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

Remember, “having is evidence of wanting”—if there's a situation or a feeling that's present in your life, no matter how awful it is, it's present with you not because it's “true” or “real” but because some part of the vast, strange, kinky Self that you are finds it fascinating, compelling, beautiful. And it's time to let that part of yourself and its taboo pleasures come to your conscious agreement and embrace. Softly, temporarily put aside your ego and your usual judgments about who you are and what you want. To increase your self-honesty here, it can help to strongly imagine that the “don't like” situation will be utterly and completely removed from your life in just one month from now, as if “by the hand of God.” Since the “don't like” situation is going to be inevitably, totally removed anyway (you allow yourself to imagine), you can relax, open up, and allow yourself to feel just how very much a secret, taboo part of you enjoys it and cherishes it right now. That part of you has been silent up to now because your conscious mind has been shaming the enjoyment of the “bad” things in life, like scarcity, rejection, and self-hatred. So you need to carefully coax it out. Experiment with playfully saying the following EK statements to yourself: “I'm willing to stop pretending I don't enjoy XYZ tremendously.” or “I'm willing to allow myself to know about my secret, weird pleasure in XYZ.” or “It's okay for me to feel my forbidden, wicked enjoyment of XYZ without having to j...