How to Improve Your Human Relationships Using Natural Dog Training

[neilsattin]

Please use this forum thread to discuss the article:

How to Improve Your Human Relationships Using Natural Dog Training

And feel free to add your tips and tricks!

[Sang]

Great article Neil.

It’s fascinating how much we can learn about ourselves through watching and observing our dogs. Ultimately, it’s all about alignment and connection. When your partner or spouse starts to feel the tension and starts “communicating” his or her feelings about a situation, it’s important to keep in mind that WHAT they’re saying isn’t necessarily always that important. It’s all about what they’re FEELING. What they’re really looking for is a way to connect. What they’re saying is typically a lot of white noise, their big brains trying to rationalize and give reason to what they’re feeling. They’re sending out pings, looking for a pong. How you respond to their expression will have a huge influence on how they feel about you and the relationship they have with you as a result.

So much of who we are as individuals is based on our pasts. Just like a puppy that was picked on in the litter, that develops “aggressive” tendencies towards other dogs, we humans are the same. Something someone says or does triggers an emotional response in us that makes us feel a certain way, which is actually based on something that happened to us a long time ago, and then we look for a way to resolve that feeling, one way or another. So when my wife and I get into a discussion about something, and she starts to feel energized and starts expressing her real feelings about something, I know she’s just finally feeling safe enough with me to move energy, and the last thing I want to do is to interrupt her when she’s in that moment. To put it in dog terms, I “praise” her for showing me her darker side, the parts of herself that she’s kept hidden away from childhood, because what she’s really doing in those moments is showing me that she trusts me enough to show me who she really is. Just like when a dog starts to express his deepest, darkest stuff with you, all his fears, all his anger, it’s because he’s finally trusting you enough to open up. So when she shows me her darker side, it isn’t because she doesn’t like or love me. It’s actually quite the opposite. It’s because she DOES love me that she shows me that side of herself. Just as when I show her my darker side, it’s for the same reason. Because ultimately she's not mad or angry with me. She's actually angry about something that happened a long time ago, and I just happened to say something that triggered that emotion. I could make it about me, and take it personally, and get defensive, thinking that her anger and feelings actually has intent to hurt me in some way. But that would just be me acting out my own past stuff that says I should get angry back at her for directing her anger at me. It's never about the person who's standing right in front of us. They just trigger our emotional batteries.

I’ve worked with some Tantra teachers before fully getting involved in NDT, and the parallels I’ve discovered between what they showed me and what I’ve found through dogs is uncanny. They speak constantly of things like polarity, and the masculine/feminine dynamic. In the practices of Tantra, they teach that feminine energy is unbridled energy. It’s like a river, constantly moving and flowing, and at times it can be explosive. Masculine energy is described as calm and controlled, able to withstand the storm of energy that is moving around him. Opposite polarities, that when brought together create a powerful combination. In the Tantra world, the role of the feminine is to constantly test the masculine. When the feminine feels safe to express herself, she will express ALL of herself to the masculine to see how he will respond. A test, if you will. This dynamic is often portrayed in the images of the Hindu goddess Kali standing over the body of her lover Shiva.

Feminine energy isn’t specific just to women, just as masculine energy isn’t exclusive to men. We all possess both masculine and feminine energy. So the man can often be holding the space of feminine energy, and the woman can often hold masculine space as well. It goes both ways. But just like with the dogs, to maintain harmony in the group, both can’t occupy the same polarity at the same time. If both the man and woman occupy the same energetic space, there will be conflict. To put it in dog terms, one has to play predator, and the other has to be the prey. Again, we’re always looking to play ping pong, even though we’re never consciously aware of it.

In the art of Tantra, your relationship with your partner is all about connection and alignment. Not about being "right". It’s all about opening your heart to the other so you can both receive each other. And when I came to NDT, I found the parallels fascinating. One of the things one of my teachers makes a point of is this:

Give up Being Right. Relationships flourish when you keep your eye on the highest good. When you’re focused on winning, often you’re trying to make the other lose. A successful relationship is about being teammates with a common goal. Your chosen partner is here to heal you and is bringing to light aspects of yourself that you cannot see. Therefore, always assume 100% responsibility for your experience, especially in a disagreement. Often there is something in what your partner is saying that is true. When you respond to your partner’s deeper message instead of reacting, you create a powerful experience of healing negative conditioning and initiate a deeper connection between you.

My point in all of this is that when working with dogs through NDT, we are actually learning all the tools necessary to have powerful, deep relationships with those closest to us. The connection we have with dogs is an incredibly intimate one, and they teach us so much about ourselves. Dogs really do offer us a window into everything we need to know, if we just look close enough.

I could go on and on about this, but I'll just stop it there since I've probably said too much already.

Once again, terrific article Neil!

[Heather]

I enjoyed reading the article and also Sang's thoughts.

I do think that having a dog and understanding him in an emotional context as NDT describes has enabled me to be more aware of how other people trigger my emotional battery in the immediate moment. This is because I am getting a LOT of practice noticing when I am "treating the dog like a person," I do it so often! All that practice noticing my thoughts about the dog and working to see things from the energetic standpoing pays off when I am able to notice more ways that I am being fearful, angry, avoiding, or over-nice with people in response to my battery being triggered. THen, instead of doing something in those states of mind, I can re-group and do nothing until I'm seeing things more clearly.

ONe thing that is important that is also something I struggle with, is translating the lessons from the dog into human relationships. I often find myself wanting to spend time with the dog instead of having that tough discussion or moment with a person. So that has some value to me, I can really de-stress with the dog, but it's not good if I stay stuck there either.

[Heather]

This is actually more about the dog not about human relationships, but I think I am understanding more how true it is when someone says "you don't get the dog you want; you get the dog you need." Happy is such a pure expression of input---->output, a very strong conduit for the flow of energy, he is fully attracted to everything and usually finds a way to make contact and absorb new energy. So his behavior illustrates the intellectual theory in a way that makes it so clear to me, so I can truly feel how the energy is moving in the moment. He doesn't internalize his stress and his behavior is not nuanced, which is just what I needed, a good bonk on the head!

[Sang]

Originally Posted by Heather

He doesn't internalize his stress and his behavior is not nuanced, which is just what I needed, a good bonk on the head!

Yep, sometimes we all need a good old bonk on the head to get the message