Oh My Friggin’ God, My New Puppy Is A Life Lesson

​So first, look at this position my perfect puppy has placed himself in.  Sleeping. He is sleeping while I was holding a mediation around my kitchen table. Like is this just so cute or what? 
 
Ok.
 
My puppy. My sweet and smart and a bit stinky (see past writing from 6/26) dog that I love, I was talking about him the other day, as in a few weeks ago, with this amazing Somatic Therapist that I see.
 
I see her to help regulate my nervous system. I de-regulate. More often than I realized until I started realizing that I do. And now that I know it, we are working through the hyper and hypo nervous system de-regulation patterns and teaching my body to stay in that middle space—called the Window of Tolerance. Mine is very small. 
 
My middle space tolerance window is very narrow. This is part of the problem. What I am learning is that the more I can stay here, in this middle narrow space, the wider it will get. It’s a retraining of my nervous system through a reworking of my mind. And body. And soul. And heart. Oh, my heart, it is often breaking.  
 
Needless to say, this is hard.
 
Anyway… I am with this amazing practitioner the other day, as in a few weeks ago, and talking about how crate training is going with my dog. This was before Moose got home from his board and train where he was crate training with someone other than me. So this conversation was purely hypothetical in terms of “my” crate training with my dog, but still we were talking about this.
 
And I was talking about the need for boundaries with this dog. Yes, I know, this is a shock, like when has anyone who has ever read any of my many writings ever heard me use the word boundary and dog in the same sentence.  It makes me want to throw up.
 
Part of the issue.
 
So boundaries. I was talking to this amazing practitioner the other day, as in a few weeks ago, before Moose came home and sharing that this (hypothetical in direct relation to me) crate training was really hard and really important because I need boundaries from this dog.
 
I need him not to need me. I need to have my life that I am conscientiously creating for myself. I need independence and I need my dog to be independent, too. And that means he needs the ability to self-sooth. And self-regulate. He needs to have the ability to self-regulate. Self. As in without me. 
 
See, see where this is going.