The power in letting go
Respectful Kink co-founder, Tracy Playle, reflects on her journey into power dynamics, exploring the freedom she’s found in submission and the surprising leadership lessons that now shape her work in business and coaching.
Always in charge
In most parts of my life, I’m the one steering. I run my own businesses, lead a community, and am used to making decisions that ripple outward. I love that work - the sense of direction, responsibility, and trust it demands. Leadership energises me; but management - the “evil twin” of leadership - also drains me. Being “the one in charge” can quietly harden into a habit of vigilance. You start to believe that control equals safety.
For a long time, I didn’t see what that belief was costing me. Power and control are often confused. Kink - alongside leadership coaching - has been the parallel experience that has had me learn how different they actually are. Deep power can come in moments when you aren’t controlling a thing.
Discovering a different kind of power
I didn’t fall into submission in one dramatic scene. It arrived slowly, through curiosity and the different people I played with as I moved into my late thirties and forties. Releasing myself from a monogamous mindset - and relationship - also gave me the freedom to explore different power dynamics with different people. I’d always been intrigued by how power could be exchanged, shaped, and shared. I wanted to understand the dynamic from the other side.
There wasn’t a single conversion moment - no sudden surrender. It was a gradual learning that power doesn’t always mean directing others; sometimes it means trusting them enough to let them lead. That shift opened a new way of being, both inside play and outside it - or, as we say at Respectful Kink: in the bedroom and the boardroom.
The trust that heals
Submission has been one of the safest places I’ve ever known. That might sound strange to people who only see power as control, but letting go on purpose requires extraordinary strength. When I surrender, I’m not losing power - I’m choosing to trust. That choice changes everything.
I’ve been fortunate to share that space with people who understand that dominance is built on care. Their attention is total, their presence steady. For someone used to holding everything together, being seen and supported like that is revolutionary.
I’ve carried a fear of abandonment for much of my life: the worry that once I stop performing competence, I’ll be left behind. Within respectful kink, that story gets rewritten. For that time, I’m the centre of focus. Every action is intentional. Even intense sensations happen within a container of care. Pain, when it appears, isn’t danger; it’s communication. To be held through that - to know I can trust another person with my vulnerability - has been quietly healing.
What is good dominance like?
A good dominant feels like steadiness: a mix of compassion, awareness, and authority that invites rather than compels. The best ones communicate constantly. Before anything begins, they ask questions and listen. During play, they read breath and muscle tone as carefully as words. Afterwards, they stay connected.
That presence is what allows me to let go. It isn’t about control for its own sake; it’s about responsibility. Power that cares rather than consumes. When someone can read your non-verbal cues, stop when you flinch just a little too much, and check in when you fall silent, you feel how deep consent really runs.
Aftercare completes the circle. It’s the quiet moment when energy settles and both people return to themselves. The best dominants tend not only to their partner but to themselves, recognising that power is shared, not owned.
Bringing it back to the world
Kink has changed how I lead, work, and relate to people far beyond the bedroom. It taught me that power isn’t a possession - it’s a dynamic we can design together.
In our professional lives, we rarely talk about power directly; we just assume it follows titles. Kink taught me to name it. To ask questions like: Who has it right now? Who wants it? How do we share it fairly? That same awareness has reshaped my leadership.
I find myself negotiating more openly: asking before offering feedback, checking whether someone wants advice, requesting consent for things we often take for granted. Even small gestures - asking before hugging a colleague, giving someone the space to decline - echo the same respect that makes kink safe.
These practices don’t dilute authority; they deepen trust. Power handled with curiosity becomes collaborative. I’ve learned that submission is its own kind of leadership - the leadership of presence, of listening, of trust.
In my leadership coaching work, I’m often supporting others as they navigate power dynamics. The D/s metaphor - while not one that I often refer to literally in that context - since that too would require consent of my coaching clients - is a useful framework for navigating our growth in leadership. In a way, a brilliant leader is most definitely a switch, knowing how and when to move between dominance and submission, and how to co-create trust within any power dynamic.
The freedom of release
When I reach the state that people call subspace, what I feel most is freedom. All the everyday noise - decisions, responsibility, self-management - falls away. For a while, my only role is to receive: attention, touch, direction, care. It’s like breathing out after holding my breath for years.
That release isn’t passive. It’s chosen. In that choice lies strength. For someone accustomed to constant vigilance, the experience of safe surrender feels almost transcendent. My mind opens, my body softens, and connection takes over. There are only three things I need in that moment:
To trust my partner
To trust my breath
To trust my body.
When the scene ends and aftercare begins, what lingers is not depletion but expansion. If the connection holds, there’s this shared glow - a sense of being a team, of having built something together that neither of us could have made alone. That collaboration is what keeps me grounded in everyday life.
Power, redefined
What I want people to understand is that submission isn’t the absence of power. It’s a different form of it. To relinquish control by choice - to trust, to open, to receive - requires a strength that command can never give.
When I’m in that dynamic with a respectful partner, I’m not diminished; I’m amplified. Every sensation, every exchange of breath or glance, revolves around the shared intention we’ve created. In that space, I feel utterly present, utterly myself, and often far stronger than when I’m managing an entire team.
That’s the paradox I want to share: letting go can be the most empowered act of all. Power doesn’t always live in the grip; sometimes it lives in the release.