve are:

Denial

At first, the person may try to ignore the change or pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s possible that they “don’t

want to talk about it” or go quiet. They may numb the pain and shame that the change causes by drinking,

eating unhealthy foods or binge watching TV. To those around them, it looks like they don’t care. There’s a

lot of processing going on under the surface.

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 Change

Anger

When a person displays anger, it’s because something is coming in the way of what they want or wanted.

They’ve lost their job and are angry because they want it back. They’ve lost a loved one and get angry with

the guy he ran off with, or god, or cancer or whatever caused the change. The anger may manifest as

shouting and screaming, but other people show anger through withdrawal, self harm or other behaviours.

It's when I feel anger that I've been known to fire off emails which cause more problems than they solve.

Bargaining

Having calmed down, the person may start trying to come up with alternatives, compromises or

challenges. It’s about now that people start ringing up begging to be taken back and that they’ll change their

ways. Or go to church and pray for a cure. Or stride into the boss’ office and demand to be heard or they’ll

go to the papers about "the thing that happened last year".

Depression

Having realised that bargaining got them

nowhere, the person is now stuck in a state

of low mood. They feel impotent. Unable to

do anything, they become depressed and

sad. This may or may not be low enough to

warrant medical assistance, depending on

the circumstances.

Acceptance

After some time has passed – this could be hours or it could be years – there comes a point when the

person finally accepts that life moves on. The wounds are slowly starting to heal. Maybe the person has

found a new job, new love, or adjusted to living alone.

The new normal

In time, as with all things, the change will just feel like part of life’s long history of changes and another

story to tell. The person emerges a little older and a little wiser.

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 Change

Self-directed changeSometimes we want a change for ourselves. These are the changes that we decide we need, plan for then

make happen.

In business, there are plenty of models of change that can help us decide that we’re ready to make a

change. In life, there seem to be fewer. This model, developed by Hicks and Peterson in 1999, will help you

to think about everything that you need to have in place before you can fully make a change.

The idea behind the model is that it’s like a pipeline. If there’s a point in the pipe that’s very wide, that’s

great, but it can’t make up for a part that’s very thin. So, for example, if you have the motivation to do

something, but don’t have the capabilities, then you’re likely to fail.

The stages in this pipeline are:

Insight

This is when you realise that you need to make a

change. Whilst it may seem obvious that you know

you need to change, if you think about the number of

people you know who should have changed an aspect

of their relationships or jobs but don’t seem to know it,

you’ll realise how common it is for this to be at least

part of the problem.

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 Change

Quite a few of my coaching clients have approached me asking to discuss one issue, when the true

challenge was something else. In some cases, they suppress the difficulty at the heart of the matter. In

others they see a small, immediate problem, when a different one is more fundamental.

Motivation

Once you’ve worked out what the problem is, you have to want to change it. You may know that your

partner is unhappy with what you get up to over the weekend, but don’t feel you want to change it. You may

know that your manager is cooking the books at work, but you don’t like the idea of rocking the boat by

doing anything about it. Or maybe you know you have to give up smoking for your health but don’t want to

go through the pain of quitting.

Capabilities

So you know which change you wish to make, and you know you want to make it. Unless you’re able to

actually do anything about it, it won’t happen. This is the point in the pipeline where many DIY enthusiasts

fail. They want to take on the plastering but realise they haven’t got a clue how to do it.

It’s also the place where the thousands of people who open hotels and restaurants without the skills and

knowledge fall down.

Or sometimes, it’s the place where people who haven’t been dating for a while mess up. They’re not sure

how to behave at various points in a relationship or don’t have the communication skills to move forward.

Real-world practice

In a previous job, I spent time travelling to talk to companies about the need for good physics education. I

went to one very large company in the UK who employed many engineering graduates each year. They

complained that they picked up graduates who knew how to pass examinations at university, but didn’t

have a clue when it came to doing any of it for real. “Graduates can do advanced calculus but couldn’t fix a

bicycle,” they complained.

Likewise, you can read as many self-help books on anything from pregnancy to starting a business to

whipping a submissive… but until you’ve tried it, you won’t be able to do it very effectively.

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 Change

Some things, like pregnancy, we don’t get to practice. For these, we can go to classes and talk to people

who have gone through it, or get a guide, mentor or consultant to help us.

Commitment

Finally, nothing will happen if someone or something

isn’t pushing the change through. If you or someone

else doesn’t commit to the change and take

responsibility for making it happen, it won’t.

When I was a teacher, I lost count of the number of

new initiatives that were announced in September,

only to drop quietly off the radar as the year went on

and the teacher or leader who introduced them found that they had more pressing matters on their mind.

Diets also fail at this point of the pipeline. People know that they need to lose weight, have the motivation of

the beach holiday, know how to do it, have made all the recipes in the book before… but give up the

moment a cream bun is presented to them, or they’re invited out for drinks after work, because no one is

holding them accountable.

Finding commitment can be hard. It’s often easier to keep a promise to another person than to keep a

commitment to yourself. This is because it’s easy to explain your failure to follow through to yourself.

Admitting a failure to another person causes guilt, which we don’t like. So we’re more likely to work to

make a change happen if another person is involved.

It’s also helpful to consider the impact the change could make on you, or the people around you. By

widening the scope of the change, the drive to do it becomes greater, especially if you make promises.

“When I give up smoking, we’ll be able to start running together.” “I will have more time to go out with you in

the evenings once I complete this assignment.”

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 Change

Making change happenThere are whole libraries on how to make change happen once you’ve realised you want it. To try and

condense everything into a few paragraphs would be nonsense, particularly as the route to change varies

so much between different contexts – with the number of people involved, the amount of change, the

resources, the barriers, the drivers and so many more elements being involved.

For small changes, a simple to-do list is enough. For large complex changes, hiring a coach or even a

dedicated project manager may be appropriate. There are many resources out there on the web or in

libraries to help you with your specific needs.

 Change in LGBT+ and BDSM worldsTo illustrate the two models, I’m going to use two different scenarios, the first fictional and the second from

my own life.

Example 1: Coming out

A teenager tells their parents that they are non binary (they do not identify as male or female) . At first,

the father refuses to acknowledge the conversation. The father continues to use the teenager’s

deadname (the name the parents gave their child at birth) and refuses to use appropriate pronouns.

