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ORIGINAL: TysGalilah

~ peeling an onions skin, doesn't make you cry. yet.
 ~ peeling away the layers when the onion is raw, might bring tears sometimes depending upon the age of the onion.
  ~It is when you cut down into the onion with a knife and penetrate the core that the tears begin.
~ IF you apply warmth and time  ( as in grilling or baking) then the layers open up naturally, bitterness doesn't surface and the noxious oils become neutralized and the taste is sweeter..
 
so, what if that is applied to a person wanting to get to their own core self..
~Layers that are exposed gradually, will come away with fewer tears.
~Prematurely cutting to the core, rather than going through the peeling process, WILL produce noxious results.
~The older the onion with no peeled back layers( few lifelessons or few not learned from), the more bitter the core is.
~Providing yourself with time  to learn, to experience, to evolve  and warmth ( self-kindness, self-respect and self-love) will cause the layers to open on their own and our core will emerge naturally.
 
My life experiences have gone hand in hand with my ability to know my genuine self, it seems.
Some wonderful and some quite painful...but I try not to think of them as regrettable, because each one has peeled back another layer and I've been allowed to see a part of me I most likely wouldn't have without the experience.
 
Some days I feel pretty enlightened and then other days I feel naive still ( somedays just plain stupid), realizing I still have much to learn and more layers still exist, I am not quite to my core-self.
 
But, my journey there cannot be copied by others.  If I were to write a book about my life experiences and then call it a self-help book and tell others to do exactly what I did  ( Gawd help them!) they would not end up in the same place I am right now.  You cannot teach someone how to FEEL or react to those feelings.  You can instruct someone to learn , but you cannot teach them how to comprehend it, absorb it, think, feel or apply those lessons to themselves and their lives.  That is individual and rightly so.
 
  I believe we are ready to learn when we are ready to learn.  We become aware of what we are able to cope with and handle.  The mind and the psyche protects us from the rest, until we are ready to deal.
 Hence the bitterness and tears when a knife cuts through to the core of an onion before the layers have been allowed to be peeled away.
 
 
  So to write an essay or a book advising others how to feel their submission....how to feel love...how to feel their feelings....how to find their core-self.......imo,just cannot be done.
Everyone experiences those things in their own way and in their own time. 

So, on one of those enlightened days I have sometimes, I may be able to give  definition to the way I feel or what submission means or feels like, or what love is and feels like > but that is only my definition according to my life-experiences, not anyone elses..
 
Some things in life are like corduroy
  You might be able to teach someone how to recognize it, but you cannot teach them how to feel it...only experiencing the feeling defines that experience for them.
 
Cyndi
 

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ORIGINAL: BitaTruble

Is it possible to enumerate a process which is applicable to a mass audience in gaining personal insight? Can one, in a written format, give such a 'how to' so most all of us, old or new, dom, sub or switch, alternative or vanilla, etc. etc. have an equal chance at benefitting from such enumeration? Is it arrogant to think that one person has the knowledge, insight and ability to write such a 'how to' which has the potential to be of benefit to a large group of people?

If such is possible, why do you believe it hasn't been done before?

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After all, we, all of us, share a basic human experience going through the same sorts of emotions and even though our personal experiences all differ, isn't peeling an onion just a matter of having the right tool in your possession or is getting to one's inner core too complex a subject, too vast, too full of twists and turns to ever be able to be enumerated in a single 'how to?'

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Last but not least - do you believe that one can be true to oneself without a process at all if one knows, instinctively, what their core contains and if so, do you believe that's an exception or a rule?

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In the end, do we really need a book which explains in an enumerated process, how to peel back the layers to see what's at the core? Can't we just say, look in the mirror with a hard and honest eye and you'll see it? Whether or not you change what you see is, of course, up to you.

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ORIGINAL: subtee

It might have been more kind to give us more of an indication into what you were imagining, instead of posing a hypothetical to which you would ultimately deride anyone who answered honestly and who didn't have the frame of reference that you ultimately provide.

