What My Dog Just Taught Me

I'm at the park now, intending to walk my dog Bella, the spastic, high energy Aussie-Heeler mix.  She is sweet, but can be annoying as heck sometimes, like when I try to sit and relax in the morning with a good book and a cup of coffee. The puppy will not lay down for more than two seconds.

Maybe she's getting her energy from me or perhaps more appropriately stated, she's feeding off of my high strung stressed out energy.  It's possible.

On the surface, I think I look pretty cool, and I am willing to say that my stress is really about the excitement of putting together my website and classes and standing on the precipice of something new, something that has so much potential, something that makes me feel so good. But stress is stress.  Good stress is still stress.  I think my dog smells my stress.

And she responds to it normally by acting a little stressed out herself.  I won't get into all of that here.  That's not what this post is about.  This post is about what my funny little puppy just reminded me of, what she taught me.

I've been working on a section of my online course that is covering the root chakra.  The root chakra is where the foundation for all our life is built.  It's our energetic storehouse of "I am OK in this world.  I am SAFE"...or not.

In order to have a healthy root chakra, a few things need to happen. You need to get your basic needs in order, ie. food, shelter, income and you need to bring your ideas and hopes and dreams as to how you build your foundation out of the clouds into real life.

One of the ways to help do this is the simple act of grounding and getting out in nature. I'd promised myself that I would walk my dog at the park today, not just because she is better and calmer at home in the evenings when I do, but because I am better and calmer and more connected, more relaxed and more accomplished when I do.

It's a beautiful day here in North Carolina and we got to the park per our usual route, parked in the lot in our usual place and stopped for a potty in the usual spot (Bella that is).

I was having trouble, real trouble, coming down from all of the content creation energy I had been swimming in for the past few days. (Weeks and months really). I had just been writing about grounding, as I said, so I squatted down and simply put my left hand in the grass, as I held onto Bella with the other.  I closed my eyes and I let the energy of the beautiful earth do her thing.

I felt myself coming "down" and feeling a release of the pent up energy.  I could feel myself starting to unwind... but I still wasn't here.

Bella and I resumed our walk and as we were rounding a corner and coming up a hill, the lawn maintenance guy was zipping around, cutting grass and in a flash, it took me back to Illinois and fresh cut grass and summers and thinking my God that's the best summer job a kid in highschool could ever had.  

I wanted to savor the smell of that grass and I wanted to get lost in the memories of so many summers when I was young and wild and free.  I didn't want to go back, I just wanted to get a little bit of that goodness for my today.

And that's when Bella wanted to get off the path. I thought she probably needed to do her other potty job so I followed her and let her walk and sniff her way around in the grass.  It was then that she surprised me.

Bella walked through the fresh cut grass, walked into the shadow of a sweet little shade tree, did her little circling act and laid herself down.  She's been relaxing away this entire time that I have been writing this post, which considering how long it takes me to write stuff and my fat fingers on my phone (emojis popping up all over the place 😜) that's a pretty long time.

But the most beautiful part of this is, that I am finding the healing that I need today because of my little Bella. When she laid down I decided to go for it and sit myself all yogi lotus style, in the grass, in the shade, under the tree, in the breeze.  My god it is heavenly.  I started crying the minute my butt hit the ground.  How did she know this is what I needed so much.  And apparently she needed it too.  

And I needed to write again, my thoughts and feelings and ideas, not a script.  And I feel so much better now, like 1000 pounds have been lifted off my shoulders, like my heart has opened again for this moment and I am grateful and thankful for it.  I am blessed.

I am here now and I'm ready to walk.  I'm ready to move forward.