Tara Brach - For the Love of Dogs…and All Beings

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

The focus of this conversation is on our relationships with dogs, and more broadly, all beings. We look at what Thich Nhat Hanh called interbeing, and what happens when we shift our attention from self to who are we together. Tara is joined by Mark Drucker, an animal lover who works in digital media and is founder of lovedog.com, and Drew Webster, a dog behavior consultant par excellence. In this recording, Tara is being interviewed for their podcast and found herself deeply impacted by the conversation. She reports that she and her 6-month-old pup, Niki, play more. Her attention has deepened and she is more awake in their relationship, and of course that extends out to the world of relationships. So whether you have a dog, cat, favorite tree, or human to practice on, bringing attention to interbeing means more belonging, aliveness, and love. lovedog.com  

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Greetings. Welcome, my friends. Thank you for being here. Mary Oliver has a book of poems. It's called Dog Songs. And I would like to share one with you. Percy wakes me and I am not ready. He slept all night under the cover. now is eager for action, a walk, then breakfast. So I hasten up. He's sitting on the kitchen counter where he's not supposed to be. How wonderful you are, I say, how clever if you needed me to wake me up. He thought he would hear a lecture and deeply his eyes began to shine. He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments. He squirms and squeals. He has done something that he needed.

and now he hears that it's okay. I scratch his ears, I turn him over and touch him everywhere. He is wild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then he has breakfast, and he is happy. This is a poem about Percy. This is a poem about more than Percy. Think about it. So the focus today is on our relationships with dogs

and it's on more than our relationship with dogs. You might think of it as what Dick Nathang called interbeing. What happens when we widen our attention from self, a separate self, to who we are in our togetherness and to the space of true okayness of acceptance and love that can unfold when we deepen presence together? So I'll be sharing an interview of me by two new friends. They ran this for their podcast called Love Dog. The interviewers are Mark Drucker, who's an animal lover and he works in digital media

and he's a founder of Love Dog.com. And Drew Webster, who's a dog behavior consultant and a wonderful one. So, I was impacted by our conversation. Well, more accurately, we were impacted. So this is Nikki, and she's about six months. And since talking with them, Nikki and I play more. And I'm more aware of our relatedness. And my attention is deepened.

Of course, that affects everything, including I'm going to put her down because I think she's more comfortable down, but you know. Thank you, sweetie, for being introduced. So, whether you have a dog or a cat or a favorite tree or a nearby human, deepening attention to interbeing means more belonging, it brings more aliveness and love. So I hope you find this of value, and I encourage you to check out the website, lovedog.com. Okay. Thank you and blessings. It's just a huge honor to have Tara Brock with us today. I know Drew agrees. I've been following her work for, I think, probably five or six years. I don't know exactly how long. I just want to say that the work that you do is really, really gorgeous. It's beautiful. You are a peacemaker. You are a, a he's a he's a he.

healer and you teach people what it means to feel. And I think almost more importantly, I know you taught me how to feel. And you put words to the things that I was always feeling but couldn't put words to. And I think it's fair to say, and not even a stretch to say that Tara, I think you've helped millions of people around the world. And I wouldn't be surprised if you've saved a few lives here and there with the work that you do and the way that you help people frame things and understand things so when i say it's an honor to have you here it's an honor to have you here from the heart thank you for accepting sweet well i'm excited because there's something at the heart of what you two are up to that has huge amounts of resonance, huge amounts to teach all of us.

And maybe in that spirit, people that have been with me a long time know there's a reading that I really love, that it's called spiritual fitness. And it goes like this, that if you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills, if you're cheerful, if you ignore your aches and pains, and if you can, resist complaining and boring people with your troubles. If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time, if you can overlook when people take things out on you, though it's no fault of yours, if you can take criticism and blame without resentment.

If you can face the world without lies and deceit. If you can conquer tension without medical help, if you can relax without liquor. if you can sleep without the aid of drugs, then you are probably a dog. I was just thinking in my head. Oh man, this sounds like,

you know, a lesson we can learn from dogs. I can't tell you how I love that. So now you know why I agreed. They're great teachers for me. Oh, that was amazing. I was sitting there going to, this is,

My whole conspiracy theory for your body of work, Tara, is that you're secretly talking to me personally about dogs. And I told you when we met that, you know, half of the lessons that you teach me, I'm just sitting there and I'm learning from you over the years about attention and connection and relationship. And I'm like, darn it, this is exactly what I'm trying to communicate to people when I'm talking about this paradigm shift and how we live with. and build our relationship with our dogs rather than this, you know, traditional power dynamic of mastery over a beast, as many people, you know, kind of have this preconceived notion about training and obedience and all the language that gets attached. It's this love and attention and immersive affection, which we'll dive into.

But thank you so much for that. That just made my day. Oh, well, it makes sense that we, what most deeply matters runs through every part of our lives. So of course it's going to resonate in that way. Yeah. So here we are. Yeah. So here we are.

And we're going to open up with a theme, how to be your dog's best friend. Because we like to say that a lot around here. In fact, it's our tagline. And we've talked on our show about letting dogs be dogs. We've talked about the joy that we get from. dogs and what dogs teach us and what we teach them and how we they make us you know better humans so i want to open up with the friendship between human and dog and how that kind of can develop and the companionship uh and the trust and all that good stuff that we can talk about in terms of

relationship and connection and you teach meditation tara and and You've talked often about these beautiful walks along the Potomac what you take with your dog. And I often envision myself walking along with you. You've talked about some of the birds you see along the way. You've talked a lot about nature. But I'm just wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about those walks because I've talked many times about the importance of walking with dogs, with your dog. And what that does for you and what that means for you, what you think,

it means for your dog as well to be walking every day in nature with you let's start there and open up the chat and just go yeah well walking in nature with my dog is probably the peak of both of our day so just to say that it's just it is so infused with aliveness and pleasure and i have a very clear intention that that's that surrounds that walk. My dog's name is Nikki. And I've had, of course, many other dogs. I've had the same intention, which is presence. It's not to be scattered but to be there

and to savor the moments and to serve her enjoyment because they have so much fun. And so, you know, she gets so delighted and stimulated and curious and just to be on that ride with her. And so what I feel like the bond is, is this kind of co-enjoyment bond, that it's hard to put into words, but it's that sense of the kind of field that's created

when you're both really immersed and having fun. And it has a bit of a ritual quality. And dogs like repetition, so we have our certain spots, you know. We'll always go visit the brook and she'll dip into the stream and then there's a certain beach along the river and she wants to go down to that and there's a ritual and the repetition and it feels fresh every time. It feels fresh every time.