(Denial)

One day, sitting at the table, the father once again uses the teenager’s deadname. The teenager

reminds the father of their new name and asks once again that their father respect their choice of name

and the pronouns that work for them. The father starts to shout that he didn’t bring his child up to be like

this. That his child is going through a phase. He storms out. (Anger)

After calming down, the father tries to find a number of ways to coax the teenager into conforming with

their assigned gender. “I’ll drive you to the dance if you wear nice clothes.” “We will pay for your college

tuition if you admit it’s just a joke.” At church, he prays to God to help “heal” his child. He feels deeply

hurt and believes that he only needs to find the right argument and the child will get back onto the right

track. (Bargaining)

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 Change

Realising he won't get his way, the father goes into a deep, dark mood. He feels that he’s being

punished – by God, by his child, by fate. He feels that he must have done something wrong. He goes

through a period of self doubt as a father. He realises that the anger was wrong, but doesn’t know how

to make things better. He feels he has lost his child and wishes that things could be different. He knows

that things won’t change, but can’t see how to make them better. (Depression)

Gradually, over time, as he watches how happy the teenager is now with their new identity, he starts to

realise that things haven’t changed that much. The same TV programmes make them both smile. The

teenager still plays in a band and still plays sports. The clothing is a bit different, and the hairstyle is a

bit weird in his eyes, but the smile and the eyes haven’t changed. He’s not quite ready to accept

everything, but he avoids using the teenager’s deadname, calling them “love” instead to get around the

issue. (Acceptance)

A while later, an invitation comes through the door for a relative’s wedding. The parents’ names are on

the invitation, as well as the teenager’s deadname. Taking a deep breath, the father picks up the phone

and asks that the name on the guest list be changed to the new name. “They have changed their name

to …” (The new normal)

Example 2: Becoming a Master (Real life example)

When I was about 29, Recon (a gay fetish app) used to have chat rooms. I used to spend time in the

pup room as it had the best role play and wasn’t just focused on getting off.

Throughout my life, I had often taken the lead in things, but I hadn’t really translated this to my sexual

activities. Leather excited me, as did various activities associated with the kink world, but at the time I

didn’t see myself as a Master. I did find I enjoyed the play in the room. Over time, the role play started

to spill out into me telling people what to do in their real lives. I found I enjoyed the thrill and people

responded well. The more I videos I watched and the more I read about BDSM, the more I liked what it

could bring to me. (Insight low; motivation medium.)

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 Change

Having had a number of years as a teacher, a step parent and in leadership roles in various groupings,

I quickly found that I knew instinctively how to deal with people. I had high levels of empathy and was

good at picking up on what people said they wanted and turning that to my advantage. However, I didn’t

really have many technical skills in the art of being a Master. As much as I was good at the mental

side, I didn’t really know how the physical side of things worked. There were so many toys to explore

and dynamics to work out. I was a quick learner, though, and again, the fact that I was good at reading

people meant that I worked out good ways to play with people quickly. (Capabilities medium, real world

practice low)

Interestingly, the submissives I played with probably pushed me along the route. They wanted to call

me Master. They ‘expected’ me to act in particular ways. So I started to follow a path that took their

expectations and my skills together and helped me find a comfortable place where I could learn more.

Each submissive I played with or owned taught me more, and kept coming back, helping me to focus

on what I was doing and to how improve. This fed back to me having better sessions and enjoying the

scene more and more, making me want to improve. (Commitment high, real world practice increasing)

Clearly, over time, I’d hope that I’ve expanded the low and medium parts of this pipeline to improve my

abilities throughout. At times, I’m sure I’ve been complacent and thought that I knew it all (insight

reduces). At other times, I’ve tried something that I haven’t tried before, or expanded into a new area,

reducing other parts of the pipeline. The pipeline changes at each stage of development. Different

forces have helped force or encourage change. Different people, including myself, have helped to

cement the change, or to allow some potential changes to drop off the radar.

Considering change as a process, and planning that process in advance can help enormously in making

sure the change is successful. Understanding what we or others are going through when change is forced

on us can help us be happier throughout the process. It doesn’t matter whether the change is in our

personal lives or in work, the same considerations apply.

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 Change

ExerciseHow do you respond to change?Set aside about 40 minutes to do this exercise.

1. Think of two changes you’ve started. They could be giving up smoking, or moving in with your

partner or starting a new job. Choose one change that worked, and one change that stalled or failed

in some way.

2. Consider each stage on the pipeline by answering the questions below.

Change that worked Change that stalled or failed

Insight How did you know you were changing the right thing?

Where did the impetus come from?

Were you trying to change the right thing?

Where did the idea for change come from in the first place?

Motivation What kept you going through the process?

Were you motivated enough? If so, where did that come from? If

not, why did you start?

Capabilities What skills did you have to make the change?

Did you have the skills you needed?

If you didn’t, did you know that to start with?

Real world practice

Where did you gain the real world experience to make the change? Before making it or ‘on the job’?

Did you have the experience you required? If not, where could you

have got this from?

Commitment How did you stick to your guns and make it happen?

Did you commit to the change? If you were the one to give up, how

could you have kept going?

3. Look back at your answers and consider what these two experiences have taught you that you could

use in the future.

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 Change

 Find this di�cult?If you’re suffering deep grief following a change such as the death of a loved one or a serious illness,

counselling or therapy may be appropriate, especially if the change has meant that you cannot function

normally.

On the other hand, if you’re doing ok, and you want to make a change to life or work, consider hiring a

professional coach. Working with an accredited coach can help you to ensure that you have the right

elements in place to make the change successful. For example, a coach can help you to check each of

the stages of the change pipeline, work with you to develop a plan and then help build commitment to

ensure the change happens. To find out about how I can help you with any change, whether it’s in your life

or work, have a look at my website, www.englishleathermaster.com and find out about LGBT+ and kink

aware online coaching, whether for your personal life, your work life, or for your business.

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 Edge e�ects

 Understanding edge e�ectsWhat’s standing in the way of you moving forward?

Who wants to know a story's end, or where a road may go? Sheenagh Pugh

Beginning the journeyI couldn’t even begin to count the number of times I contemplated a change, then pushed it into the future.

“I’ll start tomorrow.” “I’ll look in the morning.” “I’ll talk to

him next week.” And that’s just the simple things like a

new diet, practicing yoga more often, or having a haircut.

Once it comes to the big things in life, taking that first

step feels like an impossible task. “A journey always

starts…” blah blah, I know. Thing is, I’m happy where I

am. Why take that step?

If every change was as simple as taking a single step, then we’d all be wandering around life taking

chances and trying new things and making changes all the time. But we’re not. Most people don’t like

change.

I’m a little different. I love change. Colleagues of mine have (non medically) diagnosed me with some type

of attention deficit disorder which means I’m constantly looking for another thing to excite me and get

pumped up by change. My idea of hell is doing the same thing over and over again. And yet even I have

those things that I can’t quite get myself to start (or, in some cases, stop).

How do we push ourselves over the edge to take that first step?

There are three types of edge: attracting edges, repelling edges, and blind edges.

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 Edge e�ects

Temptations: Attracting edgesAttracting edges are the changes that easy to make because we want to do them. There is something

pushing us to make the change. Marketing is a good example of an attracting edge. We’re constantly

bombarded with the message that the thing they’re selling is the thing that will make us happy. It’s the

reason that we buy new phones every couple of years or want a new car as soon as we’ve driven our old

one for a couple of months.

When we’re teenagers, ‘being an adult’ is a massive attraction, and we want to do anything we can to

seem like we’re adults. Drinking, smoking and having sex are all fascinating and attractive. Teenagers are

pulled to make the change from non-drinker, non-smoker and virgin with a strong force.

Unfortunately, quite a lot of attracting edges end up to be problematic in the long run. We end up in debt to

the phone company or the car dealership. We end up hooked on smoking or develop drink problems. And

sex can have issues too (although I’d contend not as many as some would like us to believe).

