How You Do It versus What You Do (in bed)
You’ve probably noticed that I’m not your traditional “sex tips” girl. The truth is that I’m less interested in what you do than I am in how you do it.
Being told what to do in bed might fill the pages of glossy magazines every month, but eventually a laser focus on only what to do grows tedious and tiresome. Especially if you’re looking for instructions on what to do as a way of avoiding an exploration of how you are doing it.
A woman recently told me that her practice around watching porn wasn’t leaving her feeling good. As you know, it’s the feeling good, not the act of watching porn, that we’re into at O’actually. So hers was a very important reveal to consider.
We were on a video call at the time and behind her concerned face was a room thoughtfully adorned with colorful tapestries, vases of fresh and dried flowers, and a smattering of other beautiful goodies. All of which indicated a stylistic care for environment that felt important to note.
I wondered if the same care she’d giving to her home was being given to her pleasure?
I asked her what, if any, approach she took toward watching her porn of choice? She looked puzzled, which is understandable considering most of us don’t have spaces to consider these types of questions. She then answered that she doesn’t put much care, if any, into how she watches. She just does so, “quickly.”
Her share of her non-approach actually revealed that she did, of course, have an approach. But it wasn’t the intentional thoughtful one she brought to much of her life. Instead, when it came to self pleasure she was on a hurried autopilot. Her non-approach approach embodied a persistent quality of urgency.
When I first asked her if she could bring some more intention, presence, and gratitude to her self-pleasure, I could feel her eye roll. But she didn’t need to fear me advising some elaborate and time consuming routine involving all the bath salts, all the candles, all the breathing, and all the rose petals…. Instead we chuckled in acknowledgement that all that is only sometimes lovely. But it’s certainly not all always necessary.
For her, it was important to keep it meaningful but simple. So she decided to make two shifts to ground her approach (her how) with roots of self-love and joy. 1) She decided to light ONE candle as an appreciative nod to her opening an intentional moment of pleasurable release. 2) Before gently closing her laptop, she’d say to herself, “Thank you for that. It was fun.”
She told me a few weeks later that the added twenty seconds to her routine shifted the whole experience. It turned out, this woman simply needed an extra permission slip for pleasure. Permission for her self-quickie be joyous and permission for that to be joyously okay.
Reminding us once again, it’s really not about what you do, it’s how you do it.
Does your approach need an intentional and joyous re-boot?
Cheers to grounding your approach in joy and bringing forward that joy into a new year.
With love,
Kitter xo
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