Summary

In this episode I discuss the differences between being submissive and being dominated and how our ego can cause us to miss out on valuable relationships.— This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

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Transcription

Thank you for coming back to another podcast by Cee’s simple secrets. Today’s topic is on submission and I chose this topic based on the recent revelation, I guess you can say by Jenny Mai that she desires to be submissive to Jeezy, or Jay as she refers to him in their marriage. And of course it was met with a lot of outrage.

I just wanted to touch on that topic today. I think a lot of times submission comes with a negative connotation, right? It’s like when you’re submitting to somebody, you’re giving up your rights, you’re giving up your power and ,you’re allowing somebody to have control of your life. And of course, if you look at submission in that way it will never sit well with you, that you’re submitting to someone else.

But I kind of challenge us to think a little bit differently about what submission means, because in my opinion, submission is nothing more than respect and trust. Because you have to trust an individual for you to submit to them. And you also have to respect the individual for you to submit to them.

And when I think about this, I think about how we submit to our bosses on our jobs. Like, you know, you have to listen to their directions. You have to follow those directions. you have to come in when they put you on the schedule and all of that is a form of submission. You can’t come in and say, well, I make my own rules.

And so I’m not going to come in at eight o’clock like you asked me to, I’m going to come in at 8:15, because that’s what works better for me, or, I’m going to take my lunch at 10;45, even though you said that lunch is at 11:30, because that’s what I want to do. And so when you think about it, that way it’s like submission is not that difficult.

We have to obey the rules like, the traffic rules. We have to get our licenses updated or renewed when they tell us to, and if you don’t do those things, it comes with a penalty, right? So at least when you’re submitting to someone in your relationship, you don’t really have a penalty to pay.

It’s like, I respect your opinion. I trust your leadership and I believe that whatever decision you make for our family is going to be the right decision. And I also think in that submission though, it’s not like you have to go with exactly what they come up with. They may make a decision for the family and say, well, I think that the children would be more productive at this particular school.

Then you might have another school or area, and then you all come together and say, okay, let’s make a compromise. You feel like this is a better school. I feel like this is a better school. Let’s go and visit each one of the schools and you might compromise and say, well, you know what I do like that school better for our children.

So those types of decisions, I feel like a lot of times things are going to still be decided together, even though you’re somewhat submitting to that person. It’s like, you still have some say-so and even in your relationships, like if I get ready to go somewhere and maybe I’m going somewhere with one of my male friends, then I might run that by the person that I’m in a relationship with and say, “Hey, what do you think about me going to this particular event with my male friend?”

And it’s not like that person has control over me, but I will want to know how they feel about a particular thing before I do it. Because if it’s something that’s uncomfortable for them, Now I don’t want to cause problems in our relationship. And of course you can say, “Oh, well, he’s just insecure. He knows that, that’s your friend.”

“And you know, you could do whatever you want to do”.

But if the shoe was on the other foot, would you be able to handle it the same way? So if he comes to you and says, “Hey, I’m going such and such a place with my female friend. And it’s only the two of us.”

How are you going to feel about that? So I think it’s always important just to run whatever you’re doing by the person that you’re with.

Even though they’re not your father, they’re not your boss, but I think it’s maturity because when you’re mature, you’re able to make more clear decisions. And it’s not like when you’re in a relationship, you’re battling against that person. And I think that’s how things have gotten. Like they’ve gotten to that point nowadays where it’s like, nobody wants to submit to anyone.

And that’s in leadership as far as employment. That’s in leadership. As far as just in general, I could say the police, but I know that’s a really tricky issue as well. You know, it’s, it’s really difficult for us to say that at this time. And I’ve even had my encounters with the police as well, but I feel like because I handled it the way that I did, that’s why it went the way that it did.

And by the grace of God, it didn’t go in the direction that it could have gone in. And so I think a lot of times just having that humility, that’s another word that comes to mind. So humility. Respect, trust, just keeping those things in the forefront of your mind that sometimes it’s okay to have that lowly appearance, even though you may not lack confidence or anything like that in your actual life, sometimes you have to have that lowly appearance just because.

In some cases you have to blend in. I hate to say it that way, but because we all want to stand on and we’re all individuals and I definitely have a very strong, passionate personality. And I know that about myself and I know that sometimes people can just be intimidated just off the fact that you come in confidently and it’s not even that you’re necessarily portraying anything negatively. It’s just the way that they perceive you. Like, when I first started with the esthetician work and most people that are estheticians, they don’t have any type of formal degrees. Like, you know, bachelor’s master’s. And so I’m coming into the picture and I have a bachelor’s degree. I have a master’s degree.

I’ve been teaching almost 10 years. And my aunt said to me, like, “Don’t even tell them that you’re a teacher.”

