If you’ve never really done much dog training, you might not realize how dog training pertains to life as a human. I have had many a conversation over the years with friends who have dogs on just how it is all related. When you are training a dog, you often have a current behavior and a future behavior you want. The work is in getting from the current behavior to the future behavior. For example, you have a dog who is so excited by seeing people, she jumps up on them, but you’d like to create a new experience and have her calmly standing or sitting to greet people. When you’re training a new behavior you have to break it down to tiny steps that build toward the goal behavior. Just like a road trip, you can’t get from home to the grocery store without lots of tiny little steps (get keys, go out to car, drive car down this road, then that road, etc.), with training a new behavior you need to split it down to those tiny steps and make sure the dog really gets each one solidly before moving to the next step. A lumper is a person who doesn’t split the behavior down far enough for the dog to get the important little steps. Are you a lumper?
I know I am, especially when I am in overwhelm. Whether it’s fear or too much happening at once, whatever the cause, overwhelm tends to immobilize me in a space where everything feels so far away that it’s inaccessible or unattainable. I typically feel like I am stuck at A and I want to get to Z but I can’t even see B, C, D, etc. Sometimes the overwhelm is so big and strong I can’t even remember that there are other letters in the alphabet. Lumping is like trying to leap from A to Z when we can barely jump a foot and A to Z is 10 miles. I also tend to fall into lumpdom when I feel stuck in any situation. I get stuck in all sorts of spots even without overwhelm, maybe you do, too?
So how can we use this awareness of being a lumper? I find that remembering to breathe is a great first tiny step to take whenever I’m in overwhelm. Using my inner and outer vision to scan from the end goal, however inaccessible it seems, back to my current situation, I try to focus on something tiny right in front of me. Sometimes it’s taking any action that can help start to bring more of the tiny steps into view, so maybe it’s getting outside and taking a short stroll around the yard for a couple of minutes focusing on how you are connected to the earth and your surroundings. Overwhelm is from the energy of the state of separation, in other words, forgetting you are source, so finding a short cut back to the energy of the state of connection can be a life saver. Breathing practices, eyes scanning the horizon, walking while focusing on your feet connecting to the planet, looking at a picture of a loved one, these are a just a few basic ways you can shift your awareness back to connection with source. Feeling love and/or joy is a way to reconnect quickly, so explore what that can be for you.
As always I love to hear your thoughts and current reality. If you read this and realize you’re a lumper and need help splitting things down, let’s work together. Maybe you just need a new perspective or some time spent in your heart space feeling your connection to the divine, or maybe you need help with dog training, please email [link] or call me at 434-249-9786 and schedule a session.
~Namaste