I would have never imagined to fully enjoy living in a beautiful, very quiet rural area one day, being surrounded only by singing birds, the rustling of trees and butterflies surrounding me all day. Although I come from a small town, I have spent many years in big cities and have come to love nothing more than being with my husband and animals in the quietness of nature. This is where I feel peace, connection, completeness and security. Over the last year I immersed so much into my own world that it became at times challenging to leave our property with its various amazingly beautiful round stone houses surrounded by nature and fruit trees, where we have been living mostly alone since having moved here last December.
And I guess my dogs also really enjoyed this incredible bubble of silence and peace – to an extent that they started barking at everyone who entered the property. It was often challenging to calm them, although they are very loving and calm animals, but as they are big in size it is not easy to convince a stranger about that fact. Additionally, our two puppies began acting the same way, even disappearing under the staircase when a friend or client came over. I thought that it might be a trauma, because their other four siblings had been picked up and taken away and in order to avoid the same happening to them. But at the same time it somehow didn´t feel right.
I must admit that I wasn´t happy with the situation and the barking also started to annoy me, furthermore bringing up strong feelings of anxiousness.
A couple of days ago it doomed to me, that my desire for aloneness was maybe actually also a hiding from confronting people, opening up to them and sharing a part of my life with them. And I felt it was the same with working on bringing forward my business, because I had felt much more comfortable sitting behind my computer rather than sharing my wisdom person to person. And suddenly it made click: Could my behavior have been a reflection of my dogs` insecurity and barking?
Today I was once again in a situation of meeting/confronting people and instead of “hiding” or thinking twice about it I stepped forward. – The reaction of my dogs?: After two seconds of barking, they greeting the people happily and even the puppies came running over wanting to play and be part of the joyful moment.
Could it really be so easy to change their behavior? Well, it needed five dogs barking and being timid until I got the message, but yes, it can be that easy to shift our animal´s behavior once we understand what they want to teach us and then also taking this step. And it changed them because it was a big step forward in my personal development of being strong and standing up for myself. My dogs will surely put me on trial a few more times, if I try to make myself small again, but in that way I will also have immediate feedback on not having been in my full power.
I feel very blessed for the powerful message.