One of the most overlooked thought processes is that doing anything that you haven’t done before requires the process of building the muscle to do that thing. What often missed is the fact that this includes mental and non-physical activities as much as it includes physical activities.

When we think about being present, and having a stronger awareness on a moment to moment basis, we somehow think that we can simply decide to do it and then do it all the time. Ta-da!

If I decided that I wanted to go on a riding expedition and suddenly started riding for 7 or 8 hours a day, everyone would tell me how foolish of an idea that is. My one hour rides a few days a week are not enough to build up the muscles for being able to stay in the saddle for a full day, let alone several days in a row.

Somehow that does not get translated to non-physical activities.

I don’t think I’m abnormal when I say I have a limited amount of time to work the horses. In recent years, I’ve actually had more time and flexibility than I had in the past, and I’ve attempted to capitalize on that as much as I can (especially with an aging horse- that means even more to me now than it did years ago).

But my schedule, just like the average person’s, is quite full. And sometimes things don’t go as planned. Today I worked B (yay!) in the rain (BOO). NOT exactly my idea of a fun time, and I’m sure it wasn’t hers, either.

But, this was the time block I had available, and so we worked. I could have easily skipped it, but she’s had her time skipped more often than not, and I didn’t want to do that to her again. Tnd the work is really benefiting her, but she won’t get the benefits unless we work. So work we did.

Stop panicking when it gets difficult.

I see this all too often with my clients, and I’ll freely admit that I’m not immune to it either.

I guess we can blame our culture for the instant gratification trend, that seems to spill over into every area of our life - we think that things should just magically be better when we try.

That’s not how the universe works… Caterpillars turn to GOO before they become a butterfly (but retain awareness of their experiences as caterpillars somehow… 😬)

Going from seed to plant requires being in the DARK, and busting out of the hard shell of the seed.

Things are hard before they become easy.

What a difference a year makes. Last year this time I was knee deep in mud, literally, and things were so very difficult. Basic tasks caring for the horses, were nearly impossible, and it was hard to feel optimistic even with spring trying to break winter’s grip. Over 20” of rain fell from the middle of November through January last year, which is highly unusual for where we live.

Completely saturated ground churned up by the horses turned simple tasks of putting out a round bale into an almost impossible challenge. Throw on top of that 40mph wind gusts, and it almost flipped the tractor while trying to get the bale into the field over the fence. At that point I was pretty much at the end of my rope.

While this spring is different (almost too dry at this point, which is a completely different, but equally worrisome problem), the wind has still been challenging, and we’ve had plenty of gray days which is making my late season SAD very present.

It’s times like these what we have to keep reminding ourselves (and each other) is that it is always challenging right before it gets better. It’s darkest before the dawn. Seeds germinate in the dark. The baby birds get kicked out of the nest and have to learn on their own how to bird.

There is no amount of growth that can happen without discomfort.

Occasionally I will get a client who has worked with an animal communicator before, sometimes on the same issue with their pet. And they’ll tell me, “the other person said something different.”

Why does that happen?

What I and other animal communicators do isn’t an exact science, which is why science doesn’t like to validate what we do.

Your pet is also an individual being. They have their own thoughts, feelings, and are only in this moment in time, which is different than the last one, and the one before that, never mind a year ago.

Since Kirsten Nelsen lives in Florida, she doesn’t travel to cold Maryland during the winter, and I don’t blame her. She’s come up with a unique solution to support her students - virtual training. At first this sounds crazy, but having experienced it I can say that it has been incredibly helpful for so many reasons!

For starters, knowing I have her support, even through the winter, has been a driving factor in actually getting out there and getting the work time in despite the weather. After that, there’s SO much more that you can see in video that you can’t see in the moment while riding. Being able to stop and rewind has it’s benefits! 😂

The biggest thing that I gained this winter from reviewing the videos is the awareness of power of taking those small actions even when it feels like nothing is changing.

Ahh, spring in the eastern US. Flowers pushing up, bird songs, spring peepers in the evenings, and the time change.