And just to say, because it's probably the same for you, Mark, when you're out there with Hank, is that walking, just walking, has been a meditative part of my life for forever. I mean, there's something about belonging to the elements, like letting go of the sense of a separate ego self and just belonging to the elements that's delicious unto itself. So when we're together, it's a sense, you know, out with my friend, my pup, and also my husband if he wants to come or whatever, it's homecoming. We're all enjoying it together. Well, you know, we put a quote up on our Instagram a couple of months ago. It's very easy.

When in doubt, go for a walk with your dog. And I just think to go out there into nature to a tune, to really pay attention and attune to the dog and just be there, as you say, present. It's therapy. It's healing. It's fun. It's a joy. It's a soul. It's hysterical because they do hysterical things.

And I get it. It is to me like a meditation. And we're out there every morning now at between 6 and 630 for a good hour. And I've discovered some new areas and take him with water. And it's just the best. So I get, I extract the value from it and I extract the meaning from it. And I just love it. And I hope that everyone has an opportunity to have that ritual, right?

To get out there with their dog and just go out there and be together and be free and let your worries be somewhere behind you. There's an interesting thing about that, letting our worries be behind us. You know, when we're present, the Buddhists have a word called mudita, which is joy and another's joy. when we're present, it's just contagious. But how many of us go off for a walk and we're feeling stressed and preoccupied? And one of the things that helps me, there's a little verse called golden retrievals.

Maybe you've heard of it by Mark Doty. It's so good. And I think of this all the time. And if you just listen and imagine you're listening to the voice of your pop, saying, I'm off again, muck, pond, ditch, residue of any thrillingly dead thing. And you? Either you're sunk in the past, half our walk, thinking of what you can never bring back, or you're off in some fog concerning tomorrow? Is that what you call it? My work, retrieving

my haze-headed friend, you, this shining bark, a Zen master's bronzy gong, calls you here entirely now. So it's like, that helps me. I just imagine that bark and, you know, just are here the bark. And I go, oh, it's about being here now. Yeah. You said, you said this word twice in it. It really resonates with both how I try to be in my life with my dog, with my family,

but also in my practice as a dog trainer and something I try to teach to my students. And I frequently go to these houses and people. People have these subscription boxes for their dogs delivered and there's just some bin overflowing with toys and my little catchphrases. Don't get your dog presence. Give them presence. And the idea being they don't need these things. We're being marketed that to be a great companion to your dog, you have to buy into this current pet dynamic we've all created as a culture. and we forget the bond, the human-animal bond, the richness came from giving our attention and to each other. And, you know, Mark often uses the word hilarious.

Like, they will completely warm your heart if you let them even those things that maybe you don't love so much and what's going in the mouth and what's, you know, the thing they're going to jump off of that you wonder if they'll ever recover from. But, yeah, you said it multiple time, presence, and that's really sort of my guiding principle. It's the best. And it's for parents. I see so many parents trying to figure out, you know, maybe I'll just let them go online right now or give them the food. And it's in lieu of putting down all the preoccupation and just showing up. And that's the essence of all good relationships showing up, being here. And listening.

I mean, when I, where we are right now in this conversation, and Drew, you've talked about this. In fact, the first time that I met you, you talked about, which is what drew me to use, you know, listening to your dog and sort of attuning, as I said before and getting a sense of what they need from you at that moment and then being there for them. And that's all about respect, I think, and empathy and trying to understand them. And it might be a good place for us to have a conversation about sentience. You know, these dogs are living, breathing, thinking, feeling, emotional beings. And I would just love you, Tara, to give us some insight or something. enlighten us about how you feel about that. I know you don't have much to say on it. I can't imagine. But yeah, it's a hot topic these days. And Drew and I are, well, Drew is very

connected down to the Institute of Animals, Sentience and Protection at University of Denver, but sentience. It's a beautiful concept. And I think as every day goes by, we're getting closer and closer as a society to say, yep, they're sentient. I love the word too and I'm glad that we're talking about it because when we're really paying attention to any life form and there's an understanding that attention is the deepest form of love and when we're paying attention we'll feel in them that aliveness awareness spirit we call sentience and it's the reason like most people were aware that they love children but they love their child in a special way.

Or we love dogs, but we love our dog. And it's because we've paid so much attention that we're actually tapping into and connecting and feeling that sentience. It's like we look in their eyes and there's realness coming back at us. And when we don't feel that, when we're not aware of the sentience of another being,

we actually can hurt them. They become objects. Sentience lets a being. be real. And maybe just to share a story that really struck me about this was, this was about five years ago, I was walking Katie, my former dog, and we heard guns go off, and it was hunters upstream who were shooting geese. And I just burst out crying. I spent a lot of time, you know, watching the creatures around the river and seeing the geese. And I just burst out crying. I spent a lot of time, you know, watching the creatures

around the river and seeing the geese and their goslings which are out right now and I had this voice in my head saying they're my friends we're friends you know and and then it was kind of that sense of

then I looked at my pup and I said you're my friend and a cardinal landed nearby and we're friends and then a squirrel and a tree and I'm sharing that because I found that the more I sense we're friends. We're friends. We're in this shared

field of sentience, of connection. First of all, it deepens the mystery that we're in together. This interspecies connection, it just deepens that mystery of that one awareness that's shining through. And if we belong to all parts of life, we can never feel alone. And when we don't belong, there's the other gets objectified. And then we hurt. And this happens between humans and between humans and other species. And I know a lot of times when I'm talking about this, I'll share that I'll sometimes imagine if people thought of their dog and they thought of, you know,

pigs being herded into a slaughterhouse and the terror that's contagious. and they thought of their dog as part of that group of animals, you know, not for a moment would they allow the cruelty that happens in factory farming. But we make others other, and they don't have that quality of sentience we're talking about. So it feels both for the sake of healing and peace on our planet and also really tapping into the truth of this creation that we deepen our attention and tune into sentience. Well, when all of, with all the war around us, the, the, I guess to matter what side you're on,

this makes me think of that. When you kill another person in a war, when you attack another country, and you know that people, humans are going to die en masse, I think a process that you've had to go through, whether you're aware of it, it or not is depersonalizing or dehumanizing, yes, that those people that you're about to kill. So, and we don't, we can sit here and spend days talking about all the war and all the death and destruction. So the same is true. At least I know I'm on the same page with you, you know, whether it's you're shooting at geese or

you're sending pigs, hogs into a slaughterhouse or just keeping them in captivity in these cages where they can't lie down. I think for the most, for most of their lives, it's filthy. We're just, just to jump ahead for a second, we're going to be doing, I think the next episode we're going to be airing is on puppy mills and the horror and the terror that goes on in puppy mills. So you're talking about cruelty toward animals and how one can actually do that, yes? And if you start to see these animals as sentient beings, it might become just a little bit more difficult. You see your dog as a sentient being whether you know it or not, so you wouldn't let your dog go into a slaughterhouse.

