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Heel…

One of my favorite new pastimes is walking our dog, Maggie. I get my exercise, she gets her exercise and we are both so much better for it. But we don’t just hook up the leash and go for it…as we have both learned from our obedience school lessons…there is a correct way to walk… and an incorrect way to walk.

The correct way to walk (to heel) keeps Maggie on a loose leash on my left side. She walks even with me and sometimes slightly behind. In this position, I am the leader and I can turn left or right or take an abrupt about-face and she can move with me with ease because she is close to me and can easily see me. Her being in this position is not restrictive to her either because I can also easily keep an eye on her and when she needs to sniff or “take a break” I can simply slow down or stop. I lead, she follows and we both enjoy our walk.

Conversely, the incorrect way for her to walk is ahead of me. As she moves ahead of me, she loses sight of me. Losing sight of me means that she becomes the leader and the decision maker and as I have learned about dogs…they don’t like to make decisions, they need a leader…it stresses them out if they feel they have to lead. So now we have a stressed-out Maggie out in front of me and “pulling” on the leash. (If dogs feel tension on the leash, they naturally feel the need to pull against it…I learned that in “doggie school” too.) So she’s stressed out and pulling against me and now when I want to turn left or right or around, the only way to do so makes me pull on her leash…which creates more stress…in her and in me. The walk becomes a struggle. The enjoyment is gone.

Despite the pulling, the stress, and the anxiety…she always feels the need to initially take the lead and to get out in front of me on our walks. So each time, I have to spend the first few minutes of our walk (and sometimes more…) “reminding her” to heel…and here’s how I do it…

When she takes off and begins to walk ahead, I can tell that she is no longer keeping tabs on me. She is lost in the new smells, the sights, and the countless other things competing for her attention. Once I see that she is no longer aware of my presence…I’ll simply stop walking abruptly and hold tight to the leash. The result is she quickly gets to the end of the leash and she suffers the shock of an immediate “correction”. Meaning…she gets the heck jerked out of herself.

The extent of the jerk is never my doing…it’s always based on the speed and momentum of her moving away from me. The quicker she leaves me…the stronger the impact of the jerk will be when she reaches the end of the leash.

Sometimes I’ll have to start and stop walking several times in a row and each time she’ll jerk, stop and look at me and then when we start walking again…she’ll take off and I’ll stop and she’ll jerk and we do it several times and then she finally catches on. She’ll take off and I’ll stop and she’ll take another step and realize I’ve stopped and then she’ll stop and look back at me until I start walking again. This is our “dance” over who will be the leader of the walk. We do it every night.

The best nights are when we both slowly walk out the front door and slowly turn down onto the sidewalk. One stop and she’s reminded and then she returns to my side (or slightly behind) and off we go. Loose leash, no anxiety, both of us enjoying the walk and each other’s company…

So why go into so much detail about walking a dog…?

Well, I think sometimes God must feel the same way about us. He knows where we should be in relation to Him. He knows that when we keep Him in our sights, our lives are better and we are happier and safer. In essence, he wants us to “heel”.

Yet, we don’t. Like Maggie, each day we take off with our own ideas, agendas, thoughts, beliefs, and needs and it’s not too long before we suffer for it. God simply stops walking and we get jerked by our own doings.

I’ve learned a lot about myself from Maggie. We are more alike than I care to admit. I love that dog with all of my heart and it breaks my heart to see her “corrected” each time we walk. But I just have to love her enough to let her experience the “correction” that she has created by leaving me.

So when I’m feeling stressed, anxious, or frustrated about something, I now think about Maggie and our walks and I ask myself…

“Am I heeling?”

Well, we both know the answer to that…

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Smile…!

Maggie…

As they say, when one door closes, another one opens…and it sure did.

Several weeks after we lost Finn, our 13-year-old poodle, we welcomed into our family Maggie, a 10-year-old Goldendoodle rescue. To say she is a sweetheart is a dramatic understatement, but with all that goodness comes 10 years of baggage that we are seeing glimpses of each day. We were told by her foster parents, that she needed to be “socialized” because she gets really anxious around new people and other animals. We immediately saw that and we have since been adding to that list…cars, trucks, bicycles, noises on TV, and leaves that blow in the wind to name a few… but nonetheless…we love her and all her baggage…God knows we have enough baggage for her as well.

So in an effort to help her cope with those things that have been a negative impact on her previous 10 years of life, we decided to enroll her in a doggy training academy. Each day I take Maggie to doggy daycare where trainers try to help her unlearn some bad behaviors and teach her some new behaviors as well. She’s been great about it all and I can really start to see some progress…but we have a long road ahead.

