Transcript
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Welcome to the Starlight Pet Talk podcast, where we'll talk about and explore ways to help pet parents and future pet parents learn everything they need to know to have a happy and healthy relationship with their pet.
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So sit up and stay for Starlight Pet Talk rescue, adoption and pet parenting done right.
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Just visit our website at wwwstarlightpettalkcom to order your merchandise today.
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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and a recent study by BarkBox has found that pets don't just make their owners happier.
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They actually make them all around better people.
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Out of all the pet parents that they polled, 93% of dog dads and moms said that they can easily name at least one way that their pup has made them a better person by improving their emotional, behavioral and physical well-being.
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So in today's episode, we're going to explore the whys and ways our dogs make us better people with someone who has spent about five decades exploring this topic.
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Our guest today, mike Overly, is a canine partnered men's coach, energy healer, author and founder of the non-profit Sav2.org.
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He guides men through their healing journeys utilizing their amazing teachers, their dogs, his own experiences and life lessons allow him to provide valuable insights into how we can help ourselves heal.
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So, mike, thank you so much for being here with me today.
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Absolutely.
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Thank you for having me.
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This is going to be great.
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I think it's going to be great.
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I mean, anytime you're talking about dogs, how can it go wrong?
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Exactly.
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That's right.
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So tell us a little bit about the work that you do with coaching men specifically, which I think is awesome, and then I'd like to hear a little bit more about your non-profit as well, before we launch into the actual topic of the day.
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Yeah, absolutely Thank you.
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So I think guys have the propensity to not ask for help when they need it, and I think we need a lot more help out there.
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Just turn on the news right and we have evidence of people not taking care of themselves and pointing fingers at everybody else.
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So through my own healing journey and my own work, I realized that I need to get out there and see what I can do to help more guys find their own path right.
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I don't have everybody's answers, but I can help guide you to your own wisdom, and your dog's already trying to do that for you, and that's what I kind of helped them find out.
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And it's a long journey but we have to start somewhere, and the day I realized what these dogs were actually doing for us, I was floored, blown away, and so that's what I try and help others tap into.
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So that's fantastic.
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That's great.
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So can you tell us a little bit about your journey?
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That's kind of brought you to this point?
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I mean, I know we don't have to necessarily start from birth, obviously, but what are some of the highlights of the road that you've traveled?
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Yeah, great question.
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So the first big event in my life where I realized there was something more going on was I was 11, 12, I'm fuzzy on the actual timeline.
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My father left.
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He left me and my brother and somehow I got it in my head that it was my fault that he left and I started having suicidal ideation around this.
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I was so depressed and upset.
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And my dog?
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At the time he just stepped in and he would seek me out.
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He would feel when my energy was off and he'd come find me and sometimes he'd do something goofy.
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Sometimes he'd just lean into me or just be right next to me and he just knew what I needed.
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I didn't know what I needed, but he did.
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So that was the first big event.
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I had more since then.
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The last big one was in 2017, when my older brother died.
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I obviously had a different dog.
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He showed me what energy healing was.
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I had no concept of this at the time and he just blew my world open because I was grieving my brother.
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He was like my hero, right, he was the nicest man I had ever known and his leaving was just devastating for me.
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But what came from that was a realization that I didn't like who I was or how I was showing up in the world.
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I was like, wow, is this what everybody else sees?
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Because I sure as heck don't like it, and I decided that I wanted to change that.
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Yeah, it is amazing how our dogs kind of pick up on things without us having to say anything, and I think that's what's so kind of so beautiful about our relationships.
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As a matter of fact, I think we probably do way too much talking and not just enough being, sometimes with our dogs and with others, I think.
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So I want to explore what we mean when it comes to how our dogs make us better, because I know that a Lot of times people will come to us.
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You know we've got starlight outreach and rescue that's the umbrella over this podcast.
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We have a lot of times parents will come to us and say I want to get a dog for my kids because I want them to learn and fill in the blank responsibility, empathy, caring, whatever it is and I think obviously our dogs do teach us that lesson.
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But what are some of the other ways that dogs make us better?
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People other than just, you know, being responsible and remembering to feed them?
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Oh, one of the biggest ones that I think doesn't get talked about enough and we hear all the time about unconditional love and that we I think we we have a sense of maybe what that is, but I think we still don't really understand the depth of that.
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It means a whole lot more than just my dog likes spending time with me is Acceptance.
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We don't talk about the ability or inability that we have in our lives to accept Ourselves, let alone other people, as they are.
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You know, we're constantly meddling and offering advice right, we're really good at that but we can't just accept someone as they are and realize, hey, this is their journey, you know, and if they ask for my help, then I will definitely give it.
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But until then, how can I just hold space for them and hold them in the highest regard and dogs do that for us, right, we can get completely grumpy, you know crappy behavior with their dog, and then five minutes later they're like, hey, man, you okay, are you okay?
