My superiority and inferiority complexes battle it out in my brain. The know-it-all bickering with ‘who do you think you are?’ Underpinned by the idealist versus the inner critic, any wishful certitude is undermined by doubtful rumination, each wrestling with angels for my attention. The best I can do is go ahead anyway.

Personality is tricky. It’s not all of who we are, yet it’s what we’re contending with on a daily basis. Self- improving can feel fruitless, especially if you’re of the view that you’re perfect as you are, and everyone else is wrong. Nice idea. Until a crisis hits or a series of failed relationships. These are choice points in our lives where we can happily continue blaming others, or realise it might not be them after all. If a fall from grace is inevitable, we might as well make it worthwhile to assess our part in the litany.

Love is troublesome. Then it’s joyous and full of possibility. And then it’s troublesome or disappointing again. Like life, staying optimistic in the myth of romance is a privilege of bias.

I’ve recently discovered that hearing “clever girl’ has a charge, I feel preeny, encouraged and smart. Childhood wounds surface in surprising ways.

I don’t trust ardour anymore. If someone shows up all keen, I assume trauma bonding and pop the balloon of chemistry. I’ve stopped believing in attraction. Yet the occasional noticing that I’ve perked up and feel alive with sexual relevance is a reminder of what used to be fun and a driving force. It’s not sex drive though, it’s something grounded below that. Recognition.

Is it worthwhile to explain my understanding of the difference between a man ‘in service’ and a man ‘in submission’? I’d take the former any day. A man in service is there to do what I want, though he has the power to say no. With a man in submission it’s the opposite. The Domme is in service to them. It looks like the Domme is in charge either way, yet there’s a subtle, vital difference. It’s back to the key question, “Who is it for?” With a man in service, it’s for me, with a man in submission, it’s ultimately for them; but they want to believe it’s for the Domme.

Exploring sexuality is a hard ride, if you can sort that out, you can pretty much sort anything else out. Impossibly tough at times, I’m grateful for it now; I see how even my noble adversaries were a gift.

It’s easy to be inspired to change, and easy to be overwhelmed by the choice of teachings. Start somewhere. Your life is yours. Make it so; as far as you can. Allow yourself to be pulled by the direction of your soul’s longing.

“May I nibble your ear, Alison?” was the first sentence anyone ever asked to check my consent. He paused to wait for my answer. I was in my first cuddle pile, slightly bewildered by what might be expected of me and the purpose of a cuddle party in general. I said yes to the request and marvelled at the experience. Not just of the soft, slow, brief nibble, but of the space and time to decide before it happened.

I’ve loved sessions with an assortment of clairvoyants, astrologers, healers and wise seers, whose words were what I needed to hear at the time, to be open to following the path of most resistance. They helped steer a course to walk an original trail. Mine. When anything is possible, which it isn’t, how do we choose to walk towards a direction that’s ours? I needed help to narrow that down. I sought outside insight to stray from what I was trained for, to trust in intelligence from the seers’ divine sources, till I developed a connection to my own.

Change is inevitable in intimacy. What I want today may not be what I had before. How I want to be and what I want to experience and share as intimacy is mutable. I can't say I understand nurturing a wank bank. When something has gone, it’s rarely worthy of revisiting. Or perhaps the loss of what was once good would be too upsetting. I’d rather have real things to look forward to than go over fantasy or what’s already passé.

Sometimes I laugh at the Bridget Jones nature of how I got myself into unfulfilled promises of pleasure, simply by being open to life. Doing the research into what I like and don’t like wasn’t sitting around like a wafty tantric goddess or glamorous burlesque dancer, nibbling mangoes, wearing fluffy mules and waiting for some handsome yet inexpressively subtle warrior to show up. It’s more tawdry than that. While it might make for a good story, I wish I hadn’t had to find out the hard way.

A mixed Tantra workshop isn’t going to give you security. Though it’ll show you who you are, your hopes, your ‘stuff’, your potential, your possessiveness, your triggers, as well as insightful and healing opportunities. This too is part of “the inner work,” on a spiritual path of growth.

Unsolicited advice is just that. It sounds like criticism and is rarely helpful. I’m particularly averse to unsolicited advice. If I want feedback, a testimonial or a sounding board, I’ll ask for it. I have an inner coterie of valued consiglieri. So if it’s something you want, a request is easier.

Squandering what I had in the name of freedom, I took off when everyone else locked down. I lived life in 90-day parcels, in Italy, Albania, Corfu, Mexico, and Colombia. On lonely days, I was comforted by the knowledge I’d chosen it. I joined sex-positive online gatherings, learned verbal commands, made new friends, and occasionally danced naked in morning zoom socials. I had a crush on a performance artist I met at an online party. Months later, we sold tickets for our first irl date. There wasn’t a second. I wrote in seaside towns, drinking black coffee and sparkling water, looking out over the green, clear water in Albania, and under a palm-frilled roof in Mexico and later, up in the Colombian Andes, where the horizon was punctuated by a volcano 70 kilometres away on a clear day. I forgot I was supposed to ‘pivot’ my business. Baulking at the word, my quiet, soft resistance ruins and strengthens in equal measure.

I have a small package of slips of paper with possibilities from some of the times I’ve played the game of taking it in turns. All the ideas are dropped into a gong bowl, and you take it in turns to pick out ideas. The responses to the ideas could be ‘Yes, no, maybe, later, not this evening, or never’. Setting a timer to try the choice out, when the alarm goes off (or when one person loses willingness), you stop. Riffling amongst the fading inspiration slips in different handwritings in smiling remembrance of connections past, I find: yabyum, dress up, hot oil massage, 10 mins free choice, soul gazing, bind my wrists together slowly, read to me, shower together, B2B massage. Those were devotional, fun, pleasurable times.

Relationships seem so doomed to fail long-term that it seems imperative to enjoy the wonder of the early days when everything might unfurl in the way we’ve always longed for. It might be limerence; enjoy it if and when you can.

What would you do if you were to really go for what you wanted? Take a risk, take a first step, be bold and honest. Find out if what you imagined is possible. It’s not easy, though it’s probably your best chance, unless you know where the knights in shining armour live.

I landed on a Greek island for a new decade of discovery, called by an inner voice. Keeper of a nexus point, in a life under the Grecian sun. A chess piece moved by the Greek gods, from one green landscape to another, dropped in a tiny village near the edge of the island, in the centre of a spiritual community. Overlooking a small shrine on the edge of a cliff, I look out into the big blue horizons, the vast azure sky of sunny days, and I'm beyond grateful that I'm here and not in some golden stone cottage with a dungeon.