Lighten Your Load

What weighs you down?

Other people’s expectations of what you should be doing, how you should be acting, how you spend your time and energy?

Maybe even how your dog should be behaving.

A good friend of mine explained it this way.

Each of your worries are bricks. The weight of one is easy to handle, but when you combine all of your worries and doubts into a pile, the weight of each brick is amplified together.

Not only do the bricks exist and are in a nice neat pile, but everyday, you fill up your backpack with these bricks and carry them around with you all day, everyday.

When you fill your backpack with these worries and your dog starts practicing behaviors you would rather live life without like

Barking out of boredom.

Escaping from your yard.

Stealing socks, underwear or even your kids toys.

Your dog becomes another brick to add to the pile.

Your dog didn’t choose to live with you, but you brought your dog into your home and wanted to share a life with him.

When you allow judgements and expectations to consume you, you have no more room in your life to create a loving bond with your dog. Your dog becomes another thing to worry about too.

Inertia creeps in.

Fear takes over.

Believing that the tighter you hold on to your worries will give you a sense of control, but all it does is limits what you can accomplish.

Now, what if you make a choice of prioritizing the bricks you carry with you?

That’s right, you have choice of where you give a piece of your mental real estate.

You can leave the pile outside and take the ones you want and switch them out.

Which ones do you value the most?

These are the bricks to prioritize.

Reconnect with your “why”.

Why did you adopt your dog?

For companionship?

Provide a better life for your friend?

Shifting your perspective from what your dog can do for you, to what you can do for your dog will open your world.

When your dog flourishes, you flourish too.

Meeting your dog’s needs for bonding, trust and love, your dog will not be finding ways to meet this need on his own which may be a source of your stress.

When you can allocate time to play, teach and celebrate what your dog is already doing that you want more of, the worries about your dog’s behavior will not make it into your backpack.

You’ve made room for other things in your life, you’ve alleviated one of headaches and replaced it with joy, harmony and kindness.

Make a change to how you spend your life with your dog.

You’ll achieve greater self satisfaction, connection and most of all you will receive the greatest gift of all, unconditional love from your best friend, your dog.

Want to learn how to change old pattern of behaviors?

Set up your Discovery Call with me