But, well, dogs have such an amazing connection with us, Mark. I mean, we've watched you and Hank Cuddle more times on this show for anybody who can't see. we often pause. Can't one of those moments go viral? We often pause to Mark and Hank and have a snuggle, which is great. And what's so beautiful is, Tara, you kept using the word friendship. And I can't help but feel the same with the birds that come to our backyards the other day. My son was giving me a little bit of a hard time because I was a bit later coming back for my morning walk with my dog Ozzy. And he's saying, what took so long? And I told him it had rained. and there were all these earthworms out on the street, and I was worried they were going to get dried out. So I was laughing at my ridiculousness that I had to keep stopping to pick up these earthworms just to give them a shot. And that's not a, you know, to make me feel small about it. I was quite happy about it.

But, you know, we have this lens for dogs that live in our home. And we have this instant connection. But I think it can be a doorway for people to start thinking about other species. I wanted to read a little quote, a book I mentioned to you before Tara, Hal Herzog wrote a book called Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat. And on the cover, there's a silhouette of a puppy, and it says Some We Love, and a silhouette of a rat that says some we hate, and a silhouette of a pig that says some we eat. And, you know, that's almost everything you need to know about the book.

But I wanted to read this quote, he says, What is about human psychology that makes it so difficult for us to think consistently about animals? The paradoxes, the plagues, our interactions with other species, are due to the fact that much of our thinking is a mire of instinct, learning, language, culture, intuition, and our resilience and our mental shortcuts. And really thinking about, you know, what's familiar to us. What have we normalized, like, keeping dogs as pets? I've said on the show before, there's, you know, 800 million dogs on this planet, and most of them aren't pets. And we have this lens of our dogs that also creates opportunities for our dogs to suffer from, you know,

even just loneliness. That's a huge one for pet dogs. The way we care for dogs, some of the inappropriate training that's done in the sake of obedience and some of these power dynamics we hold. So even within the companion animals that we hold beloved, there's this sort of slippery slope of our subjective idea of what well-being is. You know, I was saying about buying them presents versus giving them your presence. We tend to think that if an animal is, quote, spoiled, we're, you know, purchasing lots of things rather than really attending to their needs. And so I think dogs have this really powerful opportunity to kind of wake us.

up out of this trance that we're all finding ourselves stuck in sometimes and getting so focused on what we're doing and how we're doing it and accepting it as culturally normal. So really it's an opportunity. And I guess what I would ask our listeners and your listeners to think about is what instead of do you need to teach your dog coming from the dog trainer? What can your dog teach you? About yourself, about humanity, about relationships, about connection. And I credit, living with dogs and working with dogs is making me a better father, making me a better teacher, making me a better person, and hopefully steward of this world and finding those connectivities.

I love what you're saying, Drew, and what it, I think, can become a mirror for is in a deep sense, reverence for life. Like, it's just so deep in our culture. real conditioning to have a hierarchy of what parts of life are more important and more valuable. And even with our beloved friends that are dogs, on some level, they're less than. And I think often of, you know, Paul Farmer, an ecologist says that the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world. And I think being with a dog and paying attention, you come to some deep place of knowing that being, that it's all equal.

And it doesn't mean equal power, doesn't mean you're going to sacrifice your own needs. It means that in the most deep sense, spiritual sense, there's not a higher or a lower. And that brings up a sense of reverence. And I think it's something we can actually practice with. We can actually look and say, you know, and we can do it with ourselves and other people. Am I putting myself higher or lower? Ourselves and our dogs. Ourselves and animals that we eat, ourselves and other parts of the earth.

You know, is there some way that we're diminishing the value of life? I think there's literally an Oxford dictionary definition about humans. and about nature, and I'm not going to quote it, but how we as humans really are at the top of the food chain, food chain, and we exist in opposition to nature. And so the tendency therefore, and that's what we've been taught in conditioned to believe, which is why a lot of this happens, I think. And I do agree with you 100%. It is we have this human tendency to put things into a hierarchy. And we are, of course, at the top of that hierarchy. And we are, of course, at the top of that hierarchy. And then we see ourselves as needed in opposition to.

And when it's convenient to coexist with, but when it comes to, like, for example, what we eat, yeah. So hopefully, I would love it. I think you would all love it if we can teach, talk about another way to see the world, a way to stop othering, a way to stop othering. a way to stop othering and just, you know, coexist and I don't know whether it's being one, but it's being with and having peace. That would be a great place to go from where we are right now, for sure. Yeah? Does that resonate?

Deeply. Deeply. When you spend time with your dogs, I've shared with you, but you've shared with you, but you, not trying to be funny about it, but you've been a voice in my head for about five years, meaning I've constantly been listening to your wonderful podcasts. You're one of the original amazing podcasters. I can't believe when I look at your library,

how far back it goes and how deep I can dive. But there's this constant thread through your books, through radical acceptance, radical compassion, And everything I encounter from you has these themes of, you know, paying attention and connection and relationship and compassion. And so many of those themes have come to me from the work I've done with animals. Where does that relate to you and sharing your life with? Not only the companion animals you live with you in your home, but you talked about your

environment that nurtures you and walking on the stream and where you get i mean you mean so much to so many people two of them are staring back at you today but so many people rely on you to bring them back we're having an interview with our friend of the show zach scow who's going to come on and he wrote a beautiful article about battling addiction and finding himself again and he said you tell tarabrock when i when you talk to her she's the only reason i learned to meditate i tried for you tried for years and if I put Tara and I can go there but you let so many of us go there. So I'm curious how living with animals and especially dogs for the sake of our show and audience, how that helps you find those themes in your life.

Well, any being I'm with is an opportunity to pay attention, whether I'm alone and I'm with the life that's inside me, or I'm with Nikki, or I'm with Jonathan, or I'm with you two right now. It's practice isn't compartmentalized. You know, it's really all about remembering to pay attention. And I know how it gets shut down. I watch, I've learned a lot in terms of myself and others when I'm stressed. You know, my empathy, circuitry shuts down. You know, I might, I can, I'm very good at sounding compassionate and empathetic, but my heart isn't tender, you know. And so, human, is that weird? Oh, my gosh.

