Moving Beyond

I’ve spent over a decade learning and understanding dog behavior. I used the knowledge I gained to help countless people in helping them better understand their dogs and how to communicate with them more effectively in dog friendly language.

What I’ve discovered for myself in working with people and their dogs is that in many situations, the dogs don’t need the help nor do they need fixing. Instead, the person or persons or family in front of me is who needs the support and guidance and often times in my practice, it’s not about them doing more or knowing more about dogs. Often, the person, or persons or family are desiring to know their inner world, but they are believing what the dog is doing is causing them the pain and suffering.

You see, the inner turmoil a person is facing often comes up when their outer world is not reflecting back to them of what they expect. In these situations, the dog is the target of the person’s unhappiness. The dog is blamed for all the things going on when in fact, the self doubt, the resentment and all the other unpleasantries someone may be facing bubbles over when their dog is barking, lunging and doing all the other unsightly things that bring the scowls, judgments and berating from friends, neighbors and family members.

These unpleasant thoughts are constantly swirling inside their minds and once someone else points their finger and says something the other person is believing about themself, then now it must be true AND now those feelings are coming to the surface and its uncomfortable and they just don’t want to deal with it. ACK!

When this happens when the person is walking their dog and their dog doesn’t do what they like and this garners the negative attention from others, well, the dog will be in trouble for being a dog. How totally unfair.

How about instead, taking a breath and just check in with yourself about what feelings and thoughts are coming up for you? Not only will this give you a moment to consider how you can lovingly help your dog, but it will also show yourself some compassion.

Let me tell you what, life isn’t here to be comfortable. Life is here to jostle things inside of you to help you shift from just surviving to actually living your life more fully. Once you start considering this, you begin to let go bit by bit of internal resistance to change.

My focus in working with fellow humans who may have dogs, is shifting from dog focused to human focused with dog friendly guidance, if necessary. Coaching the person in front of me is central to their desire to have better relationships and communication which leads to more satisfying life.

This may sound strange to you and that’s ok. The next time you find yourself getting upset and angry or even sad about what your dog did or didn’t do, take a breath and go inward. You may uncover the thoughts that contribute to your feelings that have become a belief about who you are.

What you’ll discover when you practice that observation is that you are more than just what you say or believe about yourself!

Integration of All Parts

Striving, achieving, accomplishing and goal oriented was how I look back on my 20’s and somewhat of my 30’s. The focus was on a singular goal. Play D1 soccer. Check. Run a marathon or several. Check. Live in the PNW. Check. Career supporting women and children. Check. The latter one is a bit more broad and I’m still serving women and children, but the check was mostly focused in a particular work environment. This is also began my shift into living more intentionally shaped by the social work values that are still a core part of me today.

Anyway, being goal oriented built my focus and helped me to visualize where I wanted to go and helped keep me forward moving. All great things, especially as I was traversing those decades of my life. Even in the midst of moving towards those goals, I also had misaligned adventures which too shaped my experiences helped me to understand what I wanted more of, what I needed to let go of and what definitely wasn’t for me.

As I head into my late ’40’s, I feel I’m no longer singularly focused on a goal, but rather setting broader intentions for the second half of my life. Intentions of freedom, ease, creativity and fun. While my younger self was guided into achievement, my current self is guided into wholeness. Bringing the parts of myself back into alignment with my entire being and making choices from a place that is congruent to my values and intentions.

I’ve also found there are set backs along the way, but the hurdles are different. As I set out on achieving a running goal or going for a job and not getting it, I experienced this as an “ok, let’s regroup and push again” while now when there is a challenge, I’m more aware of how my body experiences it. I’m able to sit with the discomfort, observe how tension arises, how my breath releases whatever is stored in my body one layer at a time and I’m able to re align back to my intentions of freedom, ease, creativity and fun.

Settling into living more intentionally, I’m more present to what my body is saying, I have more capacity to hold the energy its in every (mostly) moment and using my breath to guide me. I now can more intimately know for myself how the body holds on to experiences that it was too overwhelmed at the time to complete the emotional cycle. I now know the bravery it takes to be able to sit with how the body feels because for so long, I was too scared to do so. I now know the courage it takes to listen to what shows up when my breath directs my focus not on some outside gain, but the subtle message my body is communicating to me through the inhale and exhale. I can now feel the difference when my chest tightens versus or alongside my legs tingling. One of them means something totally differently than when they are met together. I can feel my body heave even without tears when I feel sadness for past pain. I can feel the emotional release of a tense jaw and headache when I’ve let go of another layer of loneliness. I’m starting to recognize I don’t have ruminating thoughts when my body is expressing something, but rather seeing how my mind tried to make sense of how my body was feeling as though there was something wrong with me. I’m understanding, there was never ever anything wrong with me. My little body many years ago was overwhelmed and didn’t have the skills at the time to cope. At the same time, my little body knew what it needed to at the time to survive. For awhile now, I’m recognizing on a microlevel, I’m no longer needing to survive. With that, I’m shifting beliefs and forging a whole new path for myself.

Expanding the vision for how I want to live my life touches on the parts of myself that I’m on the journey of exploring, experimenting and shifting into. The fullness of life is harmonizing the being and the doing. I’ve spent many years focused solely on the doing. Now I get to embrace how being flows with what I chose to do!

Begin Again

Phew! It’s been over a year since I wrote about mindfulness and awareness through our companionship with our pets. I have shared recently about an upcoming Phenix Advocacy Center, but I’ve not put my finger on the keyboard to express my thoughts in awhile!

I’ve been in a deep spiritual journey, unraveling my own limiting beliefs and personal trauma experiences that have lived within the cells of my being for as long as I can remember. What I’ve learned about myself is that my body remembers longer than what I can consciously recall for myself. Healing is harsh. Hard truths come out as they were tucked away for so long, but they manifested in the way I took action and how I saw myself. Uncovering the root of these beliefs were painful, but necessary for my own growth. Shedding the past of what held me back and prevented me from living in alignment with what is true for me.

What is emerging (you all may already have an idea because of reading my posts over the course of time) is that as I evolve and change, so does my focus in how I show up and serve. Through my experience in work, play and just being, I’m able to observe the rhythm of my body and how I make choices that are more clearly aligned with me is transformative not only for myself, but also for my dogs.

One of the most insightful things I’ve learned about myself is that my breath and stillness has shown me what the tension in my body is communicating to me and also what I need to do to help it along. No longer is the answer a grand gesture, but rather feeling the subtle shifts and electrical impulses that spark inspiration within me. I feel the reorganization of my energy from within. The rise and fall of my breath is the direction I follow and truly, everything I needs is already inside of me as it is for you!

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Hank changed our lives. His healing, put my own inner work on blast and I’m grateful to what he’s showed me about myself through his presence in my life. I’m shedding the labels that confined me. It’s no longer about analyzing what dogs do and don’t do, but instead flowing with what shows up and responding through conscious awareness. Additionally, if something happens you don’t like or prefer, that’s were you get to grow and learn about yourself even if that is not what you expected. Life is here to make you happy, it’s here to help you grow.