Somehow the US government still hasn’t gotten their Ish together to discontinue this ridiculous practice. I serves no good and there is lots of research on how bad it is for us as humans. And anybody with a pet knows that they don’t give a crap what your clock says, they know when it’s dinner time.

As harmful as the time change is to us, it certainly isn’t an enjoyable experience for your pets, either. And as of right now, we still have to deal with it if we have any sort of time constraints that are a part of the normal world.

So what do we do? Here’s a few ideas to help you and your pet manage the shift

It’s been almost two months since my visit to the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, and I’m still chewing on what I observed. If these things can be accomplished with dolphins, what is possible with our own pets?

Here’s a few thoughts to kick around when considering your relationship with your pet, based on observations of the dolphins and their trainers:

I had the extraordinary pleasure of going to the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, FL recently, and can’t say enough good things about the facility, the staff, and the residents. While it is a small facility, it is packed with up close encounters and interactions with not only dolphins, but also seal lions, birds, a giant tortoise, as well as resident wild iguanas.

It’s taken me a while to process the experience and chew on everything I observed. Now that I’m over the initial fan girl response of being able to experience interactions with dolphins THAT close, I’ve been mulling over all that I observed.

If you’ve been on social media for a hot second, you’ve seen a meme somewhere that has some kind of image of an animal (sometimes cute, sometimes not) with the caption ‘Can I pet that Dawg?’

I’ve got a little bit of a bone to pick about this, and it’s been stewing for a while.

I follow a number of accounts on social media who have dogs that are frequently out in public. They are very well trained and well mannered dogs. The same chorus that I hear from all of them is that people feel entitled to pet the dog. This appaling responses from complete strangers in response to being told ‘No’ is shocking.

For starters, what makes anyone think that they are entitled to touch another living being just because it exists and you are in proximity is beyond my understanding.

Secondly: not all dogs (animals) WANT to be touched.

This would be no different than running excitedly up to a completely stranger and hugging them in a great big bear hug.

If you tried that you’d be lucky if you don’t end up in the hospital charged with assault.

Ahh, the end of January. The longest month of the year. I don’t know why it feels that way, but it seems hard to believe it’s only 31 days long.

What begins with such hope and promise somehow dissolves into a melancholy of gray that matches the pallor of the sky. What happens? Where does the energy of all those resolutions go?

“Umfph,” I grunt as I heave the overloaded wheelbarrow forward out of the divot it created sitting in the soft ground.

Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall.

The mantra plays on repeat in my head as I pray for traction in the slick mud the consistency of something between snot and clay.

This time of year is not for the faint of heart owning outdoor animals. Fall’s glorious color is gone, crushed on the ground in drifts of leaves that like to startle the horses when the (seemingly ever present) wind kicks them up in a gust, as if they wish to return to their original lofty places. The rain is now settling in. Cold, damp, all the way to the bone.
The blankets go on the horses one day, off the next and back on a day later. Everything becomes hopelessly dirty, whether it’s wet or dry that day. The floorboard of the car wafts odors that are better left outside, but cling to the boots no matter how much they are scraped off.

No way around it, horse care (or any animal that requires being outside) this time of year becomes hard.

And what a gift it is to “have to” care for the animals.

“There’s too many cooks in the kitchen!” The dogs scrambled back into the living room, achieving my goal, much to my surprise.
It was out of exasperation, and desperation, that I had yelled the above phrase. Not one of my proudest moments, and yet at the same time a stroke of genius, or luck. What’s the difference at that point?

The trouble was that the back door of the house was through the kitchen. The very tiny galley style kitchen, where there was no room for dogs underfoot, let alone, two people trying to make dinner. So “out” didn’t work, that was the signal to go to the back door. I didn’t want them at the back door, I wanted them out of the kitchen.