Oh, so human. And busy. I wish I had a bell. Confession. I only have this. Tara, Tara gets stressed. When I'm stressed, when I have a lot to do, when I'm in my workaholic kind of headset. I am not listening as deeply to myself and to you and to my pups.

And so I feel like the whole practice this lifetime is not to get down to myself for that, just to notice it and have this heart's longing for the kind of presence that allows for intimacy, you know, really being there. And what happens to most of us, I know from studying a little bit about the brain, is that stress really does shut down the relational circuitry. And so how do we find our way back when we're reactive? And then there's some questions that can help with that and that I ask. And, you know, one of the questions I got from a civil rights icon who says, you know,

when she sees other people acting in certain ways that are, are unhealthy, she'll say, well, where does it hurt? And sometimes she'll say it out loud, this is Ruby Sales, but sometimes she's just, that's her inquiry. And so I like to move through and navigate with having that inquiry either for myself when I'm filling off or somebody else, you know, where does it hurt?

And are, you know, what's it like being you right now? So if my dog is having a hard time in some way, then the practice becomes, can I pause? And can I sense the realness of what's going on? She's not just being uncooperative or whatever I think. There's something going on. You know, it's like Oprah Winfrey says, you know, when somebody's acting in a harmful way, she'll say,

oh, what happened? What happened to you? And so it's developing that receptivity towards ourselves and each other where we're really, this is what helps me. And other questions like, how do you want me to be with you? You know, when I'm with my pup and I'm sensing she's upset and I try to sense, what does she need? How does she want me to be with her?

And, you know, often it's to slow down, to create safety, to have some alternative way that she can be successful or find enjoyment. And it's similarly, and I just use the word enjoyment, because when you ask like what brings nourishment is to listen into what do you need that enriches, you know. I have to share with you guys because I thought you'd enjoy it that I did just see a cartoon with these three dogs talking to each other and they're sharing their favorite experience. And one of them is saying, you know what I love? rolling in dead squirrel. And then the other one saying, oh my God, yes,

but how about peeing on the floor at Petco? And the third saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What's the farthest distance either of you have rubbed your butt across a carpet? So it's like, what brings enjoyment? And maybe you're not going to like go with the first thing that they want to do. But it's like really having that inquiry in your mind

of what's life like for you. Yeah. And letting your dog be a dog, Drew. That resonates so much with Mark and I. And Mark, you said the phrase, learning to listen. And you and I've talked about that a lot on this show. And Tarrett's so important to me because I always tell people, behavior is the language of dogs. And so when I meet people, A, we talk about this idea of pain points.

Like, where does it hurt? What is it that is so hard? for you with your dog on a daily basis because if I can help the people in their discomfort and their stress and struggle, I will help the dogs. But then I try to shine that light on them and say, you know, the dog who is labeled as stubborn that won't walk, the dog who is labeled as aggressive at the veterinarian, you know, those dogs, I ask, what are they experiencing? You know, And if you can learn to listen, as you said, Mark, you see the dog who is very under-enriched in their lives. And now they've found this odor and they want to spend time with the odor.

And we're so nose-blind that we're dragging them on on the walk because we need to get to our next appointment that's so important. Or the dog who's aggressive at the veterinarian has no other option and they're cornered in this tiny room and feeling fear and stress. and no one's ever taught them how to be in there and how to feel that sense of security. We had Dr. Kathy Murphy on our show, who is a neuroscientist, and she's talking about how the brain works, and one of her models for building resilience is not just providing security in the sense we might think about a roof over your head and walls and food and access to water, but that perceived security. And that is so hard with a nonverbal creature, and a lot of it comes down to you being there too.

So if I come from a place of calm, centeredness and attention, rather than fearful of what this veterinarian technician is going to think of me and judge me and, oh, we're going to team up until the dog gets bad and hold it to the ground and draw its blood, you know, the things we do to dogs for the sake of helping them, I need to say, oh, how can I support my dog in this moment? And there's some beautiful work being done now to help teach dogs how to have these experiences that are less intrusive than traditionally has been done. I love what you're saying because it's really there are a set of needs and how do we tune into them and how do we create that perceived, that real sense of security. And of course, the deepest is a genuine quality of affection that our love when it's communicated.

And if it's okay with you too, Mary Oliver has some amazing poems, and there's one that really just struck me as I just wanted to share this one with you. And it's called Little Dog's Rhapsody in the Night. He puts his cheek against mine and makes small expressive sounds. And when I'm awake or awake enough, he turns upside down, his four paws in the air, his eyes dark and fervent. Tell me you love me, he says. Tell me again. Could there be a sweeter arrangement over and over he gets to ask and I get to tell? I live it every day.

I feel blessed because I have this dog that's so incredibly affectionate who just takes his head and puts it under my neck and just comes in close. And you know he wants safety. He wants love. right and and you can tell when he it's like i'm almost saying to him okay hank you're safe now you're good i'm not going anywhere we have that moment every single day and um it's a sacred moment for both of us you can tell yeah well we're social creatures there are social creatures and the exchange of loving is very somatic it's very felt And for many people, it's the place that they feel it most deeply.

The body keeps score. Yeah. Yeah. The body keeps score. Tara has mentioned a bunch of times this whole idea of paying attention. And I want to take that one step further because Tara, years ago, I've heard you tell the story and he's told it a few times. I think you were speaking at a conference or you were on a stage. There were a bunch of people.

and the question was, what is mindfulness? Do you know the story? And one of the speakers, it wasn't you, I don't think, but one of the speakers said, and it was very short, which was the point of why you were telling it, mindfulness is paying attention with intention. Do you remember that? Of course you do.

No? No, it's a very nice, very clean, short way to do it. So yeah. Yeah. Sounds like some language. Yeah. So there's there's the idea of paying attention and then there's the idea, well, what is your intention? And I think that just takes us into some very rich territory here. And Drew, I'm going to let you take over here because I know you have some big questions for Tara about that and about rain and about a few other things that we want to get into. Yeah. And I think one of the areas I'd love to go with you, you talked before on your show about a couple of concepts that I really connected with.

And one of them is this idea of receptive energy. And so as a person that didn't have a lot of background in some of these traditions and ideas, this was sort of a aha moment from me, something that I learned from working with dogs I worked for years in shelters where I would frequently have to go into a very small little space with a dog who is in extreme distress. And they're showing me everything from fear and cowering and hiding to some very offensive, defensive behaviors that would be labeled as aggressive. And I'm supposed to go in and get that animal out or move them or assess them or whatever, right? And there's something that I learn to pay attention to that for me, I describe as the cold chill when I'm really in that moment with the dog. There's a stiffness I could identify with my eyes. And there's a moment.

