Dog Needs

BLOG 3 – Dog Needs

Dog needs. This has been a guiding principle for me for the last few years. Here’s how it works.

At any point, but especially during times where you are feeling down, make sure you’ve met your dog needs. If you haven’t had pets this may seem foreign but I think even if you’ve seen people with dogs you know that often times, people take good care of their dogs. Sometimes better than they care for themselves. Theres 6 things that I deem as “dog needs”.

1. Routine

2. Food

3. Play

4. Exercise

5. Social Time

6. Sleep

As humans (part of the animal kingdom) theres a lot we can learn from animals. We know these things are good for us, and we know that our dogs need them, and often times we can get trapped in our own narratives of our lives that we don’t give ourselves the love and care we need. For whatever reason we don’t want to do what we know is good for us, and we don’t ask ourselves to do the small basic mundane things that would help us start off on the right foot. I say “start off on the right food” because it’s pretty important that we are meeting these needs for ourselves just do have an enjoyable and functional day. Not to say we can’t have good days without everything, but to have a sustainable life where we can show up to whatever it is we have going, its imperative that we are hitting these 6 things at least 75% of the time.

Routine for dogs is often time, when they eat and when they go on a walk. There can be more to it, but the stability of consistency of just one or two things is a game changer (especially in the human existence). One or two non negotiable that happen every day. For me, it’s breath work. Every day (usually when I wake up before I do anything else) I do 3 rounds of Wim Hof style breathing, 30 deep breaths followed by a breath hold on the exhale, one inhale, breath hold, and then onto the next round and I follow that up with Kundalini breath of fire. On some of my more extended days, I do a meditation, some pushups and stretching, and read. More often than not, I have about 13 minutes of attention span while I’m still groggy and I just do the 2 styles of breath work and start checking my notifications on my phone. Thats not where I want to be, but hey, I got the first part of my routine in and I always feel better after doing it. I don’t even wake up at a given time either, but I do the breath work every day. Sometimes at 5am and sometimes at noon. The consistency helps center me.

Food is one of those things where it can be hit or miss for me. I used to eat too much, then I didn’t eat enough, then I only ate junk and now I’d say its a healthyish balance of enough food with about 10-20% junk so I can enjoy what I’m eating but also get my proper nutrition. When people feed their pets, it’s calculated. The right amount of food, the right amount of times/day and within the health limits suggested as best as they know how and can pay for. Oh, and maybe a few treats moderately thrown in throughout the week. It’s a great formula for success. We also avoid giving dogs food that isn’t good for them (chocolate, grapes, any other things we’ve seen they’re allergic to). When this formula is applied to humans, not only is life a little bit more enjoyable, but we feel better too because we are hitting both the caloric intake, enjoyment/funtionality ratio, and getting the nutrients that are most important for us to thrive in how we live. Put that together with avoiding foods that make you feel like shit and you’re on top of the world already. Sure it takes some trial and error but the payoff is huge.

Play is not only essential to enjoying the life we have, but it helps us understand who we are, what are limits are and opens up our creative juices (yes everyone has them). Play connects humans to themselves and others by bringing enjoyment of things to the forefront. Maybe your thing is sports, or dancing, painting, throwing toilet paper on your neighbor’s tree, video games, chess, maybe play for you is more about trying new things or learning or putting yourself in an environment you’re not used to push your limits. Whatever it is, play is the act of doing something that enjoyably gets you out of stagnancy or familiarity. It can even be a part of a routine too. Every Tuesday is country swing dancing night could be a new routine that adds play to your life, especially when you learn new moves and try things out. The goal here is to find an edge of comfortable and familiar and push past it. For animals they’re no judging themselves when they don’t catch the ball or the frisbee, they pick up and go again because they’re enjoying the moment of something they like doing regardless.