Still stunned at the effectiveness of ‘too many cooks,’ I continued working on the meal. From that point forward, “Too many cooks” became the request to the dogs to remove themselves from the kitchen, and “out” could still remain the clear cue to go outside.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

I’m feeling a bit melancholic lately. The time change never sits well with me, and I can feel the sun weakening even as it has been shining so much lately. It’s been a California fall, and I’m not complaining one bit about that (it’s also kept my rain anxiety away, which is a relief at the moment).

And as I watch the leaves scatter in the wind that seems increasingly cooler by the day, I’m reminded that nothing blooms forever. Why we get it in our heads that we can be otherwise, I don’t know, but it’s not helpful.

Everything has it’s season (turn, turn, turn), and we would do well to embrace that for ourselves in whatever way feels good. Our animals do it naturally, changing their habits with the seasons.

The most important thing I’ve learned from all of the animals is understanding how to energetically be in my own center.

It’s easy to wander through life being buffeted by all of the forces around us. The dog is barking excessively. The person that cuts us off in traffic. The weather. Work is asking for more than is humanly possibly by one person (and barely paying one person’s salary). The political scene is swinging wildly. There’s more on the to do list than could be accomplished in fifty life times.

The list goes on and on and on. And if we don’t know where our energy is at any given time, we’re going to be tossed around life a leaf in the storm.

The animals have taught me that it’s of utmost importance to know firstly where my energy is.

So many times our reaction to our pet’s behavior is instantaneous, without thought.

The dog barks, we tell them to shush.

They pull on the leash, we immediately pull back.

Our horse paws impatiently and we scold them.

The cat claws the furniture, we yell at them.

These responses aren’t inherently wrong - but without thought, they are often a response because we are uncomfortable with our pet’s behavior. The dog is barking for the fiftieth time in an hour and we’re just over it.

The problem is that when our response is unconscious and comes from a place of our discomfort with our pet’s behavior then our pet senses that discomfort. Unfortunately it often gets translated to “my human is uncomfortable, so I should do the thing more to make it go away,” which is generally the exact opposite of what we want! Oops!

“Now don’t you feel better?” I know his energy, whether there are words or not.

Being chastised by your horse is always a dose of humble pie. It’s been a long day, and I’m finally working through some things that have been weighing on me for a very long time. As I am settling in to sleep running my energy as I always do, Storm’s energy comes in. “Now don’t you feel better?”

Our animals know whenever we have something ‘going on.’ It doesn’t matter what it is, but they are very aware when something weighs on us, is eating at us, or in general just ain’t right. There’s nothing that we can hide from them.

The challenge is that sometimes they don’t understand what exactly it is, and often they don’t know how to support us in that moment, so they do the best they can with whatever information they have. And that can result in behavioral issues that add just One. More. Thing. to our already overloaded plate.

The weather has finally cooled to a point where the windows can be open again.

 I'm grateful for clear skies and some sunshine after 2 weeks of solid gray and rain. (Apparently a precipitation record at the airport 🙄) While meditating this morning, a bird chattered just outside the window.  When I tuned in, the message that came through is “this is what we’re doing now.”

It’s been a raw almost weeks since Helene changed the environment of the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and beyond.

This is what we’re doing now.

You know how it goes: you set a goal, start working on it in earnest, make a little progress, and then BAM all the sudden things get hard, and you quit, discouraged, frustrated and resentful of yet again failing.

There is not anything that I have found that doesn’t follow this trajectory.

The difference is when you know The Hump is coming, you can prepare for it.

If worked on your goal and got 1% better every day, you would be 37% better by the end of the year.

I suppose I haven’t formally assessed any of my goals, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not 37% better than I was a year ago on most of my goals.

James Clear talks about this in his book Atomic Habits. What struck me about this concept is so often we want to be AT our goal and spend most of our time thinking about how we’re not there yet.

It’s so easy to fall into this trap with our pets. We have a dream in mind, the reason we decided to get a pet in the first place - be it doing agility or fancy tricks with the dog, riding peacefully down the wooded trail with the horse, or curled up on the couch with the cat. And somehow the distance between where we are and that dream never seems to change.