Stillness

Are you doing all the things trying to make your dog happy, but you’re still finding yourself frustrated by your dog’s biting and jumping?

You find yourself pouring all of your free time into specialized dog training groups on social media.

You’ve bought the latest and greatest books on dog training trying to find the answers to how to help your dog, but you feel like you’re a spinning top with no end in sight.

You’re sucked into watching dog training videos which is leading you into a spiraling down into the depths of your self doubt and despair.

The thoughts get louder that you “can’t do this.”

You’re walking around with your shoulders up to your ears, your brow furrowed and you loose out on sleep because you’re constantly worried about your dog’s wellbeing.

Your worry grows stronger as the days go on.

You exhausted from your wheels spinning, but you push yourself to keep going.

Why?

Maybe you don’t know what else to do.

You realize you haven’t taken a break to chat with a friend or do those things you find pleasure in doing.

Maybe you believe switching gears, slowing down or just taking a break isn’t going to help you reach your goals.

You’re hitting your breaking point and you acknowledge to yourself, you need relief from the struggle.

Stillness is your outlet to calm your central nervous system without checking out or numbing to what you’re going through.

Stillness allows your body to relax and get to a place of calm quiet even when life is going on around you.

Breathing deeply can lower your heart rate and settle your nerves.

Here are a few “go to’s” my clients created for themselves.

🎊Schedule social media time. This gives you freedom in doing all the scrolling you want during the hours of X and Y. This also help you not go into the black hole of any social media platform.

🎊Prioritize what social media groups you find are beneficial to you and get rid of the rest. Flooding your brain with information can lead you to what one client shared with me as “analysis paralysis.” Seeking all of the information can lead you to not taking action at all.

🎊Walk barefoot. Connecting your feet to the ground beneath you can ease the swirling thoughts of your mind.
Listen to the sounds of nature and allow for what shows up for you. You have the answers already, creating space for them to show up will help you reach your goal.

What happens when you create stillness for yourself, you also create stillness for your dog.

You begin offering activities your dog can do on his or her own when you take time for yourself.

You observe your dog settling more around your house.

By taking a step back from being the only source of entertainment for your dog, your dog has more opportunity to make choices for himself too.

Your dog starts making choices to entertain himself by going to the toy box on his own and making choices of grabbing a toy or finding a chewy along the way.

As you cultivate a feeling of calm for yourself, your dog starts feeling similarity and makes the choice to do those things that bring him more of the same too.

Take 5 minutes for yourself and see how it can rejuvenate you and your dog and create ease between you and your companion.

“Comparison is the Thief of Joy.”

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Interesting assertion made by Teddy Roosevelt.

Comparing yourself to others sets a bar of success that is unrelated to you.

It sets you up for spiraling thoughts of where you fall short, and gives up your power to someone else.

It can leave you defeated as you start on your own goals.

For instance, when you see your neighbor or a random stranger walking their dogs and their dogs are walking step in step with their person, you may see this as the ideal.

When you compare what is going on with you and your dog to this complete stranger or even family member, you may not know what it took to get there.

Rather than judging yourself to someone else’s achievement, ask yourself, “what do I want to achieve? How will I get there? Am I willing to do the work? What do I want my dog and myself to experience? Will I want support to get me to the other side of learning something new?

The only way to gain confidence in doing something new is to take action. You have to get through some fear before you take the first step.

Give yourself permission to mess things up and not get things right the first time. Or the second or the 80th. Life isn’t perfect and when we expect ourselves and our dogs to do it right always, you are setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration.

Not to mention, it is totally unfair to pass these expectations on to your dog who is along for the ride and has no say in the matter.

Your dog is learning too.

Be kind to yourself and your dog.

You have permission to give yourself compassion for not getting it right. Stay open in learning something new, allow for new information to be accommodated into established beliefs and be comfortable with discomfort.

When you feel like you and your dog hit a wall with learning, find the positives of what you accomplished.

You may start off thinking the goal is at the top of an insurmountable mountain, but when you recognize the smallest of successes, you can see where you are going and you take the next step on your journey.

Some things to consider:

🔑 When you find yourself comparing what your doing with your dog to someone else and their dog, ask yourself: “What am I looking to achieve?” “What do I need to get there?” “How will I get started?” “Am I willing to put in the work?”

🔑 You also want to take a look at how you show up when things are messy and confusing. This is a first step in acknowledging that there will be bumps in the road. This will help you level your own expectation and humble you that you won’t get it right every time. You may also take a look at how your limiting beliefs try and tell you aren’t good enough, because those will for sure show up at these times and try to stop you from climbing your mountain.

🔑 Start off your training session and ask yourself, “how do I want to feel during practice?” “How do I want my dog to feel during practice?” This can be your barometer to measure what is feeling light, fun and building a connection between you and your dog. When it stops being those things, then take a break! I’ll go one step further and learn from this and adjust your practice so you can end on a good note. By ending on a good note, you and your dog will want to do this again later. This will feed you and your dog’s motivation.

🔑 Celebrate your wins. Celebrate them regardless of how big or small. Celebrate them even when something else didn’t work.

🔑 When you experience something not working during practice, shift your perspective into what about this not working is trying to tell me. There’s always information which can change performance in the next round if we are willing to take a look at what didn’t work during this round.

Change Your Perspective by Changing your Perception

I often hear, “my dog’s behavior X is a problem. Tell me how to fix it.”

Sigh.

When you start seeing behavior as a problem, then you are looking through a microscope and limiting your view of what is possible.

Your dog is hardwired for survival and the behavior is how she reacts to those situations to protect herself.

These neural pathways are repeated and the behavior is reinforced.

In order to help your dog change her behavior, you have to create an environment to conducive which allows a dog to feel safe which in turn creates an opportunity for your dog to learn a new way of experiencing the environment.

When you pair this with something she loves, your dog’s mind is creating new neural pathways, therefore new choices can be made.

This doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

The other side of the training coin is you.

Like you, I also experienced pet caring in a much different way.

Outdated methods permeated my brain.

Also, like you, I wanted to do things differently, but it was challenging in the beginning.

Why? Because, like you, I had no experience when I first started out what behavior change looked like in a modern way.

I too read books and scoured the internet for guidance.

Like you, this led me into a rabbit hole.

Building confidence doesn’t happen by reading theory and concepts.

Building confidence in creating change happens because you took action.

Taking action in trying something new where you have no experience in doing, will creep you to your own comfort zone.

This is where your limiting beliefs live and where your own brain tries really hard to keep you safe by pushing against you from growing.

You too are hardwired for survival. Growing and expanding your world is not what you’re meant to do.

Because creating new neural pathways takes energy and your resources to achieve, your brain wants you to stop and keep you small.

This only works against you and what you want your dog to achieve together.

Desiring growth and living an integrated life with your dog requires you to take a step past your comfort zone and your willingness to be open to the experience, whatever that brings.

Your willingness to challenge beliefs and find the confidence while doing so.

When you can feel more confident in taking action, you can help your dog do the same.

Are you willing to get started in transforming your life with your dog?