Hanna: Hey everyone!
I was fully meant to be recording an episode for you about motivation which I will get to maybe tomorrow but something just happened today that I want to talk out instead. And I am warning you I have no plan, no clue where this is going to go or what you’re going to take away from this buuuut you know, one of the skills you can practice today is finding the value for you. If you’re really coachable you’ll always be able to find your value and what you need and get it, even when your coach is fully indulging their own desires instead of focusing on what you might need on this show. So practice that today as I indulge my own need to talk about what just happened. Practice getting what you need out of this.
So, I lost Ghost today. Ugh I might cry a little bit too so just bare with me, I am still processing alot of emotions and I feel pretty raw. I lost Ghost today..he’s back but he was gone for about 2 hours. And if you’ve ever lost a dog you know how fucking terrifying that can be.
We were at the river and I was jogging and I was noticing that he was getting scared by the kayakers and fishermen. If you haven’t heard me talk about our dog yet, we have a rescue dog that we adopted in September of last year, he’s 2 years old, and a huge baby. 85 lbs of equal parts fear and love. He’s come so far since we first adopted him and he was pretty much incapacitated with fear. Like I’m talking hide under the bed, didn’t know what stairs were, puking in the car from stress, pissing himself when the wind blew fearful. He’s done amazing things since then. Happily rides in the car, loves playing outside with dogs and most girls, we can have people over the house now, he runs alongside the onewheel, goes to the coffee shop, if you follow my instagram at all you may have seen he came to Monterey with us last week in the sprinter van, romped around on the beach, went camping, like he is doing so well.
AND he also really doesn’t feel comfortable around new things and new people, especially men. We work with a trainer who has helped us to understand how to encourage him to challenge himself within his own comfortability, but I think that somewhere in all of this progress I've seen I forgot to go at his pace today. I saw those kayakers and fishermen on the river today and I watched him try to slow down and I pulled him forward. I yanked him toward the thing he wanted nothing to do with or certainly didn’t want to run toward. And when he wouldn’t go towards them, I let him off the leash because I thought maybe if I just kinda let him go around them, then he would make his way around and he’d do it. But he froze, and when the man with the fishing rod came out of the water and up onto the bank closer to us, he turned right around and bolted.
And then the next 2 hours I spent running back and forth along the river trying to find him. And in that time I actually noticed a lot of things and I think what I want to share is a few of the things I noticed and am personally working on with you today. So I think this is the part where I try to make this into a beneficial Coaching moment right?
So firstly, I noticed, more than I have in a while, that my own self-Coaching practice and the work I do with my Coaches, is working and I noticed it working in so many ways surprisingly, AS I WAS FREAKiNG the FUCK OUT sprinting back and forth along the river and woods and up to the road and across teh train tracks. Yeah, the place we were at was a river that runs parallel with train tracks and at one point while he was missing the train came by, so of course lots of horrible mental images happening. But yeah. I noticed myself using thought work, processing my emotions, and those are really like official sounding techniques but I’m using them now to describe the most natural and like human and in the moment happenings inside my brain that were really truly feeling helpful instead of frantic. And alongside running, feel scared, I was also really clear. I was really focused and really using my thoughts to fuel efficient action and also not let myself just go into a panic and quote not know what to do. I heard my brain offering “you’re good, you know what to do.” Which seems totally like a thought I’d really have to like stretch for in a moment like that in the past. But today it was more like, “listen, he is smart, you are smart, you will find each other, you’re good, it’s okay to be scared, it’s okay to feel emotional right now, feel it, use it, let’s let it be there while we find our dog. Whatever happens, I got you. Whatever you feel is perfect.” And I was literally processing shame about losing my dog as I was simultaneously 100% assured that I had this under control. That everything was okay and taken care of. It was honestly kinda crazy. And I was crying but like not collapsing, going to each person along the river I could find, telling them the details they needed to know, gave them my number, and eventually someone I ran up to was like, you’re dog’s okay, he’s with a woman named Lisa, here’s her number. I called her and went to her and I was like of course he’s with this woman, who works at the humane society by the way, not the one he came from but one about an hour away, and I was like of course, of course he ran back to where the cars are parked trying to fine me. Of course he chose this woman who had chips in her car to go to. And I’m crying and hugging her and for a split second I heard my old thoughts like “you idiot, how could you lose your dog? This woman thinks youre a moron, stop crying, dont hug her” and then my managed mind swooped in like no, baby girl, love this angel that saved your baby and protected him for the last two hours while you did your best by him to find him. Cry. Cry relief and be human and be in this moment with this other human.”