By the time she said that it was already too late because you’re going on interviews and everything. And of course, they’re asking you, well, where’s the rest of your job history. What have you done before this? And you have to come out and say, ” I was teaching before this”.

And it’s like, you try to be as humble as possible. So I’m in there cleaning and mopping and wiping everything down, even when it’s not my turn. Even when I didn’t have a client, I’m doing all of these things, but in the back of people’s minds, it’s still like, you’re not going to be able to tell her anything because she was a teacher, even though I didn’t come in with that approach, because I feel like if I don’t know something about a particular subject or area, or I’m new to a particular subject or area I’m learning from you.

Like, I’ve never done home improvement projects before. So what do I look like grabbing a hammer and nails and getting a saw and going to work and I don’t have any type of direction, any type of instructions. I’m just going off what I think I know. And that’s not the way that I operate. Now. I’m not going to say I’m not confident once I learn something. Of course, I’m confident once I learn it, but in the stages of me learning it. I’m not ever going to overstep the person that I feel like has the expertise in their area, regardless of what their education is. And I think that even goes back to the submission in relationships, there are things that your spouse or your significant other is going to know about that you don’t know about.

So in that case, you would want them to be the somewhat authority in that subject or that thing. If you don’t know how to manage your finances, then what are you raising up at them for, because they want to create a budget. When you think about it, it’s going to benefit your entire relationship. It’s going to benefit your entire household. So why not deflect to them in that particular area? And then maybe let’s say your expertise is cooking. So they’re going to deflect to you in that particular area. And I think that’s another misconception is that when you’re submitting in a relationship, it’s not just one person submitting, you’re submitting to one another.

So if he wants to go somewhere and you’re not for it, you have a say so in that. And if you want to go somewhere and he’s not for it, he has a say so in that. Now, am I saying that it should get to the point of control where you’re never going anywhere without him? No, but some people like relationships like that.

And I think if that’s the type of relationship you like, it’s okay. In my perspective, it’s not healthy, but that’s just my perspective. If it works for your relationship, then that’s what works for you. Like I’ve heard of relationships where, it’s like , I really want to go on this cruise, but my spouse or my significant other, they’re afraid of cruises. They don’t want to get on a cruise ship. So I’m just not going to go on a cruise. Like, I feel if your relationship is decreasing your quality of life, then it may be something that you want to take into consideration. But if the decisions that they’re making are improving your household and helping your household and benefiting both of you, not just them.

In a relationship, both parties need to be happy, not just one person. So if those decisions that they’re making are benefiting both of you, why not submit to them? If any decision you come up with, even if I don’t like it, if you tell me, “Hey, you need to stop going to Starbucks every day”, then that’s what I need to do as much as I want to go. I need to listen to that because it’s not helping our household. And I can remember. There were times when, like every morning we would go and get breakfast in the relationship, so that was just our normal thing we’d stop and get breakfast and then go to work, which that’s fine. And it’s fine if both of you are contributing and as well with your finances and everything like that.

But imagine the amount of money you can save, if you say, okay, let’s start taking this money that we would normally spend on breakfast and let’s put it towards a travel fund or let’s put it towards paying off our student loans or let’s put it towards getting things fixed on our home. How much were beneficial would that be to your relationship then that breakfast that you’re grabbing, then you could just get some breakfast stuff, put it into the freezer or refrigerator and have it conveniently.

Get a Keurig. That’ll save you a lot of money versus going to get a cup of coffee every day. So those are just some decisions that can be made when you’re talking about being submissive in a relationship. How many times have we seen people just like dehumanizing and putting down one another in relationships and not just doing it, like in the privacy of their own homes, but literally like out in public, in front of other people.

And how humiliating is that to do that in front of others, to the person that you’re saying that you love and you want to spend the rest of your life with? I think that’s what we have to really start thinking about is how we’re treating one another and not even what message we’re relaying to other people, but what message are we relaying to one another. It’s saying, I don’t respect you. You’re nothing to me. And you may not even feel that way about that particular person, but that’s the way that it comes off. And I think that it’s because we don’t have that submission in our relationships anymore. It’s like, there’s two individuals and we’re just going to remain individuals and I’m not going to yield to you anyway, and you’re not gonna yield to me in anyway.

So what you’re doing is just fighting against one another. When in reality, you’re supposed to be on the same team. When you enter into a relationship with someone and especially once you take it to the level of marriage it’s supposed to be you two that are in this ring together. You’re not supposed to let the outside noise affect what you have going on inside of your household. You’re not supposed to let other people’s opinions affect what you have going on in your household. And unless there’s something that’s going to be beneficial, I would even say you’re not even supposed to be taking other people’s advice like that because what works for one person and their marriage and their relationship, does not always work for the person that you’re with.