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Right, they just accept what you know.
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Unfortunately, it's not always a great situation, but they accept the situation Right, and we just don't know how to do that.
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We want so badly for things to be different that we cause our own suffering because we don't, we don't just accept it for what it is.
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So I think that's such a big, big piece of it and you already touched on something earlier was just being right.
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The level of presence and awareness that our dogs bring to this, and it's a relationship, what they bring to our relationship and how they hold that space for us.
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Why can't we learn that faster?
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Why can't we tap into that a little easier?
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It's because we think too much.
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Right, the author Kurt Vonnegut had a sign over his desk in the place where he would sit down and write, and that's the sign said stop thinking so the dogs.
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They don't have the same type of cognition we do, and thank goodness right.
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Yeah, really we cause so much danger.
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Yeah, we are.
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I mean, we're the most dangerous creature on the planet.
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That's for sure.
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Yeah, and we, we unfortunately, create situations for ourselves because we think our we need to have this, this dominance over everything, attitude, no, and the dogs, they can.
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They can go from being riled up to being, you know, peaceful and quiet in seconds.
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Right, we don't.
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We create a story around it and we, you know, we make our lives miserable and somebody else's life miserable, and we hold a grudge and we judge, and they just don't do all of that.
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So I think they're constantly, just by what they're being and how they're being, they're constantly showing us a better way to live.
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Yeah, I think a big question is are we listening?
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Are we listening to them when they're sending us these messages?
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Because I think so many times, like you said, the dialogue, the story, the overthinking things, the Thinking so far in the future, that you're not living in the present, just causes us a lot of misery.
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Yeah, no, absolutely.
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So I think we're not listening.
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I think part of our ego structure is that you know.
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Oh me, mighty human big brain, me talk you know yeah and the dog doesn't communicate the same way.
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We think that we're smarter, better, whatever it is, and they don't have to talk, because they're showing us in a whole bunch of different ways how to be and how can they go from a hundred to zero in ten seconds, flat right, mm-hmm.
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But we just don't, for whatever reason.
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Doesn't click with most of us.
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So we find someone, we find some other way to hopefully work with our emotions, work with our, our feelings and and be able to get a hold of them.
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Yeah, that's just so true, I'm just so true.
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So, other than teaching us to To live in the present, to not be such over thinkers of things, what else have you seen like with the people that you've worked with?
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What have they been able to tap into with their dogs?
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Mm-hmm, great question.
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So there's a gentleman I work with here locally.
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I'm in Fort Collins, colorado.
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There's a guy I work with locally and he reached out to me because he thought I was a dog trainer and I said, well, I'm not really a dog trainer, I'm actually more of a man trainer, but let's get together and just have a conversation.
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So we did some work with him and his dog and he had all these issues around his dog and Within an hour this guy, he realized, you know, he always other things going on.
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He was marriage is falling apart, all this stuff going on in his life, and he didn't realize his impact, how he was behaving, his body language, his energy, all that, how that was affecting his dog.
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So within an hour he was really willing and we dove into some really you know, painful stuff and His energy shifted, his dog completely, just calmed down and finally just went, oh, and just laid with them and he looked me in the eyes.
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He's got tears streaming down his face.
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He goes there's nothing wrong with my dog, is there, you know, and it was heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time.
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But he was willing.
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Right now everybody's willing to go there.
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Yeah, I think the whole issue of the energy, you know, I think people are learning more and more, especially when they are going through situations where they're doing training with their dog let's say they've got a reactive dog We've talked about that a couple of times on different episodes and the energy that you go into those situations with.
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You're in the park walking the dog, you see somebody.
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Your dog hasn't quite seen them yet they're walking towards you with a dog and you start creating this story in your head which makes you nervous and anxious and all that energy goes down the leash to your dog and I think people are starting to learn that at least a little bit.
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But overcoming it, that's a whole nother.
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That can be a whole nother challenge.
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But I don't know that they necessarily realize that it is a two-way street in some instances.
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But I think the impact on the dog's behavior is such a big piece of that lesson.
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Yeah.
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And that's why, like you said, you train people, not the dogs, because it's the dogs, just being the dog and reacting to the messages that you're sending to them.
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Absolutely.
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We're taught to try and control all these things outside of ourselves right Through our educational system, how our work is structured most people if they work like in an office or whatever, there are all these rules to control things and so we try and manage our way through all that stuff.
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We don't go inside to figure out hey, does this even work for me?
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You know why do I have a knot in my stomach?
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And then we just ignore it and blame Ed in accounting or whatever it is.
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Right.
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We have an energetic field.
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You know, it's scientifically proven, folks.
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This is not new information.
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We have an energetic field and it emanates from our heart center.