Funny enough, play can be your exercise too. Sand volleyball is one of my play/exercise crossover episodes in my life. I get to be competitive, creative, focused, in a flow, with people I enjoy spending time with and out of my norm while getting my cardio in for the day. I could play for 4 hours, probably even longer honestly. In college I would play about 30 hrs/week. It was amazing. For dogs, it’s usually a daily walk. Which honestly for humans is also a great habit to get into. Even if just for 10 minutes on a phone call or listening to music or hours for a podcast or with a friend. I’m not here to get you to go to the gym. Exercise (in my opinion) should be primarily to keep your brain and body functional and able to do the things you want. If that calls for a 10 minute walk a day, awesome, just do it. If that calls for you to do a triathlon or body building competition or hold a handstand for 20 seconds, just do what gets you there. We all have functionality goals. It’s all personal. I would say aim for 30 minutes/day and that will be a huge difference.

Social time is sometimes a tricky one. I find a good chunk of my social time is on the phone catching up with my friends. Community is huge and so important. Like dogs, we need other entities in our lives. For some people that may be a dog, or a cat or a very limited amount of friends. Thats ok, as long as you get social time to the capacity you need. I find that my friend group is where my healing comes from most. They help me reframe my place in the world, how I see myself, and give me a sense of belonging which is scientifically mandatory for good mental health haha. If you don’t like your friends, get new ones, if you know what you want out of life, there will always be people who match that, and I will say one of my hardest lessons is knowing when I’ve outgrown someone or they’ve outgrown me. It can be painful and frustrating and obnoxious because no one did anything wrong, but sometimes we’re aligned for a time and a season and accepting that helps us grow and recognize in truth the people we’re becoming.

Sleep... Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve bragged about how well I’ve functioned off an insufficient amount of sleep. I’m not actually proud of it though. In 2021 I had 11 hall nighters, predominantly for work (2 of them back to back where I was awake for 52 hours straight). I was no healthier, happier, or more excited about life because of any of that. In fact I was more functional the more I slept. Dog sleep and rest so much. And while yes, they aren’t the ones paying the bills to keep a roof over their head, they know how to get down and knock out. As humans, and maybe this is more of a personal thing, I think good sleep is one of the first things to go when it comes to self care and making sure we can show up how we need to. My sleep cycle gets thrown off regularly. I’ll stay up late eating food, watching tv, doom scrolling, etc. I’ll get trash sleep because I drank the night before or I couldn’t sleep and had to get up early. Its a pain in the ass to be tired and one of the biggest reasons I complain about anything. I’m usually grumpy when I’m tires. This is one of the most important metrics I think. So please make sure you rest.

Well, other than sleeping, the rest of the things getting accomplished can be done pretty effectively for little money and time.

30 minutes exercise, 13 minutes routine, 10-45 minutes for food (smoothies count yeah?) each day, and the social time and play happening a couple times/week, and you’ve got a balanced life for maybe… MAYBE 2 hours/day. That is only 8% of the time you’re alive being dedicated to this self care. And by all means do more, but I promise if you give yourself your dog needs, you’ll be happier and healthier and more whole inside and out no matter where you are in life.

I love you.

Theme Park Rides

What do theme park rides have in common with every day life?

1. The perfect moments are over before you know it.

2. You need moderation.

3. The longer the wait the better the ride.

Let’s put it this way, life is perfect in so many ways, a vast ocean of beautiful mistakes and moments that make up the human experience. Most of the perfection in our lives are in small, fleeting little moments that can’t be forced, you just happen upon them. The moment you look up and see the sun setting with pastel colors against the mountains, or when you accidentally lock your keys in the car but the window is barely cracked and you fit a stick through it and unlock it, when a friend makes you laugh so hard you snort or can’t breathe or something comes out of one of your noses. Maybe is spicy red marinara sauce and then you really can’t stop laughing because your friend is also in pain and you know it won’t kill them. There’s a lot of random little perfections that happen in our lives, and just like a theme park ride, those moments are over before you know it.

