I’m sitting in my living room writing this blog post. It is 1:10 AM. It is quiet, except for the clock ticking and the occasional “stop that” from my neighbor to her cat. My dog, a 2 year old cattle dog mix, Betty, is snuggled in a ball with her eyes slowly opening and closing as she fades into a slumber. She’s snuggled up in a lavender blanket next to my leg. Below her is the 13 year old golden retriever, Bo, I am dog-sitting. He can barely walk, but he’s running ferociously in his sleep. He is definitely catching lots of squirrels in his dreams.
So why am I telling you this? To be honest, I don’t really know. I just started typing and was led to describe my current viewpoint. I think I take for granted these quiet nights of reflection. Anyways, back to why I started writing this in the first place. Dogs. The best addition to any family. The loves of my life. The only no-judgement beings in our lives.
I want to discuss lessons we can learn from the best beings on earth. To start, they are the perfect definition of mindful (one of my favorite topics). They never appear focused on what happened five minutes ago, let alone last week. They aren’t looking towards tomorrow either. They are always in the here and now.
Next, as I mentioned above, they give no-judgement. They may recognize our mistakes, but they don’t dwell on them. They continue to greet us at the door with a wagging tail, they snuggle, and play. They are all about no-bullshit and straight forward boundaries, give me my food, take me on a walk, love me.
They are blissfully unaware of embarrassment. I mean for real. Betty literally will dive off the couch to catch her ball, completely and utterly miss, slam into the wall, roll, bounce back up, and grab the ball as if nothing happened. If I fell off the couch or slammed into the wall and someone saw, oh man, I wouldn’t be showing my face for days.
They find joy in the small things.
They don’t gossip.
They are never worried about who is going to ask who out, they just go for it.
They make friends with everyone and anyone (except little kids in Betty’s case, since little kids are scary).
They are resilient.
They are loving.
They are forgiving.
They are honest.
I mean really, if we as a society decided to take social classes from dogs, we would all probably be a lot happier. Well anyways, I’m not sure if this was some grand lesson, but I felt compelled to write it. I guess what I want to leave you with is this… we should all try to live a little more like dogs because I think we’d be happier for it.
In case you are like me, and are actually obsessed with dogs, AND are considering giving therapy or coaching a try… reach out to me for a free phone consultation BECAUSE it might just be the thing you need right now.