And I just feel it in my bones. And I don't know how to describe it. But you were talking about receptive energy and really paying attention. and stepping outside of ourselves and being empathetic towards their experience. And so for me, this was kind of that aha moment of like, is this explaining that sensation? You know, that otherwise I might hide behind and say, oh, that's just woo-woo. I don't know what that is. Like, but really tuning into it has not only kept me safe, but also has dramatically lowered the stress for the animal

and brought us back to a place where we could work together or move safely through space. together. So I don't know. I guess I'd like you to tell us a little about receptive energy and how could that relate to working with, living with animals. Well, let me ask you a question, Drew, when you get that sensation and it's very distinct and it's kind of a flag for you, what happens right after that? What goes on internally that allows you to, you know, receive and respond as you do? I think for me it's always been slowing down and really how can I how can I bring this situation down? You know, for me, whether it's working with animals or being married, I was thinking, am I going to throw gas or water on this fire right now, right? Or working with me, right, Jeremy?

Yeah, my relationship is this a water or a gasoline situation? And so for me, if I feel that or if I experience that or the dog is right there and I'm seeing the pupils and the forward ears and the stiffness of the commissures and all the things that I've learned to pay attention to visually, but there's a feeling that I have. And I soften my body. I carry myself in my shoulders a lot. I always feel kind of stiff. And so one thing I've learned over the years is kind of to relax into my body and get. soft, get small, and slow down because it's usually happening because I'm rushing or I'm trying to accomplish a goal that's based on my needs, right? And so that's when I try to stop and say,

what could this animal need to feel less threatened or more confident depending on whatever the situation is? That's really helpful because what I'm hearing is that when there's a potentially volatile situation that could cause, you know, where there could be reactivity and more distancing, you get that flag of that very distinct sensation. And instead of being, you know, hijacked by your limbic system where you'd get more controlling and kind of shut down sensitivity, you've actually have that kind of inner process of slow down, soften and open, and pay more attention. You deepen attention,

so then you know how to respond in a way that's going to meet needs and create that feeling of security and whatever is needed to move in the direction that's healing. What happens for most of us, and this is whether we're in a potential conflict with another person, with ourselves, with an animal, is that unless we're in terms,

were intentional and conscious, very quickly the limbic system takes over, and we actually get rigid in our behavior, very habituated, and there's blame, there's a sense of bad dog or bad person, there's a sense of tightness in our heart, and what we actually do is fuel on the fire. So you have found a process that lets you throw water on the fire, and my particular way with that. To me, that's the value of mindfulness and compassion, which is mindfulness teaches us to slow down or to pause, to deepen our attention. And as you say, to soften, to have our hearts be soft so that we're actually not armored, we're receptive. And I can, you know, it's never a conflict in terms of between me and a dog or me and another person. It's a

conflict and needs. Yeah. And so I'll give you an example of how I work with it that's got some real parallels to you, Drew. And it first became very conscious with my son where, you know, he was a teenager. He was very, very, his priorities in life were computer games and socializing and the like. And I was feeling a lot of anger and all my ways of approaching. him had anger in it, some sort of an attack. And his response was not one, I wasn't bringing out a response that moved us towards more of a healthy situation. And I realized, oh my gosh,

you know, he's going to graduate, be gone, and I really don't want to live out this negative ritual. So I did what you were talking about when I would get that flag that, okay, here's where the tension is, you know, conflict in needs, I would pause and I would go internally. I'd use the rain practice, which is recognize what's going on, allow it, just let it be there, investigate, feel it in my body, and nurture, and I would do it with myself. And what I found out was I'd recognize, okay, I'm angry. and this happens with dogs too when we're feeling like they're not cooperating,

we get angry. And then I would allow it to be there. I wouldn't make my anger wrong. I would then deepen attention inwardly and feel the kind of fist in my chest and sense under the anger, oh, there's fear that he's not going to have a good life and underneath the fear that, oh, there's grieving

because there's such distance between us. When I then offered my self-kindness, I was larger. I was more in that space you described, where I was soft and present, and I became much more creative about working with him around boundaries in a respectful way, in a way that he didn't feel like he was being disrespected and put down. and I found that it's not different in any other situation

that always first, when there's that reactivity, there's I or the other is in that reactivity if I make that you turn instead of fixating on them and reacting if I come around and I say, recognize what's happening

I'll let it be here you know, feel it in my body, investigate it, and nurture I am in a space that is basically drawing on presence and kindness and able to respond. So I really encourage that with as a practice, really, whether it's our child, our teen, our dog, our friend, our parent, you know, it creates possibility for more connection. This reminds me a bit of a piece of the conversation, Drew, that we had with Kathy Murphy.

And, you know, many years ago, about 20 years ago now, I took a bunch of courses in mediation and conflict resolution. And I did that because my Myers-Briggs test said, you should be a mediator, you know, three different times. But anyway, I was taking some courses out in Pepperdine, out in L.A. and two things that one of the instructors taught us, which I thought was so incredibly insightful, and it comes up for me right now, is first, all conflict comes from unmet expectation. Second, and this is what I think you're talking about,

is all resistance comes from unmet needs. So in the case of you and your son, for example, Tara, you're in the middle of an argument, you're reacting and responding in a way that you don't like about yourself let's say you're describing that to us and you're stopping and what you're really doing to some extent is finding you know what is he need for me right now he's not getting the respect he wants he's not being heard the way he wants and he's resisting me interruption the first thing i'm doing is what am i needing what are you needing yeah i'm first going to my unmet need because i don't have the bandwidth

and the receptivity to his needs until I first at all. I'm scared for his future. Oh, I'm feeling distance and then hold that with compassion. That actually opens up those neural pathways that let me then ask really authentically, what's going on for him? Yeah. Is that like what does he need in a sense? Yes, exactly right.

Where is it hurt? What does he need? Yeah. And then you're available. Exactly right. You've got it. Yeah. You're available.

So it's, and the same is true with our dogs. The dog is not behaving in a way that we want right now, barking incessantly, whatever it is. I live that every day with Hank. And sometimes I get angry. I can't, you know, just, you're out in the mood for it. But when I'm present, which is what we're talking about, and I'm sitting there putting on my shoes, my sticks to go out. He's barking at me and I just, I bring him over to me. And I pat his head and I'm like, what do you need right now?

Like what's going on with that brain of yours? Let's calm you down. It's okay. Let me give each other a hug. And I just calm him down, you know? And he feels better. He feels safer. But I have to be in that space, just like the two of you are talking about.