This is really a practice in presence. Rides can feel scary and they can feel exciting, it can interpreted either way. Blissfully engaging in the moment or hanging on for dear life, are both experiences we get to have in both life and them park rides. The build up to a ride can be many things too. Frustrating because you have to wait (even though you know what you’re signing up for when you go to the park), exciting because you are already living in the future of how much fun you think the ride is going to be, anxious because you don’t know if your lunch is going to stay down or not, or maybe even boring because you’re standing in a queue. Life is not so much different, while we’re at work, or starting a project, or at a picnic with our friends we can be in so many other places in our head and projecting what we think the feelings are going to be out into the space around us. Frustrated that we don’t have the things we think we want or haven’t “gotten there” (wherever there is) yet. (The amount of times I’m wanting to be “on time” or “going somewhere” because I’m uncomfortable just being in the moment sometimes sitting with my feelings. So in a rush and frustrated. Makes me laugh at myself). Excited because of something new, a relationship, a project, an opportunity to do something with people who’s company feels like home. Anxious that the money won’t come at the right time only to realize your landlord will give you a day or two and work with you or the date won’t show up, only to text you they hit traffic and are a few minutes behind, hell I’m behind, thank god they weren’t waiting on me. Bored because I am trying to be somewhere I’m not until I look the barista in their face and ask how they are and get an extra cookie just for being in that moment with them and wasn’t a dick like the 7 people before who couldn’t pull their heads out of their phones or take their headphones out (which I’m mad guilty of). The point is, the present moment happening around us all the time has a lot more perfect little things to tap into if we so choose to and we get to actually direct the attention and create the feelings we want to by bringing ourselves to the present rather than letting the story we’re telling ourselves by default command our attention.

As with anything, moderation and balance are the key. If you were to go to a theme park and ride every ride, every day you’d be sick of it. The fun, the joy, the enjoyment would have no contrast, and on top of that you’d probably be hurting physically. My brother and I timed it perfectly. We went to Six Flags Magic Mountain on a Wednesday right when it opened during the time kids would be in school. We didn’t wait more than 10 minutes for a single ride. We went on every single ride that we wanted to that day (other than superman cause it was closed). At the end of the day, we got to X2, waited 10 minutes, and there was no one behind us. We rode that ride 4 times in a row with no breaks between and when I tell you my head was spinning and in pain, it actually took 2 days to reorient myself and feel normal. What a joy it was to be able to share that time but never again. I haven’t been back since. That was enough for me on theme rides for the last 4 years. There was no in between, there was no break period, there was no rest or contrast. It was just high intensity rides for hours on end. It can be jarring. Funny enough it’s quite similar to how my last 7 months have been going in life. Until this August I don’t think I spent more than 10 days on a single bed/couch at once. I was traveling, moving around, visiting friends, working, going to different cities, states, events, holidays, dates, ceremonies, retreats and projects. I didn’t have weekends and I didn’t have off days. Every day was some kind of intense work on my mind, body or of actual work/labor something. Non-stop. All of the things were amazing, even the parts that hurt from heart breaks to body work to fighting mental loops and making sure I wasn’t going crazy even though I felt like it. None of this to complain at all, I’m grateful for that past 7 months and all the joy and turmoil in and through it. I am grateful to be who I am now because of it. I wouldn’t change it one bit, but I will say I’m grateful to be feeling a bit more grounded and settled (even though I know more travel is coming soon). The contrast is beautiful. I’m coming to an equilibrium within myself and it’s popping into the real world because I knew I couldn’t keep going at the pace I was. And maybe another time in life I will be able to keep up. I definitely kept up longer and healthier this time than the last time I went that hard and I’m proud of myself. Anywho… The good needs moderation as much as the bad. Eat the stuff you enjoy that makes you happy, go play, go dance, drink a little, let loose, have fun, love hard. And bring yourself back to grounding, peace, and do the menial things you need to do for yourself. Drink water, go on a walk, turn your phone off for a few hours, recharge, take a nap, take vitamins, get your bloodwork done/tested, sit in some cold water, workout. Do the unsexy things that keep you able to do the things you love. You’ll thank yourself for waiting in the line later. The wait is worth it. I promise.