Some attracting edges are built into our DNA. Some 100,000 years ago, when our ancestors were

wandering in prehistoric Africa, two sources of energy we needed were in short supply: sugar and fat. So

we developed a taste for both. When early humans came across fruit, they ate it and loved it because it

supplied energy that could be used quickly. Similarly, when they ate fatty foods, their bodies stored the

energy for use over leaner times. So those early-humans who enjoyed foods rich in fat and sugar tended to

survive for longer and passed on their DNA.

Fast forward a few millennia and we find this code is still within us today. We find that cakes, chocolate and

ice cream are all incredibly attractive – because they have a combination of sugar and fat that is almost

impossible to find in nature. When someone brings in cakes at coffee time to the office, our bodies are

genetically programmed to want them, even though we logically know that the consequences are not going

to be great.

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 Edge e�ects

Obstacles to change: Repelling edgesWhy is it that the bad things in life are attractive, but the good things seem to repel us? Why is making

some changes so hard?

Sometimes, we’re fearful of the edge itself. Many people are stuck in bad relationships. Sometimes, it’s not

because they fear being alone, but because they fear having the conversation where they have to tell their

partner that they’re leaving.

People fear going to the gym for the first time because they’re afraid of looking stupid when they don’t know

where the locker room is or how to use the equipment.

People fear starting an evening class because they don’t know what it will be like at the first lesson when

they don’t know anyone.

These are all fears of the edge. We know deep inside that once we’ve got over that single hurdle,

everything will be fine, but somehow the problem with that hurdle seems bigger than any benefit.

Some of the strongest repelling edges are those people encounter when they try to give up an addictive

substance. The vast majority of smokers realise the benefits to their health, looks, smell and wealth if they

gave up, but they don’t quit because the barrier seems so big. Other addictive substances such as alcohol

and drugs keep people in a cycle where the edge seems worse than staying in the zone where they are

unhappy.

The opioid crisis currently engulfing the USA can be partially explained by two competing edge effects: The

attracting edge of taking away current pain followed by the repelling edge of giving up the painkillers.

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 Edge e�ects

Unknown changes: Blind edgesFor both attracting and repelling edges, we can usually see what will happen in the future. Teenagers know

that one cigarette can create a lifetime of dependency, but the push from their friendship group is strong

enough that they take it anyway. Adults know that leaving their toxic partner will be hard, but their lives will

be better afterwards. However, the fear of the act itself stops them from doing it.

Blind edges are those steps into the unknown. Should you take that new job, even though you don’t know

whether it will work out? It’s that friend who pressures you into trying a pill at the club. The smoking hot

dominant who says he won’t use condoms. The advertising boards enticing you to get a new car. We can’t

know the result in advance. The pros and cons are hazy.

Resisting attracting edgesIt can be very difficult to resist attracting edges, even as an adult. Whether it’s our inner glutton whispering

“Go on, you deserve that cake! It’s only one slice!” or the people around us pressuring us to do something

we know will only end in tears, it’s hard.

Religion and society

Several systems have been developed to try and help us avoid attracting edge effects over the years.

Religion has had great success in stopping people from giving in from their desires for everything from

alcohol to foods (that may at one time have been dangerous) to incest. Religions encode useful advice as

‘laws’ or ‘the true path’ or ‘the way to heaven’.

Secular laws attempt to stop people from drinking and smoking at too young an age, or from having

access to certain types of drugs. And societal codes stop us doing things that are very attractive, but have

a bad long-term effect, like telling our partner’s parents exactly what we think of them.

Making promises to others

A very powerful way of resisting attracting edges that appeal to you specifically is to admit the issue to

someone else, and to promise that person that you’re not going to give in to temptation. That’s why a lot of

substance misuse programs include a sponsor or group therapy. This works in two ways: it weakens the

attractiveness of the edge (having another drink, going for one more hit) to begin with, and adds a negative

effect in that you know you’ll have to admit if you succumb to the temptation.

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 Edge e�ects

I’ve had a number of submissives who have asked me to help them to put limits on things they don’t want

to be tempted into – everything from eating too much to masturbation.

There’s something about authority that’s built into us that helps to avoid temptation. It’s easy to think that

religion stops us from doing what they consider wrong because of fear of eternal damnation or coming

back as a cockroach. However, it’s more likely that the power comes from our own avoidance of shame

and guilt. I’m an “evil person” if I go against the teachings of the church, or I have to admit that I’ve done

wrong if I’m found out. We naturally want to make our religious leaders, dominants, personal trainers,

coaches and parents happy and proud of us.

Whenever I’ve had a personal trainer, I’ve ended up eating better even though they haven’t talked about

diet, because I wanted the trainer’s approval that I’d made positive changes to my body outside the training

sessions.

Likewise, when I have learned languages, if I know my teacher will test me on my vocab, I’m far more

likely to learn the words than if I know the teacher won’t recap what we did last lesson.

Overcoming repelling edgesMost people have things in their life that they’d like to change, but the challenge of actually going through

with it seems too great. Whether it’s giving up smoking, asking someone to go on a date with you,

changing your job or starting at the gym, the challenge feels bigger than the benefits. So we stay stuck in

the current situation.

So how do we overcome these seemingly insurmountable barriers?

Getting help from others

As with attracting edges, working with a group, a friend or a coach can help. They can hold your hand as

you make those first steps. Having a personal trainer to introduce you to the gym is a great idea, as you’re

shown the ropes and have support along the way. Getting professional help to support you overcome the

pain of withdrawal from drugs (legal or not) or alcohol is a great first step. Making a pact with friends to

observe ‘Dry January’ or ‘Stoptober’ can help to reduce alcohol and smoking respectively by adding peer

support to a positive change which has a repelling edge.

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 Edge e�ects

Logical analysis of the change

If you have to make a change on your own, sometimes logically looking at the pros and cons of making a

change works. However, as humans we have an inbuilt bias to prefer the status quo. Therefore, we’re

likely to give more weight to reasons not to change than to doing something different. For example, maybe

you don’t feel like you’re getting enough money from your job. But you manage to persuade yourself to

stay even though there’s no prospect of a pay rise. You tell yourself stories like “It’ll be too hard to find a job

at this time of year,” or “This job is really convenient for commuting.”

Many people will have used models that help plan change in the workplace. At work we’re less emotionally

attached, so it is easier to use logical analyses of change. However, there is nothing stopping us from

using these models in our personal lives.

One example of a way of modelling change is to use Lewin’s force field analysis. It’s essentially writing

down pros and cons and adding weightings.

A number of factors both for and against the change are chosen. These are then scaled according to

importance. The actual numbers given to each doesn’t matter, the important part is how big the numbers

are relative to each other.

Example: deciding whether to buy a new car.

In this case, the total of the factors for change is 20 and the total of the factors against change is 23,

meaning that the analysis suggests that change is unwise.

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 Edge e�ects

A more advanced use of this analysis is when you want to make a change, but you need to consider what

may get in the way of the change. When used like this, you need to consider how to reduce the factors

arguing against change. In the example above, for example, the “Large initial outlay” could possibly be

reduced by taking out a loan rather than using savings. This could reduce the size of that arrow to 8, tipping

the balance in the favour of buying the new car.

