Much of the time, the other person will agree to join you in the world you’ve created—the world where you have what you want—because a connected, submissive Ask has a fundamental integrity, a very powerful place from which to make a request or an invitation.

Knowing that every complaint hides a desire is a useful insight, though, especially because it’s helpful at peeling back Good Girl conditioning to get at some of our deep-seated desires.

Becoming aware of this primal “conversation under the conversation” is one of the most powerful communication tools we have. We cannot talk over what our bodies are saying to one another.

In this book, I will use the term “dominance” to describe the state when your attention is focused out and what you do from that place, and the term “submission” to describe the state of attention turned inward, and what you feel from that place.

But they are requests made using submissive language—“I” language, emotional language with an exclusive focus on the speaker and her experience.

asking a question reverses the flow of attention. And control over the flow of attention is power.

Beginning to feel these desires is an essential first step. But power is inviting others to participate in the creation of your envisioned reality. Before we can go after these desires and invite others to participate in collaborating with us to make them come true, we have to refine them, separating them from the fears and expectations that often

The whole world is built on agreements, born from the conversations that happen inside relationships. All the seemingly fixed phenomena that surround us—from love to laws, from families to corporations to governments—are the direct result of an agreement.

In that case, it won’t matter what you say, so much as how you say it. And because your attention is out, you will see how your suggestions and corrections land with the other person. (A truly embodied domme’s attention is so far outward that she practically disappears to herself.)