That brings me to the last point. Waiting. Usually at a theme park, the better the ride, the longer the wait. You ever tried to ride space mountain at any given time or California Screamin’ (I know it’s like incredibles themes or something now) in California? The lines are insane. However, you’re waiting for the most sought after part of the park. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes there’s fast passes, sometimes everyone’s congregated at a different spot, and you get by real quick before the crowd moves. And, like in life, the wait is worth it otherwise you would hop out of line and go do something else. In life, often times, the better the lesson, the farther forward it propels you, the most beneficial lessons and experiences are worth the wait. The magic moment when all of the stress, toil, frustration, uncertainty, and stuckness just melt away and it seems like things make sense or the missing piece was found or everything lines up. That magic moment was worth it all. What we often don’t realize is that those feelings are when we’re changing and evolving and growing and what we’ve learned is sinking into our bodies to be made manifest in our reality. Someone once told me that the farther back an arrow is drawn, the farther and faster it shoots forward. That tension, the discomfort, the feeling like somethings about to happen and you know its going to be okay but theres a blockage. The subconscious torment we put ourselves through to sabotage our efforts in accomplishing what we want. All of these things are lessons that we have to go through over and over until we get past whats holding us back. Sometimes it takes multiple tries to get past it. Sometimes it unlocks itself in levels. We have the glimpses of “A-ha” moments where another piece seems to land, almost as a promise that more is on its way. Just enough to keep us going and moving forward. It’s a beautiful dance that life leads us on. Rarely are we exactly the same as we were a year ago. Even if there are many things the became constant or consistent in our lives.

So there you have it. Three ways that life is like theme parks. I hope the next time you catch yourself in a loop, you remember its the tension of a lesson and you’re awesome for facing it, I hope you enjoy the contrast and balance of things, and I hope you remain present as often as you can so you can witness the perfect life you’re living in, all bullshit aside. You got this.

Figured out isn't real

There are a lot of ways that I want to start this, but I’m just going to let this out:

None of this is going to be figured out. My life, my job situation, my relationships, my career choices or my purpose for being on this beautiful planet. Figured out is a myth. A sense of security for our ego not to send us into a spiraling existential hole. It’s something I personally strive for constantly, and it always seems to elude me. As soon as I have something figured out, another factor changes, and I lose focus or have more questions or change direction or… and life continues.

Often times (and by that I mean almost every single time), the pivots that come in life that throw off me “figuring out” are the biggest blessings I encounter. The relationships that haven’t worked out, the heart break, the friends lost, the countries and cities that chewed me up and spit me out a different person, the singular encounters with individuals that make me choose to do something seemingly insignificant that alters my entire timeline and life trajectory. I am constantly stumbling through life “mistake” after “mistake” trying so hard to make sense of why anything is happening, and analyzing the possibilities so that I can leverage what I’ve learned to make my life more how I want it to be and again I’m at the end of a road, questioning it all, confused and frustrated.

This isn’t all of the time. I’d say this is about 1/3 of my existence. The other 2/3 are split between moderately content doing whatever is in front of me, and ecstatic about how great and blessed I feel, and probably about half of the 1/3 that is ecstatic is because I actively choose to put myself in that head space or I have friends who are putting me in that headspace too. Nonetheless, I continue to try to figure shit out. It’s infuriating. It pulls me out of my bliss and contentment and it flips me into a mental loop of perfectionism that honestly I would like to say I’ve bested by now, but I haven’t.

Through all this trial and error though, I’ve learned so many beautiful things about myself, life and the way things tend to work in my world and I’d like to share some of those things.

Life is fair but not equal.

Everyone gets dished something, hard things and easy things, all in different seasons. It rains on the rich and the poor, the just and the unjust. The fair part is we don’t know what our life will entail, but we do have the opportunity every day to decide how we’re going to act, show up, and respond to what’s come our way. It’s not equal because of our perception and comparison and the things we value.

If I compare myself to someone else, and try to be like them, I’m robbing the world and myself of the gifts that I’ve been given because I tried to be something/someone I’m not because I wasn’t happy with what I’ve been given. If I perceive that what someone else has what I want (athletic abilities, money, ideas, experience, travel, etc.) and I complain about it, I put a barrier between me and getting it. If I let the self pity of not “having what I want” control me, I’ll drive it farther away. The truth is, we have everything we need right now for the next step of what’s for us. Play your game, use your advantages, hone what you love and are good at, and leave the rest up to the universe. There will always be people with better lives and shittier lives. Those lives can change in a second, roles can reverse, or people can win big, lose big, or die out of no where for no reason. Your character, and how you choose to show up in the life you’re given is the main priority.