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So do dogs, so horses.
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Horses have a huge energetic field.
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It's amazing.
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So it's another level of communication that we just don't.
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Again, we're not aware of most of this and we just don't understand it.
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You ever walk into a room and you're like ooh hey, you know so thick you can cut it with a knife, kind of thing.
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You don't know what that is but you're obviously picking up on that.
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You're sensing something or you see somebody.
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You haven't seen them and you're like, oh, what's wrong?
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You don't even have to see their face.
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You know that's because there's this other thing available to us as far as communication, and we're constantly in each other's energy fields.
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Yeah, I think we've talked ourselves out of listening to that sometimes or at least exploring it.
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Like I always find it dangerous, whether it's reading the energy or reading somebody's facial expression Right, because I'm a communication person, so it's like the nonverbal message is saying this and it's like well, are you sure about that?
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I think it's okay to read it, but I think you need to explore it, because a facial expression, for example, could mean a lot of different things.
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Or take an example of somebody shrugging their shoulders.
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You know so someone shrugs their shoulders at you when you make a suggestion.
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Is it a shrug meaning I don't care?
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Is it a shrug meaning Sure, whatever you want to do, you don't really know until you explore it.
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So I think it's pretty much the same with energy that you want to be cautious about taking it too far, but be aware that it's telling you something.
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Yeah, I think if you're curious at all, then look into it.
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I studied so many different modalities.
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I trained under all these different amazing people because I was just voracious, right, I got a taste of something and I was like, oh my God, what is this?
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And I'm still discovering and I'm still learning and I'm just still amazed by people and animals, nature.
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Hello, you want to spend some time on energy?
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Just go sit in the forest.
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There's just so much.
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You can swing as far to the right or the left as you want.
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People find something that resonates with them and they're like oh, this is it, this is the one.
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And I think that is a trap in itself.
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The hard part is staying open, because if you're closed off, it doesn't matter where you're going.
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I know energy workers who they think that their way is the only way and this is the only way to help.
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Anybody ever, and nothing else ever, has worked or will work.
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They get trapped because it worked for them.
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Some people like chocolate, some people like vanilla, some like strawberry.
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It's the same thing with energetic work and any of those things.
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There's a preference, there's a resonance with it.
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But be curious and be open to oh my gosh, maybe there's more than just those three flavors.
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Yeah, and I think people like you said, once they get it in their head that something is especially if it's work for them, or it's work for my sister, work for my dog they get very prescriptive about it and think that we can just, you know, prescribe that to every single person, every single situation.
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And there's too many factors to to do that and to try to do that.
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Sometimes you're just setting yourself up for Well, for failure, for sure in some instances, but also the conflict with the other person who doesn't want to take your prescription or doesn't want to do it your way, or they already know it's not gonna work for them.
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Yeah.
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Other things that I was thinking about is that I sometimes feel like I'm very not tuned into my own dogs, which sounds bad for somebody who does animal rescue not to be tuned into their own pets.
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But it ends up being kind of like that old cliche, the cobbler's kids not having shoes.
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You know you're always the worst offender with with your own pets or your own family or whatever the case may be, but because we have so many animals around here, they get kind of treated as a group as opposed to maybe Spending quality time with them.
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You know everybody in, everybody out, everybody in your houses, everybody get in the car, everybody come eat, whatever it might be, as opposed to operating individually.
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And so I don't know that I've necessarily, it may be in recent years reaped some of the other Benefits of how my dogs could be making me a better person.
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Maybe they have been and I don't realize it.
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But one of the things that I was thinking about was the whole social element of dogs.
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What examples or what experiences have you had or maybe even encouraged in some of the people that you work with, to make a person Not necessarily social, like I'm an introvert, I'm gonna be now be an extrovert but to be more of a community member, to kind of get out in the world more.
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This is one of my favorite things.
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If you're someone who actually walks your dog, some people don't not judging, but if you're someone who walks your dog, think about all the things that affords you.
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Right, so it's some form of exercise.
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Maybe you take long walks.
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It's even better exercise.
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You're out in nature here because you're outside.
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Right there's there's a tree or something around.
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Maybe you are in the other people who have dogs, so there's a commonality there.
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You don't have to like go to lunch, but you can have a talk about that.
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It gets you out where you can actually pay attention to the world around you instead of being stuck to your Device.
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It gets you out of your head.
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Maybe you see something you didn't notice before.
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So I do a lot of teaching around this and I have a lot of pre-recorded Meditations I give to people that they can do while they're walking their dog.
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Right, so a dog gives us so much and we just take it for again.
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Oh, they just need to go poo.
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Well, there's think about all the other things that are involved just in that process.
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All right, so there's an intention to get the dog out.
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Maybe you can set an intention for yourself to be out and Turn your brain off a little bit.