Future visualisation

Breaking up is one of the hardest repelling edges, even if a relationship is toxic. It’s so easy to get bogged

down in the list of things you have to do in order to move out that you end up talking yourself in a circle and

deciding it’s not worth the change. You don’t just have to tell the person that you’re leaving them, with all the

emotional issues that already causes. You also have to physically move out. You then need to tell your

friends and your family. Sometimes you have to admit that you were ‘wrong’ to people which is incredibly

hard. It all seems too much even if you’re deeply unhappy.

For massive changes like this, one of the most powerful ways of deciding whether the change is worth it is

imagining what life will be life once the change is made. “If you pressed a button and your significant other

disappeared, what would your life be like?” By removing the emotions involved in the break up, you can

focus on the emotions you’ll feel after. Maybe you’ll realise at that time that you do want to stay together. Or

maybe you’ll be more firmly decided and willing to push through the barrier.

Future visualisations are very powerful for repelling edges. If you’re trying to give up smoking, consider

what life would be like if you didn’t have to run out for a quick cigarette every couple of hours. Or if you

want to get fit, visualise how you will feel 6 weeks into a new diet and exercise regime.

Incremental changes

For some changes, small steps are all you need. Instead of going on a crash diet, drop one bad habit out of

your diet each week. These changes won’t feel like much, but will build up over time. For binge drinkers,

setting your alarm for 30 minutes before you went home last time to tell you to finish earlier may help. Keep

setting your alarm for earlier until you’re able to go out and have a smaller number of drinks without being

tempted to go over the top.

For people who work exessively long hours, try turning off notifications after 9:00pm each day for a week.

The following week, change that to 8:30pm and so on.

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 Edge e�ects

Changing the context

Sometimes changing our environment helps. Smokers tend to congregate in specific areas, so avoiding

them will help you reduce the amount you smoke. If you keep making excuses about starting at the gym

because it’s out of the way on your normal commute, drive to work for the first couple of weeks of

going.You can then drive to the gym after work without making excuses. Getting through the door in the

first place and getting into a routine is the challenge you have to overcome. You’ll burn off the difference in

calories in no time.

Dealing with blind edgesThe scariest type of edge is the one where you can’t predict the consequences. Stay in the company or

take the payoff? Invest in a house, or leave the money in the bank? Go on that date or stay home? Try a

new thing in the bedroom or stick to what you know?

All of the strategies above will help to some extent, but you need to gather as much data as you can before

making the decision.

Think about:

What you can know What you can’t know

What you know

You already know these things. Weigh them carefully.

You know the ‘known unknowns’ – those things that can’t be known or won’t be known. An example is “I

know I don’t know what will happen to house prices in the next few years”

Think about the best and worst case scenarios.

What you don’t know

Find out what you can. What sources of information can you

use?

This is your blind spot. Try to make it as small as possible by asking as

many people as you can for advice, and by doing as much research and

planning as you can.

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 Edge e�ects

Once you’ve gone through the grid, look at the whole picture. Decide whether you have enough information

to make the change. Then consider whether the benefit of going ‘over the edge’ is worth the potential risk.

 Sex and BDSM edge e�ectsSometimes, taking that step to trying out new things sexually can be daunting. Since starting my Twitter

profile, I’ve been contacted by a number of people who are virgins into their 20s or even 30s. Often, they

haven’t had sex because they’ve been told that gay sex is immoral by whichever religion they follow. The

strength of authority can be very strong if you’ve been taught your whole life to follow a particular way of

thinking. Unfortunately, what I’ve seen is this leads to some very conflicted people who live on the edge of

wanting something but feeling that getting it would be wrong.

For others, the exact opposite may be the case. The pressure in some groups of people to have sex, or to

try something you’re not into can be immense. If you talk to some people on the gay scene, not drinking,

not taking drugs or not fucking anything that moves is seen as abnormal. People are looked down on for

wanting monogamous long term relationships.

In both cases, the push from outside can override what we truly want for ourselves. To say no to drugs

feels like you’re saying no to your friends. To say yes to having sex feels like denying the existence of a

deity that you believe in with all your heart. There are no easy answers here, but think carefully about what

will make you happiest in the long run. Whether it’s your religion or your friends who are making you happy,

ask whether the god you believe in, or true friends, would force you to feel that way. Good people make

you feel good about yourself.

Going to your first fetish party can seem like a massive step if you don’t know anyone. Maybe you don’t

have enough gear or the right look – but remember, the people you see in the pictures are hand picked by

the photographers for having the best gear and the best bodies. If you don’t have a six pack, don’t worry.

Most of us don’t. I never will have one and I’ve been to more parties than most and enjoyed all of them. As

for gear, my first leather was a pair of shorts I got from some stall at a Pride festival. The next few items

came off eBay and I added to and replaced my kit as I found what I liked and started earning more.

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 Edge e�ects

Some activities in BDSM may be daunting and difficult to know whether to make that move. Should you try

whipping, or water sports, or fisting, or breath control? The simple answer is not unless you’re ready. There

are loads of resources online to help you learn about each of the different activities and about any safety

considerations. Team up with someone who knows what they’re doing the first time or go to one of the

classes at major fetish events. Add to the amount of information you have, make the decision and then try

it when you’re ready. Remember, very few things in BDSM mean you can’t go back. Just because you

tried it doesn’t mean you have to do it again.

 ExerciseHow do I deal with change?Set aside about 30 minutes to do this exercise.

1. Think about a change that you’re considering making but you’re struggling with.

2. Ask yourself what’s preventing you from making the change?

Is it:

A repelling edge (where the challenge feels greater than the benefit of the change)

An attracting edge (pushing you to make a potentially bad change)

A blind edge (where you can’t know what’s behind the edge)?

3. Now fill in this grid:

What will happen What won’t happen

If you make the change

If you don’t make the change

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 Edge e�ects

As an example, the decision to change job:

What will happen What won’t happen

If you make the change

I will get a higher salaryI will have more

responsibilityI will have to work longer

hours

If you don’t make the change

I won't be stressedI will stay friends with my

current colleagues

I won’t stretch myselfI won’t be able to pay off my credit

card for another 2 years

4. Look at the grid. Does it suggest that the change is worth making?

5. If it is, look at the strategies for dealing with change in this chapter. Which strategies will help you

make the change?

 Find this di�cult?Almost all of my coaching sessions involve change. This is a massive subject that really can’t be

summarised effectively in a few pages. If you’ve a simple, obvious change that you need to make, it’s

easy enough to do this alone or with the help of friends.

For a change involving alcohol, drugs or anything else that you feel is taking over your life, there are many

professional services around that can help support you. There are many different modalities from

hypnotherapy to group therapy or rehab. Each suits different people. You may find just picking up the

phone is a challenge in itself, but imagine how much better you’ll feel once you’ve made that first step.

For people who want to make changes to work or personal life, working with coach can really help.

