Healing From Loving Others

When you’re desperately looking for how to change what your dog is doing, you have to take a look at what you’re doing first.

Changes you need to make could be stepping into your dog’s paws a bit and seeing the world through their eyes, understanding and connecting with how they feel from one moment to the next before expecting your dog to anything differently may be your first step.

This step actually may be a leap for you.

Moving away from the belief that we have to control our dogs and expecting them to follow every direction in a moment’s notice may be something you have to unlearn alongside empathizing with how your dog feels.

Before you can understand how your dog feels and be compassionate to your dog, do you give yourself the same love?

You may feel a wall of resistance show up as you consider feelings and emotions of you and your dog.

I invite you to lean in to the resistance and see what shows up for you.

Early on in my relationship with my dog, Jack, I struggled with his barking and separation anxiety. I also struggled with feeling confident and knowing my own self worth.

At that point in my life, I was just starting to understand myself and heal from trauma I experienced in my own life.

I gave permission to the wall of resistance to keep me stuck.

I gave permission to the wall of resistance to prevent me from moving forward.

I gave permission to the wall of resistance to not change.

If you’re like me, the resistance told me I desired to unlearn and heal from being taught that my feelings don’t matter and surviving by avoiding how I felt or sharing how I felt with others.

Unlearning old beliefs and changing patterns of thought peel back layers of hurt and pain and heal the shame and guilt that accompanied them.

By changing these patterns and learning new beliefs about yourself, you start to take action in a new way.

You allow yourself to experience each moment with a fresher perspective and can respond with more clarity and confidence with whatever life throws at you and your dog.

You begin feeling the love and connection you have with your dog and prioritizing this relationship in your life.

Care for Yourself, So You Can Care for Others Too.

When you feel depleted, exhausted and utterly overwhelmed with everything going on, how is it even possible to show up at 100%?

It isn’t possible.

Doing all the things for everyone else, leaves you behind.

You start to forgo what you want and dismisses how you feel.

What would it look and feel like if you helped yourself before helping others?

If you prioritized taking care of your body and mind, how would this support the others who you care for on a daily basis?

How would your friends, family, clients and even your companion animals benefit?

When you prioritize your health and wellbeing, you’re telling yourself you matter.

How you value yourself matters.

You have amazing dreams and goals and drives to serve others.

Everyday you are love in action.

But for others.

How can showing yourself the same energy, love and compassion you pour into your work and family life be given to yourself too?

It can be as simple as recognizing your breath.

It can be as real as acknowledging the tension your body feels when X thing is said or happens and then recognizing what you can do to transmute that energy into awareness of what isn’t aligned for you.

That right there was a gift I received yesterday.

My husband informed me about something potentially happening with his work in the Army which I’ve experienced before on numerous occasions, but didn’t recognize what was showing up for me.

I usually would become shut down or even angry.

But, in this moment, I was able to feel the tension in my stomach, the tightness in my chest because I was holding my breath and feeling myself starting to freeze.

Instead of reacting out fear, I was able to share with him how my body felt and I was able to honestly share with him that these sensations have shown up more times than I can count for the past 14 years due to his military career.

The description allowed for him, being able to understand how I truly felt.

We both received connection and I honored myself by pausing and recognizing what my body was telling me.

Let Your Dog Take the Wheel

If you read a previous post about Peanut, a Labrador/Dachshund mix who was unable to be cared for because his mom had deteriorating health, well I have another update!

Peanut was rescued about two weeks ago and went into foster care with a family that is well known to the rescue.

When Peanut moved in, he was avoidant, but became really attached to his foster dad (mind you, the rescue was informed Peanut didn’t like men because he bit the adult son of his previous dog mom).

Peanut was also unsure of new people and would growl and sometimes snap as people walked by.

The foster mom reached out to myself and the rescue for guidance.

The foster family made some changes by creating a doggie den and tossing food over to Peanut when another member of the family walked by him.

I also shared with the foster family is to let Peanut lead them to what he needs and wants.

Listen to what Peanut is communicating.

Let go of expectations of what Peanut should or shouldn’t be doing.

Let things be easy for Peanut.

By keeping things simple, easeful and having zero expectations of Peanut, for the first time in Peanut’s life, he experienced freedom.

The freedom to be himself.

Peanut’s new sense of freedom allowed him to get comfortable and make the choice to trust his foster family a little bit more.

Now Peanut is relaxing more and even draping himself over his foster family member’s lap lol.

Sometimes allowing others, like our dogs to have freedom is scary.

Our brains are anticipating all the things that can go wrong and then to answer those fears, we imprison ourselves and our dogs with piling on all things we expect from our dogs.

Micromanaging every movement, telling them where to go, what to do or in many cases saying NO! Without saying yes to what is possible for your dog to do, demanding and commanding them because fear and overwhelm takes over dictating your actions.

What we create instead is the chaos we were trying to avoid in the first place.

By focusing on the what ifs, you are taking action to create those situations to get you what you wanted to avoid in this first place.

Also, allowing for freedom isn’t without boundaries.

Freedom is about expressing who you are authentically because you are aware of yourself, your intention and the action you take because you are connected to your values.

When you connect with what freedom feels like to you in a way that is aligned with your values, you can let go of the need to control what others do around you, including your dogs.

When your dog experiences freedom within the boundaries of what you create it’s because you show up consistently for them, provide them with options of what they can appropriately play with and the space to move around and make choices of what they want to do.

Your dog can make choices without your worry of what danger lurks around the corner.

Having a deep trust in yourself that you can safely guide your dog to teach him or her about the boundaries in your home and life so your dog can also experience freedom to express him or herself is possible.

How about focus on how you want you and your dog to feel and move from this place instead.

Learn from your dog that life can be simple, easy and joyful and see how you can invite in more freedom into yours and your dog’s world!