You should know who you’re with. You should know what buttons to push with them. You should know what makes them feel a certain kind of way. You should know what hurts them. You should know what angers them and for you to listen to somebody else’s advice about your relationship is saying that you really don’t know what to do, unless this is a person is a counselor, and it’s someone that you respect, whose opinion you value. But as far as just including your family in the decisions that you’re making, unless you know that this is a sound individual. Like I will have people come to me a lot of times because they know that I’m going to give them an objective opinion.

I’m not going to take into consideration that you’re my friend or this person is not my friend or that you’re my family and this person is not my family. I’m literally going to tell you, yes, you were wrong when you did this. Or no, I don’t think you were wrong. I think you could have done this, or maybe if they would have done this, it would have been more beneficial, but I’m literally going to give you a straight forward opinion.

Unless you have that type of person in your life, you don’t want to bring your family and friends into your relationship because they’ll be looking at you like he did this to you and you’re still with him or she did this to you and you’re still with them and it’s not their business what you choose to forgive and move on from. And another thing they don’t have the full picture. They have the picture that you gave them, or they had the picture that your significant other gave them, but they don’t have a full picture. They weren’t a fly on the wall when whatever was occurring. And even if they saw you all interact in one setting a certain way, doesn’t mean that’s the way you always are.

I would just kind of advise against taking everyone’s advice. When you enter into that relationship, it’s the two of you and it’s kind of crazy because when I was a teenager, I was having a conversation with one of my neighbors and I still take into account the words that he spoke, because to me, it was so profound for teenagers to be sitting and talking about relationships and stuff, but he was just talking about how in relationships we are trying to compete against one another and that’s just because of our egos. It’s like my ego is telling me I’m just as grown as you are. I been through just as much, if not more than you’ve been through. So how you going to tell me, like, that’s just what our ego says, right? But our ego is what’s preventing us from having these meaningful long-term relationships that we see and that we want.

So many people say that they want Ciera and Russell’s relationship or, you know, all of these people that they see in the media. Or even when we see those videos of couples that have been married for 50 years, and we can’t even be with somebody for 50 days, because we don’t understand how to mesh our lives with someone, we don’t understand how to cut out the BS and how to get to like the real meat of the relationship. So, in this conversation that we had, he was just saying your relationship is not about who’s winning, because if you’re on the same page, then we’re both winning. When you submit to me and I submit to you, we’re both winning. We’re not losing anything. We’re not losing our individuality. We’re still individuals. We’re not losing ourselves respect. We’re not losing anything we’re gaining because now we have the ability to share our lives with someone else.

But when you allow that ego to get in the way and to say that I’m just as grown as you, I don’t have to listen to you. I’m going to do things my way. You’re going to do things your way. It’s hurting your relationship. It’s killing what you’re trying to build. And that’s not just in a relationship that where you’re talking about marriage and things like that, but it’s also in your family relationships. It’s also in your friendships. How many times have we allowed the ego to get in the way of our friendships? Where it’s like, she didn’t show up on my birthday. She’s canceled, I’m done with her and then you just stopped talking to them. So all the years of things that y’all have been through are meaningless to you because this one particular time, when they didn’t show up for you, negates everything else that they’ve done in your entire relationship. But it’s your ego telling you I can’t go out like that. I can’t let them do this to me and still be friends with them, but you can, it’s called forgiveness.

Now, some things I’m not going to say are unforgivable, but some things you may forgive them and still choose not to be in relationship with them. But some of the things that we’ve fallen out with people about it’s not even worth falling out about, they looked at you the wrong way.

Now, some of this stuff is just literally petty. And if we want to start having those meaningful relationships and we want to start having those relationships, like what we’ve seen our grandparents do or great grandparents and our aunts and uncles of old, our ancestors. If we want to start having those types of relationships, we have to change some of our ways. We have to change our ways. We have to start looking at the situation that’s in front of us and seeing how our attitude and our ego is killing our relationships, because we don’t want to submit, because we don’t want to say to this person. I respect you and trust you enough to believe that whatever decision that you make, you’re taking into consideration the whole picture and that it’s going to help us get to a better place.