But I, when I heard that so many years ago, all resistance comes from unmet needs. it's, you know, trying to understand why someone needs that. And what you're saying is, but first you have to get yourself in a space where you can even ask the question, why. Exactly. And then you can both be there in a way for each other. Yeah? Is that perfectly well said.

And Mark, you used a great word. You said expectations. And I can't tell you how many clients I visit where there really isn't a problem with the dog that's in front of us, but what the expectations on that dog were, you know, and often they're unreasonable, where they're the third of that specific breed type that's come into that home and people think, oh, this is the one that's off, you know, we've always had insert breed here, and they've never been as much of a problem as this. And, you know, I remind them, like, they've changed. Like, that's three generations ago. They were 15 years younger.

and they didn't have this life situation and all this too. And that expectations, Tarat brings me back to something else you've talked about before. I think it's called Lojohn or this kind of beginner's mind idea, right? And one thing I try to communicate to people is that dogs are really incredible and we tend to sell them short on a daily basis because they're so familiar. Their species name, Canis Familiaris, I think kind of highlights that in that. we think of dogs as pets and all the dogs we see behave x-way and social media is only making that worse here's all these people living their best lives with their dogs but what i see is a lot of people

suffering and a lot of dogs suffering and people who haven't gone on vacation in 10 years or 15 years because they're dealing with such extreme anxiety or fear or aggression and things like that and getting curious when the first time i read radical compassion and really familiarized myself with rain. I was like, this is what we need. Like rain, comma, four dogs, right? Like, how can we apply it? And I think what you do so well is this idea of how do we take things from words to works.

How do we take our philosophy into that cage in the shelter when it's me in six feet of space and a bunch of teeth, right? How can I be there and show up and soften? And then that's the part that takes a lot. And Mark used the word anger. We've all felt that in frustration. You know, the show is called Love to Hug, but it's not always simple. It's not always easy. We do have attachment to things.

And when your puppy, choose them up, we do feel certain ways or, you know, have those experiences and those feelings. I just want to highlight and say yay on what you both have said about expectations. it feels so important that we're bringing it in because if I look at my own suffering through history, it's because I had an expectation that I should be a different kind of person. If I look at a lack of intimacy with another person, it's because they should be different or we should be different. And similarly, with our animals, our beloved friends, any idea that, you know, that we should be different, that they are supposed to be different.

Should is the, is again the flag here. Actually interferes with listening and interferes with caring. In a moment that I think I should be different, my heart tightens. Or if I was thinking, oh, you should be doing this differently. I would lose the sense of rapport and connection that I feel with both of you. So I love that you're bringing it up because I think it can be a really very, very, very, practical, useful flag. Like, what are my expectations of my dog? And how might they be getting away in the way of really listening and sensing the sentience and sensing the needs and sensing

the possibility of a deeper kind of connection? I'm sensing a book here. I am. Drew, we're going to write a book. It's what are the expectations of my dog? Because we have to be real. And for not, you know, I used to have my dog carry my shopping bags up 79th Street in Manhattan. He loved it. That great expectation. But it comes back to, you know, and he lived for that. But Drew, to some extent, this reminds me of, you know, the caveman and the wolf that got together in the speakeasy about 30,000 years ago. And, you know, they made a grand bargain.

It's like, I'm going to take care of you and you're going to take care of me. And it's this whole idea of the grand bargain. And when it works out, you know, it's a really beautiful, beautiful thing. But I agree the conversation around expectations is a big one between us and our dogs and us and between one another because we tend to expect a lot. Tara, in the rain realm, one of the areas. is that I would like more clarification, although I definitely understand it better than I did initially, is the eye in rain, the investigate. And I've come to know that you're talking about what's going on in your body, you know, when you're feeling this tension, this hurt, this rejection, whatever it is that's

causing the deregulation. Can we just talk about that a little bit? The eye, the investigate, the body and what your body is telling you about what's going on. Where does it? hurt. I think that's what you were saying, right? Yeah. Well, it's a great question because when we're off, when we're not listening, when we're reactive, we're actually cut off from our bodies and we're not able to do what Drew does, which is sense that cold chill and actually have our bodies be a messenger of what's going on. So a whole deep part of mindfulness is with curiosity. and gentleness and kindness re-inhabiting our bodies. And the eye is basically the part of this weave of mindfulness and compassion where we're saying, okay, how am I feeling this in my body?

And as you know, it's what's unfelt is the cause of our suffering. I mean, Carl Jung put it so well, the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche are where our suffering comes from. And I We talked, the three of us were talking a few days ago about that story of people bringing their deepest troubles to a very wise sage. And that sage would swear them to silence and say, I just have one question for you. What are you unwilling to feel? What are you unwilling to feel? And so part of our training of being intimate with our dogs is getting back in touch with feeling because we have to feel feelings.

We have to feel the joys and the sorrows to be able to really engage, to play, to be tender. Any response is going to come from us inhabiting our bodies and having the courage to feel feelings. Yeah. I was thinking about that again. and in the context of therapy dogs, you know, and how dogs can bring out feelings in us that we didn't know we have,

and it can lessen the rigidity or the inhibition. And I was thinking about therapy dogs because we've talked about taking therapy dogs into classrooms and the children read to the dogs. And I've come to understand this as the children are afraid to read to the, adults in the room or with the other kids watching, they become very afraid. They don't feel safe. And reading to the dog, all that inhibition just goes away and they feel safe.

And this is one way. What are you unwilling to feel that dogs can help us feel? And it's such a beautiful, well, it's such a powerful question. And as you know, I've been pondering it for years. And I just love the question. And when I first heard it, I was, as I told you, I was startled by it. I froze because it's so huge. At least it's how I received it.

Yeah. And in the dog world, I'm just happy to have that one really beautiful example. But there are so many about how dogs bring us out of ourselves. And this is one way that the therapy dogs I know are helping the kids who feel a little bit afraid. Well, a lot of humans do not feel safe enough around other humans to open. And so their dogs, the relationship with their dogs are dogs or horses, I mean, there are other therapy animals actually give access to connection. And, you know, there's a reason people live longer and people live happier when they have

animals in their lives because they have access to connection. And this is something, Drew, that I think we can talk about and we should bring up with Zach Scho, because Zach goes into the prison systems in California. His NFP positive change, that's all the work he does with prison prisoners in corrections facilities, and he brings dogs out of kill shelters and takes them into the prisons to help the prisoners and they train them. And you can only imagine what these dogs are helping these prisoners feel. And we know that Phil Tedeschi here at University of Denver also does work in the prison systems here in Colorado. So it's yet another way the dogs bring us out and help us.