As part of our enrollment into the academy, they gave us a book to read about dog training, it’s called “Smile!” by Lynne Swanson, DVM. One of the initial chapters of the book really impacted me and I’ll share it below:

“Whether or not anyone is watching, please look up from the book and smile. Even if you don’t feel like smiling, do it anyway. Allow yourself an honest, up-to-your-eyes, laugh-line-creating, smile. I’ll wait.

Did you notice the relaxed breath that followed your smile? Smiles trigger them. Do you notice reduced tension in your shoulders and neck? Perhaps less stiffness in your posture? Smiles help there, too. Smiles are very powerful. If a stranger smiles at you from across the room, you tend to smile back, don’t you? You may even feel in the moment, happier about yourself and a bit more trusting of others.

That is how dogs feel when people offer genuine smiles. Smiles convey a heck of a lot more than words do, and what our facial muscles do to all our other muscles when we smile says volumes about us when we communicate with nonverbal species. As a pretty darn verbal species, we tend to forget that.”

The chapter goes on to say that the author rewards her dogs with only sincere, relaxed smiles. No dog biscuits, no “good dogs” or baby talk…smiles relax dogs and lower their energy level and they are always with you, unlike biscuits or treats.

Since reading this, I’ve made a conscious effort to smile more…way more!

I’m not much of a natural “smile person” and often think of my smile as that look I had the first time I ate broccoli. Not a good look. Regardless, I’ve been smiling and it seems to work! On Maggie and also on ME! I can give Maggie a big smile and immediately I’m in a different state of mind. No longer am I thinking about all the tasks that need to be accomplished that day or who or what had “ticked me off” in some way…but I really think I’m a better version of ME! All by smiling at my dog! Who knew!?

Looks like Maggie isn’t the only one going to school these days…!

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Broken…

Finn was my constant companion when I hurt my ankle…

I’ll bet that anyone that has had a pet has been heartbroken at one time or another. I am living in that space right now.

Finn is 13 years old. Like many pets, certainly dogs, he is a perfect example of pure love, forgiveness, and being present. He never worries, holds grudges, or is in a bad mood. He has been an incredible friend and part of the family. As I write this, my eyes are filling with tears and the lump in my throat is making it difficult to swallow…because I know what is coming and it is breaking my heart.

Finn is suffering. He tries to hide it, but it’s getting the best of him. Not to get into specifics, my wife and I have come to the realization that we need to put an end to his suffering and allow ours to begin for a while… So tomorrow, we are going to have someone come to our house and have him put down.

….no words…

This morning coming to work, I was wrestling with that inevitable decision. I was praying as I drove to work and asking God to give me the strength to be able to go thru with it and then be able to comfort my wife for the difficult days to follow…then it hit me…

This is Easter week. Friday is Good Friday. If I am feeling this way knowing what I know I have to do tomorrow…I now know (in a very small way) how God must have felt knowing what He had to do…

It’s amazing how many Easters I have experienced and how often I have read about and meditated on what Jesus willingly did for us…but I never thought about the anguish of God and what He was going through knowing that He was the one that would end the life of the one he loved so dearly… I can’t imagine…but now I have a small sense of the pain that must have been caused.

God did what needed to be done…regardless of the pain that it caused him. He did it for love. Love for His son and an even greater love for us…His creation. God did it for love.

Now I must do the same.

Finn has brought me an incredible amount of joy and happiness. He is being called home to begin his “forever life” and I need to release him to go…regardless of the pain. I need to do it for love…too.

The tears…the lump in my throat that won’t go away reminds me of that love…the love I have given and the love I have received.

Easter will be different this year…and probably for years to come with the realization of what love really looks…and feels like…. It’s not always pleasant…

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Closed vs. Open-handed living

Years ago, I was getting a massage. There I was lying on my stomach with my arms down to my sides as the masseuse worked on a pinched nerve in my lower back. I remember her saying, “why are your hands closed, you’re supposed to be relaxing?” I didn’t even realize it! Since that time, I’ve often caught myself “relaxing” with closed or clinched hands! This says a lot about what I sometimes struggle with. Let me explain…

Clinch your hand. Look at it… What does that feel like? Closed-handed living is not good…for you or others. When your hands are closed, you’re more tense and tight. Most likely, you’re closed off from others. You’re giving off that “leave me alone vibe.” Closed-handed living leads one to try to control situations…because they fear losing control. The ironic thing is, that they are losing control of the very thing they are trying to protect! Closed-handed living limits generosity, light-heartedness, and ultimately happiness! Closed-handed living makes you fear being exposed, seen, or scrutinized…it makes you live a small life…

On the flipside, open your hand! You don’t have to stretch it out, just soften it and allow it to open. Look at it and feel what that feels like. Feel as if you’re allowing a baby bird to sit in your palm.