And I thought about this again like after we were already home too, like, managing my mind, doing thought work on the regular, it fuckin came through for me and sometimes you don’t understand the full scope of how, until something happens to show you. And I just know that I am so much better off for my life, for doing this work without really knowing what’s to come. Like yes to thought work to mange your mind and get your goals done, a thousand times yes to that work for that purpose, but also yes to thought work for the times that you don’t know you’ll really fucking need it and it carries you. You carry you with a little bit less effort than ever before.
So that was the first thing. The second thing I think was really profound for me which was that I noticed why this happened in the first place, and this was such a crucial learning for me.
When I was pulling Ghost toward those guys in the kayaks and with the fishing rods and he was like wide eyed and straight leg frozen, I had forgotten the number one coaching paradigm that I claim to live by and that is to meet people where they are.
I tried to lead us based on where I am in my journey with a rescue dog.
When I should have been letting him lead me. Listening to where he was instead of ignoring his need for me to soften to his process.
The woman, Lisa, who found him running across the street looking for me,m who stopped traffic and sat down in the road and patiently threw Doritos at him, and told all the cars to just wait until she could get a leash on him and bring him to her car safely. What an angel. She really drove this point home for me without even knowing it through what she did and how she did it.
I know I’d do that for someone’s dog but you know it still feels like the most heroic, selfless and loving act when someone shows up for the people or animals you love as if they were their own. Thank you. She said to me tonight when we were texting about what had happened she said “I could tell he wanted to trust me. I sat there waiting for him to make his way over to me for as long as it took because I could tell he was working up to trusting me.” She met him where he was at!
And I am so grateful that she instinctively knew to do that.
I am committed to not causing more trauma. To make sure that experiences and challenges are being welcomed and wanted, versus forced. I am committed to that for you, for my clients. And today I tried to force my dog to do something that was too much too soon. And I am appreciating this massive learning for me, this kind of soul tap if you will, to be more conscious to when I am not honoring meeting people, anyone, my dog, whatever, where they are.
So friends who listen to this show, current clients, future clients….I will always think of what happened today with Ghost as a reminder for me to honor your process. Honor where the way I want to do something might be too much or too soon or not aligned for you. Because ultimately, even if you think that what you’re paying me for as a Coach is for me to teach you a process to get you what you want, no, you are not here for my process. I am here for yours.
Your process will always be right, and more profound than anything I could suggest. And Ghost reminded me of that today. Like he needed me to come with him more slowly, follow his lead, take the longer, slower way around those guys so he could have time to check it out, sniff, not feel trapped, right? He knew the way I just wasn't letting that be okay.
Right and it’s making me think so much about you, about my clients, about those of you who want to do this work and start Life Coaching…you will realize very quickly when we start working together how much Coaching is about learning to steward your own mind, to lead yourself, to hold your own emotional depth while someone stands beside you.
And how little it actually is about “coaching protocols and processes and specific tools” presented by me.
Yah I’ll give you all that. I’ll share those things with you. But I am only the watcher, the patient observer, the mirror for you to see yourself and YOUR process more clearly.
Women come to Coaching believing that I will unveil the mystery of their obstacles, that I will draw them a detailed map to their treasure.
And sure, I am an expert at identifying the root problems, calling out your blind spots, inviting you to use your mind in new ways and holding space for that to unfold.
What you must know, and what I must remember is that I know nothing of your process. Of anyone’s process. It lives, unassuming, in the spirit of your desires. And my greatest pleasure will be to witness you coax it out.
