Lean In with Curiosity

Someone will come to me because they are uncomfortable with their dog growling and biting their guests and found using painful methods didn’t work.

In the beginning, the pet parent lost trust in their decision making and are feeling desperate for guidance. They feel powerless in what to do when their dog’s behavior was not what they expected.

Now, their self doubt creeps in and they want their dogs to stop barking, lunging and growling and they find someone who promises they can help and the issues with their dogs will be eliminated.

What’s offered to them is using tools that strangles their dogs or electrocutes them paralyzing the dog into submission.

In our culture, we are taught to believe in correction and punishment. There is a belief that blaming and shaming others rather than being empathetic and understanding motivates another being to do something.

Why is it so much easier for us to blame and shame others when something goes wrong?

Is it because the story we tell ourselves is that this being that is showing fear or rage is inappropriate and we desire to distance ourselves from what we perceive as wrong doing?

Emotions aren’t good or bad, they just are and when we can lean into what’s showing up and invite in the lessons the heavy emotions are showing us, can we learn on a deeper level of what’s needed.

What’s needed is love and kindness.

For one of my clients, she wanted to feel more in control.

What she discovered through our time together was how she found herself.

She let go of the belief that she needed to overpower others and instead, leaned into how another being is feeling and uncovered how her compassion can be healing to her rescue and herself.

She learned what safety meant to her and her dog.

The mutuality of what they both received opened up her heart to what’s possible and for her to learn that when she can trust her actions in how she addresses her dog’s behavior, she finds her freedom.

Freedom when guests come over.

Freedom in taking leisurely walks with her dog.

When you and your dog experience freedom and safety, the world is wide open to you!

Dancing with the Unexpected

I came across this yesterday.

“Humans are allergic to change.”

How come the same humans who resist change expect others, including their dogs to do so quickly, easily and without setbacks?

I understand change evokes some fear.

Fear about the unknown.

Fear that things will be different or unexpected.

Expectation, routine and predictability give us a sense of control.

In fact that control is limiting to our growth.

Control limits your freedom and your dreams.

While our dogs desire a sense of control, us humans are capable of dancing with the unexpected and creating a new understanding of how to prevent scary things from happening to our dogs.

We can learn to lean into fear and see how fear is teaching us how to be more empathetic and compassionate to ourselves and our beloved companions.

Fear can teach us that connection with ourselves and others, heals our past hurts.

When fear bubbles up within you, I invite you turn away from blaming or expecting others to be different or to change.

Instead, ask yourself what is fear showing you?

Listen to the messages you receive. The answers will guide your way!

Resistance Showing You the Way

Last week I saw this meme about what if what’s standing in your way, is the way?

That made me pause.

I wonder, how many of us choose to avoid, circumvent, ignore or try to find ways to work around the whatever is standing in our way?

How much energy are we wasting by putting energy into things we are trying to ignore only for those things to surface again and again until it becomes too unbearable to avoid any further?

What if instead, we considered moving towards our resistance and dismantling those things that are standing in our way one brick at a time?

Well, I put this to the test last week and I’m actively inviting in the resistance to show me the way.

Allowing myself to feel where resistance is showing up and then gently asking it what I need to move through it, the answers were given.

By being able to have uncomfortable conversations or even acknowledging my own trauma responses to situations and being ok with myself that this is another layer of healing I get to do, ease flowed throughout my day.

Healing and learning about ourselves and our dogs is never in a straight line, but knowing that growing and expanding ourselves doesn’t end maybe invites in a bit more of curiosity into what shows up for us.

How can you lean into resistance today? I’m curious to learn what shows up for you!