Open-handed living allows people to be more relaxed, happy, and comfortable with themselves and their environment. It allows one to be generous, transparent, and have a healthy view of themselves and their life. Open-handed people tend to be humorous “go with the flow” types of people. Open-handed living attracts people. Open-handed living makes you smile a lot and you’re most likely healthier. Open-handed living may make you a bit more vulnerable, but living openly allows you to feel and sense things better than closed-handed living. Good things usually happen to people that live open-handed.

I know that I sometimes struggle between the two. On my own, I would probably be more close-handed than I would like to admit…but I know it’s not good for me and I intentionally work on being more open-handed…but it’s not natural…yet. I would love to live my life naturally more open-handed and I’m going to keep working on it. It’s certainly worth the effort. Who knows… one day I might be lying on my stomach getting a massage and I’ll hear the masseuse commenting, “Wow, you’re really relaxed!” That would be a good day.

It’s certainly something to aspire to!

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Stories we tell…

For anyone that has ever interviewed for a job, one of the first questions you’ll most likely hear is, “Tell me about yourself…” To many of us, we hear that and then begin to tell a story that we have told countless times. We select bits and pieces of our life experiences and we weave them together to give the listener an impression of us that we want them to have. But have you ever wondered…is it true?

True, the events most likely actually happened, but does the story we attribute to those events accurately reflect what actually happened and why? And if not…what is the real story?

“Tell me about yourself” statements are WAY more important than what they may appear to be. They actually reveal more about how WE view our lives than how they may actually be. They tend to support a narrative that we have told ourselves about ourselves and support our belief that we are “less than” we could have been or should have been. We are a failure or a victim or that we were mistreated in some way or a number of other reasons or excuses we allow ourselves to cling on to. They basically scream out, it’s not my fault!

But is that true?

Think of ALL the experiences you have had in your life. Think of ALL the challenges you have had and have struggled with, but you found a way to succeed. Think of ALL the people that helped you along the way, and those YOU helped as well. Also, think of the same events of your “old story” and ask yourself, what good came out of that event? Ask yourself what did you learn from it? Basically, go back and view your life through a new lens and craft a story that empowers you! Create a narrative where you are the champion, the hero, the one that wins in the end! You don’t even have to tell anyone…just tell that story to yourself!

Now how do you feel?

Which story is better? Which story is true? Which story “should” you be telling…to yourself?

Craft a better life story. You’re worth it.

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Falling Forward…

Life…

My Mom sent me this photo out of the blue…

Although I don’t remember it or the circumstances around my mishap, I do notice a couple of things:

  1. No protective gear. No helmet, no elbow guard…nothing to protect me from the abrasive surface of the concrete sidewalk I encountered.
  2. No help. As I lay on the ground after my fall, my loving parents chose to snap a photo rather than to run to my rescue.
  3. No crying. As you can see from my face, the fall was certainly not planned, but it was also completely under my control…I did it…I fell…

So what can I learn from this “ancient” photo of just one of the many random days of a child learning to live in this world…?

I think I first have to acknowledge that we all fall. We all fail. The difference is, some of us fall back and others of us fall forward.

We’ve all met people that fall back. First, they try to hide it. Then they try to place the blame on someone or something else. They are also clearly not at peace about it. Just talking about the incident whether it was yesterday or 30 years ago will unleash a torrent of emotions that surround the incident. Falling back is not healthy.

So what is falling forward?

Falling forward the act of using the incident to get better. It’s being better for having fallen. It’s learning to take the pain and grow from it into a much stronger and healthier you.

Falling forward I believe requires 4 primary steps.

  1. Reflect. We have to stop and think about what happened. We have to be objective about it and see it as a reporter would report the incident if they witnessed it.
  2. Own it. Regardless of what happened, we have to claim our responsibility in the event. We have to clearly see what we did and how it contributed to our fall…as painful as it might be.
  3. Course correct. We have to learn from it. We have to commit to a change in future behavior if we ever find ourselves in a similar situation.
  4. Be kind. We have to be kind to ourselves. We’ve had enough pain, we don’t need to invent more pain to inflict on ourselves. We also have to be kind to others. We can’t retreat or withdraw. Isolation does not make anything better…exposure usually does. Get back out there!