Coaching can:

For more information on about coaching, please go to www.englishleathermaster.com

I won’t be able to join the local salsa dance team as the commute is longer

Clarify the goal of any potential change

Ensure that the change is worth making

Plan strategies for making a change

Ensure you follow through with your plan

Evaluate any changes to ensure that the

change is sustainable.

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 The drama triangle

 The drama triangleBehind every toxic relationship

People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions.

Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary

unknown. Chuck Palahniuk

Victims, persecutors and rescuersIn 1968, Stephen Karpman published a theory about relationships so brilliantly simple it has survived to this

day. It describes three possible behaviours within relationships. These relationships can be between any

combination of two (or more) adults. Often they play out in romantic or sexual partnerships, but people can

play these roles in the workplace, in families or even in short-lived relationships like salesman-customer.

Karpman suggested that we all default to one of three positions when we’re in relationships. The three

positions are the victim, the rescuer and the persecutor. Each position has their own desires and

behaviours that force others to give them what they need.

The victim cries “Poor me!” and “Help me!” They like

everyone to believe they are in circumstances that make

it impossible for the victim to move forwards in life. There

may have been external factors that led to these

circumstances. For example, they may have been

victimised by people (eg bullying at work, abusive

relationships) or by circumstances (eg low pay, illness,

geography). What makes a drama triangle victim stand out from someone simply unfortunate is that

victims never do anything to help themselves. They actively avoid taking steps to make their lives better,

often finding 'reasons' why they can’t. They can be heard making excuses like “I don’t have the

time/energy/money to do that.” “There’s no point, it won’t help.” “I’m too stupid/ugly/sick.” They may feel

ashamed of who they are, but almost purposely will not see any way of changing it. They can’t see a better

life. They find decision making and problem solving impossible.

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What’s important to realise about victims is they are very happy to be defined by this role. We all know

people who are happy playing certain cards in life again and again. “I never have any money!” - even

though they could easily get a better job. “My boss is always bullying me.” – but they won’t change jobs or

go to HR. There are also some people who are ill who are victims and it seems to be all that they are. “I

can’t possibly do that because my x is playing up today.” – they seem to find any reason to exaggerate

their suffering and crucially don’t take basic steps to improve their situation. Note: there are some people

who are truly ill and cannot improve their lot. I am not talking about these people.

Victims don’t do well on their own. They need persecutors to push them down into the victim role.

Meanwhile victims also search for rescuers to do all those things for them that they should be doing

themselves.

When alone, victims either become clinically depressed or are forced to help themselves – which stops

them being a victim, which is where they feel the most comfortable. Instead of this, they will actively seek

out toxic relationships that keep them in the cycle.

Persecutors insist “It’s your fault!” and force

people into the victim role. They are constantly

criticising victims, becoming angry when they

don’t get their way. They find fault in everything

the victim does and often blame them even for

circumstances out of the victim’s control.

Persecutors are the bad guys, but they’re not

always obvious abusers. Often they are more

likely bullies who seem to pick on the little things. For example, the passive aggressive manager nitpicking

and demanding that things are done in a particular way. Persecutors often use shame to push the victim

further down into victimhood. “You’re so stupid.” “You can’t do anything right, can you?”

Examples of persecutors could be the boss with unobtainable high standards, or the friend who is

constantly giving unrequested ‘constructive feedback’.

The persecutor may be selfish, but that doesn’t mean that the victim is getting nothing from this. Don’t

forget, the victim has built their whole identity around victimhood. So they thrive on being victimised. That’s

why some people seem to end up in abusive relationships again and again.

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Sometimes, the persecutor isn’t a person, but a situation. Poverty, a bad job, and illness can all play the

part the persecutor does in keeping the victim in victimhood.

Rescuers are the white knights of the drama triangle.

They ride in, sweep the damsel in distress off from

the clutches of the dragon and then ride to safety.

Except, they don’t.

Rescuers get validation from helping other people.

They enjoy being the one seen to be saving the

victims. But of course there’s a problem. Once the

victim is saved, they’re not a victim anymore. And

both the victim and the rescuer need that victimhood

to continue in order to keep their positions.

So the rescuer has an inherent advantage if they

over rescue to the point that the victim can’t do

anything to help themselves.

Switching rolesThe interesting thing is, most people have a primary role, but they can move. A classic switch is the victim

who becomes a persecutor to the rescuer. Imagine the following situation between an elderly mother in an

old people’s home and her daughter.

Mother: I hate it here. I’m so lonely. I’m so bored. The food is so awful. (Victim)

Daughter: I’ll talk to the staff and see if they can arrange more activities and to liven up the menu.

(Rescuer. Note – the mother could talk to the staff, but chooses not to. The mother is left firmly in

victim mode as the daughter maintains her role as The One Who Helps by talking to the staff.)

Mother: It’s your fault I’m in here anyway. You should have asked me to come and live with you.

(Persecutor)

Daughter: I would. But I have to work all day and the house is too small. (Victim)

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  The drama triangle

The drama triangle and meI’m naturally a massive rescuer. I spent most of a long relationship ‘looking after’ my boyfriend. When we

met, there were circumstances that meant it was right to help and he deserved all the help he was given.

However, as the years progressed, I found myself helping when he could have helped himself. Things like

when he was home all day and asked me to pick up takeaway as I travelled home from my work when he

could have cooked (“I was tired/busy/had a bad day”). Or when he was having a bad day mentally and

begged me to ring the electricity company or whoever. This happened so often that he lost the ability to

speak to people on the phone.

I thought through all of this that I was helping, that I was the ‘good guy’. Turns out, I was simply propping

him up. The best analogy I can use is if you always allow a child to use training wheels on a bike, they will

never learn to ride properly. When you suddenly take the training wheels off after years… they fall over.

Which is precisely what happened when our relationship broke up.

 The drama triangle in BDSMThere are some very obvious links between the drama triangle and some BDSM relationships. We will

discuss the good ones in the next chapter.

Sadly too many people who call themselves masters or dominants, particularly online cash masters, are

just bullies… which means they’re persecutors. They use shaming, guilt, anger, criticism and other forms

of oppression to push people into victimhood. They encourage feelings of humiliation, powerlessness,

shame and self-hatred.

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 The drama triangle

These persecutor-masters seek out weak, lonely, sometimes mentally ill people and ‘show their

dominance’ by pushing them further down into victimhood.

Meanwhile, these victims revel in the fact that they’re seemingly incapable of solving their own problems.

The persecutor-masters tell them repeatedly that there’s something wrong with them, that they’re

pathetic… and the victims believe it. It’s so easy to believe the hatred when you hate yourself. There are

whole ‘expose the faggot’ websites built around victim-persecutor relationships.

Rescuers are rarer in the BDSM world, at least overtly, as their dynamic doesn’t fit so neatly. Some are the

servant-type submissives who wish to help others have better lives. They do jobs for other people, rushing

in and supporting them even if they don’t need support. They feel pointless if they don’t have jobs to do or

someone to help.

Others are the dominants who deliberately look for the oppressed in order to save them. However, instead

of doing this in positive ways, they rescue by making the oppressed totally reliant on them. These

dominants will screen the messages that submissives get “so they don’t get any problematic ones” or

make decisions that the sub should be making themselves about relationships or work. They may plan

meals for the submissive to ‘help’ them lose weight, or insist on going to the gym with them ‘to push them

harder’ – but are actually developing a reliance on the dominant.