Drew, do you want to say something? You look like you're on the verge. Yeah, no, it's just taking me down the path. I mean, we've had so many powerful examples of this. There's a wonderful book by Meg Ulmer called The Biologist. of the human-animal bond. She also does some work with Warrior Canine Connection, which is wounded servicemen and women who are working to train service animals, not for themselves, but for their peers,

which is really beautiful. And the big dog fix in Uganda, where they're utilizing these, you know, quote, unwanted street dogs and these people who've experienced civil war and you're pairing these two perfect, wounded populations, and they're finding purpose and a sense of being and this non-judgment that you're talking about in the reading programs,

which is a big part of it, a lot of children are scared to read to another human because they might stutter or they might mispronounce a word or this and the dogs are just there and that presence. And they're not sitting there correcting their grammar and they're just letting the kids feel safe to open and read. And those are all very deep, really touching examples, but on a daily basis, I think dogs can teach everybody this.

And I think this is accessible to everybody. And I think the biggest missing thing for a lot of the people I see is coming up with activities on a daily basis they can do to really pay attention. And for me, it's play. And whenever I bring a play, I think, you know, a lot of people say, oh, that's the silly stuff. Like, there's everything. There's the bond and the training. And then there's play over here.

But to me, play is everything. And I think it's a good example of a phrase, you taught me, Tara, immersive attention, where we are looking at each other and we're involved in a game and we both have our goals. But the whole point is fun. And we're working together. we're creating a language, this nonverbal species and me, this crazy weird ape thing that's just constantly talking, you know, and all of a sudden we find a way to just be together and a lot of time the language fades away or I become more dog-like in my movements or my sound and the dog is

doing everything they can to get me to move and using that behavior as language. I just, I think play is so powerful and I think it can help us train and build language together and improve our relationships and so to me it's kind of a great example of that immersive attention. It is one a name that for many people it's very threatening to talk about play because at a very early age it became unsafe to play. They became self-conscious and insecure about ways of playing and sometimes when adults talk about playing, they feel like it's way too awkward and it doesn't fit their identity.

So it actually serves us to free us from a very rigid sense of identity when we start rolling around and just kind of improvising, you know, with our dog. I mean, I become a larger being. I become a more alive, larger being. Of course, for them, you know, it stimulates physical and mental growth

and it's part of the experience of affection of bonding. But I think it's just like the biggest win-win in the world. So a real bow to the word play. Bow. It brings out that what a dog world. We called a play bow. Yeah. Well, I hate to get off the play thing and go into something a little serious.

But Tara, if it's okay with you, I mean, I think you're someone I would like to talk to a bit about grief. when we lose our pet. Is that okay? Absolutely. Yeah. Because I just know I've lost two dogs and I'm not going to start to cry here, but I could. I could really easily. And it's, I made noises I didn't know I could make. The grief, the pain was extraordinary.

For me, I found that when I lost my first thought, I was discovering something new about myself and how I reacted and I just went with it. I didn't care where I cried in the vets office, in the supermarket. I just didn't care. I'm like, this is my dog. And, you know, things started to stabilize for me in about two weeks time. And then when I lost my next dog a few years ago, who I'd had for 13 and a half years, I went through the exact same process. It was interesting. But for me, it was just like, Mark, whatever you're going to do, just do. Whatever noises you're going to make, just make. It hurt so bad.

I'm not alone in that. Grief, I know, is very personal. What I go through is mine. What you all go through is yours. So could you just talk about that for a bit? Yeah. Thank you, Mark. I could feel the realness of that.

And typically they have a shorter lifespan, so it's a setup to love and lose. And the other thing is that there's a kind of intimacy that's often unmatched. We can be intimate with humans, but it's different kind of intimacy. You both have spoken of it. There's something about the acceptance that is so unconditional that we just have not experienced in this lifetime from humans because most of us, because we're all part of this culture and this culture has all these standards to meet. So when we lose them, it rips out a part of our life from our heart. And it can be pretty clean grief. I mean, what I mean by that is, you know, unless we had

a complex relationship with our dog where we felt like we let it down or, you know, that it can be, at least for me, it's been clean in that sense, that I just loved and lost. And one of the things I found out, just like you, is that the grieving's profound, it has its own course, that the deepest wisdom is to let it, like, dogs be dogs and like grief be grief, you know. And that the more fully, it's like embedded in the grief is love. It's something we love. So I found if I grieve fully, I land up with a sense of timeless love. The love's still there.

I can think of any of my pets and tap into a kind of timeless sense of our belonging and our connection and still feel real sadness, missing that form in its particulars. But I think that's the gift of full grieving, is that you're honoring the love that's there. You're letting your heart break open with all loss, and you just become increasingly open-hearted. I once heard someone say grief is love without anywhere to put it. Like, I've had this love, in this case for my dogs. There's only one dog that I love that way, right? And now the dog is gone, and I don't have anywhere else to put that love.

It doesn't work for everybody, but it worked for me. I got it. Does that resonate with you at all? I think it's a great phrase. You know, and in some spaces, it can really, yeah. It really helped me frame it. Like, yeah, I have nowhere to put this love but for that animal, so it's just going to take time. And the other thing that you said, I just want to comment on, which I have said to myself and which I have said to others, is it, you know, this bargain, this, I forget exactly how you said it.

it, but we get these dogs knowing that we want to outlive them. We don't want them to go through life without us. So while we are grieving and we're devastated, I'd rather it be this way. You know, it's kind of the opposite of a parent doesn't, you know, doesn't want to outlive their child. But a pet parent does want to outlive their pet, I think. And that's a piece, that's a perspective that I've always had, which is why I think I go through this process for a couple of weeks and then I just start to feel healed and better. Because the perspective begins to make sense and kick in. And it's okay.

The relationship and the longevity, it worked out the way I, the way I wanted it to. I've given the dog a great life. I don't want that dog here without me. Thank you. You said something earlier about, these are my friends, and something that's really hard. I tell people I train dogs for a living, and the reaction is, how cool. Isn't that so much fun? And it is.

And I don't want to take anything away from that. But if you do some fast math in your head and you say, Drew trains between 15 and 20 dogs a week for 20 years, I've lost a lot of my friends. and Christmas last year, I was torn between the joy my young children were experiencing running around the house with all this excitement and a very close client of mine had to be euthanized for medical reasons. And I was celebrating with my family and we had the in-laws here and then I was going into the bathroom. and weeping because I lost this just dear, dear dog to me. And it's so heavy just thinking about it now, but like we open ourselves up and open our hearts, but it can just rip you apart sometimes too to love them so intently, you know. And so it's this amazing connection, but at the same time it can,

take its toll and my question to you, Tara, is what for people like me and veterinarians who are often told with things like euthanizing their clients, some of which who they think they could help and people in the behavior world who think there's always more they could have done, what kinds of things can we do for ourselves in the sake of like caring for the caregivers who have to do these really difficult things and make really difficult decisions on a regular basis? Yeah, well, there's two layers I'm hearing, Drew, and one is what if somebody's plagued by a sense of I didn't do enough?