So there you have it…all of that from one random photo.

I have fallen thousands of times since that day. Many have produced significant amounts of pain for me and others…yet I’ve always tried to fall forward. Falling forward has given me a rich and deep life to reflect upon and I wouldn’t trade any of it…regardless of the pain. I’m a better man for it.

Falling is not failing. It’s a part of life…and a good one if you fall forward.

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Sharpening…

A couple of months ago, the guys I work with talked me into getting a knife.   They all had them made fun of me because I didn’t carry one with me like they did on a daily basis.   So after a little bit of research, I got a nice knife.   Oddly, ever since getting it, not a week goes by that I’m not reaching into my pocket and pulling the knife out to open a package, mail, or cut something.

Naturally, once you get a knife, you need to keep it sharp.  So now I had to get a sharpening stone.   After several attempts, and several different types of sharpening devices…I found that the act of sharpening is one of my favorite things to do!   I find it so relaxing…almost meditative!

So recently as I was sharpening my knife, I began to think about what sharpening really is…

When I’m sharpening my knife…I’m actually removing small particles of the steel.   The action is very intentional and balanced and the small bits of steel are removed at a very precise angle for an intended purpose…bringing to edges together perfectly at precise and matching angles.

Then I started thinking about how this might apply to my life…

For me, if I was very intentional about removing certain things in my life…I think I would be better…”sharper” if you will.  Like my knife skills, this would require me to be very intentional about what those things are and they would need to be removed in a balanced and precise manner.

So what if I removed the following things from my life…

  • Fear and Worry
  • A couple of extra pounds
  • Some of the crap around the house that I no longer use
  • Some bills that I pay for services I don’t use
  • The desire to try to control every situation
  • Social Media
I think removing some of these things would make a huge difference.  It would make me happier, healthier and a better person to be around as well!   I’d be a better version of myself…I’d be sharper!
This sounds like a worthwhile exercise!   I could do with a bit of sharpening!  And with January 1st coming next week, I might have stumbled on my 2022 goal list!
One thing about sharpening though…it’s not a one-time thing.   It’s something that I’ll be working on throughout the year…but that’s ok.
Life is better with a little less sometimes…
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It’s all in the setup…

I love playing golf. I’m not good at it, but that doesn’t stop me from always practicing, tinkering, and trying to get better. In trying to get better, I recently videoed my swing. I was horrified. It was nothing like the swing I had pictured in my mind, it was nothing like the swing my body assured me that I had by simply feel and it is not the type of swing I ultimately want to have!

So in trying to work through some of the issues that I saw on the video, one issue I wanted to fix was where the low point in my swing was versus where it needed to be. You see in golf when you hit an iron, the club needs to strike the ball first just before it strikes the ground, so the lowest point of the swing is actually in front of the ball.

I’ve always known this fact intellectually, and I’ve always thought my setup position was correct and the problem with my swing was something else I was doing wrong. But after seeing my swing on video, I quickly realized that the low point of my swing was actually behind the ball!

The next time I practiced, I simply made an adjustment that placed the ball slightly farther back in my stance than I had been used to… which brought the low point of my swing to be in front of the ball and bingo! My shots became solid, straight, and pure! A simple adjustment of where I needed to be relative to the ball and then without doing anything else differently… everything else fell into place. Life was good again!

Why do I reference this?

Well, recently I’ve been stressing about all the changes in our country and in the world in general. The rate of change is sometimes more than I can keep up with and I can tell it is having a negative effect on my psyche. Then one evening, my wife and I were talking about humility, and that word stuck with me for a couple of days. I just kept thinking about being humble and what that really means. What I learned was this…

Humility is actually an attitude of spiritual modesty that comes from understanding our place in the larger order of things. It entails us not taking our desires, successes, or failings too seriously. Being humble is really the act of placing ourselves in the correct relationship under another authority. Back to my golf story, it’s the act of placing myself where I need to be relative to the ball in order to hit it properly.

When I get all stressed out and worried about our country and our world in general, I am placing myself in a position I don’t belong and shouldn’t be because I am not the one that can control it. What I need to do is get back to the place where I need to be and trust in the authority I have placed myself under to handle those issues. Once I do that, everything works.

So where is that proper place and who is that authority?

For me, the right place for me is to place myself under God. He is the only one that can make the changes that need to be made for our country and our world. Our leaders can’t and our culture won’t.

