I belong to a number of pet-related forums. I enjoy the interaction among fellow pet caretakers and there are times I can give some helpful advice. One group that I particularly enjoy is the iHeartSeniorDogs group. I mean, who doesn’t love old dogs. Even the old Tom T. Hall song, “Old Dogs and Children, and Watermelon Wine” says, “Old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes.”
One thing that I constantly notice when people introduce their old dog to the group, they immediately point out its medical problems. A great example was this morning when a lady posted a picture of a delightful old dog. She said, “Hello. This is Sparky. He is 13 years old and has a thyroid tumor and seizures.” Now, she could have said, “Hello. This is Sparky and he has a normal heart, normal liver, normal gall bladder, normal vision, normal hearing, normal urinary bladder and on and on and on. But, instead, she immediately brought attention to a couple of things that weren’t normal.
If you have been following my work for a while, you know that I relate most things to energy. Energy has its own universal laws. It doesn’t make any difference if you know about it or not, it still does its thing. Sort of like the sun coming up in the morning. You could be visually impaired, but the sun is still going to rise in the morning. One very important energetic universal law is what you give your attention to, you will give it strength. This is not only a law of energy, but it has been stated by the gurus and spiritual teachers for centuries.
Some people refer to this as the Law of Attraction. We mistakingly believe that thoughts that we have are ours. Actually, they are not. Thoughts are universal energy, that move in consciousness like radio waves. What makes them appear as yours, is your attraction to particular thoughts. Sort of like dialing into your favorite radio program. There are lots of radio frequencies out in space, but you pick the ones you like and dial in to those. This is how thoughts appear. Your mind picks out thoughts that are universal by what your beliefs and perceptions are. If you think that life sucks, your mind will pick out thoughts that are aligned with mentally proving to yourself that life does indeed suck. I call it, cherry-picking thoughts.
If you believe life sucks, then your mind picks out thoughts that will confirm your beliefs and your thoughts/beliefs create an energetic frequency that attracts like- energy. Therefore, you will create a reality that indeed shows you that life indeed sucks. Then, you will appear to experience your beliefs (like energy) and it will re-enforce your beliefs and you soon create a vicious cycle of a life that indeed sucks.
When we were young, because we have a developed forebrain, we created an ego-mind. It was created by us in order to protect ourselves. It is based on the limbic function of the brain, also known as the survival brain. It is there to preserve life when the tiger jumps out of the bushes in an attempt to eat us. The ego-mind jumps into action and we react in ways to survive. Because we no longer have daily life-threatening events, our ego-mind stays active by keeping us focused on fearful, non-life threatening beliefs. In time, we become primarily focused on all things that are fearful. The squeaky wheel does indeed get our attention.
When we have a pet (or ourselves) that has a medical problem and we constantly focus on that problem, what do you imagine happens? Yep, we direct our attention to that problem, give it energy and it strengthens its reality. The Law of Attraction working at its finest. In time, we become so conditioned to giving it power, we no longer are aware that we are doing it. We see our pet’s problem, our subconscious mind (which is our belief apparatus) immediately re-confirms our belief that our dog is sick, and we re-create our reality. And, we don’t even realize that we are doing it.
What can we do to stop this re-creation of the things that we don’t want? We start being aware of our thoughts and change our focus. If we can focus on our dogs stiff hindquarter, we can certainly focus on our dogs healthy forequarter. We just have to make an effort. It starts in this moment and the more you do it, the easier it gets. In India, they use mindful bells. They have bells hanging around on door handles and other places so that when they ring, the person is reminded to become aware of their thoughts and focus on what they desire.
We don’t have to hang mindful bells on our door handles, even though they are really cool to have around, but we can do other things to remind ourselves to be mindful of our thoughts. I will often put a black spot on my thumbnail with a Sharpie that can’t be overlooked. Each time I see that black spot, I remind myself to be mindful of my thoughts. I focus on the positive, beautiful things in my moment. If we start to do this, we can change the selection of our thoughts, re-establish new beliefs and create a reality that pleases us instead of makes us fearful. It is up to you. It is happening whether you want to direct it or not. Start by looking at your pet and focusing on something positive and healthy. It will re-direct your attention away from the squeaky wheel, crying for attention.
Some people believe that we will be ignoring the problem. Not so. We will give it attention when we need to give it attention and we will do so from a loving perspective instead of a fearful perspective. That has to be a good thing.
