Owning your emotional stuff around your animals

Whether we are aware of it or not, our animals are affected by us.

The small dog has been struggling lately.

Not at the fireworks (I'm SO lucky to finally have a dog who doesn't really mind those). She's just been a bit more tense and cranky. She's got a shorter fuse. More easily overwhelmed. She woke up in the middle of the night wanting to eat grass because she felt sick with it all. She's not relaxed in general, even when on the surface of it she seems happy enough at a passing glance.

The thing is... in all honestly... there's a good chance that it's my stuff she's feeling.

I'm tense and cranky. Prone to feeling upset at the prospect of some self-care. I'm grinding my teeth, my shoulders are up around my ears, and I'm definitely feeling out of sorts. Embarrassingly, I don't really know why I'm feeling this way, only that I am.

If I were still a horse rider, there is no way on this green earth that I'd be getting on a horse like this. I would be a total  liability, guaranteed to make even the most laid back of horses tense and spooky, and we'd have an accident.

Luckily I have tools for this. I'm an embodiment specialist. Last week I was able to use my embodiment to help her to relax in a situation she usually finds stressful. Details of that in my free Facebook group, here. If you’re a rider, you’d like this £9 mini course.

After a disturbed night with her last night, I worked trying to help her to relax. As part of it, I made a point of adjusting my own posture and muscle tone as I worked with her to help her relax different parts of her body. The more I relaxed myself, the more she yawned, stretched and generally released tension. Well, duh. We are embodied in relationship with our animals. When they are tense, we feel tense too. When we are tense, they are too. 

The moral of the story is that if your animal is struggling feeling tense, check that you're not causing or adding to it with your own tension.

If this resonates with you, I can help you to find relaxation and ease, and to lead your animal into the same. You can book here.

If it’s about time you checked in with your animals, you can book that here

Wishing you love, grace, and some space in relaxation with your animals this week!