Lessons from Abby & Logan

My appreciation for today…

by rebecca on March 9, 2011

Pups being allowed on the couch…:)

I don’t think I’m unique in the way that my mind gets caught up in the details of my day and can steam roll right past all the really good and important stuff. It’s almost as if my brain wants me to forget how precious each moment is, because if I am always stopping to smell the proverbial roses I won’t be nearly as efficient or get done what needs getting done.

Routines take over and when they get interrupted it’s frustrations that mount, instead of appreciation for the snap back into reality. Because really that’s where I am; I’m lost in my perceptions of reality, and not really reality itself. This is the kind of thing Buddhists talk about; living in the moment, being present with yourself no matter what you’re doing.

I find it nearly impossible, thanks to a very active imagination and what feel like engrossing emotional storylines, to stay truly centered within one moment, and to be honest I’ve kind of given up on trying most of the time.

I guess that’s why my little dose of present moment appreciation brought such clarity yesterday. I sat down to read through some blog posts that had accumulated on my google reader when I came across a little documentary video about a dog. I knew it was going to be sad, the title gave plenty of warning. But I watched it anyway. And as I cried like a baby, and Logan came in to see what was up, I had a moment of total presentness.

And then that moment of presentness gave me a pretty huge gift; it said to me, “Striving for perfect will only cause you to miss out on the best parts of life, let imperfection happen and truly enjoy all the moments that you have. Life is too short not to.”

Though that immediate moment was mainly talking about how I need to lighten up and let my pups not be the perfect angels I often want them to be, it stretches much further than that. I have known for too long that my white-knuckled attempts to avoid making mistakes have lead me to hold back in my life, to judge too harshly, and to stop before I’ve started. Mistakes can hurt, and I guess I’ve been trying to avoid them for so long I failed to see how numb I was making myself in the process. I have held back too much in the name of “safety” and “perfect”.

For the rest of the day I practiced this idea, correcting myself before I corrected Logan or Abby. And as a reward for all of us there was a good snuggle fest every time. Talk about positive reinforcement. :)

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Thank goodness for dogs…

by rebecca on February 17, 2011

Yesterday was one of those days. The kind of day where I just couldn’t seem to get out of my own way, let myself be happy, let the mind get off its hamster wheel of worries and negative story lines. By the time Joe got home I was a bit worn out by the whole thing. Ironically, I had initially set the day aside as a bit of a break, a personal day, a mental health day. Ha!

By the late afternoon I was thoroughly wrung out. My mind had been flitting from one bad plot to another, painting me into a corner of failures and fears and all sorts of mean and nasty things. I was sitting on the floor with my back to the wood stove letting the warmth numb me into calm when my big lug of a baby, Logan, came out from the bedroom for some snuggles. Keep in mind that when I am sitting on the floor and he sits next to me, he towers over me, in the most delightful gentle giant sort of way. Just the sight of him begins to melt my heart.

As I sat there cuddling with his wrinkley face and savoring the weight of his head as he cradled it right into my shoulder I realized that in no way does he ever have to earn this type of love and affection. He just walks out and puts himself into a position to receive it. I don’t think I’ve ever thought to myself, “were you a good boy today, did you do your part to deserve these pets”? Who would think that? No one who really loves dogs. Sure, my pups are pretty well behaved and they have plenty of rules, boundaries, and limitations that they have to live by, but I don’t have a chart on the fridge with star stickers or smiley faces making sure they have earned the love that I bestow on them. My natural impulse is just to love them, and to show love to them. It’s easy, effortless, and feels amazing.

So how come I can’t do that for myself? Having mentally berated myself for most of the day, to the point where I was worn thin and feeling sore, I was struck by the fact that what I could give unconditionally to my beautiful dog was the exact thing I couldn’t offer to my own sad self. No one is ever as mean to me as I can be, and though I know that and have said it before I consistently forget how to stop the barrage. Logan stopped it just by showing up, by asking me to love on him and by demanding that I let him love me back. He created the tiniest window of light for me to see how unfair I can be, to the one person I can never get away from.

Who knows exactly what amount of effort on my part would have satisfied the panel of judges in my mind, allowing me to take the break my body was telling me I needed. Since my To-Do list is like that of most people I know, the never-ending variety, there is no “Oh I’ll just get through this list here and then I can stop for a moment”. But yet, that’s what my brain seems to think should be required of me before I get to take a rest. I couldn’t even muster the kindness to acknowledge that my well was running low, that I was tired. All I could hear were the doubts and self recriminations. I pulled back from the world, feeling lost.

If we can’t be kind to ourselves, how can we really be kind to others? If we can’t meet our own needs for down time, for space, for fun, without feeling like we’re dropping the balls we insist upon keeping in the air, how in the world can we be there as a compassionate place for someone else to land? It’s a sinister cycle too, because on the one hand if we continue to run ourselves on E we won’t be much good to anyone else who needs our energy, creativity, or spirit. And on the other, if we try to take time for ourselves but are only ever greeted by the goblins of “not-enoughness”, then we never have a chance to replenish.

They say that no one is an island, but I say you can come pretty darn close to being one if you let your mind take you only to the dark places and never let yourself see the light.  The light is possibility, the light is friendship, the light is what we all need to grow and feel and find joy in our lives. The light for me yesterday was a heavy mastiff head on my shoulder saying, “Love me. I love you”. We all need to seek out the light in our lives, but more importantly we need to let it enter us, and remind us of all the ways we are alive, and grateful, and happy. It might be as simple as taking five minutes to snuggle a puppy or as complex as taking a two week vacation to rediscover what silence feels like, but I really think we all need to make more room in our hearts and minds for this idea of self kindness. The only way we can help each other, and we all need help from time to time, (because really no one is an island), is if we have that capacity inside of ourselves in the first place. We are all deserving of love, space, joy and rest, no matter how many items we check off our To-Do lists. Please offer some up to yourselves today, in whatever form will work best for you, but do it. You will feel better and my guess is so will the ones around you.

I’m going to take a walk in the unseasonably high temps we are seeing in the North East, what will you do?

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Gone to The Dogs…

by rebecca on April 14, 2010

I can honestly say that I am as excited right now as I was about two years ago, maybe more-so, and for very nearly the same reason: photography. I am finally starting up the Dog Division of my business and it has me completely engrossed. I feel like I am jumping off a new cliff, only with a better, more colorful parachute. I have almost two years of photography business under my belt that is making this “start” so much easier than my last. And as much as the path feels easier it also feels so much more freeing. Shooting dogs feels entirely different to me than shooting kids. There are fewer rules, at least I think so. (I can acknowledge that any rules I might feel govern child photography are primarily in my head, but with the dogs, I just feel like I can enjoy even the mistakes a bit more.) The blurred furry bodies and the middle of the muzzle focus shots are less imperfect and more real to me. It’s a wonderful feeling. I have been conscious to not look at too many other dog photographer’s websites, not wanting to fall victim (again) to that yard stick that haunts me on my human shoots. I want to create great work, fun work, but most of all I want to create my work.

And by far the coolest aspect of this whole trippy trip is that at any given moment I have my basis for inspiration walking around my home (or laying as the case so often is, and is right at this moment). The new site will have a whole gallery, or even two, dedicated to these walking muses, and I can’t help but feel like their introduction to my life, their amazing patience with me, has been fated all along. It just had to come together at the right time, and that “right” time is hardly decided by me.

Here is one of the pups from my first portfolio session. The B man is big on energy, and big on love. He looks happy doesn’t he?

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