It’s worth pointing out that not all roles are as obvious. I’ve met many submissives who have such a rigid

view of what they want that they stray into persecutor territory. “I would have submitted to you, but you

were wearing black socks and I’m only into white socks. I told you that before we met.” “I don’t like

submitting to anyone who wears deodorant and you obviously put some on earlier.”

For other people, like me, BDSM was a way of escaping the drama triangle. I believe I got into BDSM as I

was so busy rescuing, it felt like a nice change to order people about. So I played with my primary role by

doing something completely different. This worked well, although I did find myself defaulting to rescuing at

times. My Recon profile was subtitled “Benevolent dictatorship” for a long time… classic rescuer. The

message I was sending was “I’ll tell you how to get better, and I’ll do the work for you.”

The following table summarises some of the ways that victims, persecutors and rescuers show up in

BDSM relationships. We will discuss escaping the drama triangle in the next chapter.

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Submissive Dominant

Victim Submissives with deep issues around self-respect and shame.Submissives who actively seek out abusive relationships.Submissives who complain constantly about their lives but do nothing to help themselves.Submissives seeking extreme, often permanent, victimhood. For example those looking to be locked up, or blackmailed, or exposed online.

Dominants who complain about their lives or the fact they can’t find sexual partners. “No one can ever be bothered to meet me.”Cash masters who whine about needing money for rent or to pay bills.Dominants who use vague excuses of illness to explain why they need a submissive to do domestic chores instead of doing them themselves.

Persecutor Submissives with very strong views on what should happen in scenes and relationships and who complain if they don’t get their way.Often these submissives will not actually communicate their wishes beforehand. “You called me boy, not fag. You’re not a real Master.” The best way of spotting these submissives is by turning them down. They always turn angry.

Bullies and other abusive dominants who seek to hurt. This can be in the form of physical or mental abuse or financial abuse. They often ignore limits or seek out submissives who have no self respect or self worth who they can push around.They get angry and abusive when they don’t get their way.

Rescuer Submissives who seek to “help” dominants by doing more than the role would suggest is needed. Whilst many submissives like domestic work, these submissives will seek extra ways to serve as they feel useless without constantly helping. Sometimes this ends up de-skilling the dominant or encouraging lazy behaviour. They seek out lazy or incapable dominants.

Dominants who build dependence in many ways amongst submissives. They ‘help’ submissives by solving their problems, or by taking their problems off their hands. They often seek out submissives with issues such in order to “look after them”.

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 ExerciseWhat’s your primary role?Set aside about 45 minutes to do this quiz and the questions following it. You can download a printable

copy of the quiz from www.englishleathermaster.com/downloads which will make it easier to complete.

1. Look at the statements below. For each, give it a score:

0: I do not identify with this statement.

1: I identify somewhat with this statement.

2: I strongly identify with this statement.

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  The drama triangle

Role Victim Rescuer Persecutor

Statements A, C, H, O, P, T, U, Y, Z, CC, FF

F, J, K, M, N, S, V, W, X, BB, DD

B, D, E, G, I, L, Q, R, AA, EE, GG

Total score

Score between 0 and 7: this isn’t a strong role you play.

Score between 8 and 13: you sometimes fall into this role; it may be your secondary

Score between 14 and 22: this is likely to be a primary role for you.

2. Once you've worked out your primary and/or secondary roles, answer the following questions.

For all roles:

How does this manifest in your life?

What do you feel when you’re in your primary and secondary roles?

How do you feel about people in the other roles?

Who around you is taking the other roles?

What impact do these roles have on you and those around you?

When do you play a different role from your primary role?

If you play the victim role:

How does playing that role make you feel?

Is that how you want to feel?

What options do you have?

Who or what is persecuting you?

What are they getting out of it?

Who is rescuing you?

What are they getting out of it?

Do you really have no power to change your circumstances?

If you play the persecutor role:

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Who are you pushing into a victim role?

How do you gain from that?

What are they getting out of it?

Who is rescuing them?

How does playing the persecutor role make you feel?

Is that how you want to feel?

When have you been wrong about things?

Could you be wrong more often than you admit?

How could you help people to become more resilient, resourceful or effective?

If you play the rescuer role:

Who are you rescuing?

Are the people you’re helping really incapable of helping themselves?

Are you stopping the person from growing and learning?

How do you gain from that?

What are they getting out of it?

How does playing that role make you feel?

Is that how you want to feel?

How could you help people to become more resilient, resourceful or effective?

We will discuss how to get out of the drama triangle in the next chapter.

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  TED: The empowerment dynamic

 The empowerment dynamic trianglePositive adult relationships

Viktor E. Frankl

Turning the drama triangle upside downThe drama triangle is often presented as an inverted triangle:

The victim is in the “one down” position and the other two roles are in the “one up”, with the point being that

the persecutor and rescuer work to keep the victim in the lower position.

So how do you get out of the triangle?

If you tell people what you want, you can be accused of being a persecutor.

If you have problems, you can be accused of being a victim.

If you help people, you can be accused of being a rescuer.

What else is there?

To illustrate turning the drama triangle around, let’s consider a particular situation.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s

attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

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   TED: The empowerment dynamic

Your partner (who is not the most organised man in the world) comes back from the doctor and has been

prescribed a number of different medicines for a condition. They have to be taken at two or three different

times in the day.

The classic drama triangle would work like this:

Partner: I can’t cope with all these different pills. They’re so confusing. (Victim)

You: It’s ok. I’ll help. I’ll help you set up an app with reminders and put the pills into containers so they’re

easy to remember. (Rescuer)

Later, you’re away for a couple of days for work.

Partner on phone: The system broke down.

My phone deleted the app and now I’ve no

idea what I should be taking when. If you

hadn’t set up this stupid system, I would

know what I should be taking. Now I haven’t

got a clue. (Persecutor)

What can you do instead? Let's play the

scenario in a different way which flips the drama triangle on its head.

Partner: I can’t cope with all these different pills. They’re so confusing. (Still playing victim)

You: I feel your pain. Now, what options have you got to make it easier for yourself? (Coach)

Partner: Hmmm. I hate technology, so that’s not going to work. Maybe I could set up a series of pill

boxes, one for each different time of the day. I always have the radio on, so I’ll know when the morning

show is playing I will take the first set. Then the drivetime show will be the next, and the last set of pills

will be when I brush my teeth. (Creator)

You: Sounds good. Is that strong enough though? Will you always remember according to what’s on

the radio? (Challenger)

Partner: I see your point. OK, true. Maybe I need to link the pills to mealtimes. That’s going to be more

powerful. (Creator)

You: Good idea. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you with this. (Coach)

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 TED: The empowerment dynamic

This scenario exemplifies The Empowerment Dynamic (TED) triangle. This was developed by David

Emerald Womeldorff in 2009. The three roles are the creator, challenger and coach.

Where in the drama triangle, the victim was powerless, and unable to find solutions, in the TED triangle, the

victim becomes a creator. They become able to find their own solutions.

