Caitlin V

Those are the things that are, that inoculate us against feeling isolated, right?

Like you love baking.

Fuck yeah.

Bake and share what you've baked with other people.

I guarantee that will be a source of pleasure for you that you can go back to over and over again.

You're digging a well for yourself, right?

The cool thing about the things that bring us pleasure is that they are unique to us.

We share them with other people, but there is a sense of like autonomy and sovereignty and self-expression in that because it doesn't have to, it's not for anyone else.

Like it doesn't have to, you can wear the thing that you love so proudly because it is just the thing that you love, right?

It gives you an opportunity to connect with other people who are also in that thing or can benefit from that thing.

And if you can have a relationship to pleasure as a whole that is not situated in shame, you can allow yourself to enjoy something and you can allow yourself to hold that thing gently because you love it.

You don't have to be perfect at it because it brings you joy.

You're gonna continue to learn about it for the rest of your life

because you're not trying to be perfect at it.

You just are receiving satisfaction from it.

And then you can bring that into the rest of your world, the rest of your life.

If feeling joy and satisfaction and connection for you are associated with getting things right, being perfect, being impeccable, not being vulnerable, it's going to be very, very hard to share your world with other people.

And again, just to bring it all the way back to sex, sex is a great place for you to start doing that.

It's a great place for you to...

connect with yourself and connect with other people around something that feels good and can be done, uh, uh, thoughtfully and intentionally and healthily.