And if we're going to be in the caregiving field, we have to have a trust that our deepest aspiration is to care for and help and then be incredibly forgiving because it's out of, of our hands. And so that's something, that's just a capacity to develop to know that just to trust how much we care and that we're doing our best and it's out of our hands and it's often going to feel imperfect. You know, that sounds pretty cut and dry and it's a really hard thing, but that seems really important. And the other is that when you sign up for being so proximate to life and death to, you know, what the Tao is called the 10,000 joys in the 10,000,

and sorrows, you're living the full ride. And just to keep remembering, you've signed up for the full ride. The more your heart breaks open, the more there is an openness that's big enough for this living, dying world. It's there. And the more you trust that, the more you can feel all the feelings and actually still be able to keep moving and navigating and feeling basically okay. So you can grieve and know it's okay. That's a new mantra for me, feeling basically okay. I'm going to go with that. Thank you.

Drew, on another topic, but a related one, we're going to want to have a conversation about pet health insurance because the more, the few professionals I've spoken to in that realm, you know, the amount of times that veterinarians in the, the amount of times that veterinarians in an emergency situation could save the dog. But there's no law out there which makes them save the dog. Yeah, you heard that on a few of the shows. Yeah, if the pet parent can't pay for the insurance, for the treatment, for the surgery, whatever, to stabilize the dog and treat the dog, then they will euthanize the dog.

And this causes, this goes on every day in the veterinary world. And it causes an enormous amount of pain for the caregivers. And it causes an enormous amount of pain for the pet parents who don't want to euthanize their dog, especially when the vet is saying, we can save the dog, but it becomes a financial thing. So it's another conversation to have at another time, but it's an important one to have because in this country, we're not oriented that way, whereas in other countries such as Canada, they are oriented that way to have pet health insurance so that the dogs who can be saved, I just want to have a brief conversation about interbeing.

It's sort of along the lines of what we talked about earlier, sentience. They're connected. What is it? And how does it connect with our relationship with our dogs? And I'll just let you talk and we can finish up. Yeah. Well, the word interbeing was really coined by Tiknaudhan, a Zen teacher. And it's really beautiful because it basically says that in this moment,

I cannot separate my experience from your existence. It's like we are inter-influencing each other. And this is happening in an approximate way with us, but the weather in one part of the globe totally impacts people's experience in another. Every part of this universe is inter-influencing. And if we sense that with our world, dogs. If we sense how much impact they're having on us and how we're impacting them, we start paying attention more. We start deepening our attention and we start touching into

not separate, but from the same source, the same awareness, the same sentience and these different forms that are just interacting and how can we be sourced in presence in a way that brings them as much connection and joy in that as possible. And there's some reflections that can support that. The basic evolution of all of us is from I, from a separate self, to we. It's a really feeling like in this moment here we are, that there's a field of consciousness. And so there are some reflections that can help us with our dog, just feeling more of that sense of we, of that shared consciousness and heart.

So I'm glad to lead us in a few moments. I'd love to hear if either of you have some other something to say or comment on that. Well, I think something I've really paid attention to that you talk about frequently is this idea that the loss of awareness being sort of the root cause of suffering. And I know a lot of different traditions kind of lean into that idea. And for me, that's a lot of what we're talking about is when we aren't paying attention, when we don't listen, when we're unable to see the needs of non-human animals, that's where a lot of the suffering comes from. And rather unnecessarily versus if we can tune in and really pay attention, then it sometimes is as simple as listening to what that animal might need and kind of. that perspective taking of what are they experiencing and can I make a guess toward what they would

need to be better in this moment in this environment or this space? For me, just quickly, if we had a higher sense of awareness, which I think is what you're talking about when it comes to intervening. I think othering might be a symptom of not having the awareness. And if people could start to think about this more, the othering tendency that we have that's causing so much hostility in the world and so much division in the world might begin to dissipate a bit. It's a shift in mindset, which begins with the awareness of the interbeing. I really appreciate what both of you are saying. And just to take off on that one, Mark, I think it's really helpful to have these flags. Like in the moment that I'm judging, that is actually a juncture where I can deepen my sense of interbeing if I'm willing to pay more attention.

Go there. So, yeah. So let's practice a little bit. This is just a few different pathways that wake up our awareness to our shared belonging. And for anyone who's listening, if it helps to close your eyes or lower your gaze, please do. and perhaps take a few full breaths so that you're letting the breath collect your attention

and bring you right here now let your senses be awake so you're aware of the sound around you the sensations and aliveness in your body the movement of the breath and you might bring to mind if you have a dog bring to mind your dog

and if you don't have a dog any pet or it could be another person in your life where you'd like to feel more of that sense of connection, interbeing, heart space. So bring bring your being to mind that you want to connect with and begin by sensing the sentience of that being. In other words, imagine their eyes looking at you, sense the intelligence, the consciousness, the light that's shining through those eyes, and sense energetically that this is a life form that loves life, that wants to be alive, that just like you, loves and wants love, that loves to connect. So you can start to feel the energetic and subtle energetic.

kind of the spirit of this being living through this form and you might even use the word thou just to sense a kind of sacredness or namaste I bow to the sacred that's living through you that's completely equal it's the same spirit the same sentience as lives through you and that it's kind of from the same shared field

and you might sense how when that being is feeling vulnerability, it's just like when you feel vulnerability, that there's fear, that there's discomfort, and just sense a kind of quality of being able to sense, well, what do you need? And you might imagine a time when this being was vulnerable. And what it would be like when that comes up of saying, what's it like? being you. Where does it hurt? What do you need? And feeling your natural compassion. And you might sense with this being how your lives are inter-influencing, how you can sense your mood, your experience gets impacted by theirs, how life moments are different because

of their presence and how your life is impacting them. Intertwined. And then just taking a moment to sense what you most appreciate, just your gratitude for having this being in your life, for making a difference, or contributing to what you are, sensing what you most love about this being. And you might mentally whisper their name and say, I love you, or say thank you, are both. and then take a moment now to feel the presence that's here and sense what's most important to you as you move forward to remember. Namaste to both of you.

Namaste. Thank you so much.