Another phenomenon observed in cats, and also noted by veterinarians, is that if a cat is often stressed, the reason frequently lies with their owner.
Cats are like sponges, they feel everything. They absorb moods, but once a certain level of tension, noise and yelling has been exceeded, they can’t digest it all with their usual total calm.
If the domestic atmosphere becomes so unbearable that your cat’s wellbeing is at stake, it may well leave the house (if it is able). But whose fault is that? If the price of their tranquillity is to leave, cats will do it. Take note.
Your Cat Knows How to Assert Itself
‘I love them, they are so nice and selfish. Dogs are TOO good and unselfish. They make me feel uncomfortable. But cats are gloriously human’
L.M. MONTGOMERY, ANNE OF THE ISLAND
Many of us find it hard to assert ourselves in front of other people, either out of shyness or lack of confidence. We take a step back, we say little, we behave as if other people are intellectually superior, or at least sufficiently sure of themselves to overpower everyone with their presence, their knowledge, often their idiocies if you actually listen to them.
Who are these ‘other people’? They’re you and me, for we are all somebody’s ‘other’. If other people take up more space than you, it’s because you let them do so. It’s like cupboards: the more you have, the more you fill them.
Do you find that other people invade your space, sometimes even stepping on your toes before walking all over you?
Think of your cat. Try stepping on your cat’s paw, just to see their reaction. You’ll hear them, and possibly even feel them as they dig their claws into your calf!
Stop getting walked all over. ‘Other people’ have no right to assert themselves in this way. They have only the space that you grant them; they have only your level of tolerance. They won’t stop at crushing your foot. They’ll tread you into the dirt, then drown you for good measure!
There is a real difference between having charisma and a strong personality – like your cat – and crushing people in order to impose yourself.
Cats take the space that is their due, without crushing their neighbour, but they do not tolerate any encroachment on that space. They assert themselves quietly. They don’t play the tyrant, but neither do they accept a walk-on part.
Know how to assert yourself calmly, and defend your space at the first attempt at intrusion. You deserve more than a walk-on part!
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
‘I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat’
EDGAR ALLAN POE
‘I have studied philosophers and cats extensively. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior’
HIPPOLYTE TAINE
With their attentive attitude – always listening, like some silent psychologist – a cat resembles a Buddhist teacher or an old sage. But it’s maybe more than just an impression. Perhaps we could learn from the way a cat does not exert itself unduly, but sits and contemplates the world.
As the years pass, and we get older, we all acquire a little wisdom and perspective about the world, life and the eternal verities.
How many of us have said at some point: ‘I’d like to be twenty again, but knowing everything I know now’? We acquire wisdom with time, whereas cats – who have no school, no books, no great thinkers, no external frame of reference, not even a large amount of years or experiences – possess a kind of innate wisdom, a wisdom of which we glean just a few snippets, and then only with much reflection, discussion, soul-searching and introspection.
It’s a hard road – in more ways than one – to reach a point where we can calmly sit there perusing the horizon with a smile on our face, when a cat has known how to do that practically since birth.
But how can we grasp the ins and outs of this unfathomable, almost mystical, wisdom cats exude?
The truth is that they offer us this wisdom. And if you have a cat, you’ll know this. You must have already experienced that moment when, racked with doubts, the same thoughts revolving in your mind, unable to take a step back from it all, you look your cat straight in the eyes and it stares right back at you, as if reading your very soul. And you are filled with a deep conviction that, unlike you, your cat KNOWS. Or at least has KNOWN.
There is something kind in your cat’s gaze, evoking that old legend of a Persian emperor who, having gathered his greatest sages, asked them to come up with a phrase that would suit all feelings and situations, good or bad, that a person might encounter in their life. The sages came back to the emperor some time later to deliver the phrase. The message that your cat conveys through its gaze when you are lost, that phrase which has come down through the ages is:
‘This too shall pass.’
Yes, for better or for worse, this too shall pass.
We can sometimes spend too much time flailing around, and fall deaf to the essentials of existence. And maybe this is what your cat is telling you with its stillness, its contemplation and benevolent attitude: ‘I am here, keeping watch over you and looking out for you. This too shall pass.’
Wisdom is not a subject that can be learned or taught. It is a state, a stance that requires a step back from the agitation of life in order to comprehend it better in its universality. The wise person knows how to sit on the moon in order to gaze at the earth, just like the cat sits on the roof to observe the moon.
Your Cat Thinks About Itself First
‘A cat does not stroke us, it strokes itself on us’
ANTOINE DE RIVAROL
As we have seen, cats devote most of their lives to ensuring their own wellbeing. And in order to do that, you sometimes have to know how to be a little selfish and think only about yourself.
That doesn’t mean being a navel-gazer, narcissist or egocentric, but giving yourself permission to place your personal happiness above that of others at times.
You can’t give to others if you don’t know how to give to yourself.
Take care of yourself, both physically and psychologically, before anything else; the key to your happiness depends on it.
You’ll be able to give and share more, since you’ll be happy and fulfilled in your own life.
Don’t wait for others before creating your own bubble of wellbeing and tenderness – it depends on you alone. Nobody will do it for you.