Genuinely believing in the creator’s ability to create, the challenger and coach work with the creator to find

the best solutions. A habitual persecutor finds ways to turn judgement into constructive criticism. Likewise,

a natural rescuer asks meaningful questions and supports in a non-invasive way instead of jumping in and

solving all the problems.

In this dynamic, the adults become resourceful. They do not force other people into roles. They do not

become reliant on others perpetuating their place in the triangle and they do not become end up supporting

others unsustainably.

The table below will help start you on your journey from drama to empowerment.

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  TED: The empowerment dynamic

Starting points to empowerment

A victim To become a creator…Look within you for solutions to your problems.Consider a range of options.Question whether barriers to change are truly there.Ask for help with specifics, but do not expect others to do the work for you.Accept constructive criticism, but know you don’t have to listen to it.Be aware when people are propping you up and deskilling you. Make sure you are able to live without the other person there, if possible.Ask the question “what do I want” – and check the answer is within your control.Ask to be shown how to do things rather than let people do things for you.

A persecutor To become a challenger…Recognise that not everyone wants the same things as you.Cultivate respect for others’ choices.Help others on their journey by asking if they’d like advice before giving it.Be constructive in your feedback. Give reasons and offer alternatives.Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.Practice mindfulness or stress-reduction to reduce anger.Take a deep breath and count to ten before speaking. Question why you’re saying something.

A rescuer To become a coach…Acknowledge that everyone is capable of making their own decisions and finding solutions to their own problems.Don’t try to solve everyone’s problems.Allow people to grow in their own time.Allow people to learn through failure.Be there to help, but watch being sucked into the long term.Ask open questions that raise awareness of possibilities, not closed ones designed to lead someone down a particular path.Don’t jump into solutions.Offer to teach people to do things for themselves.Let people fail if they’re not helping themselves to allow them to learn.

If you were previously…

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  TED: The empowerment dynamic

 The empowerment dynamic in BDSMSurely BDSM is all about drama? Isn’t it about deliberately playing with the drama triangle? Aren’t the

traditional roles specifically mappable? Gimps, faggots, sluts and losers are victims. Masters, Dominants,

Dominatrices and the like are persecutors. Meanwhile servants and houseboys are rescuers.

Why break that up when everyone’s having fun?

There’s a number of issues here.

Firstly, the traditional dynamics can sometimes cause people to believe they are the role. As much as I

love being “English Leather Master” – I’m not all the time. He’s an exaggerated part of my personality and

ignores the parts of me that are nice to old grannies in the street and cry when I watch movies on planes.

It’s one thing for me to know that I’m aware of what is fantasy and what is reality. But how can I know when

I call someone “A pathetic small dicked faggot who deserves to be smacked around and used like the sad

loser he is,” that I’m not using trigger words that push him further into self-hate and depression? The

sentence is full of shame words – things that attack him as a human, not his behaviours.

So how can we play with these things ethically in a way that heightens the excitement but doesn’t cause

long term dependency or damage?

The table below helps understand how to use each of the three roles of the TED triangle in BDSM.

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  TED: The empowerment dynamic

Submissive Dominant

Creator Discusses their needs, fantasies, limits and concerns with the dominant before any session.Clearly offers options that work well for them.Sets out the skills that they have and how those skills could be of use to the dominant.Is open with feedback on what went well and offers ideas for how to make even better use of the skills in the future.Offers a set of trigger words, actions and phrases that work well to get into the submissive mindset and is clear about those that break the mindset.Offers ways that the submissive can help the dominant in ways outside play (eg through domestic use, help with work or similar).Remains open to listening for more possibilities and feedback and acting on it.Recognises the boundaries of play and offers ways that aftercare could be used to cancel out any negative effects of play.

Clearly expresses interests, likes and dislikes and helps submissives understand what works for them.Plans sessions, but does not assume that every session will follow a strict blueprint; is open to options and opportunities.Finds ways of dominating without embedding shame; watches carefully for emotional distress and dials up or down accordingly.Takes suggestions for sessions from submissives and then improvises on the fantasies provided.Outside sessions offers suggestions for how to continue the dynamic in positive, healthy ways that benefit both and fit with the needs, fantasies and likes of both parties.Finds novel ways of using situations, toys and equipment to keep sessions fresh and exciting.Varies vocabulary while being aware of the long term effect of what is said.Carefully plans aftercare to ensure ongoing mental and physical well being.

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  TED: The empowerment dynamic

Challenger Offers* constructive criticism on sessions.Offers feedback on the dominant’s style and suggests how to improve.Encourages dominants to think outside the box and try new things.Wishes to support the learning and growth of the dominant.

Offers* constructive criticism on sessions and the submissive’s conduct.Suggests improvements to help the submissive improve their behaviour, actions and response to activities.Monitors emotions of both parties and proactively avoids the drop into negative emotions such as shame, anger or guilt by suggesting alternative ways of viewing the situation.Encourages the submissive to improve their abilities (within limits agreed).Challenges the submissive to go out of their comfort zone, to try new things or to question their assumptions.Helps the submissive to learn and grow in all ways and works with them to find the best ways this works within the dynamic.

Coach Recognises that even dominants are on a journey and doesn’t expect everyone to be perfect all the time; doesn’t put people on a superhuman pedestal.Maintains an open mind to trying new things and offers opportunities to work with the dominant to find ways of growing together.Helps the dominant to understand their values and goals, not just by responding immediately, but by offering deeper insight. “I noticed you got excited by X. What was it that worked for you there?”Helps the dominant with chores and job because they both enjoy the dynamic – not because the dominant is incapable.

Believes that the submissive is fundamentally OK – capable of making choices, resourceful and adult.Helps the submissive to clarify their needs by digging deeper into the expressed wishes and questioning “Is that what you really want?” “What’s the intention behind that?” “Where will you go next?”Will help the submissive plan steps forward in life and in their understanding of the world.Ensures any control over tasks or life is done as part of the dynamic and not because the submissive is unable to carry them out.

*Note the word ‘offers’- challengers should not give feedback without asking permission to give it first.

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  TED: The empowerment dynamic

ExerciseBecoming empowered or empoweringSet aside about 30 minutes to do this exercise.

1. Think about your primary role within the drama triangle, then the corresponding role in The

Empowerment Dynamic triangle.

2. Complete the following table.

To become more like (a creator / a challenger / a coach):

Things I need to do less of Things I need to do more of

3. Try to remember a time when you showed up as your drama triangle role. For example, “When I was

at work and my boss was reprimanding me, I dropped into victim mode and blamed everyone else”

4. Now try to replay that time in your TED triangle role. For example “I should have quickly owned up to

the problem, and offered a number of solutions. I’d have asked his advice on which was best, helping

to move him from persecutor to challenger.”

5. If you have a close relationship with someone who plays another role in the drama triangle:

How will you explain your learning from these two chapters?

How will you work together to become more empowered and empowering?

What will have to change about your relationship?

How do you feel about that?

What challenges do you face?

What resources can you draw on to help you?