Don’t be hard on yourself

And I say this with complete acknowledgement that I am extremely hard on myself quite often. My perception of how things ought to be bites me in the ass frequently. My desire to control my surroundings and the outcomes of my efforts is not my friend. It definitely brings me more suffering and a more painful existence because I don’t have things figured out, and what I think the best outcome is is often not (otherwise it would happen). I say that last part because I am a firm believer in everything happening for a reason and for the best.

If you tie the worth of your efforts to the outcome, it is much more likely to be disappointed. It is much easier to be thrown off course, get distracted or not follow through. If you tie the worth of your efforts to your character, it is easily measurable and repeatable. If you know your baseline for how much effort you can put into something (relationships, jobs, self care, etc.) and you can hit that baseline about 65%-75% of the time, you’re probably crushing it. When we feel amazing and energized and focused and can be wildly productive or loving or kind or excited or enjoyable to be around or whatever you’re measuring, it’s easy to think that’s the baseline and anything that falls short of that is less than or not worth celebrating. The reality is, baseline is what you can show up and do consistently. Maybe you CAN be on that rockstar level for extended amounts of time. Thats awesome. When it comes time for you to rest and take a chill pill and balance out and take care of yourself, don’t judge yourself for sleeping too much or having off days. I’ve had entire seasons of life where I was able to go hard for months, years even. It all caught up and my self worth got tied to how productive and on top of things I could be. I actually was forced by life to slow down. I didn’t have an option, and that made it very apparent to me how hard I was on myself.

You will have moments you’re not proud of, you will do things that change how you view yourself. Your perception of life and whats possible will be challenged for good and for bad. These are inevitable parts of the human experience. You do, however, have control over how you decide to handle yourself when these things come, and you do have the ability to set your best food forward, even if your best this time doesn’t look like your best previously. The goal is to be accepting of yourself and affirming of yourself in every state and to truly learn self love. This includes the parts you don’t like.

All is Well

This last one has been a real trip for me. To truly shift my mindset into thinking that everything not only will be ok, but is currently okay even though it may not feel like it. Growing up I was taught a lot of black and white lines about how life worked and what was ok and what wasn’t. Even to the point in my Christian school where they would say “anyone who tries to tell you that just doing good and not hurting anyone” isn’t enough and that there were specific ways in which to do what is “good” and “loving” that were mandatory for a “proper life.” There was not room for grey, only egoic certainty.

That said, I had some awesome teachers throughout my life, and I learned a lot through their teachings of what was “right” and what was “wrong”. The best teachings I had though, were to learn to trust my personal relationship with my intuition and gut and body (they may have called that Holy Spirit or God, I think they all work together whether there is an actual god in the sky or not). These teachings taught me personal responsibility, taught me to push boundaries because there’s no room for fear and honestly no room for the black and white certainty of how things work and operate.

There is a passage in the Bible that says “Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial.” This has become a bit of a mantra for me. Do whatever you want, but if it’s not bringing good things into your life and the lives of people around you maybe don’t do it. Fuck around and find out. Push boundaries, learn more about yourself and what is good for you in your own pursuit of self knowledge. What’s good for some is not good for others. There is a relativity in actions and pursuits. Everyone is built different, we’re not cookie cutters.

Obviously this isn’t a free license to kill someone or do a bunch of meth. In your pursuit of your boundaries and finding what works for you, you’ll go past them sometimes, but as long as you live, you won’t go past what you can recover from. You’ll see pretty quickly and pretty clearly what you like, don’t like and what fits and what doesn’t. The key here is to let your character be steadfast, your curiosity be abounding, and your choices to come from as much peace as possible without mistaking fear as a reason not to try. Often times I’ve stopped myself from exploring my curiosity because I was afraid and tricked myself into thinking that was my intuition. Expanding the comfort zone is not always fun, its not always necessary, but choosing to acknowledge your fear and face it, even if in a small way, is a successful pursuit of your own self.

Okay, if you made it this far, I commend you. I am grateful for you and I am here for you. Thank you for reading through some of my thoughts to hear a bit of what I experience and learn from life. Keep on going, and maybe try to be a bit more present and a not as worried about the outcome, and more focused on who you are in the moment.