The Dominant Woman Defined

“She wasn’t born dominant. She just got tired of clenching her teeth.”
I spent years clenching my jaw in my sleep, grinding my teeth down like I was
trying to swallow my frustration whole.
I thought I was just stressed. Or maybe I was sick. Hormonal. Sensitive. Hard
to please. Too loud. Too much. Too tired.
But the truth is simpler:
I was tired of playing small.
I was living the life I’d been taught to want. Be sweet. Be supportive. Don’t
talk back. Be sexy—but not that sexy. Work hard, but make him feel like the
breadwinner. Smile. Nod. Swallow it. Be the moon—reflective, gentle, patient.
Let him be the sun.
It’s no wonder my teeth hurt. I was chewing on expectations that were never
mine to begin with.
It took me years—decades—to understand that my headaches weren’t hormonal.
They were historical. Passed down like whispered instructions to make myself
smaller and quieter. To hand over the wheel, the wallet, the whip.
But something cracked open in me.
Not overnight. Not all at once.
But enough to let the light in.
And once I caught a glimpse of that light—my own power—I couldn’t unsee it.
I realized I wasn’t “bad at being submissive.”
I just wasn’t meant to be submissive in the first place.