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  TED: The empowerment dynamic

 Find this di�cult?We have many blind spots in our relationships. Working with a ICF accredited coach can open you up to

these. Many people wish to see themselves in one of the roles and believe they’re doing a good job, but as

humans we pick and choose our evidence. A fully trained coach will help you to be more holistic in your

view of things. Coaching often uses future visualisations to cement new roles by playing through different

scenarios and ensuring that the role sticks even when tested under stress. Visit my website

www.englishleathermaster.com to learn more about how LGBT+ and kink aware coaching can help you –

both in your relationships and in your workplace.

Page 127

 Planning your best life

 Planning your best lifeWhat small step do you need to take today to make your life better?

Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. John Lennon

Putting it all togetherI wrote this book for people who are having an ok life but who are stuck in one way or another. You’re still

with me, which suggests that you’re likely to have felt some resonance with that. Maybe you’re in a job that

doesn’t give you satisfaction, don’t have the relationships that make you happy, or have something you

want to achieve that you just can’t quite get.

This chapter is designed to help you work out the steps that you need to take in order to become unstuck

and live life to the full.

Moving forwards into uncertaintyNot all plans need to be final. Imagine

you’re walking through some lovely

countryside. You plan to visit a particular

spot that someone tells you is beautiful. As

you walk along the path, you get closer to

that place, but your view also changes. You

come across alternative paths, and some

of the people you meet on the journey tell

you about alternative destinations. Nothing

stops you from changing your destination to one that you consider to be better suited to your mood or

closer to what you’re interested in.

My own journey to this point in my life was a combination of planning, luck and following my nose. After

being made redundant, I started to plan a consultancy business in the industry I worked in. Part of that plan

was to add coaching to my portfolio of skills.

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  Planning your best life

Somewhere along the line, I realised that I had been inauthentic to my values of openness and support for

the community I’m a part of. I made a conscious decision to drop any shame I felt around my sexuality and

ignore those that have a problem with it. This decision inevitably meant that other decisions were then

limited – my online presence means that it’s very unlikely I’d ever work in certain organisations again. I’m

fine with that. I revised my plans to downplay my old industry and concentrate on working with people from

my community.

This book is the next step in my plan to help more people. The plan continues, but is ever changing. Each

step forwards gives me a new view of the landscape and a new set of options. At some point I may look

back and wish I’d made better decisions, but I certainly won’t be upset about moving forwards.

As you move through your life, my wish for you is that you continue to grow and learn as a person. To find

a vision and to move towards it. To continually consider whether you’re in the best place, and if not, to do

something about it. To plan and revise your plans to ensure that you’re able to get somewhere.

You may never achieve your dream. But I hope that you find that the journey is just as exciting as the

destination and that you find that by moving forwards, you’re living the best life you can from moment to

moment.

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  Planning your best life

 ExerciseFind the vision and plan for it

1. Take a moment and consider what it is that you truly want. Decide when you want to achieve it by.

Close your eyes and imagine what your life will be life if you achieve that. Try to use as many senses

as possible to make it as real as possible. Consider your whole day from morning to night. Consider

the people you’ll interact with. Where you’ll be. What emotions you'll feel. What skills you'll have.

What people will say and think about you. It may be useful to switch between considering what it will

feel like from within you (first person) to viewing yourself as an observer (third person) and

considering what’s changed.

2. Now you’ve got the vision, create a plan to get there. Start from the end. What’s the last thing you will

have to have in place in order for that vision to be achieved. For example, if your vision is to get

married, the last thing may be to do your hair, put on your clothes and get in the car to the wedding.

Then move backwards. What did you have to do in order for that to happen? And further back… until

you reach today.

Example:

Vision: I want to open a café.

Last thing to achieve that vision: I open the doors of my café to the public.

The day before: I need to stock up with perishable goods like milk and cakes.

The week before: I will test all the appliances and train the staff.

Two weeks before: The shop will be completely fitted out and I will ensure that all non-perishable

supplies are in place. I will order perishable foods. All appliances will be installed.

A month before: I will get the keys to the new shop and work with the shop fitters to ensure the shop is

completed on time.

Two months before… Three months before...

...

Today: I will tell my boss that I’m going to stop doing overtime. This will allow me to use those extra

hours to write a business plan to go to the bank for a loan.

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 Planning your best life

Make sure your plan includes: the timings of specific events, what you’ll do and how you’ll know you’ve

done them. “Think about who will be on the guest list for opening night” is a pointless statement. “Make a

first draft of the guest list by the third week in May” is much more helpful.

3. Next you need to act like a critical friend. This is the hard part. Imagine you were a friend who has

your best interests at heart, but you’re separated enough to be able to spot flaws in the plan.

Consider what are the likely challenges you’ll face, and how are you going to overcome them. Where do

you need to add contingencies for when things go wrong? Where do you need extra support, money or

time? What could derail you from getting what you want?

What have you forgotten to consider? What alternatives are there and would they be better?

Remember, the idea here is not to pull apart the vision. It’s to make sure the plan to get that vision is fit for

purpose.

4. You may need to revise your plan following the critical friend stage. Make sure you move between

the planning and critical friend stages a couple of times to make sure you have the best plan in place.

5. As time goes on, keep your plan live. Change it as your vision changes or events change. You may

encounter challenges along the way, and adjust the plan to meet these.

 Find this di�cult?Whether you want to improve your relationships, change your career, set up a business, or improve your

leadership, planning and implementing change is difficult. It’s hard enough to create a vision. Planning and

spotting the potential pitfalls along the way is even harder on your own.

Working with an ICF accredited coach will help you to plan for any change you want, to stick to the plan

and to push the change through. Have a look at my website, www.englishleathermaster.com to see how

LGBT+ and kink-aware life and executive coaching could help you live your best life.

Page 131

 Acknowledgements

 Thank you...

Matteo Polk for editing and proofreading.

Danny McLoughlin for ideas and advice.

All my coaching clients for their trust and giving me new perspectives on the world.

Lama and Neil for having the most open minds I've come across, for their deep listening, and for giving

their hearts and advice so freely throughout my own personal journey.

Everyone at Erickson who helped me become the coach I am.

Chris, Bruno, David and everyone who stands behind them who loved and taught them and whose love

and knowledge I hope to pass on.

My parents and family for being so supportive of choices I made in life.

James, Hannah, Mark, Max and Sam for being supportive and understanding through so much.

This book is dedicated to Eileen who wouldn’t have approved, but would have accepted. You taught me so

much about appreciating people we are different from, opening our hearts and minds and total,

unconditional love. I will miss you until the day I die.

This book couldn’t have existed without the help and support of a load of people.

Paul Everitt for everything from website building to social media support.

Keo Draco for keeping me grounded.

Page 132

Everyone deserves to live their best life.

The world is overflowing with self-help books. Unfortunately, most of these assume we either have deep trauma, or are cis-gendered, monogamous, heterosexual people. People who identify as LGBT+ or who have interests in BDSM or kink relationships deserve to live the best life too.

Sometimes translating the advice in heteronormative books means that things get lost in translation.

This book, the first of its kind, gathers ideas from as far apart as business leadership, psychotherapy and coaching to give readers the tools to live their best lives... no matter what they're into or how they identify.