These are my thoughts on submission and the differences between submission and dominance. Dominance is you can’t go anywhere without my permission. You can’t do anything without my permission. “Oh that outfit, you put on, you may as well go upstairs and take that off because you’re not wearing that out of the house.” That’s dominance. You need to wake up at this time. You need to wear your hair this way, because this is the way that I like your hair to be worn. Now, submission in that same respect may be, “Hey, babe. You know what I’m thinking about changing my hair. What do you think about this style?” And then they might say, “Oh, okay. I like when you wear your hair in braids or maybe you should get a pressed this time.” And then you might, you may take it into consideration and say, “Well, maybe I will get it pressed this time and get braids the next time”. Or you might say, “Well, you know what, I’m going to get the braids because it’s easier for me when I get up in the morning to get ready. That’s one less thing I have to do in the morning”. ” Yeah, I understand that. That’s cool. You know, you all look good, either way”. Simple conversation.

But do you know how many people are falling out about that?

“You can’t tell me how to get my hair done. You can’t tell me what to wear”. And then you go out looking like the club. You would rather have everything hanging out, looking crazy. People are approaching you the wrong way. You giving off the wrong type of vibes ,then for you to just listen when your significant other is telling you. Yeah. I don’t think that’s the move. Like it’s literally that simple.

It’s not like you’re a child, but it’s just saying, I’m looking out for you. Like I respect you enough. To where I know what kind of response people are going to give you. And let’s say, you’re not going out with them. I know how this person is going to react, or I know people are going to react when they see you.

And I know, we all can say that, “Your reaction to what I’m wearing is not my problem”. Yes. That all is true, but why would I do something extra? Knowing full, well, what kind of reaction I’m going to get and knowing that I can prevent it just by doing one thing. Let me put a jacket over it. You don’t even have to button the jacket all the way up, whatever, but just a simple little fix. Why would I do the most when I could still be cute, still be presentable, but not doing the absolute most, not having everything hanging out, not going to extremes. Like it’s okay not to go to the extreme.

Sometimes it’s okay to reserve that, , sexy lingerie, bodysuit for home, versus wearing it out in public where you’re going to get all types of reactions that you may not even want yourself. And we all know, we like to get compliments and stuff like that. Like, nobody is a stranger to that, but some attention that you get is unwanted attention and I know I’ve gotten it, so I’m sure a lot of you have gotten it as well.

And if submitting to your significant other is saying that they’re telling you, I don’t think that’s the move and you do it anyway, just because you’re grown. It’s just whatever reaction you get in the end, then it’s like,” I should’ve listened when you said that cause people was doing the most tonight. You was right.”

And it’s that simple, you know, just leave it at that.

So I think we just, we have to realize the difference between dominance and submission submission is okay. It’s saying I listened to you. I’m listening to you. I’m respecting you. I’m trusting you. I have faith in this relationship that we have and dominance is saying, I don’t trust you.

And I’m reacting in this way because I don’t trust you. And I don’t trust the outcomes. I’m dominating what you’re doing. I want you to dress this way. You need to wear skirts all the time. You don’t need to wear pants at all. That’s domination. And that’s the difference between. Submission and domination is that domination is from a different approach.

It’s from a controlling perspective. And that submission is from a caring perspective. It’s from a trusting perspective it’s from, this is what we’re trying to build together. We’re trying to compliment one another. We’re trying to merge two lives together. And in order to merge two lives together, you got to compromise.

You have to submit. Because if not, you always are going to be butting heads, unless you get somebody that’s just like you. And most of the time, the person that you’re with is not just like you, but if you’re unwilling to yield it any type of way, then maybe you just aren’t ready for a relationship. And that could be true too.

But if you’re saying that you’re ready for a relationship, some cases you’re going to have to yield to that person in something. I’m going to drive the truck today. You drive the car, even if it’s something that simple, why you got to drive it, why does it always have to be an argument? Why can’t we just make a decision?

Like there are literally some people that all they want to do is argue about everything. And there’s nothing that you can say that they will agree with. If you say you want pizza tonight for dinner, they don’t want pizza. They want spaghetti. Then tomorrow they will want pizza. They just don’t want pizza today because you want pizza today.

Like we need to stop this stuff, especially when we’re talking about being with somebody and trying to merge our lives together, you can’t come back. Everything that they come up with for goodness sake, you gotta try to work with them in some things and most things. And there will be some things that you don’t agree on.

But you’re still going to have to disagree respectfully.

You have to disagree respectfully because once you lose that respect, that’s when you lose your relationship. And I think that this is what Jenny was trying to say is that she respects him enough. She trusts him enough to submit to him. And hopefully he feels the same way about her, that he trusts her and respects enough to yield to her at times because he’s in that public eye as well.

And I’m sure there’s a lot of women that come in his direction and everything like that. And there may be times when she has to drop a little bug in his ear and hopefully he will listen to her as well as submit to her as well. So those are just my thoughts on the difference between submission and dominance.

Of course as always. I want to know what you all think. A lot of people will hit me up in my inbox and let me know that they enjoyed the episode. And I thank you all for listening. Join me on the next episode. Bye-bye.