When Spanking isn't Working

This morning before we left for the weekend we had a spanking session and I reacted in an unusual way.  Lash has been upping the ante with our maintenance spankings and they are getting quite painful for me.  When we started doing this a few months ago, I asked Lash to push my limits and this is what he's been doing. 


Now here's the thing....  I'm a pretty stoic person and can tolerate a lot of pain when I'm injured or sick.  But I'm finding that what works in everyday life to keep me going, doesn't work during a spanking.  When the pain gets to be too much, I tense my muscles and shut down my emotions.  It takes me longer and longer to relax and let go after a spanking when the spanking is more painful.  This morning it took a very long time and when Lash talked about pushing my limits even more, I started crying.  I was scared and confused.


So.... we talked.  


We talked about our expectations and why we do spanking at all.  One of the reasons we both agreed on was to help me get in touch with my emotions and be able to cry.  I feel very cleansed after I cry and I love being held by Lash when I cry - and he loves to comfort me.  Crying helps me put emotions into words so that I can share them with Lash.  Crying helps heal old hurts and keeps new fears and angry reactions from eating away at me.  Crying releases all the stress-filled energy I store in my body.  I feel like I really need this in my life but I don't let myself do it.


Lash has been hoping that harder spankings would get me over that edge, help me find the trigger that would allow me to cry.  It hasn't been working.  Now I don't know what intensity of pain others can tolerate.  I just know that I don't enjoy it for it's own sake.  I guess I'm not really a masochist or a pain slut or whatever.  If spanking at this intensity would help me to cry, to release emotions, I would not complain - I'd welcome it.  But for now it doesn't seem to be what I need.


So, we'll keep talking.  We'll try less intense but longer spankings.  We'll try more talking before, during and after.  We'll try a lot of things and see what works.  We'll keep loving each other and we'll keep spanking in our marriage because we love what it has done for us.  I trust that eventually we will find another level of depth - a new way of knowing what we both need and new ways of satisfying those needs.  We can be patient and we can be creative and we can admit when something doesn't work.  Most of all we talk, talk, talk until we understand each other and that's what keeps us from giving up!