This post is a contination to “It’s Not that I don’t Like You – It’s Just that I Don’t Know You", so if you haven't read that one yet - read it first for context.
...So, what I started doing when dog-sitting, was to make sure that I would regularly spend some time with Stout, just sitting with him, rubbing him, talking to him, walking with him. Initially, I would still get that growl, but then I applied something that I find is quite an effective way of starting a relationship with any animal.
See – especially with animals that try to push you away – often it’s a matter of them not trusting you – kind of using the same reasoning: I don’t know you, so I don’t trust that you won’t hurt me. So, with both me and the animal standing within that starting point, we would each kind of keep the other at a distance and be suspicious of what the other might do next. In seeing how that same logic exists within myself, I could bring it back to myself and see, okay – how does my starting point affect how I interact with the animal? And I saw that in being afraid of being hurt, what I tend to do is to only ‘give so much’ of myself – kind of trying to keep the rest of myself ‘safe’ if something unexpected does happen. This both on a physical level (just extending my arm but keeping the rest of my body at more of a distance), but also on a beingness level – where only part of me is open to the animal and another part of me is ready to pull back/away.
When I noticed this pattern in myself, I figured that a cool way to shortcut this dynamic, was to make the decision to be absolutely transparent towards the animal – to not only share ‘just a little part of myself’, but to share ALL of myself in one moment. So, I would stand or sit still in front of the animal, and simply make a decision to reveal everything of myself to the animal – everything I have ever done, everything I have ever walked, every mistake I have ever made, every thought I’ve ever had, just everything – showing them that, “yeah, I’ve made many mistakes, I will probably make more – but see also my commitment to correct myself in every way possible”. It’s not that I start telling stories to the animal so they can ‘get to know me over time’ – it’s a quantum decision. Animals can see a lot of who a person is, but I imagine there’s always information that can be hidden to an extent, or that they can see you are trying to hide. So – imagine that everything of who you are is stored in files on google drive – and for each file you can set the parameter of either keeping it private or sharing it for others to see/access – with some files being set to private and others being shared/visible, dependent on its content. Using this metaphor, what I do in such moments, is select all the files and share them with this animal – deciding in one moment to reveal all of myself, so they can see it. I don’t know whether they actually look at everything or what it is they see, but so far, every time I have applied this point, that decision to be an open book in an instant, I always notice the animal relaxing in front of me. For me, I allow myself to move through my own fear of ‘getting hurt’ in one moment by making the decision to be vulnerable and open with them. I cannot speak as to the animal’s experience, but I know that for myself, this has been a huge point of support to just walk through those fears in one moment and, from what I could see, the animals would respond equally as one by relaxing and being willing to work with me and take those first steps to establishing a connection and a point of trust.
It’s not that in that moment, everything is now super-great and we’re ‘best friends forever’ – it’s more that a new starting point has been created, diffusing the initial tension of fear and distrust and instead creating a willingness to work together, getting to know each other and building trust with each other in the physical.
I’ll share more in my next post.