Practicing humility is tough…but it’s critical to our success and our overall happiness. Our culture views being humble as a bad thing. They try to tell us that it is disempowering and it promotes thinking less of ourselves. But in actuality, it is empowering because we are thinking of ourselves… less and that’s our perfect place. It’s the way we were designed and created to be.

So the next time you feel “out of sorts and stressed out”…make sure to check your setup.

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Trust…

I’ve been thinking a lot about trust recently. What is it and why is it important? What are the effects of having it…and not having it? Whom do I trust and why?

It used to be that I trusted a lot of things and a lot of people.

  • I trusted the news.
  • I trusted our government.
  • I trusted my teachers.
  • I trusted my doctor.
  • I trusted what I was told.
  • I trusted the closest people in my life.
  • I trusted the decisions of those in charge.
  • I trusted those I loved.
  • I trusted that given a chance, people would do the right thing.

Lot’s has changed.

I’m not so sure anymore. The once long list of things I trusted and people I trusted has drastically be whittled down over time. Why is that? What changed?

Well, to begin with, the very essence of “trust” begins with the two letters securely placed within the word itself…” us“. To me, trust is a voluntary transaction between two parties. It is my relinquishing power, control, care, well-being, safety from myself to another entity. It’s my belief that there is a mutual concern about “us”, and that my well-being will be viewed just as important to them as their well-being.

As I said, a lot has changed…

What are the effects of this change?

Well, the world is certainly a more lonely place without trust. Living in a world where everything you see, hear and experience has to be scrutinized and researched certainly is an emotional grind. That once “voluntary transaction” has become something I consciously hold on to and protect as my life depends on it…and it very well might!

What is the solution?

I’ve always viewed trust in terms of an equation. It can be summed up like this: Consistent behavior/time. That’s it. When I observe someone’s consistent behavior over a long period of time, it helps me assess whether that person is someone I may want to trust or not. That might also explain why trust is in such short supply these days.

There has been such a dramatic shift in what we say we believe, who we believe and why we should believe it. We are changing our history, our culture, and our character at a record rate. What once was held as true and noble is now questioned and discouraged. Having a differing opinion from the masses now comes with punitive consequences. What was true 5 years ago is ridiculed today.

But there is an upside…

The upside for me is quite simply…my faith. These days… and the challenges that each day brings… makes me hold on to the only thing that has never once waivered, never once let me down, never once disappointed me, (and utilizing my equation)… has been incredibly consistent over time…all of time.

I have leaned on … and leaned into my faith in Christ more in the past few years than I ever have and each day I return to Him to check my thoughts, my beliefs, and my actions. It’s hard for me to think about having to go through this life…in these times without faith. It is truly the only place where I can fully and completely voluntarily give everything over to someone whom I know without a doubt will place my well-being equal to or greater than His own…because He’s already done it once…for all of us.

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Reset…

One day at work I was having a problem with my computer. The screen was blinking on and off and the entire thing seemed off. So I did what I do to so many other of my electronic devices…I powered it off and then turned it back on. After a few minutes of “it doing its thing”….all was well once again. Problem solved.

I thought about this one morning driving to work in the early morning hours, long before the sun would come up. It’s my favorite time of the day. The roadways are empty and the entire world is just…quiet. It’s wonderful. It’s this time of day that I believe I hear God more clearly than at any other time.

On this particular morning, all I could hear was one phrase, “Be still and know that I am God.” That’s it…but I heard it over and over and over again. All the way during my 30-minute drive into work, I just kept hearing and thinking about that phrase, “Be still and know that I am God.”

So when I got to work, made my coffee, and sat down at my desk, I began to realize all the “background thoughts” that I was carrying with me, so I started writing them down. Here is the list:

  1. Worry
  2. Fear
  3. Disappointment
  4. Judgment
  5. Loss
  6. Regret
  7. Things I need to do

Then I repeated the phrase, “Be still and know that I am God.”

What this statement I had been pondering all morning was asking me to do was to release these “background thoughts” that were cluttering up my mind. God was asking me to give all of that to Him and for me just to be still and enjoy His presence.

So at the moment…I did… and immediately, I felt better. I felt like I had just dropped a heavy load off my shoulders and I felt like I could breathe again, smile again, and see clearly again. God had asked me to power down and just do a reset. That way, all the things in this world that seek to weigh me down would be placed back where they should be…at His feet.

Now don’t get me wrong…I’m not naive enough to know that this feeling will be permanent…but it certainly did help me be reminded that sometimes, regardless of what may or may not be happening in life…a simple reset will ensure that all systems are working as they should be my operating system is in harmony with the one that made it.