You can't pet a cat the way you pet a dog

Above is a guided meditation about listening to yourself and your needs, letting your experience come to you instead of messing with it and constantly trying to make it different/better. Below is me reading the essay that follows:When it comes to sex, some of us are like dogs. You can pet them all over, vigorously and with no warning, and they’ll love every minute of it. Others are like cats. A cat’s trust must be earned. You have to approach slowly, gently, come in from the edges. Eventually, once you’ve been invited in, the cat will soften and purr and splay out deliciously, and then you can pet that pussy to your heart’s content.As a society, we’re dog-forward. We like dogs a lot: they’re outgoing, they never reject us, we never have to feel a drop of shame or insecurity around them. They soothe the fragile part of us that just wants to be liked, to be adored. When it comes to sex, we value canine energy, and feline energy feels more mysterious, less comfortable. It hurts our feelings if we try to pet a cat and it rejects us. But instead of trying to understand it, we’ve rejected it entirely and treat it like a dog. This causes major harm.So if there was one piece of sex advice I could give, it’s that you can’t pet a cat the way you pet a dog. If you understand this, a whole world of pussy will open up to you. And I’m not just talking about in the bedroom, I’m talking about in relationships of every kind, including with yourself. What if you feel your way, gently, with pauses, listening, just wanting to get to know what you’re feeling? What things are you approaching roughly, the way you might approach a dog, that actually need to be approached like a cat?Online Dharma talk with Big Heart City: May 15thI’m excited to be giving another talk at my buddy Vinny Ferraro’s sangha: Big Heart City. It’s late for us east coasters: 10:30pm-12am Eastern Time. Hope to see you there! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caralai.substack.com/subscribe