This question will come as no surprise if you have read Existential Kink: Unmask your Shadow and Embrace your Power; A Method for Getting What You Want by Getting Off on What you Don't by Carolyn Elliott. If you're not familiar with the idea of cosmic kinkiness, let me give you a brief introduction. When Carolyn was queuing for a food handout on a freezing cold night because she was too poor to buy herself basic necessities, it occurred to her that some part of her must actively desire and take pleasure in her suffering, otherwise it would not be part of her experience. As this realisation dawned to full brilliance in her mind she began to play with it. Teasingly, she allowed herself to notice the erotic potential of suffering. Instead of letting the shame of her circumstances predominate, she tuned into the full kinky pleasure of poverty. Judgements and moralising were sent packing as she descended the steps into the BDSM dungeon of her mind.
Now, in this state of alignment with her pleasure, her soul was sated, content, delighted. As anxiety, resentment, humiliation and shame became the foci of revelry, their power to replicate receded and it became easier to imagine something beautiful and nourishingly fulfilling entering her life. The law of attraction works by bringing more of what is celebrated within the heart – anxiety, more anxiety, fear, more fear. It can feel like an endless loop when we are in a state of scarcity. We can't help ourselves from feeling depleted and fearful. Help! That brings more depletion and fear. However, when we drop the moral judgements, and let ourselves weird out on the possibility that there is some part of us taking warped pleasure in this pain, we tune ourselves to the experience of contentment. Contentment, more contentment. Pleasure, more pleasure. Love, more love. Ooh ... this is beginning to feel easier. Now we can tentatively reach for conscious pleasures and welcome loves. We can begin to feel sated on something we truly want. Carolyn no longer queues for food parcels. Within three months of unearthing her dirtiest, kinkiest desires, she had moved to Bali and was on her way to becoming a millionaire.
Her book dropped into my awareness the day before I had a difficult phone call to take that would draw a line under my repeated experiences of rejection within a friendship. I wanted to find that place of meeting another authentically without wildly projecting my inner turmoil. I wanted to feel heard, speak my truth, listen and understand. I wanted to remain connected to that which is love in me and that which is love in him. Existential Kink came to me as an answer to prayer and I listened to it at double speed so as to have heard all the instructions before my phone call. I had just enough time to meditate on what it was in this experience of rejection I was getting off on. It's honestly the weirdest thing to do and one of the most revealing forms of meditation. As I tuned into what felt good about being rejected, I noticed repeated patterns from wayback that I had hitherto fore missed. I noticed it, gave thanks that I had another opportunity to indulge this particular sadomasochistic pleasure and just rested with it.
By the time the phone was ringing, I was looking forward to having the conversation that just an hour before I had been dreading. The distress that I would say the wrong thing or show myself up as shallow and spiteful had evaporated. My concern that I would be so guarded that I wouldn't say what I wanted him to know had disappeared, and my strangulating fear that this could be the last time I spoke to him, had vanished. I noticed that there was excitement in the possibility that I might say something that would hurt him. The heels of the dominatrix have a particular allure. Hide and seek has a special kind of thrill. Will I show my true colours or not? Bound and gagged, what's not to love? Oh and the poignancy of unrequited love! Shakespeare has penned masterpieces around this. The hardest thing about this practice is getting the inner critic to be quiet. You're a fool. Shut the f*ck up! You don't need to deal with the inner critic politely. If you've managed to enter the dungeon of your mind, take your pleasure and cuss the critic into submission. What kind of pervert wants to hurt one of the kindest people you know? Shut the f*ck up! Only someone as useless as you could have messed this up so badly. Shut the f*ck up! Once the critic was bound and gagged, the pleasure was all mine.
A beautiful conversation followed. Every time I felt something constrict within me, I leant into it more with curiosity. Where is the pleasure in this? Each time, I was able to find it and accept it. We spoke for two hours, expressed our love for each and said goodbye. There was a simplicity to it. I didn't need any of the whys answered – why doesn't he respond to me in the way that I want? Why do I keep needling him to become the man I dream of? They seemed superfluous and meaningless in the face of the cosmic pain slut. Her desire is satisfied in rejection, celebrates tortuous complexity; she gets off on conditions of bondage masquerading as love. Perhaps it is the last time I'll ever speak to him, when that thought has popped up since our call, I meet it with perverse interest. Ah yes! This is where the pleasure is. Welcome! The inner critic has managed to unpick some of the knots that bound her and she lashes out every now and then. You made a right twat of yourself! He's playing with you! I lean in. Did I catch you right? Humiliation and torture? Why yes! That's what I signed up for, bring it on!
It has been the funniest of experiences. I feel light and slightly exuberant in the aftermath of a conversation that previously would have haunted and depressed me for weeks. It's not that I don't care about him anymore. I care more than ever, only now I feel free to love him unconditionally, and I have found a place of unconditional love within myself for my sweet warped little soul.
Go on, I dare you. What's your cosmic pain slut?
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