Dog-Sitting My Way to Freedom...

So, as I mentioned in a recent post, I have been housesitting/dogsitting for a super amazing puppy named Atticus for the last couple weeks, who I have now fallen madly, stupidly, in love with. It's ridiculous.  I leave tomorrow and though I am convinced Atticus won't even register my presence and subsequent absence on his little puppy radar, I feel like I'm definitely going to shed a few earnest dog-sitter tears at our parting.

When I was growing up, for a brief period we had a basset hound by the name of Toby, who was, without question, one of the stupidest dogs on the planet.  He would dig holes in the yard just to bark down them.  He would forget who we were when we came home from the grocery store.  He would spend hours trying to climb on to an ottoman that he had long since outgrown--just shimmying up and falling off and shimmying up and falling off.  His paws were nearly as big as his ears (which were enormous), and which gave him an additionally dopey demeanor, and my mom all but ruined him by feeding him m&ms underneath the table whenever he padded up to her.  And though I liked Toby, quite a lot, he was really my mom's dog, and left us before I was even a teenager so I never had that THING.  You know the thing I'm talking about?  The way that people feel like their dogs are family...the way that people love their pets...like love-love?  I never understood that...

Until now.

I. Am. In. Love. With. This. Dog.

He's one of those follow-you-through-the-house gazing up at you with his one good eye (he's blind in one eye...did I mention that?) kind of dogs, and he makes me all melty inside.

But THAT is not the point.  The point is, that due to my new doggy-awareness, I suddenly became interested in watching (and I realize I'm like 11 seasons late to the game here) The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Milan.

And while I could go into all the half-assed dog training I've been embarrassingly trying to implement with a dog who is NOT MY DOG...I'd instead like to focus on just one thing.

Mr. Milan (that's what I'm calling him now), as he's voodoo-ing all these people and their crazy dogs, keeps reiterating a few of the same basic points:

1.  That people often inadvertently encourage bad behavior in their dogs, because they give more attention to the dog's anxiety than to anything else.  They yell and pull and shush and comfort when the dog is going bonkers, and that, to the little doggie-mind means, "keep on a-doin what you're doin."

2.  That a submissive dog is a happy dog, and;

3.  That a dog, in order to submit, needs to be guided by a calm assertive presence.

And I have to say, the whole time I was watching the show (the several episodes I watched) I couldn't stop thinking...this is how I should be dealing with my miiiiiiiiiiiind!!

Meditation teachers often talk about the mind as being like a puppy...just chasing after anything and everything that peaks it's interest, and that we have to deal with the training of the mind with the same patience we would use in the training of a puppy.

And all week long in my classes I have been exploring this idea of figuring out how to be the calm assertive presence for our own puppy selves.  How can we master our more frenetic impulses, not by adding to the drama, but just by firmly, patiently, tugging on the leash, and getting that dog back on track?

I love this so much, because not only does it engender compassion for our crazier impulses, it also fosters this idea of a part of ourselves which is...master.  It reminds us (and by us, I mean me) that we DO have control, even when it feels like we don't.  Even when our mind is, like, chewing everything in sight and pooping in the living room and barking at nothing...even then, we have a choice.  We can take up the leash, breathe into our own steadiness, and reign ourselves in.

I Ain't No Turtle...

Yesterday morning I reached my to-do list limit.  And though I feel slightly shame-faced about writing yet another treatise about how overwhelmed I am, I do have to say that it's a miracle that all of my class themes and blog posts haven't revolved entirely around wedding planning.  I think I've done a pretty good job of restraining myself, considering.

But, yesterday I hit some kind of a tipping point.

There are 78 days until my wedding, according to Wedding Wire, and I have a feeling the craziness is just beginning (a married friend of mine confirmed that yes, it is just beginning).  And as it is with these things (because the busier it gets, the busier it gets) along with all of the wedding paraphernalia, we are finding ourselves simultaneously faced with cars to fix and furniture to replace and subtenants to wrangle (I won't bore you with all the details).

We are full up with things which require copious amounts of internet research, and equally copious amounts of money spending.  And, as if that all weren't topsy-turvy enough, yesterday we began housesitting/dogsitting for some friends of ours and their giant adorable puppy...which, having never taken care of a dog full-time before, feels to me like I have just inherited a toddler.

Heh heh.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love these friends and I love love love this dog.  And they are generously letting us stay in their crazily gorgeous home while they're away, so the dog-tending is a welcome trade-off.  And, I love this dog.  Have I mentioned that I love this dog?  I love him.  He is giant and lumbering and sweet-natured and if you let him he would just spend hours licking your hands and face.  He's a joy.

But that first day...waking up early to scoot over to their house to walk the dog and then carting him off to doggy-day-care and then teaching two classes and then coming back and picking him up from daycare, hoping he was worn out enough from his playtime that he would sleep through the several hours we would be gone at a rehearsal, re-reading the instructions list his owners left to make sure I was feeding him right and walking him right and generally not messing him up in any way, and then trying to jam in time to write and time to practice and time to have wed-planning phone calls...it was a lot, people.  It. Was. A. Lot.

I could just feel my mind starting to spin faster and faster as the day progressed...this and then this and then this and then and then and then...so when I found myself with 30 minutes of downtime, I knew what I needed to do. (Oh my god, is someone actually becoming a grown-up?)

I brewed myself a cup of tea, I took it out to the beautiful deck with the beautiful view and sat myself in a beautiful wrought-iron chair to drink it.  I didn't bring my phone (well, I did...but just so I could keep my eye on time), I didn't bring a book or a notepad...just me and my cup of tea.  And I told myself if I didn't have time today to practice or to meditate or to even just slow the heck down, then at the very least I would take this 30 minutes and do nothing but breathe and drink in the view (and my beverage).

I watched a hummingbird alight on a dangling feeder to eat.  I pondered the nameless bluebell flowers that grow up here in the Silverlake hills.  I smelled my tea.  I drank my tea.  I breathed in and out.

And as I sat there and breathed and drank and relished, I began to think about Pratyahara.  Pratyahara is the fifth of the 8 limbs of yoga, and loosely translated it means, "withdrawal of the senses."  This, not surprisingly, is a not the most popular of the yogic limbs.  Mainly because it sounds horrendously boring.  People always talk about turtles when they talk about pratyahara--a turtle retreating into it's shell--which to me makes it sound not just boring, but also kind of sad, like one of those cartoon turtles who sucks his little head in every time he hears a noise.  That's just not my ideal picture of enlightenment.

But as I thought about it, there on the deck, in my 30 minutes of serenity, I thought that maybe withdrawal of the senses doesn't mean, as it's so often characterized, a shutting down or a turning off.  Maybe the withdrawal of the senses that's being talked about is only a withdrawal from the things that pull too sharply at us.  Maybe pratyahara means withdrawing, not from the sweetness of hummingbirds and bluebells, or the grassy taste of green tea on your tongue--maybe it means withdrawal from all the nonsense that distracts us from being able to actually enjoy those small wonders.

Maybe it means withdrawal from external forces SO THAT the quieter senses might have the opportunity to get a little louder.

Because what we are left with, when we begin to turn away from external forces--from to-do lists and schedules and futurizing--what we are left with is just that which bubbles up from within.  We are left with the simplicity of our lives.  The moment-to-moment goodness of it.  And maybe, if we're lucky (and we have good friends) we are left with a rockin' view, a delicious beverage, and the feeling that we might just be able to handle everything after all...

(fingers crossed)