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Right, stop worrying about that, that big project you're working on, and pay attention to what your dogs doing.
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You know what, what do they see?
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What do they smell?
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You see their nose going crazy.
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Pay attention to that and get involved in that right that brings you present so quickly.
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Oh yeah, there's.
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There's so much available just from spending time with our dogs, but we're overwhelmed, right?
00:17:44.047 --> 00:17:50.419
You know our computers or phones all these things work families that it's hard for us to pay attention to all of that.
00:17:50.419 --> 00:17:58.349
So the one of the biggest things is learning how to just slow down for a little bit, just a tiny little bit, and Start to pay attention.
00:17:58.905 --> 00:18:06.404
I've learned so much in doing this podcast and just the different guests that we've had on, but two episodes Kind of jump out at me right now.
00:18:06.404 --> 00:18:26.464
One of them was a recent one we did on the importance of play with dogs and providing them various types of enrichment, and one of the examples that we talked about was the fact that sometimes we do as pet owners who Maybe don't walk our dogs, and we think, okay, I don't need to walk my dog because they go out in the yard and they run around and they do what they need to do.
00:18:26.464 --> 00:18:28.472
But one of the things that it was cat Cacol.
00:18:28.472 --> 00:18:31.224
She's a dog trainer and she has a lot of other roles.
00:18:31.224 --> 00:18:34.016
But she was saying you know, imagine it from your dog's perspective.
00:18:34.016 --> 00:18:40.915
I go out in the same yard, I see the same tree, I have the same smells, it's the same squirrel over there, it's like it's.
00:18:40.915 --> 00:18:55.316
It's not super exciting, and that's why when we get our dogs out in public, for those who don't take their dogs for walks and get them out and about, they can get a little bit kooky, because they're just overwhelmed with what's going on, because they're so excited about being in a new and different environment and they need that.
00:18:55.316 --> 00:18:55.738
You know it's.
00:18:55.738 --> 00:18:58.029
It's good for them physically, it's good for them mentally.
00:18:58.592 --> 00:19:08.625
And then the other example that jumps out too is an episode that we did on how fake service dogs hurt people who really need real service dogs.
00:19:08.625 --> 00:19:20.615
And Donna Mack, her dog, well, is her guide dog, and she said you know, if she took a walk, previously people didn't really pay any attention to her, they didn't engage her in conversation, whatever the case may be.
00:19:20.615 --> 00:19:26.751
But now, since she's had her guide dog with her, people stop, they have interactions with her.
00:19:26.751 --> 00:19:39.164
And Alisa Hayes was the other guest on that episode and she was in a really bad car wreck, so she's in a wheelchair a lot and she said it's like I was an invisible person, but now that I have this service dog with me and in my lap, people engage.
00:19:39.164 --> 00:19:46.919
Do you find that it's the same when you're trying to coach people, that animals basically draw people to us when we have them out and about?
00:19:48.025 --> 00:19:48.526
Absolutely.
00:19:48.526 --> 00:19:51.775
They're magnets for other people who enjoy animals, right?
00:19:51.775 --> 00:20:00.845
I mean, yeah, people are not approachable by themselves, people are approachable because the others are attracted to that dog, right?
00:20:00.845 --> 00:20:02.230
So there's this commonality.
00:20:02.230 --> 00:20:06.305
A common interest is a shared, you know, love and compassion around this other thing.
00:20:06.305 --> 00:20:11.968
It's unfortunate that we have to go that route to be able to talk to someone, sometimes comma.
00:20:11.968 --> 00:20:17.917
But the dog helps bridge that gap for a lot of people who just have a hard time making conversation.
00:20:17.917 --> 00:20:30.049
So I did this exercise for a year where when I was walking my dog, I would wave at every single person coming my direction, right, driving, walking, biking, whatever.
00:20:30.049 --> 00:20:32.756
And there was this one gentleman.
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I'll never forget this.
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He, you know it's nice, you know nice Lexus SUV and always had a suit and tie on and just stoic face.
00:20:40.664 --> 00:20:46.607
And it was months before one day he finally gave me a little tough guy nod got the nod, Yep.
00:20:46.828 --> 00:20:58.164
I kept doing it, I kept seeing him, and then one day he kind of smiled and then one day he actually waved before I did and I was like yes you know, it's like we want to be seen and noticed by other people.
00:20:58.244 --> 00:21:05.675
But then we don't want to be seen and noticed by other people, right, Because we're like I think we're afraid they're gonna see inside and see all our dirty secrets and all that.
00:21:05.675 --> 00:21:06.898
So it's really fascinating.
00:21:06.898 --> 00:21:09.647
But a dog speeds up that process.
00:21:09.647 --> 00:21:11.604
You know another person with another dog.
00:21:11.604 --> 00:21:13.189
Hey, hey, they got a dog.
