Twisted and Tangled

This morning's walk with the dogs offered yet another mini-course life lesson. Who knew the added perk of having two slobbery, giant-pawed, club-tailed, great danes in my life would provide me with so many opportunities to write about life and life coaching?

The dogs have come to expect a walk once I return from dropping my daughter off at school and after I have enjoyed my morning cup of Peet's coffee. It can be a bit disconcerting having two pairs of expectant, but beseeching, amber eyes watch me sip my brew. I can almost hear them saying "Hurry up already! Gulp it down, what are you waiting for?! Are you REALLY gonna finish that?!" The dogs jumped about ecstatically as I sleepily reached for the leashes and poop bags, thrilled to be embarking on the morning adventure on the trail. After we played the morning game of "Latch the Leash on the Wriggling Puppy," we tumbled out the door and charged into the bright sunshine of a promisingly scorching day in search of squirrels, birds and possibly a lazy armadillo.

The older dog, Zeebo, is a psychopath when it comes to squirrels. He watches for them and goes nuts when they chatter what appear to be insults from the tree limbs, based upon his reaction. When he becomes particularly excited by a squirrel's taunting, he sproings three feet in the air on all fours, scrabbles for the tree and attempts to climb it in hot pursuit. On some mornings, Zeebo's tongue hangs out the side of his mouth and he gets a fiercely determined squirrel-focused look in his eyes as he scans the fences and branches along our path. His obsession is so bad, that, in our household, we have to actually spell out "squirrel" or Zeebo will tear around the house to the windows looking for the offending creature who dared to step onto our lot. One evening a program on squirrels came on the TV and my husband and I watched with amusement as Zeebo leapt off the couch, poked at the TV with his nose and raced around the entertainment center trying to locate the furry interlopers.

So this morning, we were nearly done with our walk when we stumbled upon a squirrel family rift in one of the pecan trees. Four squirrels bickered, chased one another and bopped their tails, menacingly, at each other. Zeebo went bonkers. He bounced like a four-legged kangaroo toward the tree without warning and in his zeal, yanked the leash out of my hand. The leash clanged and skidded along the ground after him, retracting with a "zip" before crashing into his hindlegs. When this has happened in the past, it snapped him back to the present; he regained his self-control and offered up an apologetic look as he returned to my side. Not this morning though. As the squirrels chased each other from limb to limb and volleyed back and forth between the trees, Zeebo tried his best to keep up with them, oblivious of the leash banging his legs, heedless of my commands, and all the while, trampling Suki and entangling the two leashes together. He had "squirrel-on-the-brain" and not much was going to stop this 140 lb dog from chasing a treeful of testy squirrels. Disastrous scenes of tangled and mangled human feet and dog paws flashed before my eyes as I tried to quickly bring his attention and behavior under control. It took some doing, but after a few slo-mo minutes, I was able to restore calm and disentangle the leashes, thankfully without injury.

As we walked home, I replayed the events in my head. The scene made me think of how we humans can sometimes become obsessed and consumed with things, such as work, food or substance use, and completely lose sight of how such tunnel-vision can negatively impact our lives, health and relationships. We all know people who have made decisions based on their habits that have entrenched them deeper and deeper into difficulty. When I used to work with adolescents in the juvenile probation department, I would come across plenty of young men and women who were unable to honestly look at the negative impact of substance abuse in their lives. Even though they were meeting with me because they had been placed on probation due to their substance use, were failing in school and had poor relationships with their parents, many were unable to make the connection between their habit and how the habit negatively influenced these other areas of their lives. As a life coach I work with many men and women who are wanting to expand that tunnel-vision. They work to "put a leash" on their Type A work ethic and open their lives up to improved interpersonal relationships and better health. It's easy for us all to get caught up in the chase and lose site of how this hot pursuit impacts our lives.

The important lessons are those of awareness and balance. This means to be fully aware and conscious of our choices and their impact on our lives and those of the important people around us. I am all for moving forward toward the realization of personal and professional goals, however, what I try to teach my clients is to do so in a manner that is not crazy-making in the process. This means approaching our lives from a place of peacefuless and balance. When our physical, psychological and spiritual lives are acknowledged and nurtured, our lives are enrichened and fully enhanced. We don't become obsessed and singular in our focus. We open ourselves up to alternative approaches and interaction.

Tomorrow's walk may well entail a squirrel hunt for my linear thinking dog, but how can you, the human with the fantastically complex mind, jump out of the Type A pursuit?

Thought fot the Day: Are there habits you engage in or choices you make which are detrimental to the pursuit of a balanced life? What can you do this week to change things, ever so slightly, for yourself?

“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning ... a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.” --Joseph Campbell