So I see it more than ever in this moment now, that you can’t ever “do it wrong” …just like my freaking dog, taking the long way the slow way, the cautious way around was not wrong. Your process is your own. It can’t be the long way, the slow way the cautious way, it cant. It is your way, beautiful and perfectly timed.
And if we can all learn to respect that in one another, in ourselves, the right to be free and open to choose our own best course, we’ll stay open to remembering everything we always knew.
I want to promise to stand more steadfastly by that.
With Ghost I’m doing that more consciously now. Knowing that he still is in the process of breaking down his fear and it looks different than what I would do. I thank all the people who helped us to work with him whether you knew you were or not by coming to our home and letting him come to you in his own time—thank you for holding safe space and meeting him where he’s at. And not judging his fears that he’s working so hard to break down.
But today was a brand new fear inducing thing: fishermen AND kayaks coming down the river. And I just thought you know it’s not a big deal they are far enough away, but that was my thought, not his. That was the process that was best for me, not the one that was best for him. Right so I’m more conscious of that now. I want to come to the table clean, not forcing my own thoughts, my own process on a situation that isn’t mine alone.
When he growls that means I’m not ready for that yet, and sometimes in the past, I don’t hold a safe space for him and allow him to sit with his fear—I try to force something. I try to say it’s okay and bring him closer to the thing he’s literally saying “not yet” to.
But he’s telling me, he tells us, in his way, always. And I’m honestly embarrassed it took this for me to really commit to paying attention. I’m sitting with some serious embarrassment right now. Because I’m always on about allowing things to unfold in their own time, giving people the space they need to find their way, and here I went trying to force my fearful dog into something and made a big ass mess, put him in danger, right? So im sitting with embarrassment, being that hypocritical human and that genius human at once, which I guess leads to my next take away which is just simply to practice self compassion always. I am REALLY working at this right now. Like, RIGHT NOW.
And it’s something I think I’m actually pretty good at. But here is a situation where it feels really challenging to do that in, and so I know I’m meant to go there. Like I know this is my work. To work on belief in myself as a good person, a good owner to him, worthy of caring for a dog. Right because right now my brain is kinda saying yeaaah but not really though look how bad you messed up. You aren’t really good enough, you didn’t really do enough. You don’t really know enough about this type of fearful dog to be responsible for him. You could have killed him. All those people on the river, they think you’re a fool. Lisa must think you’re the worst dog mom ever.
Right so I’m working on this knowing that I’m enough. I’m working on it. And maybe this is a good time for you to do this too. Do this work on being enough as you are. Like I can see that you are perfect and enough. I can see that my dog is perfect and enough. I’m working on knowing the same about myself.
Just like Ghost, who you are now is enough. What you know now is enough. A dog who loves to romp and play with other dogs and pee outside and not chew shit up and come when he’s called and take 8 hour naps and roll over for belly rubs from the people who love him…that’s enough. What he knows now, that he has a warm bed to lay in, people who love him, he knows how to sit and wait and give a paw and jump into the truck for a car ride and walk on a leash, what he knows now is enough. He doesn’t need to know or be anything more right now to be the BEST DOG EVER.
You are enough right now. What you know right now, is enough. You don’t need anything else to be the best person ever.
And me, I am enough right now. What I know right now, is enough too. I am good dog mom now, and I was a good dog mom when I lost my dog today. I hope that you can hear that I am working on believing this about myself.
So the three takeaways that I’m getting from this experience right now are:
Practice more self compassion
Be conscious of where Coaching work has really sunk in and celebrate that
And meet people where they are, maybe meet yourself where you are.
Maybe you can use one or all of these takeaways too.
I’m going to snuggle with Ghost and feed him lots of bacon. Love you.
Sign up for Coaching, especially if you work in a helping profession, I’m doing a special offer for all helpers and healers for $200 off your Life Coaching program until June 1st or until my calendar is full. So get on that. I was meaning to talk more about this today but fuck it, go to my website, figure it out, you know everything you need to know already to take the action you want to take. I trust you.
See you next time.