Oh Glory, glory glory (or Flora, flora, flora for LadyDray).  What have you been up to now?  It's 1.53 am and you're blogging????  This blog is kinda sparked off by something my mother said (yes, my mother and I do talk about motivational theory over brunch!)  Basically one of the problems I had was demanding too much from my job as a teacher (particularly at the school I was at before).  I wanted friends, companionship, recognition I was doing a good job and I wanted to be the absolute best I could be.  Oh yes and a healthy salary as well?  Well Mummy Knows Best and reminded me of Maslow.  And she also said that there are lots of people who meet the higher level needs elsewhere, i.e. not in their job, and (because I still want my mother's blessing on the things I do) she said "that's OK".  So I thought it might be interesting to look at how BDSM fulfills Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for me.  But as I wouldn't be me, if I didn't explain who Maslow was and what he was on about before I did the "me" bit.

Abraham Maslow wrote a great article on psychology that basically said we've got 5 needs as humans:

Physiological needs - food, warmth shelter, survival.
Safety - security of employment and of our person.
Love/Belonging - basically friends, family and sex
Esteem - self-esteem, respect, recognition from our peers
and finally we get to
Self-Actualisation - this is basically finally becoming all that you, whoever you are, have the potential to be.

Maslow says that until the lowest level need is met, then you can't think about getting the next level up, and so on and so forth.  This basically means that I have a house, I'm alive, I have a job (OK so not for much longer - but that's a different story).  I've got Physiological and Safety sewn up but Love/Belonging?  That's where I was tripping up, until I was reminded by mom of "getting it from other places".  That's when I realised that I spend most evenings chatting with my friends, here online.  Right here online.  I can't be prised off the computer even with the (admittedly large) temptation of The Palace (can't resist brain candy) or EastEnders.  And that's you guys.  You give me a huge dose of the society I need in order to be able to reach the next level which is esteem.  Oh my god, I can't believe I'm going to self-reference here.  How terribly up my self I am!  Two blogs ago (a lifetime, a lifetime!) it was blatently obvious that my personal self-esteem comes from my intellectual prowess.  I'll say it loud and clear: I am clever.  I love being good at what I do, which is why I take such pains to learn and to seek out opinions and to share and to debate as I do.  My self-esteem hangs on knowing stuff, being good at stuff and (here's the rub) I get off on being told I'm good at stuff.  So when I get the comments on the blogs, it's a never-ending positive feedback loop.  I'm totally addicted to your feedback.  Your feedback feeds my self-esteem which meets that fourth need we saw earlier.  This leaves me with the strength and courage I need to be able to eventually, when I'm better at what I do, when I'm more confident in my own *technical* abilities to reach for self-actualisation.  There is someone I know who I think has got a handle on this one (whether she realises it or not) a girl I know called spanks - MLLs_spankalicious to give her her full handle.  She once told me (in a useful discussion about Your Kink not being My Kink) that she was a sadistic baby-girl slave.  WTF???  But she is!  Every word of that sums up spanks.  She is becoming all she can be.  I have no doubt, in years to come, that her boundaries will stretch, but right now, she is at the top of her game which is something I've still to be able to strive for.  I am in awe of her (particularly tonight, but that's a different story).

So, help me develop my skills in the lifestyle and enable me to get to where spanks is by providing me with your constructive criticism.  If this is one blog too far, then please tell me - I need your feedback in order to grow.

Bright blessings on you all,

Gloriana