No one is a "true ass" or a doormat or robot. Certainly you understand that. Onion? Layers?

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ORIGINAL: subtee

I am a writer too and I admire your writing. As a writer, I don't believe that you or I or any other writer begins a piece without at least an initial percolation of our own thoughts on the matter. Disingenuous. My writing evolves my thinking too and vice versa, but that is not antithetical to what I suggested. My reality--caveat.

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True asses? Robots? Doormats? Please explain this, after having allowed we are all layered as onions?

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This is why I applaud any positively written article, book or process that offers an approach to find ones inner core - whether it be a concept or written detail.  One never knows what will touch someone else, so to call bullshit on even offering up a "meatless" concept is, in my opinion, destructive.

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 I just think it's pretty fundamental that people are going to be influenced by events outside of their internal natures and that creates various layers. I acknowledge I could be wrong about it

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When you peel back everything which society, family, the media, teachers, friends, clergy, siblings and we, ourselves heap on to the ground floor of our own natures there could be all sorts of core characteristics to an individual, including being a sinner, a saint, an ass, a genius etc.

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I don't want to hurt anyone any more and I don't want to hurt anymore either.

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ORIGINAL: subtee

Writing process aside (although maybe someday it would be interesting to investigate), let me just focus on the onion thing:

I'm an asshole.

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 I just think it's pretty fundamental that people are going to be influenced by events outside of their internal natures and that creates various layers. I acknowledge I could be wrong about it

Yes, even us "true assholes."

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When you peel back everything which society, family, the media, teachers, friends, clergy, siblings and we, ourselves heap on to the ground floor of our own natures there could be all sorts of core characteristics to an individual, including being a sinner, a saint, an ass, a genius etc.

This is where it gets tricky. How do we explain ourselves? To ourselves? How do we explain our characters to our readers? There is no room for absolutes, it seems to me, and that is what I was wondering about in your response to your OP.

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I don't want to hurt anyone any more and I don't want to hurt anymore either.

I so understand this. Why I asked.

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ORIGINAL: KnightofMists

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This is why I applaud any positively written article, book or process that offers an approach to find ones inner core - whether it be a concept or written detail.  One never knows what will touch someone else, so to call bullshit on even offering up a "meatless" concept is, in my opinion, destructive.

I find this quote interesting.  On one side ... it speaks to the idea that a person can benefit when they are able to find an approach to find ones inner core.  There is the idea that as unique human beings we should not judge negatively any concept or written idea because it may touch one person and be useless to the masses. 

However, on the otherside.... It is any Positively written article, book or process.   But who decides that it is a Positively written article book or process in the first place.  The natural answer seems to be the person who positively benefits from such written article, book or process... and this is where the problem begins.  Since it then brings into acceptance that countless articles, books or process that have shown themselves to be destructive to people and society.   Since a bare few find benefit in a particular writing for example, even when countless millions of people where destructively affected by it. 

Consider the book Mein Kampf!  Many at time it was written found an ideology they could embrace... but at the expense of so many. 

Fact is... there is many written articles, books and process that are NOT in the best interest of society, groups or individuals.  There are organizations, cults, groups, individuals that have promoted ideas in a variety of means including the written word that is destructive to the many for the benefit of a few.

I don't believe we should foolishly accept because it is of benefit of just one that it is worthy to be printed.  It like all things should stand up to the scrutiny and be fairly judged for it's benefit for individual and society.  In the end, our morals, values and principles will have a decided influence on these types of judgements.  We will continue to consider individual vrs society when we make these kind of judgements.  Should it be written?  yes... I am a believer in Free speech.... but free speech doesn't equate to freely accepted.  Freely judged on it's merits is what I believe what it means... and some will be judged destructive.  Unfortunately, some may suffer before people stop listening to the person selling the poison.

I think it is bullshit that a concept can benefit a few but harm millions... Fortunately some people stood against this concept and far fewer were harmed that could of been otherwise.